All This Talk About Fades Being To Strong
Bob_the_Alien
Join Date: 2002-01-30 Member: 135Members
Join Date: 2002-01-30 Member: 135Members
<div class="IPBDescription">-.-</div> Let me say this first, I havnt really posted on balance issues so far. here I go.
So, let me get this strait, Fades are too strong because they can kill -any- marine one on one? Well ladies and gentlemen girls boys and children of all ages! Let me introduce you to the basic more wonderfull amazing tactic of marines, fighting as a groups. A fade with regen can pick off marines ALL day, hell maybe even 2 marines at a time, but with groups of 3+ the fades start to worry. Let me show you somthing:
Melee > ranged
melee melee >= ranged ranged
melee melee melee = ranged ranged ranged
melee melee melee melee <= ranged ranged ranged ranged
melee melee melee melee melee < ranged ranged ranged ranged raned
This isnt exact but it gets the picture across, the more melee vs ranged the more advantage the ranged will have, the less, the more melee will have. So will everyone just except this, or do you curious kittys need to know more? Well picture this 5 skulks rush twords 5 marines (this is the most basic NS I can get it) the marines will be able to lower the group of skulks damage output VASTLY by the time they reach melee range, if not obliturate them all together.
well what about fades? there so damned strong and have bile bomb! well any other RTS player will be able to pick this up
<b>//Focus Fire// </b>
2 fades going head on against 5 marines, the marines should win simply because they can focus there fire, EVEN WITH LMGs! USE YOUR FREE MECHENTICE! Have your fire squad learn to aim to the most right target and kill till the most left target. Now what about those sneaky critters that cloak, and hide. Well folks this is the mind game that IS NS. After you learn the basics its down to mind games. Why does that fade who is standing at the door and harrassing you NOT die!? heh, simple hes either cloaked and has regen or carpace and is running to defensive turrets. If I could count how many times I would of died if 2 marines came after me while harrassing a base as a fade! Remember to keep your ears open as well as your eyes in this game, about how far did you hear him stop moving? a fade belive it or not cant stand up to a group, 2 fades cant either, simply because there most efficient attack is melee, it does 80 damage a 2/second. There acid rocket, not only easily dodged, only 60 damage and can only fire 4 times before being completely helpless, yes they have to "reload" too.
NS was meant to be played with a stalker and a hunter, marines hunting and aliens stakling the hunters. Its a mental game, if you think you have lost you allready have, JUST like in other RTS's. It amazes me how much RTS element in this game people are being missed out on.
BTW marines LMGs do 10 damage a hit, the bonus armor everyone is whinning about is equal to 2.5 bullets for petes sake.
So, let me get this strait, Fades are too strong because they can kill -any- marine one on one? Well ladies and gentlemen girls boys and children of all ages! Let me introduce you to the basic more wonderfull amazing tactic of marines, fighting as a groups. A fade with regen can pick off marines ALL day, hell maybe even 2 marines at a time, but with groups of 3+ the fades start to worry. Let me show you somthing:
Melee > ranged
melee melee >= ranged ranged
melee melee melee = ranged ranged ranged
melee melee melee melee <= ranged ranged ranged ranged
melee melee melee melee melee < ranged ranged ranged ranged raned
This isnt exact but it gets the picture across, the more melee vs ranged the more advantage the ranged will have, the less, the more melee will have. So will everyone just except this, or do you curious kittys need to know more? Well picture this 5 skulks rush twords 5 marines (this is the most basic NS I can get it) the marines will be able to lower the group of skulks damage output VASTLY by the time they reach melee range, if not obliturate them all together.
well what about fades? there so damned strong and have bile bomb! well any other RTS player will be able to pick this up
<b>//Focus Fire// </b>
2 fades going head on against 5 marines, the marines should win simply because they can focus there fire, EVEN WITH LMGs! USE YOUR FREE MECHENTICE! Have your fire squad learn to aim to the most right target and kill till the most left target. Now what about those sneaky critters that cloak, and hide. Well folks this is the mind game that IS NS. After you learn the basics its down to mind games. Why does that fade who is standing at the door and harrassing you NOT die!? heh, simple hes either cloaked and has regen or carpace and is running to defensive turrets. If I could count how many times I would of died if 2 marines came after me while harrassing a base as a fade! Remember to keep your ears open as well as your eyes in this game, about how far did you hear him stop moving? a fade belive it or not cant stand up to a group, 2 fades cant either, simply because there most efficient attack is melee, it does 80 damage a 2/second. There acid rocket, not only easily dodged, only 60 damage and can only fire 4 times before being completely helpless, yes they have to "reload" too.
