Late-game Experience Deficit For Marines In Co
CobaltChloride
Join Date: 2004-10-20 Member: 32359Members
Join Date: 2004-10-20 Member: 32359Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Why Aliens win most late-game CO matches</div> I'd like to discuss what I feel is a significant balance problem in Combat matches that make it to "late-game", (ie, many HA/JP, Onos, etc.). I couldn't find a previous discussion of late-game balance in the light I will present, but I apologize if this is a dupe...
I almost always play as a marine in Combat mode, because, frankly, I'm not very good playing an alien. I've noticed that aliens win maybe 80% of the time in games that get to the "late-game" stage, and I believe the problem stems mostly from the way in which experience is (or seemingly is) assigned.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but experience is assigned on the death of the player being attacked. IE, I kill a skulk, I get some XP; super. If I kill a skulk with another player's help, we split the XP; again, fine.
However, in a late-game scenario, I've had situations where I've railed a full lvl3 SG into an Onos and haven't gotten a single sliver of XP, Or I attack a fade, which blinks away to heal, and again, no XP. In a late-game, it's typical that the marines are fighting back against a constant onslaught in spawn, and are dying frequently.
So, If I spawn with my lvl3 SG, attack the Onos munching on the CC (which subsequently redeems, say), and then get shredded by a fade, I don't get any XP, but that Onos probably killed several people before redeeming, and most likely so did the Fade before blinking out of there to heal.
So the problem stems from the fact that while an Onos may attack, kill, and redeem several time before finally dying, thus gaining much XP from doing so, the marines that fight back against that Onos get little-to-no experience, and can't upgrade to the items that would make late-game more balanced, like HA/JP, weapon upgrades, HG, Mines, Welders, etc.
I've been in late-game situtations where I chase down an Onos and kill it, and maybe am lucky to get a sliver of XP if there weren't too many other players also attacking it. If I turn around and kill a skulk that's running at me, I've gotten up to a half-level of XP from that one kill. That seems a bit inbalanced. Shouldn't killing (or even helping to kill) an Onos give at least a little more experience than killing a skulk?
I suspect what may be happening is that while the Onos lives a long time because of Redeem, etc, lots and lots of Marines attack it (and die) in that lifespan, and the XP for finally killing that Onos gets divvied up between a bunch of people, (many of whom have died, perhaps?) and so that XP gets sent off to the ether.
Am I the only person who thinks this is a significant problem? Combat isn't much fun to play anymore. It's gotten to the point where I try to focus on killing skulks because they give they reliably give the most XP.
Thanks for reading...
Cobalt (often seen on NSArmsLab)
I almost always play as a marine in Combat mode, because, frankly, I'm not very good playing an alien. I've noticed that aliens win maybe 80% of the time in games that get to the "late-game" stage, and I believe the problem stems mostly from the way in which experience is (or seemingly is) assigned.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but experience is assigned on the death of the player being attacked. IE, I kill a skulk, I get some XP; super. If I kill a skulk with another player's help, we split the XP; again, fine.
However, in a late-game scenario, I've had situations where I've railed a full lvl3 SG into an Onos and haven't gotten a single sliver of XP, Or I attack a fade, which blinks away to heal, and again, no XP. In a late-game, it's typical that the marines are fighting back against a constant onslaught in spawn, and are dying frequently.
So, If I spawn with my lvl3 SG, attack the Onos munching on the CC (which subsequently redeems, say), and then get shredded by a fade, I don't get any XP, but that Onos probably killed several people before redeeming, and most likely so did the Fade before blinking out of there to heal.
So the problem stems from the fact that while an Onos may attack, kill, and redeem several time before finally dying, thus gaining much XP from doing so, the marines that fight back against that Onos get little-to-no experience, and can't upgrade to the items that would make late-game more balanced, like HA/JP, weapon upgrades, HG, Mines, Welders, etc.
I've been in late-game situtations where I chase down an Onos and kill it, and maybe am lucky to get a sliver of XP if there weren't too many other players also attacking it. If I turn around and kill a skulk that's running at me, I've gotten up to a half-level of XP from that one kill. That seems a bit inbalanced. Shouldn't killing (or even helping to kill) an Onos give at least a little more experience than killing a skulk?
I suspect what may be happening is that while the Onos lives a long time because of Redeem, etc, lots and lots of Marines attack it (and die) in that lifespan, and the XP for finally killing that Onos gets divvied up between a bunch of people, (many of whom have died, perhaps?) and so that XP gets sent off to the ether.
