I've played both sides since day one, and still do and can honestly say that the Marines have a HELL of alot harder time now. Playing as an Alien was almost TOO easy. Its all well and good to say Marines need teamwork, but if they need a 2:1 ratio to get anything accomplished maybe team balancing should give them more players <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> Teamwork should be, and is rewarded, for both sides but 1 on 1 combat is STILL an issue. Marines NEED to be able to go toe to toe with Fades, which they simply cannot do now. A Fade costs 44 resource points, what does 44 resource points get a marine? Armor and a HMG? (maybe?) I don't care how much emphasis you put on teamwork, imbalance is imbalance, plain and simple. Aliens can EASLLY replenish their own health AND armor (which marines can't even do period unless someone welds them) and they also replenish their own ammo supplies.
I used this exact tactic just now as Aliens, when you have a Fade with Defence chambers endlessly lobbing bilebombs around the corner at a Marine, hell, even a couple marines, they don't stand a bloody chance.
Perhaps.. yes... I agree im not a very talented marine player... but I think maybe the odds have been tipped a bit too much after tonight.... im not sure yet mind you.... but the fact that i just went 60-6 .. disturbs me.
I think the fades are really what's throwing it off, to tell you the truth.
Watching a single fade rush a group of earlier marines is evil. They die, plain and simple. It doesn't matter if they have 3 turrets backing them up, it doesn't matter if there's 4 of them and they're ALL decent shots unloading on him with LMGs on his way towards them... he's got two weapons with a blast radius, a LOT of health, decent armor, and a friggin FRIGHTENING close combat attack.
Every game i've seen tonight (with the exception of one where the aliens were just horrible) has been a game of "marines try and crawl out, maybe secure one hive, aliens get second hive up, fades appear, game over for marines."
I mean, yeah, they were underpowered.
But did you have to upgrade their damage, their armor, their rate of fire, AND their speed?!? While at the same time making the effective "counters" for fades (heavy armor, GLs, HMGs) more expensive to purchase and weakening them/reducing magazine size/reducing ROF?!? AND making it so that if he gets regeneration (by far one of the most common selections by the aliens early in the game is defensive towers), he's recharging something in the range of 15 points EVERY SINGLE REGEN CYCLE?!? <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wow.gif'><!--endemo-->
The fade can splash turrets to death without exposing himself to fire. He can rip up a marine in CQB without issue. He can teleport straight towards a HMG wielding heavy armor guy, and chew him to shreds. And he's pretty friggin cheap for all that... a "decked out" marine (HA/HMG) currently costs 50 points, or 58 with a GL... a fully upgraded fade the same 50, but doesn't require a commander to drop him medpacks or a welder around to patch him back up, since wandering off into a corner for about 20 seconds will get him back to full health and armor with regen, or simply wandering off to the nearest alien "turret garden" (usually 3 with a defensive) is a reliable source of health. They can also outrun a heavy marine with little issue, since they aren't dragging around half a ton of powered armor. And with the way aliens seem to be able to lay their hands on a lot more resources early on in the game, that makes me wonder what this latest patch has accomplished, asides from overfixing a resource problem. "Turret Farming" still happens, simply due to the fact that the marines usually CAN'T spread out, and so they condense all of their building into a smaller area.
Hopefully, the NS team plans to stay on a "rapid development" schedule, maybe watching the servers for a few days to see how things stabilize out, and then issuing another patch with slightly more subtle changes to try and tweak this. We can always hope <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
aww come on now seer, you know how good we aliens can be when we want to be <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Ah, but you see... the critical unit is no longer the onos. It USED to be that the only way to really plow your way into a heavily defended marine area was to get a couple of onos in there, supported by some fades and umbra'ing lerks. Not so any more... once the aliens have a SECOND hive, they've got a weapon which is perfectly configured to just tear the living hell out of anything that gets nearby. The only thing you really need onos for now is smashing into the TRULY heavily farmed areas, like the marine spawn point, where they can do 80 points of damage a bite (or a lot per second with charge) to whatever they're running into, but the fade can bilebomb a turret for a lot of damage, and hit all the ones nearby for almost as much, from range, and with the onos drawing all the fire.
