Ns Game Pacing Is Screwed
BoddoZerg
Join Date: 2002-11-13 Member: 8380Members
Join Date: 2002-11-13 Member: 8380Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Its way too obvious</div> Oookay... I've played a lot of NS since v1.03, and the fixing of certain imbalances (Alien carapace bug and siege damage bug especially) has, sadly enough, severely exposed the fundamental problems with NS's game balance.
Everyone can relate to this, because we have all experienced it from playing the game. What do you call a 15 minute game? A Marine victory. What do you call a 1 hour game? An Alien victory. Marines have only one strategy - find the Hive, lock down an area right next to hive, build siege, win. They must do all this before the Aliens have a 2nd Hive. In contrast, the Aliens only need to contain and delay the Marines long enough for them to get that 2nd hive up, then steamroll the Marines with the Lerk/Fade combo.
The fundamental problem is that the Aliens don't have a viable ranged attacker at tier 1, but the Marines don't have a viable way to get resources at tier 2 and above. Yes, Skulks are deadly against small numbers of Marines, but when you have >4 Marines with good aim crouched in a hallway, all the Skulks in the world would do no good. (and many of the best places for sieging a hive are hallways that can be crouched in) All the Marines need to do is have 3 good players crouch and watch the entrances, while one other player builds the turret factory - once the turrets are up, you're screwed. As suicidal as it is to charge down a long hallway at 3 crouched marines, it's even worse to charge 3 marines and 5 turrets. What is needed is something that can attack those Marines from the other end of that hallway. "Lerks", you say, but we all know that spending 33 RP for a single-hive lerk is like stealing food out of your Gorges' mouths, delaying your all-important 2nd hive. IMHO, lerks seriously need to be changed. They should be cheaper for tier1 (A 15 RP lerk would be a worthy investment) but Umbra seriously needs to be nerfed - last night I was a fade standing in an Umbra (the lerk hiding behind me and umbraing) - I stood still, lobbing acid rockets, in full view of the Marines' main base, and destroyed their main base without moving an inch. Despite turrets firing constantly at a non-moving Fade for several minutes, I was barely even hurt. Umbra should be good, but not THAT good.
In contrast, once that 2nd hive is up, assuming the Marines haven't destroyed the first hive yet, the Aliens have an advantage. Marines pay dearly for any mistakes; a HA/HMG is too slow to run away from overwhelming attack, and they always run out of resources trying to supply HA and HMG. In contrast, a Fade can always run or Blink away when threatened, and even if he dies, Aliens usually have enough resources to replace him. The problem is that Aliens can easily eat resource towers, while Marines have the greatest difficulty killing alien resource towers - a lone Marine attacking a tower is guaranteed to get eaten by Skulks, while a lone Skulk attacking a tower may kill it before the Marines arrive. Aliens can afford to build resource towers with no Offense Chambers nearby, but a human Resource Tower without turrets is Skulk food. IMHO, alien resource towers should have *much* less HP to compensate for the ease with which they are defended - the resource balance in the late-game is often ridiculous; Aliens can easily get tons of Fades and Lerks and spend RP on Defense Chambers all over the map, but the humans can barely afford to equip two people with HA/HMG/Welder, and then they don't have the RP to build turrets.
Everyone can relate to this, because we have all experienced it from playing the game. What do you call a 15 minute game? A Marine victory. What do you call a 1 hour game? An Alien victory. Marines have only one strategy - find the Hive, lock down an area right next to hive, build siege, win. They must do all this before the Aliens have a 2nd Hive. In contrast, the Aliens only need to contain and delay the Marines long enough for them to get that 2nd hive up, then steamroll the Marines with the Lerk/Fade combo.
