Whip Balance/bugs
Quovatis
Team Inversion Join Date: 2010-01-26 Member: 70321Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
Team Inversion Join Date: 2010-01-26 Member: 70321Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
<div class="IPBDescription">The Whip needs some tweaks</div>After playing the beta extensively over the weekend, I got to play with the Whip quite a bit. The Whip has a few issues.
First, the mele upgrades don't work if you upgrade to a mature whip. Doesn't make sense that you need a vanilla Whip to be able to upgrade anything (same goes for the crag).
Secondly, the skulk leap upgrade is broken. You can research it, but you don't get the full leap. The icon is of a harvester too, btw.
Balance-wise, the Whip needs to do MUCH more damage to marine structures. It is extremely weak. I try to put a few whips around to protect against ninja sentry drops, but it takes a full minute for a whip to take out a sentry, and a MAC can build a sentry to 90% before the Whip takes the MAC out. Increase the damage to structures by 3-4x. I thought the Whip should do more damage to structures and the hydra more to marines. But right now it seems the hydra is superior in both roles. The blog says the Whip is supposed to be able to attack more than one structure at a time, but don't think that's the case right now.
Also, the whip won't attack targets that are not on the same level as it. So all a marine has to do is jump on top of it, or get 2 inches below it and they can take it out without being attacked. Pretty lame way to lose a whip.
It's missing the uproot and bombard functions too, but I'm sure you know that.
First, the mele upgrades don't work if you upgrade to a mature whip. Doesn't make sense that you need a vanilla Whip to be able to upgrade anything (same goes for the crag).
Secondly, the skulk leap upgrade is broken. You can research it, but you don't get the full leap. The icon is of a harvester too, btw.
Balance-wise, the Whip needs to do MUCH more damage to marine structures. It is extremely weak. I try to put a few whips around to protect against ninja sentry drops, but it takes a full minute for a whip to take out a sentry, and a MAC can build a sentry to 90% before the Whip takes the MAC out. Increase the damage to structures by 3-4x. I thought the Whip should do more damage to structures and the hydra more to marines. But right now it seems the hydra is superior in both roles. The blog says the Whip is supposed to be able to attack more than one structure at a time, but don't think that's the case right now.
Also, the whip won't attack targets that are not on the same level as it. So all a marine has to do is jump on top of it, or get 2 inches below it and they can take it out without being attacked. Pretty lame way to lose a whip.
It's missing the uproot and bombard functions too, but I'm sure you know that.
Comments
In one game the whip killed a marine then continued to beat his corpse until the end of the game, I couldn't get it to stop in commander mode. It was built right next to a hive, not sure if that's relevant.
HAHAHAH
That's awesome.
In one game the whip killed a marine then continued to beat his corpse until the end of the game, I couldn't get it to stop in commander mode. It was built right next to a hive, not sure if that's relevant.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
having to wait after several years of development, wouldn't <i>you </i>want to continually beat a corpse the first time you kill a marine?
In one game the whip killed a marine then continued to beat his corpse until the end of the game, I couldn't get it to stop in commander mode. It was built right next to a hive, not sure if that's relevant.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
SHATNERS BASSOON!!! ROLFMAO!!!
Indeed, but the aliens have nothing to stop structures. A lame tactic I tried as marine was to research replicate, have a train of 4-5 MACs go repair the power node in a hive, then spam all the sentries with Replicate I could right next to the hive. The hive goes down in about 20 seconds. Nothing the aliens can do about it. If they bite down a sentry, I just replicate another one in its place. I had this done to me as the alien commander one time. I tried to defend against it with whips (3-4), but they didn't take down the sentries fast enough, and it takes 5 minutes for a whip to take out a power node again.
The only effective solution the aliens have right now is to spam some sort of structure (it doesn't matter what) to the left of the hives so there is no room for the sentries to warp in. This of course crashes the server.
Oh...I missed that. How do you do that?
That seems a little odd though. You should have that upgrade globally when the research is done, and not have to upgrade every time you die.
However, when I got those positions set up, they never broke past it until they got grenade launchers/flamethrowers. They pack a very heavy punch to them, especially when you force marines to be in range of two of them at a time. Combined with crags, they served as very effective stopping points for 4v4 games. However, I'm sure it'd be a little easier to run past them to shoot them with larger teams where more people can sacrifice themselves. Of course, that's assuming no aliens are nearby to defend.
<!--quoteo(post=1808643:date=Nov 22 2010, 12:53 PM:name=Quovatis)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Quovatis @ Nov 22 2010, 12:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1808643"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Bombard is a triggered ability. The aliens need a strong PASSIVE ability counter to ninja sentries.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Are you sure? I thought I remembered the tooltip indicated that the bombard was an upgrade for mature whips, like they would upgrade to bombard whips.
No static defense should be invulnerable, but neither should they be defenseless. Buff the attack area to about 1/2 an average room's diameter and we'll all be happy. They are commander placed murderous blender zones right now and that's awesome. They just need a little dev lovin' is all.