NS was meant to be played with a stalker and a hunter, marines hunting and aliens stakling the hunters. Its a mental game, if you think you have lost you allready have, JUST like in other RTS's. It amazes me how much RTS element in this game people are being missed out on.
BTW marines LMGs do 10 damage a hit, the bonus armor everyone is whinning about is equal to 2.5 bullets for petes sake.
Comments
This is from an RTS point of view, not a FPS point of view, and of course just my opinion
-Grail
the new acid rockets are super strong and kill a light marine in 2-3 hits, meaning that Fades dominate at range too
1.01 made the 2 hive Fade better than Onos IMHO
I have also discovered what i think is a bug with the fades. When im going fade and have lvl 3 carpace i have 200/150 yet on the main page it said:[I] - Increased fade armor from to 90/125 to 125/150[I]
and not from 90/125 to 200/150.
Is that just a miss from the dvelopers just forgott to write it on the news or is that some kinda bug ?
As far as i can see they doesnt mention its health being boosted by more than 100%.
Edit:
I see now that it says fade armour, and i thaught 90/125 meant 90 hp 125 ar, and not 90 base ar and 125 lvl 3 ar. So maybe they havent raised its health after all, as i cant remember what it was pre patch (didnt play as a fade much before the patch came out).
fade - about same rp as hmg with HA marine and about same strength
lmg - same rp skulk and about the same strength
you guys are seriusly expecting skulks to take down hmg ha marine or lmg la marines to take down fades?
its balanced, learn to not get your HAs kill, allways have a welder go around with them, WELD THEM IN BATTLE.
From a RTS stand point getting outteched is pretty much a loss, especcialy since you cant mass lower tier in this.
If I had known this, I would have felt more impressed about taking one down with a LMG.
Edit: The balance has been feeling like it's working so far.
2 HAs with HMGs and a little shotgun welder buddy can take down a hive defended by one fade and a TON of skulks. Oh, and three dozen offensive chambers.
High level attack is stronger than defense in this game. Makes sense. Otherwise stalemates would be very common. Don't get your attacks together fast enough, you get steamrolled.
One thing is you have to be VERY aggressive against Fades as marines.
Your clip is a LOT bigger than his. If you happen to have HMG, amor or not, and you spot a fade, you should IMMEDIATELY give chase (not run away). Unless he is at point blank, you have the upper hand in damage per second, by far. However, what most marines do is retreat, cover fire, then hide and shoot at the corridor the fade dissappeared down.
Don't play the fade's game.
What works VERY well is being aggressive. When you see that fade, open fire, keep CLOSE (but not within claw range) and dont let it get away. Reload if you have to. But CHASE it. You can kill it quicker than it can kill you as long as you are hurting it constantly. Most fades see their health plummetting and start retreating whilst firing. Strafe and dodge but keep on him, never let him get behind cover or out of your sight. Don't rest until he's dead or you are. It takes a lot of resources to make a Fade, and quite a bit of time, too.
So don't run and hide and try to hurt him small ammounts. If you're alone, you can kill a fade as HMG + HA, if you keep on his **obscenity** and never let him run and regen or cloak, do NOT break off the attack. If you're with buddies, he's as sure as dead as long as he starts off at range (ie, not clawing your face) and y ou ALL chase him.
What I see too much of is the marines seeing a fade, shouting FAAADE and then retreating while firing while they get spammed by acid bombs. Stop doing that ;p Even a shotty is devestating vs a fade as long as you dodge his acid rockets (which takes a little side to side movement) AND keep shooting him till he dies.
Of course, if he retreats into a regeneration (defense) chamber, run for it and set up siege asap. Because you have failed to kill him at that point. The idea is to hurt him greatly in a small amount of time, then you can go back and get yourself healed.
But dont run away.
One thing is you have to be VERY aggressive against Fades as marines.
Your clip is a LOT bigger than his. If you happen to have HMG, amor or not, and you spot a fade, you should IMMEDIATELY give chase (not run away). Unless he is at point blank, you have the upper hand in damage per second, by far. However, what most marines do is retreat, cover fire, then hide and shoot at the corridor the fade dissappeared down.
Don't play the fade's game.
