The problem I see is that if clan play is seen as the ultimate test of the game, NS1 fell badly short in that a lot of stuff never seemed to be used.
Sentrys/Chambers seem barely used as they are in publics. Onos seems inferior to Fade.
Surely if the game includes all that it does, they should be useful. If two teams were both skilled equally, then those with 'more' of one thing than the other 'should' be the winning team.
I think JPers should be made slower, but have a much longer burn time. So it becomes harder to avoid lerks, but skulks/gorges/fades will have a very difficult time. In NS1 there didn't seem to be a balance, it just seemed to be first team to get JPs/Fade.
Guys, have you forgotten there are Fades as well? OMG, Aliens have the most powerful 1 hit kill creatures, and you complain about 1 jetpack? Don't you want the marine to be armed with spoons as well?
NS1 and assume NS2 have pretty small areas, most of the time, the JP is to move faster rather than higher.
<!--quoteo(post=1801919:date=Oct 18 2010, 03:42 PM:name=hookuy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (hookuy @ Oct 18 2010, 03:42 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1801919"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Guys, have you forgotten there are Fades as well? OMG, Aliens have the most powerful 1 hit kill creatures, and you complain about 1 jetpack? Don't you want the marine to be armed with spoons as well?
NS1 and assume NS2 have pretty small areas, most of the time, the JP is to move faster rather than higher.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Fades are difficult to use against jetpackers. Takes a certain amount of skill to be able to acurately time a blink and in a split second also swipe at a fast moving marine. I won't pretend that I'm actually good at it - I'm not - and this is despite being a decent NS player who has played since one of the very early releases.
The situation is then compounded if you have more than one jetpacker. Fades are a hit-and-run class, they'll die pretty easily if there's more than a few marines around and the fade doesn't get out of there quickly. What on earth are you supposed to do if there's a group of jetpacked marines?
And the point wasn't about fades in the first place. It's that an Onos, which is meant to be the best alien unit, to our knowledge based on the details of NS2 we have so far, it looks like it's going to be easily killed by jetpackers because it has no abilities that counters them at all. Granted this might not be a big issue in small maps with low tunnels etc, but I'm sure we'll have bigger/better community maps after release, so this is bound to be an issue.
I don't think relying on teammates or small maps to avoid a top end unit having a fatal flaw are adequate solutions at all. That's just papering over the cracks, or finding a cheap workaround that devalues the game, rather than actually addressing the issue.
<!--quoteo(post=1792685:date=Aug 7 2010, 08:37 AM:name=Papayas)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Papayas @ Aug 7 2010, 08:37 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1792685"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I see but I am trying to say this from a 1 v 1 point of view. An Onos is supposed to die to about 3 marines not 1. There is nothing to really counter them when they are flying, only shooting them with the lerk.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Jetpacks were never a serious issue, even for an onos if the alien team could dictate where to fight.
In a decent game you usually had a HA train or a JP-rines going in to kill the 2nd hive which was often UP the time you arrived (unless the first 3 mins went really bad for aliens).
If the alien team waited inside the hive room they got either sieged by the HA train or the hive got gunned down by pesky JP rines because 90+% of hive rooms were extremely JP friendly. High ceilings and often enough vents to quickly enter and exit.
However if the alien team was able to catch the train/jp-rines en route to the hive the were often enough able to delay long enough for the 2nd hive to go up and then turn the game into an war of attrition with leap skulks becoming available.
The situations were jetpacks seemed overpowered always were a result from the alien team being extremely pressured and having no map control, which is fair I guess. Unfortunately aliens never profited from map control the same way rines did, but thats more related to the overall ressource model and the availability of lifeforms and abilities.
I also agree with the previous speaker: NS is not meant to be played 1 vs 1.
I want to add that we haven't seen all abilities of the new Alien Chambers yet and there might be something similiar to Web / Devour in it. Also UWE stated that they don't want a simple evolution game Pistol -> Rifle -> Shotgun -> Sniper -> Rocketlauncher -> LAZER but they want to be every class / weapon (even vanilla skulk and vanilla marine) to be viable choices on the battlefield even if it's the endgame. Ofcourse this can't be working that well imho, but every class / weapon should play it's role to counter (to some extend) other classes / weapons. I guess by saying that they also meant there should be no hard counters, like lets say Jetpack always wins against Onos, but Jetpack always dies against Fade ... we don't play Rock, Paper, Scissors (, Lizard, Spock).