Yes, the fade is supposed to be scary. So is a marine in heavy armor. But what's the marine got going for him? Shoot at it? It heals, and it can blink right into your face, where it can shred you apart. Run away? It's faster than you. Get a couple of buddies and go on patrol? Works, except the fade can pop out from behind corners, splatter you with acid, burn away at your health, cost you resources as your commander heals you and time as your buddies weld you, and just stay there, harassing you and probably killing someone if the commander gets distracted, as long as he's not in a toe-to-toe fight with a whole bunch of them versus his one self.
And if he's up against LMGs, or guys without heavy armor, well... bye bye, marine. Nice knowing you. Even when they're hanging out in an area with turrets, as long as they're not ridiculously heavily laid out, unupgraded marines just splatter and die, without much effort on the part of a fade (five or six rapid shots from a bilebomb will do that to you). I've played about 4 hours of alien and 3 of marine tonight, on 3 different servers... same thing, over and over and over. If i see a fade coming and i'm not decked out, i turn and run, hoping it stops to beat up on one of my unlucky friends while i try and get to a place where i *might* have a chance. If i see a few marines running around, i consider it lunchtime. You know that resource tower that the marines set up? The one where they dropped about 90 resources into setting it up, getting a turret factory there, and then putting a few out to keep the nasty aliens away? All the fade has to do now is blink to the turret factory and shred it till the turrets go offline, or park behind a corner and splash 'em to death.
I'm not saying it didn't need fixing. I'm saying that it seems like they said "let's make a list of things we could change that would fix this" and then implimented *ALL* of the ideas at the same time.
strike : i couldn't agree more, even more so with the 'marines occupies 1 hive, only to lose it to fades'. Fades are a pesk to deal with both from the marine POV and the COM side of things. I hate to see fully decked out marines get wasted by a fade that hurls bile bombs off a corner. Coupled with their speed increase, these things are just too fast for HA marines to catch up with. As said earlier, HMG + LA marines dont stand a chance. Fades are so well off now, i as a alien player would just save up for a lvl 4 rather than a lvl3 to take advantage of the beefed up 'attributes'.
i would really want to know what exactly does it take to take a DECENT fade player out.
Personally, if I'm a Fade, the first thing that gets me Blinking to cover is more than one HMG. A close second is an HMG/HA with anything else backing it. You can moan about the "neutered" HMG all you want, but if you open up on someone from close range, it'll tear them up nicely.
You are right though - unless they're set up <b>perfectly</b> set up, turrets get eaten by Fades, even without Bilebomb. I'm perfectly content to lob Acid Rockets, or Blink behind the factory. (Note to Marines - always, ALWAYS cover your factory.)
<!--QuoteBegin--Shrike30+Nov 7 2002, 07:23 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Shrike30 @ Nov 7 2002, 07:23 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Watching a single fade rush a group of earlier marines is evil. They die, plain and simple. It doesn't matter if they have 3 turrets backing them up, it doesn't matter if there's 4 of them and they're ALL decent shots unloading on him with LMGs on his way towards them... he's got two weapons with a blast radius, a LOT of health, decent armor, and a friggin FRIGHTENING close combat attack.
{also...} i couldn't agree more, even more so with the 'marines occupies 1 hive, only to lose it to fades'. Fades are a pesk to deal with both from the marine POV and the COM side of things. I hate to see fully decked out marines get wasted by a fade that hurls bile bombs off a corner.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> earlier marines?
bile bomb requires 3 hives. Something people seem so be disregarding. If you're camped out at a hive location, they CAN'T fire bile bomb at you.