What works VERY well is being aggressive. When you see that fade, open fire, keep CLOSE (but not within claw range) and dont let it get away. Reload if you have to. But CHASE it. You can kill it quicker than it can kill you as long as you are hurting it constantly. Most fades see their health plummetting and start retreating whilst firing. Strafe and dodge but keep on him, never let him get behind cover or out of your sight. Don't rest until he's dead or you are. It takes a lot of resources to make a Fade, and quite a bit of time, too.
So don't run and hide and try to hurt him small ammounts. If you're alone, you can kill a fade as HMG + HA, if you keep on his **obscenity** and never let him run and regen or cloak, do NOT break off the attack. If you're with buddies, he's as sure as dead as long as he starts off at range (ie, not clawing your face) and y ou ALL chase him.
What I see too much of is the marines seeing a fade, shouting FAAADE and then retreating while firing while they get spammed by acid bombs. Stop doing that ;p Even a shotty is devestating vs a fade as long as you dodge his acid rockets (which takes a little side to side movement) AND keep shooting him till he dies.
Of course, if he retreats into a regeneration (defense) chamber, run for it and set up siege asap. Because you have failed to kill him at that point. The idea is to hurt him greatly in a small amount of time, then you can go back and get yourself healed.
But dont run away.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
my god thats exactly what your supposed to do, I hope to many marines dont figure this out or im dead <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
4 def. towers
a fade
I took out 30, yes 30, marines in a row, without dying. Sometimes they came in groups of four, they all went down. Then, with another fade, went on to destroy their whole base. I didn't die for the last 20 minutes! Most fun I've had yet <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> Played with a L337 guy named FanBread, or something.
10 more damage per rocket (for a total of 60).
1 more rocket for every two fired, but guess what? The Fades runs out of ammo after firing off three or four of them. Adreneline helps here, but the ammo limitation means that in a prolonged fight there's no difference in damage output from the firing rate.
The fades best buff was the armor (they can take 3 seconds of HMG fire instead of only 2 now - yay!) and the speed of the fade (they still can't keep up with a lightly armored marine, but at least power armor isn't outrunning them anymore).
So why is it that so many fades are kicking **obscenity** and taking names on the servers now? It's because people are learning how to play aliens and realize the fade is generally a more effective all purpose fighter than those giant damage sponges we call Onos. (Although with Primal Scream and a good grasp of how to use charging the Onos can be reasonably effective as well).
in 1.0, no carapace: 200 health, 90 armor, armor soaks 30% damage (IE armor reduces damage taken by 30%. So a LMG bullet that does 10 damage normally now does 7 damage)
in 1.0, level 1 carapace: 200 health, 125 armor, armor soaks 40% damage
" " 2 " " " " " " " 50% "
" " 3 " " " " " " " 60% "
in 1.01, no carapace: 200 health, 125 armor, armor soaks 30%
" " L1 carapace: " " 150 " " " 40%
etc.
[edit: well, it all lines up when I write it, but all the spacing is lost when it gets posted. I think you can still understand it though.]
now, effectivly, a fully upgraded 1.01 fade can take roughly 440 points of damage (if my math is right. (150 armor * 1.6(as it soaks 60% damage)) + 200 health = 440 points of damage)
Get it now?
btw, I'm not positive about the damage soak thing. It's just what seems to make sense from my experience and what the manual says. I'm pretty sure that's the way it works. But all the numbers are right <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
[PiG] Shadow
Uhh, if anyone can refute me on this, I'd love to hear it. I really want to understand the whole damage soaking thing.
Common sequence of events:
Fade sees you, you see fade, you start firing, you see blue puff, you dont see fade. Now, either the fade realized hes low on life and cant take you, so he blinked away. OR, he realized he CAN take you (and believe me, he can) and HES RIGHT BEHIND YOU carving a cool design in your back.
Fades run faster than HA (even without celerity) so theres no way that you can get OUT of melee range. Fade at full life vs HA/HMG at full life at melee range = one dead HA, one Fade at 1/2 HP.
U see marines, marines see's you, marines starts firing, you switch to blink and hit the button, nothing happenes, marines kills you before you even have a chance to get an acid shot off.
Having said that i can appriciate the difficulties in programming such an ability.
I think fades are too strong so early in the game. Thats not even the main problem, the main problem is when Im a fade I can take out ANY marine room from range. and if its big I evolve into a gorg build def towers evolve into a fade and kill them all Ill just rush and disable there turrets they don't do enuf dmg to kill me before I do and most of the time you can duck for cover.