The fundamental problem is that the Aliens don't have a viable ranged attacker at tier 1, but the Marines don't have a viable way to get resources at tier 2 and above. Yes, Skulks are deadly against small numbers of Marines, but when you have >4 Marines with good aim crouched in a hallway, all the Skulks in the world would do no good. (and many of the best places for sieging a hive are hallways that can be crouched in) All the Marines need to do is have 3 good players crouch and watch the entrances, while one other player builds the turret factory - once the turrets are up, you're screwed. As suicidal as it is to charge down a long hallway at 3 crouched marines, it's even worse to charge 3 marines and 5 turrets. What is needed is something that can attack those Marines from the other end of that hallway. "Lerks", you say, but we all know that spending 33 RP for a single-hive lerk is like stealing food out of your Gorges' mouths, delaying your all-important 2nd hive. IMHO, lerks seriously need to be changed. They should be cheaper for tier1 (A 15 RP lerk would be a worthy investment) but Umbra seriously needs to be nerfed - last night I was a fade standing in an Umbra (the lerk hiding behind me and umbraing) - I stood still, lobbing acid rockets, in full view of the Marines' main base, and destroyed their main base without moving an inch. Despite turrets firing constantly at a non-moving Fade for several minutes, I was barely even hurt. Umbra should be good, but not THAT good.
In contrast, once that 2nd hive is up, assuming the Marines haven't destroyed the first hive yet, the Aliens have an advantage. Marines pay dearly for any mistakes; a HA/HMG is too slow to run away from overwhelming attack, and they always run out of resources trying to supply HA and HMG. In contrast, a Fade can always run or Blink away when threatened, and even if he dies, Aliens usually have enough resources to replace him. The problem is that Aliens can easily eat resource towers, while Marines have the greatest difficulty killing alien resource towers - a lone Marine attacking a tower is guaranteed to get eaten by Skulks, while a lone Skulk attacking a tower may kill it before the Marines arrive. Aliens can afford to build resource towers with no Offense Chambers nearby, but a human Resource Tower without turrets is Skulk food. IMHO, alien resource towers should have *much* less HP to compensate for the ease with which they are defended - the resource balance in the late-game is often ridiculous; Aliens can easily get tons of Fades and Lerks and spend RP on Defense Chambers all over the map, but the humans can barely afford to equip two people with HA/HMG/Welder, and then they don't have the RP to build turrets.
Comments
That's how it's supposed to be. If they have Umbra before you have grenade launchers, that's just too bad. Use mines or grenade launchers to take down a Fade in umbra.
If the aliens can contain them....they might as well rush in there and kill them too...
So pls don't fill the forums with your pet theories about 'how the game is' and 'that's the way it happens and always will happen', because it simply isn't true. People forget that in playing the game the gameplay itself has a big influence on the flow of the game, of course. But there is always a human factor which delivers an unending variety in the stream of rounds played.
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1.Not all will listen,so whole weight of team will get cut down.
2.It takes a while for the 2 resources every tick,to get 75 resources to build the seige at the hive,assuming that most of the resources are used up at the main base.
3.It is quite easy to kill building marines.
4.Lag will make you teleport on their screens,making you harder to hit.
5.Not all seige locations have hallways,and skulks can learn to flank.
Seiging rush is VERY risky.VERY.You can waste a ton of resources.
To be truthfuly,i have never seen a marine rush before.Its always get 2 hives,then we can relax a bit.
Thank you.
we eventually won kicking their sorry buts coz they could not take our resources and base due to the turret placements
That's how it's supposed to be. If they have Umbra before you have grenade launchers, that's just too bad. Use mines or grenade launchers to take down a Fade in umbra.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Too ture. A lot commanders underestimate the importance of the Grenade launcher. Instead they spam hmgs only to loose them to a fade in umbra. So a good advice: For every Hmg place 1 Gl too. Why?
1.) Grenades are not affected by umbra making it your favorite choice against those nasty lerks (lerk dies with 2 well placed nades)
2.) Splash damage. If there are 3 Fades and a lerk ALL of them get alot of damage while with HMG you can only hit one. Wipes out entire alien armys. Remember there is nothing that makes a alien retreat faster than those tiny cans flying in this direction. Every alien that played against a bunch of GL troops knows what i mean <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
3.) Walls of lame. Ever tried the GL against a wall of lame? A basic soldier can take them out easily lobbing a volley of grenades at them. They are useless against a GL because of splash damage. (Def CH. cant replace all that health so fast)
4.) With Gl you can shoot around corners getting that damn def chamber/lerk/retreating fade that hides there. Or just clear a room without exposing you to acid rockets. Aliens have no weapon that bounces off of walls.
5.) The aliens have no counter expect to rush the nader. Thats what the idle HMG trooper nearby is for.