And since no one seems to make a movement chamber early on, there's no Adrenaline upgrade. Which means that the "capacitor" drains rapidly and fills slowly. If you see a fade stop firing acid rocket for a second, RUSH the **obscenity**, he can't fire back unless he switches to melee, which is at a disadvantage to the ranged machine guns.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Marines NEED to be able to go toe to toe with Fades<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why? The whole point of fades is to be 4x as powerful as a Marine. This isn't about 1 on 1.
I played a game just last night where Marines completely owned. How we did it was, 4-5 Marines with HA and HMGs who just stuck together, taking hive after hive. Onos and Fades drop like flies under the combined power of 5 HMGs. How did we get so many Marines so heavily stocked? We would never die because we stuck together. If the Comm isnt constantly having to spawn weapons and armour , because his Marines actually follow his orders, stick together, and don't die, than a Comm will have researched the good stuff in no time.
Plus,have you actually played as a Fade? The splash damage on Bile Bomb takes a long time to kill a turret. It's not a half-a-HMG-clip deal like with Marines. Even with Adrenaline a Fade can only shoot like 5 Bile Bombs in one energy bar, and then there is a cool down time if he wants to shoot more than 1 again.
i must agree that the fades are hard to beat, maybe the cost for fade should be higher like 55 orso or maybe the cost of making a hive, cuz it almost seems when playing marines for a few mins there are already onosses running around
I always praised the patch's balance but I must admit, the fades seem a little over the top. BUT ONLY A LITTLE. nothing should survive point blank 3 HMG clips except for maybe an onos...
<!--QuoteBegin--The Seer+Nov 6 2002, 02:06 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (The Seer @ Nov 6 2002, 02:06 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->That's a lot of nerfing for the Marines, which might suck since lately aliens have been winning liek mad. Oh well, this will please more people than tick off.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> It's possible that Marines suck now. Do I completely believe this? No. Before the patch, the aliens only won on either 1 of 2 conditions: They skulk rushed, or they got Hive 3 before Marines could camp the hive. Any other scenario ended badly for the aliens as they had no means to deal with the MASSIVE flow of SGs that came from the Marine base. (Especially when the Marines SGed the 3rd Hive.) Also, every stinkin Marine had heavy armor and an LMG. Plus, grenades WIPED alien bases in seconds. I watched 8 Offensive Towers and 3 Defensive Towers get mowed down by a hail of grenades. That was then.
Now, I feel that the aliens have a much better chance now. I have played 5 complete games as aliens and we won half of them. The best part was that it was a tug-of-war between hives and command stations during most of the games. The marines come in to blaze a hive, and we counter by blazing their command station. Both sides rebuilt and then went at it again. We get ONOS, we'd lose ONOS. It was SO much fun. SGs are STILL a pain, but I at least have the feeling that I can deal with them now. Seige Turrets are still a ***** but I'll live. The best part is that not every marine had a HMG or Heavy Armor!
Now, when I played Marines, I unfortunately got to see why the Marines have been losing. The players, plain and simply, sucked! Quite a few times the commander would just leave with no else to take over. Plus, all the marines did was run off as Rambo wannabes and were owned. Of course they then typed, "WTF?!?!" and complained about how powerful the aliens are. Marines are supposed to travel in SQUADS! In these larger numbers they are hideously hard to take down. The teamwork for the Marines just isn't there yet. (At least in the games I played Marines.) So I still think Marines would be a force to reckon with if they actually stuck together and covered each other's backs while building stuff.
As far as overall fairness, I withhold my judgement, but as a strong alien player, I think the game got a lot more fun as most of the games I've played could've gone either way.
I haven't heard one complaint on here that couldn't be countered by Teamwork and good Tactics.
I like the fact the Fades are a tad more powerful. They ARE the 2nd most powerful aliens in the game you know. All-in-all this should really light a fire under the Marines butt to get their kit on, get organized, and get expanding.
Marines have got to accept that they are entering an extremely hostile and unforgiving situation. The margin for error is sliver thin and once you fall too far behind, which can happen in a matter of few minutes, you will have you backs against the wall.