Their blog post for the Whip says Bombard is a triggered ability where the commander has to pick a target.
Like I said, something needs to be changed to protect the aliens from the replicate insta-win. That means making whips be able to take out sentries quickly, or nerf the replicate ability somehow, like making replicated structures take 10 seconds to become active. Right now it's pretty lame how you can place a sentry turret anywhere or the map that is already built and ready to fire. As it is right now, once the marines have 2 CCs and some resources, it's game over with replication spam--spam 4 sentries next to the hive, take the hive out, then put your own pre-built CC there with IPs. You can take out a hive and build an entire marine base there before the aliens can even get back to the hive to protect it! It's just a wee bit overpowered I'd say...
Whips should be able to take out a sentry turret in just 2 swipes. Perhaps tie-in the massive damage boost in with the mature whip upgrade so the aliens can't just plop down 4 whips in a marine base and insta-win themselves. Taking the time and resources to upgrade them should give the marines time to counter.
I have tried the whip-rush tactic myself, however. I had 4 drifters stationed close to the marine base, then built them all around the IPs and CC once the marines left. The marines have little chance once they are all up, as they die instantly after they spawn, and the commander dies too if he gets out. The defence against this is to have sentries in the base that kills the drifters before they change into whips. One marine can also take them out if he is in the area and out of the attack range.
Like I said, something needs to be changed to protect the aliens from the replicate insta-win. That means making whips be able to take out sentries quickly, or nerf the replicate ability somehow, like making replicated structures take 10 seconds to become active. Right now it's pretty lame how you can place a sentry turret anywhere or the map that is already built and ready to fire. As it is right now, once the marines have 2 CCs and some resources, it's game over with replication spam.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Could just make sentries impossible to replicate.
That's the easy fix and I think Unknown Worlds wants some of those right now.
<3 Devs!
Shouldn't taking out the hive room power node first thing in the game counter that? Put a whip next to the power node to clobber any MAC that tries to repair it.
Shouldn't taking out the hive room power node first thing in the game counter that? Put a whip next to the power node to clobber any MAC that tries to repair it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It still takes a whip 4 strikes to kill a MAC. If you have a train of 2-3 MACs, they will easily get the node up before getting destroyed, and the whip will take forever to take the node down again. In the starting hive, there is no power node, and sentries still work there. They said that's a bug and that they are making a portable power node for those situations. I just hope this portable power node can't be replicated...
Using Fury also makes those stacked whip attacks more deadly. And lockdown is definitely whip friendly (not so much tram). For example (attached), this combo will kill any marine coming through to hive before he can get into the main spawn, and unless he has nades and the aliens are totally asleep, they can't be easily taken out.
And yeah, crags supporting whips and hydras make it very tough for marines to advance. But as it is, you can win the game using replicate and never have to walk out of marine start.
I haven't really used replicate myself, but limiting it to a few meters from the original building and adding a global cooldown to replication should help. It might also be good to make sentries a little more expensive (maybe 10 res?)
Replication > i think replication should work only near CC... MAC sentry rush is very deadly.. Replic sentry rush blow aliens brains! :/ OR, replication structure should spend very big amount of res... that will be much more ballanced then.
I haven't really used replicate myself, but limiting it to a few meters from the original building and adding a global cooldown to replication should help. It might also be good to make sentries a little more expensive (maybe 10 res?)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
True. A replication rush takes a lot of resources, but it's still very effective.
BTW- the way replication works is you just click on a CC, select replicate, the unit you want, then click anywhere on the map to warp a pre-built one in. Like you, I assumed you needed to click on a structure, then replicate would only work a short distance around it. That's probably how it SHOULD work. That way you actually have to build at least one sentry. Observatories, CCs, and Harvesters would be exempted for obvious reasons.
Not sure I like the current system with the replication menu in cc and not in each building of that kind you wanna replicate, but if it stays in cc I guess it should require an instance of the building nearby.
About whips, I think they are awesome, not to good, nor to bad. The only thing they should get better at is killing buildings, altough if bombard will be good for that is enough (a ninja mac making sentry next to a whip should bring it down before getting whipped (pun intended), unless the alien commander pays attention.
Maybe also make whips and crags a little bit easyer to kill for the rines? Putting 3 crags and 2 whips creates an almost invulnerable forward base at marines second extractor on lockdown. Sure marines can kill stuff, but it takes so long time you can exit hive, gestate into fade and then go and kill with crag still having almost 20% left (1 rine used axe at a crag I hadnt covered with my whip :P).
Fair enough. tbh, though, I'm surprised it takes 4 hits to kill a MAC and only two for a marine. Just seems silly to have builders tougher than soldiers.
Remember of this thing: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/news/2010/6/damage_types_in_ns2" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/news/2010...ge_types_in_ns2</a>
Different damage types on different things in game...
Different damage types on different things in game...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Can't believe that blogpost actually links to sirloin...