6.) They are hive killers Hive is under attack.. our hive is diein... hive down.
Summary: As soon as aliens have the second hive up equip your troops with GL and add some HMGs to protect them and you can take out all their hives single handed. (Seen it many times) The GL is the difference between victory/defeat once aliens have the Fades/lerk combo. But with 1.03 its rare that aliens ever get a second hive up. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> (At least in the Coronas in space server where the skilled marines use to play <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> )
While this statement is true, it does not matter for the subject at hand.
Balance must always be discussed with the ideal game in mind, a game in which all players play perfectly.
That is why I value the opinions of highly competitive clan players most; their gameplay experience comes closest to the ideal game.
The late game makes it much too hard for Marines to win. Yes, you can get grenade launchers, and yes you can Siege crawl across the map. However, the Marines have extreme difficulty in obtaining enough resources to do this. To siege crawl, you need to progressively make siege bases all over the map, each one costing 150 resources or more. If you have the resources to build many siege outposts, and still equip Marines with HA and GL or HMG, the alien team is doing something wrong - they aren't attacking your resource nodes like they should. Problem is, it costs >100 resources (22 for node + 25 for tfac + 57 for 3 turrets) just to defend a single Resource Node (It'll take 10 minutes for that single Node to pay for itself), and two good Skulk players can eat 3 turrets with ease. In contrast, Alien resource nodes don't need defenses - Aliens move fast enough to come to the aid of any resource node under attack. Marines are forced to spend exorbitant amounts of money defending their resource nodes, and when all is said and done, their resource nodes die really fast anyways.
With that said, its easy to see the weakness of the Marine team. Sure, you should have GL tech by the time aliens have Umbra. But do you have the 33 resources to hand out GLs, and still have resources to give someone else HMG, and still have resources to build siege, and still have resources to upgrade? If you don't have enough resources, you might give a guy a GL, but everyone around him only has LMG, so the Fades simply melee your whole group to death. Or you might have a GL/HMG/HA combo that cuts through Fades like butter, but you've used so much resources you couldn't siege any of their Hives. GL is not the best weapon against Onos. Essentially, the late game Frontiersmen resource shortage means that their best chance of victory lies in rushing.
As for the Marine rush, I'm sure all of you Alien players have encountered this situation. You rushed the Marine base, you Parasited a few marines, you even contained them for a while. But next thing you know, they are camping right outside your one and only Hive - 3 or 4 Marines crouching, watching all the entrances, waiting for the resources to build a Turret Factory. You rush them - you die before getting within 10 yards. You get 4 Skulks together to rush them - now there's 4 Marines and 5 Turrets; you die before getting within 15 yards. You morph to a Lerk and have Skulks rush them while you shoot spikes - you might kill a Marine or two before they wipe the floor with your carcass. They probably have a Phase Gate there by now - the Marines reinforcements come instantaneously, while it takes more than a minute for all your dead Skulks to respawn. Next thing you know, it's the "Our Hive is Dying" message as two Siege Cannons pound mercilessly on your hive. Maybe your second Hive is building by now; it doesn't matter. Soon the Marines will have HMG and HA, and all the Skulks in the world will be of no use.
The reason Marines tend to have such good success rushing (albeit somewhat less sucess in public games where Marines won't stick together) is only because they have so little hope in the long run. The Frontiersmen late game is one of woeful resource shortage, so their best hope is to end the game quickly with a Siege rush, and the siege rush tends to work surprisingly well.
I'm not attempting to say that every game is a matter of "marines win in 15 minutes or aliens win in 1 hour". Of course not - the game is not <b>that</b> unbalanced. However, the sad fact is that it is in a competitive Marine team's best interests to end the game as soon as possible, while it is in a competitive Alien team's best interests to drag the game out longer. The pacing of the early game (Ranged attacks, Lerk expensiveness, slow Alien respawning) gives the advantage to the Frontiersmen, while the pacing of the late game (Weak resource towers, Lerk/Fade > Any Number Of Turrets, lack of resources for Marines) gives an advantage to the Kharaa. Although the game is quite a coherent and fun gameplay experience already, I think it would be even better if the game pacing was more even.
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Hardly, too many commanders fold when lerk/fades make an appearance. The game is far from over. About 90% of the games I have won as commander has been against 2 hives.