Balance, Balance, Balance . . .
Amante
Join Date: 2002-11-03 Member: 6528Members
Join Date: 2002-11-03 Member: 6528Members
<div class="IPBDescription">My (probably not shared) thoughts</div> I love the hell out of this game, I really do, but the more I play it, the more it rapidly becomes more and more apparent that the marines are way too powerful. It was, of course, at it's worst in 1.0, but even after the 1.01 changes and beyond, things <b>still</b> seem unbalanced. Which is not to say I've never seen aliens win or anything, but to be honest, I see marines win a LOT more, regardless of various variables (experience / skill of both teams, for example).
The main balance problems, in my opinion, are few, but the ones that do exist are quite large.
For example, the beginning of a game. It seems in more or less every single game of NS, whether the aliens will have a chance of winning or not is determined in the first 10 minutes. If they don't get up their second hive very quickly, they're more or less screwed, as they rapidly get turreted into oblivion (more on this later). The marines, on the other hand, are pretty combat ready from the beginning of the game (although this can vary a bit depending on the skill of the grunts involved), and just keep getting more and more powerful as time draws on. I mean, even the welder, if used properly, is able to do more damage than most of the alien melee attacks.
But the aliens . . . if they don't get that second hive quick (giving them fades and umbra, most importantly), or if their second hive is taken out, they're pretty much out of luck. By this time, even only semi-competent human teams will have walls of turrets up around the level, which are basically impossible to remove without a fade, and which chew up skulks and lerks in a couple of seconds flat (if even that). When it comes to taking out turrets . . . well, skulks are basically worthless against turrets as they can take very little damage before dying, and they have no ranged attacks (besides parasite, but that doesn't count, obviously).
As for lerks . . . yeah, you can chip away at their turrets slowly (those things have too much damn health) with your spikes, but it takes quite a while to take out a single turret (and most defensive emplacements have at least 3-4) . . . even longer if you don't have adreniline . . . which you might very not have, because most alien teams choose defensive chambers first (and rightfully so), being that it's the best bet at actually surviving the early game for various reasons. If you're lucky as a lerk, you can fly over some turrets and get in a position where they can't hit you and you can destroy the turret factory with your bite -- but that's rare, being that most commanders are smart enough to place turrets in a circle around the factory, not just on one side in a lopsided manner.
So if they were smart enough to place the turrets efficiently (which most commanders are), you're resorted to slowly poking the turrets to death with your spikes from afar -- which doesn't work very well by itself either if you're playing anything bigger then a 4 on 4 game or so, because then the law of averages comes into play and a marine is bound to wander by and beat the crap out of your lerk sooner or later (usually sooner).
So it basically comes down to the fact that unless the aliens get the second hive REAL quick (easier said then done for a variety of reasons), they get stuck in a downward spiral for the rest of the game where the humans keep getting more and more powerful and they struggle to stay alive, barely able to expand past the clusters of marine turrets, and definitely unable to actually go toe to toe with them in combat.
And then of course there's the siege turrets -- which aren't as huge a problem as many people say, but don't help matters at all.
Which reminds me of something the devil's advocates just love to trumpet. "Well, this is a different game then most. . . you can't just play the aliens normally and expect to win. You have to use all of their unique abilities, run on the walls, etcetc. If you can't handle that, go back to CS, blahblahblahblah". While some of that may be true, that presents another point. If the average player has a tough time understanding how to play aliens effectively, then the game design has failed, in a way. As it is now, most people flock to marines, leaving the people who weren't quick enough to go to aliens . . . only about half of who are probably experienced / smart enough to play the aliens properly. What is the answer to this problem (which most people probably don't even think exists, but does in my opinion)? I have no idea. But I do have some other ideas of how to help the game be a bit more balanced . . .
First of all, change the basic marine turrets somehow. As they are now, they're way too powerful. They do overwhelming damage against basically anything short of fade or onos, there's no restriction on how many of them can be placed in an area (or at all for that matter), and they're hard as hell to destroy, again, for anything short of fade or onos. The turret factory being disabled stopping all surrounding turrets was a good start (the game was unbearably impossible to play as aliens before then), but not enough. I don't think they need to be nerfed, but they need to be toned down in at least ONE way: anything from them doing less damage, to them not being so hard to destroy (or of course, a restriction on how many can be placed in an area, like the alien ones). I know they're supposed to be more powerful then the alien ones, since they have to be placed by the commander and then built by a marine, but come on, this is ridiculous. As for the siege turrets, I actually think they're fine the way they are now -- just that the aliens need something of their own as an equivilent.