This Mod doesn't baby anyone, the Marines or the Aliens. It is truly the BEST TEAM takes all.
PS - I play both Marines and Aliens. Lately I have seen much more action on the Alien side to keep things even.
The marines big weakness/strength is their commander. If their commander sucks, the team will suck and vice versa. Aliens have more individual freedom.
Played a game as marines last night, a rare thing as I've been playing aliens nearly all the time from the start, I had the honour/curse of being commander for the game, quickly got the marines to build enough defenses for the start and sent them off in groups to res points to build... defended them a little bit, covering the sides of the factorys by strategically placed sentries, then quickly moved on to a hive location, unfortunately it was populated :/ then I sent them to another location after upgrading the base def a little and quickly set up a base there... a good one with teleporters for marines to get there quickly, secured a few more resources, so far they had been doing this with lmg's, so I gave a couple some heavy stuff I had just researched and ordered a new group to another hive, that one was populated too, no worries... set up a mini base with teleporters and such again outside, while the marines attacked I set up a siege... the hive was soon gone and I defended the position, by now I had enough res to place a few more good guns and equip down.. so in a flash marines got back to the base and snatched them up, then we moved on to the third hive, took a little while but we finally took the last hive, or so I thought.. somehow I had incompetently neglected to make a few marines check on my first hive base... and they had taken it down, nevermind, I sent the marines over and set up teleporters and an armoury as before... bang... last hive died and marines won the game... it was actually quite a walkover, the aliens weren't that bad at all, I went on the aliens again after and aliens won instead. But what did I hear when marines won? 'Fs this game is so unbalanced' from an alien <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> it's really just a matter of tactics... commanders still think they can make their first base huge before they explore, and that aliens can do what they like as they'll just get grenaded and hmg'ed later, they need to place sentries more strategically to defend that factory.. sometimes even building two in case one goes down, you need to keep your marines in groups to defend each other.. and take the map piece by piece... I'm sure it could be done again and again when people learn... but for now they just build anything anywhere and depend on their turrets and expect a ton of resources, you need to keep an eye on your forward bases with marines or they -WILL- be destroyed... Once people start to change from their old bugged tactics you'll start to see a hell of a lot more marine wins. Try things before you complain of imbalance, perhaps play aliens a little and learn the tactics so you can defend against them later...
or something. Adios <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
First of all, how can you win half of 5 games? Blaw, doesn't matter.
Most of the games I experienced, there were few Fades until the very end of the game, but the people above me are right, it's not THAT hard to get a second hive up long before the Marines get HMGs, and by then the aliens are fighting for the third hive. I've yet to see a game where getting a second hive was a problem, but even without adrenaline, no less than 3 marines can take out a semi-skilled Fade.
I still need to play the game more to further analyze the situation, but keep an open mind when rambling about your game experiences, if both teams have skilled players, I find that the aliens are more likely to win. I have yet to join a server where both teams had nothing but excellent players, and probably won't for weeks, but I have a feeling aliens would have the upper hand in such an arena for the primary reason that I see little expansion for marine skill to peak even higher, regardless of your rants about teamwork.
Fades should be powerful, they shouldn't be indestructable. I think the Aliens are fine now as far as the balancing of THEIR firepower. Now the Marines just need some way to stand up to them. I played.. I think 4 games last night, 2 as marines, 2 as aliens. The games as marines involved us being holed up somewhere trying desperately to fend off fades and stop the aliens from overruning us. Playing as aliens, it was almost insanely too easy to force the enemy into the above situation. They were GOOD players, too, even the commander. They made a few rather good comeback attempts but my uber gorge skills (and seemingly endless personally resources) allowed for defenses to be made and repaired effortlessly and we simply drove right on into their base and torched them out. Once the marines get pinned down by alien advancement its pretty much over, I think. (at their main base or elsewhere) simply because Aliens have many more "longevity" factors working in their favor as I said before. Everything self-replenishes, and does so for free. Thus making sieging Marines laughably easy. Marines have to depend on ammo dispensers, health drops, and no easy way to replenish armor, esp in the middle of combat. Just doesn't seem fair in the least.