<!--quoteo(post=1792685:date=Aug 7 2010, 08:37 AM:name=Papayas)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Papayas @ Aug 7 2010, 08:37 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1792685"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I see but I am trying to say this from a 1 v 1 point of view....<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1801945:date=Oct 19 2010, 10:02 AM:name=Faskalia)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Faskalia @ Oct 19 2010, 10:02 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1801945"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Did I miss something?
Jetpacks were never a serious issue, even for an onos if the alien team could dictate where to fight.
In a decent game you usually had a HA train or a JP-rines going in to kill the 2nd hive which was often UP the time you arrived (unless the first 3 mins went really bad for aliens).
If the alien team waited inside the hive room they got either sieged by the HA train or the hive got gunned down by pesky JP rines because 90+% of hive rooms were extremely JP friendly. High ceilings and often enough vents to quickly enter and exit.
However if the alien team was able to catch the train/jp-rines en route to the hive the were often enough able to delay long enough for the 2nd hive to go up and then turn the game into an war of attrition with leap skulks becoming available.
The situations were jetpacks seemed overpowered always were a result from the alien team being extremely pressured and having no map control, which is fair I guess. Unfortunately aliens never profited from map control the same way rines did, but thats more related to the overall ressource model and the availability of lifeforms and abilities.
I also agree with the previous speaker: NS is not meant to be played 1 vs 1.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well written and I completely agree. At least there are still a few among us old schoolers that can put the newbies straight "in a sense" :P
I'd like to address the title of this thread as invalid. Their are no smgs in NS2. Yes the NS1 "LMG" was a SMG, and NO the NS2 assault rifle is not a SMG.
Yes Jetpack + Assault Rifle + Tear gas + Other launchable spam = Dead alien team, and lets not forget what Jetpack + Flamethrower equals >:D
IMO, onos was pretty bad in NS1 once rines got some upgrades. Being slow, easy to hit, and not that durable were a bad combination. So, instead of jetpacks, I'd blame the poor design of onos. They never fixed it, so I suppose it's fully possible that a lone rine can still own a 100 res lifeform in NS2.
We will see if they ever publish it as a playable game.
I'd rather it wasn't a hard counter, the onos should at least be able to make the jetpacker go away if he's alone.
But yeah jetpacks are the counter to onoses (onoes? oni?) as they are the mobile marine, and mobility is the onoses weakness.
Contrariwise fades and lerks are the counter to jetpacks, as they nullify the mobility advantage, and heavy armor is often better for a fade.
With NS2 I would suggest that lerks and fades would be a counter to jetpacks, and onoses and skulks would be a counter to HA, skulks likely through numbers.
Of course with the new blink you might have it be fades and onoses are anti-HA due to being high damage/high endurance respectively, while skulks and lerks are anti JP due to mobility. I think the second one would actually be more interesting but that's just me.
Doesn't make that much sense, Onos is devastating against nearly everything on ground - why would it need an ability to counter/shoot jetpacks when you have lerks or skulks who do a much better job against them?
Also: If commanders research jetpack it's always a higher risk since you don't control AI units but rely on player's aiming and teamwork and jetpackers are more squishy than HA so it's not a really gamebreaking tech that has to be countered by all lifeforms
Comments
Sentrys/Chambers seem barely used as they are in publics.
Onos seems inferior to Fade.
Surely if the game includes all that it does, they should be useful. If two teams were both skilled equally, then those with 'more' of one thing than the other 'should' be the winning team.
I think JPers should be made slower, but have a much longer burn time. So it becomes harder to avoid lerks, but skulks/gorges/fades will have a very difficult time. In NS1 there didn't seem to be a balance, it just seemed to be first team to get JPs/Fade.
NS1 and assume NS2 have pretty small areas, most of the time, the JP is to move faster rather than higher.
NS1 and assume NS2 have pretty small areas, most of the time, the JP is to move faster rather than higher.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Fades are difficult to use against jetpackers. Takes a certain amount of skill to be able to acurately time a blink and in a split second also swipe at a fast moving marine. I won't pretend that I'm actually good at it - I'm not - and this is despite being a decent NS player who has played since one of the very early releases.
The situation is then compounded if you have more than one jetpacker. Fades are a hit-and-run class, they'll die pretty easily if there's more than a few marines around and the fade doesn't get out of there quickly. What on earth are you supposed to do if there's a group of jetpacked marines?