Another change would be making it so bile bombs don't suck so much. You have to wait till practically endgame (3 hives) to get them, and yet they end up being so incredibly underwhelming. I don't know if it's the hit detection on them or the damage they do (or both), but they end up falling very short. So either beef up their effectiveness, or make them available at, say, 2 hives.
Last by not least, the just added change (in 1.03) that makes it so aliens take constant damage every few seconds if they don't have a hive. The idea is in the right place (preventing long, drawn out endgames where some cowardly alien hides in a vent), but the execution leaves much to be desired. How to fix it? Many solutions have been suggested, from adding the ability to vote a player off, to making it so when the aliens have no hives, they can be seen on the map by the commander after a short time (the theory being that the nano gridlock would be removed because the hives are gone). There's plenty of usable solutions for that problem, so I won't go into it further.
Anyway, I know this has been a long post, so I'm basically wrapping it up. I didn't cover everything, but I covered more then enough, as I'm sure most of you will probably attest to. Thanks to anyone who actually read this far, and please keep the criticism constructive (no, "u fag alianz r not weak!!@!" or "I see aliens win all the time so they are perfectly fine the way they are!" please).
Sincerely,
Amante
The main balance problems, in my opinion, are few, but the ones that do exist are quite large.
For example, the beginning of a game. It seems in more or less every single game of NS, whether the aliens will have a chance of winning or not is determined in the first 10 minutes. If they don't get up their second hive very quickly, they're more or less screwed, as they rapidly get turreted into oblivion (more on this later). The marines, on the other hand, are pretty combat ready from the beginning of the game (although this can vary a bit depending on the skill of the grunts involved), and just keep getting more and more powerful as time draws on. I mean, even the welder, if used properly, is able to do more damage than most of the alien melee attacks.
But the aliens . . . if they don't get that second hive quick (giving them fades and umbra, most importantly), or if their second hive is taken out, they're pretty much out of luck. By this time, even only semi-competent human teams will have walls of turrets up around the level, which are basically impossible to remove without a fade, and which chew up skulks and lerks in a couple of seconds flat (if even that). When it comes to taking out turrets . . . well, skulks are basically worthless against turrets as they can take very little damage before dying, and they have no ranged attacks (besides parasite, but that doesn't count, obviously).
As for lerks . . . yeah, you can chip away at their turrets slowly (those things have too much damn health) with your spikes, but it takes quite a while to take out a single turret (and most defensive emplacements have at least 3-4) . . . even longer if you don't have adreniline . . . which you might very not have, because most alien teams choose defensive chambers first (and rightfully so), being that it's the best bet at actually surviving the early game for various reasons. If you're lucky as a lerk, you can fly over some turrets and get in a position where they can't hit you and you can destroy the turret factory with your bite -- but that's rare, being that most commanders are smart enough to place turrets in a circle around the factory, not just on one side in a lopsided manner.
So if they were smart enough to place the turrets efficiently (which most commanders are), you're resorted to slowly poking the turrets to death with your spikes from afar -- which doesn't work very well by itself either if you're playing anything bigger then a 4 on 4 game or so, because then the law of averages comes into play and a marine is bound to wander by and beat the crap out of your lerk sooner or later (usually sooner).
So it basically comes down to the fact that unless the aliens get the second hive REAL quick (easier said then done for a variety of reasons), they get stuck in a downward spiral for the rest of the game where the humans keep getting more and more powerful and they struggle to stay alive, barely able to expand past the clusters of marine turrets, and definitely unable to actually go toe to toe with them in combat.
And then of course there's the siege turrets -- which aren't as huge a problem as many people say, but don't help matters at all.