Am I the only person who thinks this is a significant problem? Combat isn't much fun to play anymore. It's gotten to the point where I try to focus on killing skulks because they give they reliably give the most XP.
Thanks for reading...
Cobalt (often seen on NSArmsLab)
Comments
You see an onos sucks big time in NS, the only thing it is good for is taking down undefended turret farms, and possibly the odd HA (if any com is silly enough to go HA nowadays when Jetpacks are much more effective - only exception is maybe a couple of HA, along side JPs)...
So because the onos sucks utterly in NS maps, they beef it, it gets better armour with Cara, and redemption is increased... which really has NO effect in NS anyway as no one hardly takes them, the only reason someone wouldn't take regen is if it is pretty much end game, aliens have map control and there are DC stations all over.
So in NS the onos is a big "scary" 75-point tank, which can die very, very easily against 2 HMG-JPs (unless the JPs are stupid enough to try and fight the onos in a small thin hall, lucky for them almost no hive rooms are small).
So in NS the Onos was a joke, so they “give it a boost” (which was mostly pointless) while at the same time making them more retarded against Jetpacks.
But the effect of this in CO… because you are not limited to 1 defence chamber upgrade is that a Redemp-Cara Onos is almost unkillable, with almost a 100% chance to redeem. Which means 2-3 Oni in CO can murder who scores of Marines without ever dying.
Also with CO you don’t have to help kill someone to share the XP, you just have to be close by.
This quickly results in marines pinned in base, only able to shoot and redeem onos after onos after onos.
CO has no balance at all, early game, if marines push they can destroy the aliens, GL into the hive will be enough for the win, but if aliens get a couple of fades and a Redem-Cara onos… best marines can do is camp the timer out at MS…
Moral of the story:
<b>NS and CO need different stats… </b>
I am sick of them trying to fix the balance in one, but fcuking up the other because they share the same statistics, it just doesn’t work… NS and CO need to be split apart so they can be balanced independently.
But I seriously doubt that is going to happen, because the Devs “don’t want to make any big changes”… Just look at the Unchained chamber debate… 75% of the community support it, but nothing… no word back, no “hey we can’t put it in 3.0, but in 4.0 beta we will”, or “it is not happening sod off”… Nothing.
Maybe they are just trying to smooth things out to get 3.0 out of beta, but what they don’t realise is that most people are getting sick of NS and moving on to other games because of issues like this very one… and by the time they get around to doing the next version of NS, NS will only have a handful of players left.
<b>NS and CO need different stats… </b>
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Amen.
I want my onos to be actually useful in NS and not just used for then endgame with 3 hives and most of the marine base due to the fades.
I agree, that it is more difficult for marines to gain xp in lategame, especially for late joining marines.
I played on some servers, which spend you some xp after joining,
depending on the average xp-level of your team
or on the xp of the last teammate in scoreboard.
Dunno exactly, but i know for sure that this is much more fun for late joining players!
I played on some servers, which spend you some xp after joining,
depending on the average xp-level of your team
or on the xp of the last teammate in scoreboard.
Dunno exactly, but i know for sure that this is much more fun for late joining players! <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's the latejoin plugin (great ain't it?) Basically it gives you enough XP when you spawn so that your level is 75% that of the team average.
Much h8 for timelimit.
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without the time limit, most combat games would never end. have you ever played a single game of pub combat? very rarely does someone win before the time limit, because after 10-15 minutes everyone is level 10 and theres a massive stalemate. rines get locked inside base, and aliens cant finish them off because they dont have an entire team full of onos
This is just a side effect of xp for kills only (+ hive/cc damage), and I think it would be mitigated greatly with a sensible xp-for-damage system. Very little xp per point of damage (kills should still give much more) plus different scales for kharaa and marines (to account for health/damage rate issues, as an hmg can do an enourmous amount of damage per second compared to an onos/fade) seems about right.
edit: forgot to read the post above but this is also a exellent solution to the camping onos situation.
It seems rather unbalanced in late game, though early - mid game is still as fun as ever.
I hear alot of how people loved the epic battles before Beta 3 was released, but they like the timelimit in CO. Take the timelimit out, and let the stalemate stay. Marines should have to work together to kill an Onos, not rambo off and kill the odd one. Take out the timelimit in CO, and make some Marine upgrades cheaper and easier to get (e.g. equipment pack, cat+regen pack, quicker JP, etc). That should solve all your problems.