Let fades have it all. But I would like to see there range weapons do very little dmg VS buildings.
As a marine Fades are hard to kill because they run to a def tower heal up and try and kill me from range. a LMG or HMG wont kill them fast enuf from range because if they get to low they run for cover and Heal up. The only way I kill them is have a load of marines or have HMG Heavy armor and get them close range or they simply out run me.
Marines just got nerfed too hard. I played a lot and almost every time marines lost some was because there commander did jack, or no team work. But one round they had a good commander and they all traved in a team 4 HA, HMGs and welders they where mopping up run into a fade kill it weildup and move out.
made a second base at there third hive and he built it up good. It did not stop 4 fades from running in there and killing both of the turret generators(Yes he had two, And I know thats not what they are called) By the time the 4 marines got back they lost there spawn gate and soon one marine died then two till there were all gone. Soon as I died as a fade I just evolve right back to a fade and to do it agin. there commander did not have the resources to guard every resource node from solo attacking fades taking the whole defense down and rearm marines. soon as we got the 3erd hive they hand no chance.
The problem with fades is that ppl hasnt yet learned to fully use them, we haven´t seen many blinking fades so we cant say that they are superpowered or the opposite.
Edit: The problem is that we are all n00bs, you can say the game is freackin unbalanced but thats just because we haven´t learned to use some stuff correctly
Before the patch, when I played a HA with a HMG, I felt the same way as I did now when playing a Fade. However, since the patch came out I kept getting my hvy butt whoop all the time by Fades. I give chase to Fades whenever I see them but damn they sure are quick. I try to get in med range where my HMG is most effective and the Fades melee can't touch me but I can never do that because Fades are so quick and I am so slow. Since my HMG's dmg is hinder by range the Fades rockets have an advantage in range combat. The Fade can regen or go back to def chambers for heal armor/health and all but I need the commander and my buddies to completely heal me. My team mates always wonders off so what's a poor guy suppose to do? So I am either force to give up the chase or die trying either way I can't kill the Fade so it's like an waste effort.
some quotes from this thread:
"(Deftowers..) I took out 30, yes 30, marines in a row, without dying. Sometimes they came in groups of four, they all went down. Then, with another fade, went on to destroy their whole base. I didn't die for the last 20 minutes! "
"now, effectivly, a fully upgraded 1.01 fade can take roughly 440 points of damage"
" The problem with 'staying out of melee range' when useing HA/HMG vs a Fade is that fades have BLINK"
" I play both sides I just random team, when I'm a fade I can kill 3 4 marines at a time. I run back to a deftower and heal up. And I am usaly a Fade befor They even have HMGs and Heavy armor. ..I think fades are too strong so early in the game. Thats not even the main problem, the main problem is when Im a fade I can take out ANY marine room from range."
" When playing as a Fade I fear almost nothing except for GL. My acid rockets fire incredibly fast and does quite a lot of dmg to both light and hvy marines. When I'm low on health I just blink quickly back to some def chambers. The reason I don't fear the marine is because I am superior in range combat"
" I just played as Fade, and jesus christ are they strong."
- This is hardly a surprise. Fades used to be underpowered, so their power was improved... not just a little, but quite a bit on serveral parameters (armor, firing rate, speed). All those improvements add up.
Imo as far as "tweaking" goes that is A LOT a tweaking (tweaking = making small adjustments). One could get the impression the fade's capabilities were completely screwed up before the patch (in spite of plentyfull in-house playtesting) - while in reality it was just somewhat underpowered.
I say in this case the tweaking overshot its target, it just wasn't that far off initially.
Its just like the GL instead of "tweaking" the decreased the rate of fire, the clip size and made it cost 33, **obscenity** 33!, you need almost all the nozzles ot supply your troops with GLs...
I think the Fades are to fast now, I mean All I see fades do is running back and forth around corners, shooting acid rockets as they go..
I don't think the acid rocket should be toned down, but I think the splash damage should be greatly reduced, this with stop the "no aim" running back and forth. Of course people will disagree, but to them I say "You still have Bio bomb".
ALso I find myself not able to hit the damn Fades, they just run circles around me(while in HA and with HMG). If I some how happen to get the beasts in my cross hair they seem to be un-affected by my spray of HMG bullets and they just put thier claw through my head >.o