Which reminds me of something the devil's advocates just love to trumpet. "Well, this is a different game then most. . . you can't just play the aliens normally and expect to win. You have to use all of their unique abilities, run on the walls, etcetc. If you can't handle that, go back to CS, blahblahblahblah". While some of that may be true, that presents another point. If the average player has a tough time understanding how to play aliens effectively, then the game design has failed, in a way. As it is now, most people flock to marines, leaving the people who weren't quick enough to go to aliens . . . only about half of who are probably experienced / smart enough to play the aliens properly. What is the answer to this problem (which most people probably don't even think exists, but does in my opinion)? I have no idea. But I do have some other ideas of how to help the game be a bit more balanced . . .
First of all, change the basic marine turrets somehow. As they are now, they're way too powerful. They do overwhelming damage against basically anything short of fade or onos, there's no restriction on how many of them can be placed in an area (or at all for that matter), and they're hard as hell to destroy, again, for anything short of fade or onos. The turret factory being disabled stopping all surrounding turrets was a good start (the game was unbearably impossible to play as aliens before then), but not enough. I don't think they need to be nerfed, but they need to be toned down in at least ONE way: anything from them doing less damage, to them not being so hard to destroy (or of course, a restriction on how many can be placed in an area, like the alien ones). I know they're supposed to be more powerful then the alien ones, since they have to be placed by the commander and then built by a marine, but come on, this is ridiculous. As for the siege turrets, I actually think they're fine the way they are now -- just that the aliens need something of their own as an equivilent.
Another change would be making it so bile bombs don't suck so much. You have to wait till practically endgame (3 hives) to get them, and yet they end up being so incredibly underwhelming. I don't know if it's the hit detection on them or the damage they do (or both), but they end up falling very short. So either beef up their effectiveness, or make them available at, say, 2 hives.
Last by not least, the just added change (in 1.03) that makes it so aliens take constant damage every few seconds if they don't have a hive. The idea is in the right place (preventing long, drawn out endgames where some cowardly alien hides in a vent), but the execution leaves much to be desired. How to fix it? Many solutions have been suggested, from adding the ability to vote a player off, to making it so when the aliens have no hives, they can be seen on the map by the commander after a short time (the theory being that the nano gridlock would be removed because the hives are gone). There's plenty of usable solutions for that problem, so I won't go into it further.
Anyway, I know this has been a long post, so I'm basically wrapping it up. I didn't cover everything, but I covered more then enough, as I'm sure most of you will probably attest to. Thanks to anyone who actually read this far, and please keep the criticism constructive (no, "u fag alianz r not weak!!@!" or "I see aliens win all the time so they are perfectly fine the way they are!" please).
Sincerely,
Amante
Comments
It's not that hard to take out turret factories with a skulk, just takes a few times (but remember, skulks are FREE).
Lerks are useless until umbra, I have no idea why you're wasting 33 rp on them when you only have one hive.
Basically, what you're trying to say is that the first 10 minutes determine the outcome of the game. And I agree with that, just don't know how it makes the game unbalanced.
As for turrets, i believe that they're just right. Any weaker and they'd really be useless, as their accuracy and RoF aren't that great. This is extremely noticable in most cases where you only have to take out 1 or 2 turrets before you can start chomping on the factory with impunity. You really have to keep in mind that the starting classes on BOTH sides are supposed to be the weakest, so it'd really make no sense if a skulk could take them out as though they were papier mache. I think the main thing is that skulks need to be less worried about giving their life to take one down to half health or so. Kind of a team effort thing, which is what the game's about, even on the alien side. Lerks, well... you can't really expect to go filling things full of holes with an attack that does 16 damage per shot.
Plus, marines would really be pretty screwed if they were any weaker. Turrets DO need to be limited in some way, but weakening them would really be counter-productive in that goal. Since turrets are already reasonably easy to take out and/or disable, making them weaker would just make it necessary for the commander to build MORE in order to cover anything decently.
Aliens are dependant on getting a 2nd hive, but likewise, marines are dependant on getting HMGs and HA. Really, if the aliens WEREN'T dependant on getting a second hive, most games would last about 5 minutes each and be nothing but "zerg rushes". It works both ways, really. If the marines don't expand and take RPs and hives themselves, they end up on just as much of a downward spiral.