And the point wasn't about fades in the first place. It's that an Onos, which is meant to be the best alien unit, to our knowledge based on the details of NS2 we have so far, it looks like it's going to be easily killed by jetpackers because it has no abilities that counters them at all. Granted this might not be a big issue in small maps with low tunnels etc, but I'm sure we'll have bigger/better community maps after release, so this is bound to be an issue.
I don't think relying on teammates or small maps to avoid a top end unit having a fatal flaw are adequate solutions at all. That's just papering over the cracks, or finding a cheap workaround that devalues the game, rather than actually addressing the issue.
An Onos is supposed to die to about 3 marines not 1. There is nothing to really counter them when they are flying, only shooting them with the lerk.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
NS2 isnt being designed as a 1v1 game...
Jetpacks were never a serious issue, even for an onos if the alien team could dictate where to fight.
In a decent game you usually had a HA train or a JP-rines going in to kill the 2nd hive which was often UP the time you arrived (unless the first 3 mins went really bad for aliens).
If the alien team waited inside the hive room they got either sieged by the HA train or the hive got gunned down by pesky JP rines because 90+% of hive rooms were extremely JP friendly. High ceilings and often enough vents to quickly enter and exit.
However if the alien team was able to catch the train/jp-rines en route to the hive the were often enough able to delay long enough for the 2nd hive to go up and then turn the game into an war of attrition with leap skulks becoming available.
The situations were jetpacks seemed overpowered always were a result from the alien team being extremely pressured and having no map control, which is fair I guess. Unfortunately aliens never profited from map control the same way rines did, but thats more related to the overall ressource model and the availability of lifeforms and abilities.
I also agree with the previous speaker: NS is not meant to be played 1 vs 1.
Also UWE stated that they don't want a simple evolution game Pistol -> Rifle -> Shotgun -> Sniper -> Rocketlauncher -> LAZER but they want to be every class / weapon (even vanilla skulk and vanilla marine) to be viable choices on the battlefield even if it's the endgame.
Ofcourse this can't be working that well imho, but every class / weapon should play it's role to counter (to some extend) other classes / weapons.
I guess by saying that they also meant there should be no hard counters, like lets say Jetpack always wins against Onos, but Jetpack always dies against Fade ... we don't play Rock, Paper, Scissors (, Lizard, Spock).
There's your problem right there.
Game elements don't have to balance for 1v1.
Jetpacks were never a serious issue, even for an onos if the alien team could dictate where to fight.
In a decent game you usually had a HA train or a JP-rines going in to kill the 2nd hive which was often UP the time you arrived (unless the first 3 mins went really bad for aliens).
If the alien team waited inside the hive room they got either sieged by the HA train or the hive got gunned down by pesky JP rines because 90+% of hive rooms were extremely JP friendly. High ceilings and often enough vents to quickly enter and exit.
However if the alien team was able to catch the train/jp-rines en route to the hive the were often enough able to delay long enough for the 2nd hive to go up and then turn the game into an war of attrition with leap skulks becoming available.
The situations were jetpacks seemed overpowered always were a result from the alien team being extremely pressured and having no map control, which is fair I guess. Unfortunately aliens never profited from map control the same way rines did, but thats more related to the overall ressource model and the availability of lifeforms and abilities.
I also agree with the previous speaker: NS is not meant to be played 1 vs 1.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well written and I completely agree. At least there are still a few among us old schoolers that can put the newbies straight "in a sense" :P
Yes Jetpack + Assault Rifle + Tear gas + Other launchable spam = Dead alien team, and lets not forget what Jetpack + Flamethrower equals >:D
Alien BBQ obviously... do not forget to bring the sauce!
Flamethrowers alt fire is confirmed as the ability to point it downwards and fly around the room on jets of flame.
We will see if they ever publish it as a playable game.
But yeah jetpacks are the counter to onoses (onoes? oni?) as they are the mobile marine, and mobility is the onoses weakness.
Contrariwise fades and lerks are the counter to jetpacks, as they nullify the mobility advantage, and heavy armor is often better for a fade.
With NS2 I would suggest that lerks and fades would be a counter to jetpacks, and onoses and skulks would be a counter to HA, skulks likely through numbers.
Of course with the new blink you might have it be fades and onoses are anti-HA due to being high damage/high endurance respectively, while skulks and lerks are anti JP due to mobility. I think the second one would actually be more interesting but that's just me.
Also: If commanders research jetpack it's always a higher risk since you don't control AI units but rely on player's aiming and teamwork and jetpackers are more squishy than HA so it's not a really gamebreaking tech that has to be countered by all lifeforms