It works everytime. Keep attacking the Marine base, and you have a turtled up marine loss waiting to happen. Form a team and leave the base, and then your base is gone. Too few ways to go about this, try to name more than 2 options, and for every option you give me, I'll name 5 alien options.
Lol. I was playing today... on Nancy, the aliens had three hives etc, and the marines were pushed back to the Bridge (near their start point).... they snuck out somehow and blew up one of our hives... they planted a seige turret under cover and cleared out our minibases near them... everyone on the alien team all of a sudden went "oh **obscenity**"
then I played another game where the marines rushed our hive. I was the only guy left as a gorge and I finally built a hive... but I got killed right before the match ended.
The game that the marines won I joined late, but it appeared like they had a crappy commander because there were turrets all over (and nobody even had the presence of mind to get in the commander chair since it was empty)
i agree with some things said. I think it is stupid fades acid blobs was fine. thats one of the main things. Now fades are almost as good as <!--emo&::onos::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tiny.gif'><!--endemo--> thats stupid. No matter what you people say. a fade should not be able to own a human with ha and hmg with acid blobs. IT DOES HAPPEN. So tone down the acid blob attack speed back down and game will be fine
Comments
I used this exact tactic just now as Aliens, when you have a Fade with Defence chambers endlessly lobbing bilebombs around the corner at a Marine, hell, even a couple marines, they don't stand a bloody chance.
Watching a single fade rush a group of earlier marines is evil. They die, plain and simple. It doesn't matter if they have 3 turrets backing them up, it doesn't matter if there's 4 of them and they're ALL decent shots unloading on him with LMGs on his way towards them... he's got two weapons with a blast radius, a LOT of health, decent armor, and a friggin FRIGHTENING close combat attack.
Every game i've seen tonight (with the exception of one where the aliens were just horrible) has been a game of "marines try and crawl out, maybe secure one hive, aliens get second hive up, fades appear, game over for marines."
I mean, yeah, they were underpowered.
But did you have to upgrade their damage, their armor, their rate of fire, AND their speed?!? While at the same time making the effective "counters" for fades (heavy armor, GLs, HMGs) more expensive to purchase and weakening them/reducing magazine size/reducing ROF?!? AND making it so that if he gets regeneration (by far one of the most common selections by the aliens early in the game is defensive towers), he's recharging something in the range of 15 points EVERY SINGLE REGEN CYCLE?!? <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wow.gif'><!--endemo-->
The fade can splash turrets to death without exposing himself to fire. He can rip up a marine in CQB without issue. He can teleport straight towards a HMG wielding heavy armor guy, and chew him to shreds. And he's pretty friggin cheap for all that... a "decked out" marine (HA/HMG) currently costs 50 points, or 58 with a GL... a fully upgraded fade the same 50, but doesn't require a commander to drop him medpacks or a welder around to patch him back up, since wandering off into a corner for about 20 seconds will get him back to full health and armor with regen, or simply wandering off to the nearest alien "turret garden" (usually 3 with a defensive) is a reliable source of health. They can also outrun a heavy marine with little issue, since they aren't dragging around half a ton of powered armor. And with the way aliens seem to be able to lay their hands on a lot more resources early on in the game, that makes me wonder what this latest patch has accomplished, asides from overfixing a resource problem. "Turret Farming" still happens, simply due to the fact that the marines usually CAN'T spread out, and so they condense all of their building into a smaller area.
Hopefully, the NS team plans to stay on a "rapid development" schedule, maybe watching the servers for a few days to see how things stabilize out, and then issuing another patch with slightly more subtle changes to try and tweak this. We can always hope <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
The fade that we used to had was more like a modified skulk which can shoot stuff that doesnt' hurt.
now this fade is more capable of taking another hive. Giving the aliens a new chance to take on the marines.