<b>Public servers</b>
- Lack of teamwork (going into battle all alone is a bad idea)
- Heavily fluctuating player numbers (teams are rarely balanced in numbers)
- Unequal distribution of either newcomers, veterans and morons between teams
(teams are rarely balanced in skill)
<b>It's not as easy to succeed as marine as you think it is...</b>
Reading your essay also gave me the impression that you never really tried
to play on the marine team for an extended period of time.
<b>"As for the siege turrets, I actually think they're fine the way they are now --
just that the aliens need something of their own as an equivilent."</b>
I think the fact that lerk spores penetrate walls as well, pretty much measures
up to the siege cannons ability to shoot through walls. Think about it.
<b>"Another change would be making it so bile bombs don't suck so much."</b>
<!--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--><b>Flayra - </b>Fixed explosion bug where siege cannons, bilebombs, grenades and
xenocide weren't doing damage properly (this broke in v1.02).<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>What you really seek is more Teamwork</b>
You should really try to get access to a password protected server.
Maybe by applying as a tryout for a clan.
Believe me, the game is much more balanced on a server with teams
of equal skills and wits.
Lerks are useless until umbra, I have no idea why you're wasting 33 rp on them when you only have one hive.
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you are so so wrong my friend, they are not useless, infact you can kill as many or as more with a lerk as a skulk..depending on skill of course.
In the first 10 minutes of the game, I've seen more Alien rushes than Marine rushes. And most of those rushes have been successful in either A) lowering morale, making players get edgey and careless or B) actually destroying the Marine base, killing infantry portals or the comm chair.
Turrets are meant to be a deterrent. I've seen Alien Offense chambers, Defense chambers and Webbing being used with the same effect, and Alien D chambers can heal the O's, and none are dependent upon a 'factory'.
The Welder is not a melee weapon. Sure, it works, but it is not very reliable. I've seen 1 or 2 welder kills in all my time as an NS player (since release). Compare that to the other Alien melee attacks... Fade slash, Skulk or Lerk or Onos bite, etc.
Trust me, Marines are not overpowered. Most games I've played in are won by two things: splash damage from Fade acid rockets or bile bombs and the Lerk's spores covering the spawn base. Onos come in to tidy things up at the end. The Marines on the other hand only have ONE area-effect/splash-damage weapon that is man-portable: the grenade launcher. Otherwise they have to use Sieges which are slow and costly.
If anything, between a solo fully-upgaded Marine and a solo fully-upgraded Fade, the Fade will win. Fades can attack from a distance, can retreat quickly, can wipe you up with the melee attack, and can regenerate. I haven't seen many HA/HMG's win out against a Fade mano e mano, and one on one is how things come down more often than not. :/
Frankly, in a one-gorge, no-lerk, smart-skulk game, the gorge will drop 3 resource towers and then hit hyper production at about 7-8 minutes. At which time you are in the second hive location and earning about 80 resource per minute. Just start building the hive and defenses, then move to front, splat down some more defs and the move chamber, zip back to the hives, splat down two more move chambers. All done by 10 minutes, about.
Even one extra gorge will screw up the timeing pretty badly. I usually ask for no gorges and no lerks until second hive is building.
it is all about skulk/gorge tactics. containment, resource securing. and climbing that tech tree ASAP.
i was actually wondering how do marine win... given some skilled skulks. seems like the comm is constantly wasting resources on tfacs/rez towers taht get chomped to bits.
Turrets are no match for actual man firepower.
But yea, I was a lone skulk versus 3 marines(very beginning of the game) and I almost killed them all.... it was funny.... their commander surprised me when he came out.....
but we didn't get our second hive up for a while. You just need to attack and force the marines onto the defensive. Then they spend points and time in their base and can't get up the tree really fast. Once HA hits the scene it gets a little more intense.
This is a flawed premise, utterly untrue. Quite a few players out there, myself included, go _hunting turret farms as skulks, with nothing more than carapace, if that.
Aliens too weak, marines too strong? My experience is just the opposite. Its far more likely that a pub server marine team will lack the elements they need to win, elements that you can't build into any game. Teamwork, speed, intelligence. If the marines have those, then life is rough for the aliens.
But how often do you see that on the pubs?
anyway what happens if the marines split up into four. one group goes to a hive. the other group goes to a hive. another group stays at base. the other group go out and attack the main base. PATHETIC that is an instant win for marines. what is the outcome of this huh? <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> DEAD TEAM i am so **obscenity** off the way aliens have been weakened. Or is it the f***** marines that have the SIEGE TURRET i hate that u can just go behind a hive wall, build a turret factory, upgrade it and build siege cannon we lose
In the next 5 mins we chomped every single base on the whole map, after those cool 5 mins we holded the 2 hives and half of the resources..... after that we got fades and we sieged them, with some skulk rushes, until we killed the hive base, then we all went onos and killed all of them....
Never underestimate the power of a skulk, they look like a little dog, but they can bite harder than a crocodrile.... and they have the speed of a fckin ferrari.
If marines fail to rush quickly enough, they have a very hard time.
anyway what happens if the marines split up into four. one group goes to a hive. the other group goes to a hive. another group stays at base. the other group go out and attack the main base. PATHETIC that is an instant win for marines. what is the outcome of this huh? <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> DEAD TEAM i am so **obscenity** off the way aliens have been weakened. Or is it the f***** marines that have the SIEGE TURRET i hate that u can just go behind a hive wall, build a turret factory, upgrade it and build siege cannon we lose<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've seen 2 skulks go though a team of 5 lmg marines like butter, if you've got regen and know the fun lil places to jump marines from the skulks are wonderful. If ppl feel that 1st hive creatures are too weak its becuase you don't work in teams and haven't played enough. Also if a marine team can rush (that means leaving base almost immediately) then they probably don't have the res. to build a well defended turret fac a few turrets and a seige. And if the aliens are lazy enough to allow marines to get those res. that fast then its their own damn fault.
anyway what happens if the marines split up into four. one group goes to a hive. the other group goes to a hive. another group stays at base. the other group go out and attack the main base. PATHETIC that is an instant win for marines. what is the outcome of this huh? <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> DEAD TEAM i am so **obscenity** off the way aliens have been weakened. Or is it the f***** marines that have the SIEGE TURRET i hate that u can just go behind a hive wall, build a turret factory, upgrade it and build siege cannon we lose<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've seen 2 skulks go though a team of 5 lmg marines like butter, if you've got regen and know the fun lil places to jump marines from the skulks are wonderful. If ppl feel that 1st hive creatures are too weak its becuase you don't work in teams and haven't played enough. Also if a marine team can rush (that means leaving base almost immediately) then they probably don't have the res. to build a well defended turret fac a few turrets and a seige. And if the aliens are lazy enough to allow marines to get those res. that fast then its their own damn fault.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yea, can't agree more. The winning strategy from the commanders relies on lazy aliens that allows the commanders to get cheap resources. If a resources is held by a marine or two, parasite them and call in your friend, overrun them and chomp.
If its held by a TF only, either chomp em up yourself or call for a backup .. two skulks can take down even a quad TF in one go by locking up a turret each.
Yea, requires smart skulks. Yea, if the commander has a clue, the aliens have to have one as well.
It's called balance. If all the smarts are on the other side, your side will loose.
human teams will have walls of turrets up around the level, which are basically impossible to remove without a fade, and which chew up skulks and lerks in a couple of seconds flat (if even that).
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I can hold the Holoroom with a lvl 1 lerk till marines get JP.
Sitting over the door, the marines cant kill if you crouch in the corner.(and they seldom notice you are up there at all)
And the turrets under you dont hit you very well, so you can easily take out the TF..if the holoroom is theirs
Make Blink the 1 hive skill, Bile the 2 hive, and Acid Rocket the 3.
That'd make the Adren obsessives slow down to get Movement chambers, encourage more playing of the Fade as in it's background, give the aliens an earlier anti farm weapon (maybe lower the damage vs troops too) and require minimal coding from Flayra & Co.
What does everyone else think?
You forgot to mention that they die as easily as a skulk. So for 33 rp, you can kill on-par with a skulk and die on-par with them too. Only thing 1-hive lerks do is cripple the team's economy, the gorge on the team will not be able to get rp fast enough to secure/build second hive.
Another thing I have noticed is that the outcome of the game is usually decided in the first 10 minutes. The marines get HMG, but by 10 minutes the aliens don't have a second hive. <b>GAME OVER. </b>Might be some dillydallying, but the time the skulks waste in trying to kill 1 hmg marine at a time, the commander gets them HA, and that's even more game over-ing.