The fight for the 3rd hive would be the most crucial
which, i think, would be better than marines overpowering aliens.
Yes, the fade is supposed to be scary. So is a marine in heavy armor. But what's the marine got going for him? Shoot at it? It heals, and it can blink right into your face, where it can shred you apart. Run away? It's faster than you. Get a couple of buddies and go on patrol? Works, except the fade can pop out from behind corners, splatter you with acid, burn away at your health, cost you resources as your commander heals you and time as your buddies weld you, and just stay there, harassing you and probably killing someone if the commander gets distracted, as long as he's not in a toe-to-toe fight with a whole bunch of them versus his one self.
And if he's up against LMGs, or guys without heavy armor, well... bye bye, marine. Nice knowing you. Even when they're hanging out in an area with turrets, as long as they're not ridiculously heavily laid out, unupgraded marines just splatter and die, without much effort on the part of a fade (five or six rapid shots from a bilebomb will do that to you). I've played about 4 hours of alien and 3 of marine tonight, on 3 different servers... same thing, over and over and over. If i see a fade coming and i'm not decked out, i turn and run, hoping it stops to beat up on one of my unlucky friends while i try and get to a place where i *might* have a chance. If i see a few marines running around, i consider it lunchtime. You know that resource tower that the marines set up? The one where they dropped about 90 resources into setting it up, getting a turret factory there, and then putting a few out to keep the nasty aliens away? All the fade has to do now is blink to the turret factory and shred it till the turrets go offline, or park behind a corner and splash 'em to death.
I'm not saying it didn't need fixing. I'm saying that it seems like they said "let's make a list of things we could change that would fix this" and then implimented *ALL* of the ideas at the same time.
i would really want to know what exactly does it take to take a DECENT fade player out.
You are right though - unless they're set up <b>perfectly</b> set up, turrets get eaten by Fades, even without Bilebomb. I'm perfectly content to lob Acid Rockets, or Blink behind the factory. (Note to Marines - always, ALWAYS cover your factory.)
- M4H
{also...}
i couldn't agree more, even more so with the 'marines occupies 1 hive, only to lose it to fades'. Fades are a pesk to deal with both from the marine POV and the COM side of things. I hate to see fully decked out marines get wasted by a fade that hurls bile bombs off a corner.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
earlier marines?
bile bomb requires 3 hives. Something people seem so be disregarding. If you're camped out at a hive location, they CAN'T fire bile bomb at you.
And since no one seems to make a movement chamber early on, there's no Adrenaline upgrade.
Which means that the "capacitor" drains rapidly and fills slowly.
If you see a fade stop firing acid rocket for a second, RUSH the **obscenity**, he can't fire back unless he switches to melee, which is at a disadvantage to the ranged machine guns.
-Brew
Two TF's supporting each other. put turrets all about your TF, else a single skulk can use the TF as a very handy shield.
Take care
LS
Why? The whole point of fades is to be 4x as powerful as a Marine. This isn't about 1 on 1.
I played a game just last night where Marines completely owned. How we did it was, 4-5 Marines with HA and HMGs who just stuck together, taking hive after hive. Onos and Fades drop like flies under the combined power of 5 HMGs. How did we get so many Marines so heavily stocked? We would never die because we stuck together. If the Comm isnt constantly having to spawn weapons and armour , because his Marines actually follow his orders, stick together, and don't die, than a Comm will have researched the good stuff in no time.
Plus,have you actually played as a Fade? The splash damage on Bile Bomb takes a long time to kill a turret. It's not a half-a-HMG-clip deal like with Marines. Even with Adrenaline a Fade can only shoot like 5 Bile Bombs in one energy bar, and then there is a cool down time if he wants to shoot more than 1 again.