I support a resource cap for the marines and also a feature that makes resource nodes run out after a while.
Make Blink the 1 hive skill, Bile the 2 hive, and Acid Rocket the 3.
That'd make the Adren obsessives slow down to get Movement chambers, encourage more playing of the Fade as in it's background, give the aliens an earlier anti farm weapon (maybe lower the damage vs troops too) and require minimal coding from Flayra & Co.
What does everyone else think?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It sounds insteresting. It's too bad you don't get fades at 1 hive because having to play with only slash+teleport would make encourage people to play fades the way their behavior is described in the manual... but of course being a Fade while only 1 hive is up is rare.
Acid rocket does less overall damage. If they switched the order of weapons, they'ed have to make the acid rocket stronger and the bile bomb weaker. Acid rocket does double damage vs players, while bile bomb does double damage to structures. Do you really want to take out structures in early game, and worry about players at a longer range in late game? Do you really want to wait that long for an effective ranged combat weapon? Do you really think Bile Bomb would be as useful if it were a weaker attack than Acid Rocket?
Some things to think about. I still find the idea interesting.
And for gods sake, fix the seige cannon so it doesn't look like its firing when its really not!
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However, one thing I'm realizing more and more is that a lot of the balance problem stems from teamplay, or lack thereof. This doesn't mean that there's nothing the devteam can do about it, though, as it is still a problem of balance, teamplay related or not. Allow me to explain.
First things first . . . the human team is a bit easy to play. Before you guys jump on me and bite my head off (I've played marines too, and I know it can be damn hard) I'll clarify what I mean: It's a lot easier to get into and understand. Any average player who's played a decent amount of CS and who can take orders decently, will do excellent on the marine team. And herein lies the problem . . . the marines are just plain more <b>accessible</b>.
Most people are afraid to play on the alien team -- because they have no idea of how to, and it's unfamilar to them. This leads to the human team filling up right away at the beginning, leaving the rest of the people who end up joining the alien team, either not really interested in playing the alien team, or inexperienced at playing it.
And because people cling to the familar, this creates a problem. Most people who play on the alien team are quite competent, and skilled at FPSes. But they have no idea of how to play the aliens, or the right mindset to use. This leads the early game inbalance that I described in my original post above. Head to head, at the very beginning of a game, LMG marines can kill a skulk easily, as they are rather frail. Obviously, the solution is to play a different way and use the skulk's 'unique' playing style -- climbing walls, sneaking up on your prey, and so forth. But most players being seasoned veterans of vanilla FPSes like CS or Quake 3, don't understand this. So they rush straight at the marines instead of using the unique talents of the skulk, and more times then not, they die. Not only does this affect them and their morale, but this affects their team -- the humans continue to advance and the aliens are steadily losing power.
So unless the aliens get a second hive quick (giving them the fade, a fairly conventional heavy assault type class), people are stuck with skulks and lerks, neither of which are really that conventional or easy to play without practice. This leads them to be slaughtered, and subsequently, causes the aliens to lose a lot more then most people think.
Furthermore, the humans have the commander, who they are <b>forced</b> to cooperate with, or fail. Even the dumbest of people usually figure this out pretty quick, being that if they want health, ammo, or anything past an LMG, they need to do as the commander says. On the alien side, however, things are much more 'independent' -- people usually do their own thing, and a lot of time not for the better of the team, dooming the rest of the team. And since the subjects of this point I'm trying to make are your average, run of the mill players, a lot of the time they'll refuse to take any suggestions on what they should be doing for the good of the team, responding with a comment usually somewhat akin to, "fuk u, i can play gorge even if we alredy have 3 if i want 2!!#!@". That lack of a single driving cooperative force, combined with how 'alien' (pun fully intended) it is playing the Khaara due to the different mindset they require, dooms the aliens quite often.
Yes, this could be more or less solved by playing with experienced and skilled players, like on private and/or clan servers, but that's beside the point. The point is that this is a mod released to the public, and meant to be played by the public -- not the most experienced and/or brightest of the population (which really are a minority).