It's possible that Marines suck now. Do I completely believe this? No. Before the patch, the aliens only won on either 1 of 2 conditions: They skulk rushed, or they got Hive 3 before Marines could camp the hive. Any other scenario ended badly for the aliens as they had no means to deal with the MASSIVE flow of SGs that came from the Marine base. (Especially when the Marines SGed the 3rd Hive.) Also, every stinkin Marine had heavy armor and an LMG. Plus, grenades WIPED alien bases in seconds. I watched 8 Offensive Towers and 3 Defensive Towers get mowed down by a hail of grenades. That was then.
Now, I feel that the aliens have a much better chance now. I have played 5 complete games as aliens and we won half of them. The best part was that it was a tug-of-war between hives and command stations during most of the games. The marines come in to blaze a hive, and we counter by blazing their command station. Both sides rebuilt and then went at it again. We get ONOS, we'd lose ONOS. It was SO much fun. SGs are STILL a pain, but I at least have the feeling that I can deal with them now. Seige Turrets are still a ***** but I'll live. The best part is that not every marine had a HMG or Heavy Armor!
Now, when I played Marines, I unfortunately got to see why the Marines have been losing. The players, plain and simply, sucked! Quite a few times the commander would just leave with no else to take over. Plus, all the marines did was run off as Rambo wannabes and were owned. Of course they then typed, "WTF?!?!" and complained about how powerful the aliens are. Marines are supposed to travel in SQUADS! In these larger numbers they are hideously hard to take down. The teamwork for the Marines just isn't there yet. (At least in the games I played Marines.) So I still think Marines would be a force to reckon with if they actually stuck together and covered each other's backs while building stuff.
As far as overall fairness, I withhold my judgement, but as a strong alien player, I think the game got a lot more fun as most of the games I've played could've gone either way.
I like the fact the Fades are a tad more powerful. They ARE the 2nd most powerful aliens in the game you know. All-in-all this should really light a fire under the Marines butt to get their kit on, get organized, and get expanding.
Marines have got to accept that they are entering an extremely hostile and unforgiving situation. The margin for error is sliver thin and once you fall too far behind, which can happen in a matter of few minutes, you will have you backs against the wall.
This Mod doesn't baby anyone, the Marines or the Aliens. It is truly the BEST TEAM takes all.
PS - I play both Marines and Aliens. Lately I have seen much more action on the Alien side to keep things even.
Once people start to change from their old bugged tactics you'll start to see a hell of a lot more marine wins.
Try things before you complain of imbalance, perhaps play aliens a little and learn the tactics so you can defend against them later...
or something. Adios <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Most of the games I experienced, there were few Fades until the very end of the game, but the people above me are right, it's not THAT hard to get a second hive up long before the Marines get HMGs, and by then the aliens are fighting for the third hive. I've yet to see a game where getting a second hive was a problem, but even without adrenaline, no less than 3 marines can take out a semi-skilled Fade.
I still need to play the game more to further analyze the situation, but keep an open mind when rambling about your game experiences, if both teams have skilled players, I find that the aliens are more likely to win. I have yet to join a server where both teams had nothing but excellent players, and probably won't for weeks, but I have a feeling aliens would have the upper hand in such an arena for the primary reason that I see little expansion for marine skill to peak even higher, regardless of your rants about teamwork.
It works everytime. Keep attacking the Marine base, and you have a turtled up marine loss waiting to happen. Form a team and leave the base, and then your base is gone. Too few ways to go about this, try to name more than 2 options, and for every option you give me, I'll name 5 alien options.
then I played another game where the marines rushed our hive. I was the only guy left as a gorge and I finally built a hive... but I got killed right before the match ended.
The game that the marines won I joined late, but it appeared like they had a crappy commander because there were turrets all over (and nobody even had the presence of mind to get in the commander chair since it was empty)
I say it's balanced.
In a NUTSHELL, skilled alien players will dominate skilled marine players, if they turtle the marines, there's little the marines can do.
The dead horse is beaten... HELL... its a bloody pulp.