So this leaves a large problem, in my opinion. And to be honest, I have no idea how to solve it. It'd be nice if the aliens had a commander of sorts (a queen?), but I know the point of them not having one is to make them not be a boring clone of the humans, but their own interesting race in their own right. And I respect that. But right now that's really making things one sided on a lot of the public servers. Misguided changes like the "if aliens have no hives, they take continuous damage" don't help things any more either.
In my opinion, a few general accessiblity / balance changes for the aliens could help at least remedy some of these problems detailed above. My suggestions are as follows:
<b>Skulk Bite Tweaks</b>: More aureal and visual (especially visual) feedback on when you hit, and/or (preferably and) a <b>slight</b> change in the bite animation to make it less visually obtrusive.
<b>Fade Skill Order</b>: Changing the order in which Fades get skills could help some things a lot. Making the order be (from 0 hives to 3 hives) "Claws, Blink, Bile Bomb, Acid Rocket" or something similar would be nice, as it would, as suggested in an earlier post by someone else, both stop marine turret clusters from being as absurdly powerful as they are, <b>and</b> encourage people to play more in the 'mindset' of the Fade as outlined in the manual and other places. To be honest, however . . . I have yet to test Bile Bombs in 1.03 yet, in which they were supposedly 'fixed', so I am not sure if they are more effective now (they were near worthless before, most of the time, it seemed to me). I'll test 'em out in 1.03 when I get the chance, but I'm not holding my breath -- supposedly 1.02 'broke' them, but I remember them sucking all the way back to 1.0 and 1.01.
<b>Continuous Damage to Aliens</b>: This has been discussed much already so I'll try to keep it short. Suffice to say that the idea is in the right place (stopping cheesy losers from hiding in hard to find and/or inaccessable areas to hold up the game, possibly indefiniately, when no hives remain). I have no respect for people who do this (someone on our team did this a few days back and me and our whole team helped the marine team find him as he was ruining the game for everyone), but punishing the entire alien team for the lameness of a single member is pointless. Many alternate fixes have been suggested -- from allowing the position of all aliens to be seen on the commander's map when or shortly after the last hive is destroyed, to allowing the ability to vote players off so that if a player was doing it, they could be kicked -- I'm happy with either solution personally, I just know it needs to be changed.
And that wraps up another longwinded post. Thanks to all who have bothered to reply thus far, even the ones with knee-jerk, dev defending reactions. Keep it coming, guys.
Sincerely,
Amante
By making Blink 1 hive req, it means you'd never lose it until you'd lost all hives, so more blinki operation would occur, which would be nice. Also, I find too many fellow Fades (and this has happened a LOT) insiste on 'firefights' which they're NEVER GOING TO WIN.
I've sat, and watched 3 fades chuck acid at 3 HA/HMG's, and complain how they're not dying. Eventually, 1 died and the other two backed down, and then (by playing in the Fade 'mindset') I got to kill two because they came happilty steaming around the corner, and I meleed them before they could react properly. If you use each HA as a shield from his friends, 3 HA/HMGs in effect is just like fighting maybe 1 1/2 HA/HMG's, as they keep hitting each other.
Also, the Bile being 3rd (swapped with Acid) would stop 'Bob The Builder' comms, who chuck up 20 sentries and 4 sieges at like every intersection, and encourage them to use the marines as something more than a SCV from Starcraft! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Realistically I want to see Turret limits for both Aliens and Marines, and get the game back to being played by players and not NPC machines. Like 6 turrets at MOST per info_location, including seiges.
It would be nice to see a way to counter the building spam marines have early on.
<b>I think modifying NS to attune it to the 'moronic masses'</b>
is exactly what will take all the originality and excitement away
from the game (at least for me).
<b>Somehow I get the feeling people are ignoring one very important fact:</b>
This mod is still <i>very</i> young. It'll take time until the player community
has aquired the knowledge it takes to play the game as it was intended.
<b>I also tried to think about the theory that the aliens are harder to learn</b>
To me this would basically mean if 'NS Alien vs Alien' would be invented,
it wouldn't be played by anyone in the long term.
I disagree for several reasons (at least all these things made it fun for me as a beginner-alien):
- Skulks are an excellent way to learn the maps
- Lerks have a <i>built in</i> jetpack!
- You can morph back and forth between forms
if you're not happy with the one you tried
- You've got those tiny lil messages explaining
the game to you pretty well
<b>I always played alien since 1.0 and never had any problems with it</b>
In fact there was quite a period of time (mainly when 1.02 was fresh) when
there was a huge problem with too big alien teams and marine teams having
the 'player dropping sickness'. This slowly changed when the marines started
to really learn how to play marines.
<b>I just think we should give 1.03 more time and talk
again about this in a week or two.</b>
Also do not forget: There <i>will</i> be a 'NS Hazard Course' in the future!!
<b>Public servers will always have the problem</b> that there'll be
experienced players, who play to win...
...and inexperienced players who play to learn.
I think it is a problem that <i>every</i> mod has and I am pretty sure it can't
be solved by tweaking things to death.
Edit: I hope I'm not too stubborn/conservative on this point. <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
I love this mod, I really do, despite the balance problems I think exist. I'm glad they update it all the time to fix bugs and such too.
As I don't want to be a total blockhead, I forced my positronic matrix to
switch into compromise mode (dunno how long it'll last, though) <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
<i><b>Skulk Bite Tweaks:</b> More aureal and visual (especially visual) feedback
on when you hit, and/or (preferably and) a slight change in the bite animation
to make it less visually obtrusive.</i>
I would agree to have a sound that lets you know that your bite is actually hitting
(should be different sounds for different materials). But more than that would be
simply too much imo.
<i><b>Fade Skill Order:</b> Making the order be (from 0 hives to 3 hives)
"Claws, Blink, Bile Bomb, Acid Rocket" or something similar would be nice.</i>
I would offer this compromise instead: (from 0 hives to 3 hives) "Claws, Blink,
Acid Rocket, Bile Bomb" (lol I hope that's not the default, I'm a bit tired here).
The AR should come before the bile bomb under any circumstances imo.
(Acid rocked is VERY effective when shooting against the ceiling above your targets
doing good area damage to all targets nearby [much like the pukey-fish in op4])
<i><b>Continuous Damage to Aliens:</b> ...but punishing the entire alien team for the
lameness of a single member is pointless. Many alternate fixes have been suggested:
<b>a)</b> Allowing the position of all aliens to be seen on the commander's
map when or shortly after the last hive is destroyed.
<b>b)</b> Allowing the ability to vote players off so that if a player was doing it,
they could be kicked.</i>
I'd vote for <b>a)</b>. This should go for both sides: Hiding Marines should
show up as yellow circle on the hivesight and hiding aliens as blue circles
on the marine's sensors.
<i><b>'Alpha Male':</b> Also, it'd be nice if there could be something like the
commander on the alien side -- but in it's own flavor. Perhaps something
like the 'alpha male'? Whoever has most kills or something like that would
become the alpha male, and it would be a badge of honor signifiying that
the lesser aliens should listen to his suggestions.</i>
This is the only thing were I have to object. I think it is one of the few
similarities with regular mods the alien side should retain. The aliens
must act as a collective... or die.
The commander is one of the few things that makes the marines unique.
Don't take it from them. It would be just a step towards homogenisation.
I also fail to see how that 'alpha person' should be determined:
size of genitals (joke) <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->, number of kills, time spent on the server,
being admin on the server? How?
I wouldn't listen to anybody because of that! No one listens to a crappy
commander either, if he talks crap - he gets voted out.
I hope those compromise offers of mine are somehow bareable to you all
Realistically I want to see Turret limits for both Aliens and Marines, and get the game back to being played by players and not NPC machines. Like 6 turrets at MOST per info_location, including seiges.
It would be nice to see a way to counter the building spam marines have early on.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Turrets aren't hard to take out at all. If it's early, then they won't have enough resources to put too many up and it's just a matter of circle strafing the turret factory (or better yet, find a safe spot to hide from the turrets). Once two hives go up, umbra.
On the bright side, I just had a nice 3 on 3 game with my team (the aliens) firmly trouncing the marines. I went gorge while the other two went around killing marines and impeding their process. Worked wonderfully. I still wish a few small changes would be made though. But NS is a great game nonetheless. I've always thought that, even during 1.0, when playing aliens was like pulling teeth.