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Join Date: 2010-07-25 Member: 72801Members
Join Date: 2010-07-25 Member: 72801Members
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Marines seem quite OP now? or is it just me?
Also, we had 1 marine in the hive... he just kept killing the eggs and no one could respawn. Got quite boring sitting there watching him! Can't say I noticed that situation in 179<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Marines got nerfed. Shotguns do less damage at range and they get slowed when hurt.
Except they do more damage at close range which is where the majority of the Aliens do their fighting, and the damage slow doesn't just affect Marines either. Combine that with hardly anyone knowing how Cysts work or how to make a hard to break Cyst chain and highly cost effective Marine weapons and Aliens end up being screwed, hard.
Well I neglected to say aliens got nerfed a lot more :P
Anyway, shotguns in their old form were almost always 1 hit kills anyway, so I hardly consider a very slight damage increase to be a significant buff. I'd rather take the old shotgun over this one any day.
Also, being alien commander is far more tedious since you have to hive hop and constantly repair pustules since it's so easy to break chains. Maybe the intent is to have people swap off as commander, or multiple commanders but I feel there's a lot of wasted travel time between hives where some random marine will break your newly constructed pustule chain. It makes you just want to forget about commanding and just fight, which ultimately means all the infest dies without anyone tending it.
This, exactly.
There is hardly a way to win as an alien now.
Furthermore, the fade got nerved a lot. Its hitrate is slower and the adrenalinecost is higher. But has the fade increased damage? I cant even take out a single turret without running out of adrenaline. To kill a marine I still need 3 hits (at least if all teams have all weapons and armor upgrades).
And blinking in, do a few hits on some building and blinking out again doesn't work because the comander can now buy MACs with t-res and repair the buildings instantly.
If the fade is on fire, he can only do like 5 hits and his adrenaline is gone and he is ending up as shotgun fodder. But now that marines can pick up weapons (which i like) there is no way of getting rid of the flamethrowermarines anymore especially in the situation OVerPOweR described above.
A base rush does not work either because all marines are there just waiting for the aliens and a hydra push will be inhibited by the arc.
Don't get me wrong, I like the new patch, the pustules, the ability to pick up weapons, the new lerk flight and so on.
But if all teams are teched up there will be an endless stalemate and that has to be balanced. There has to be a way to end the match.. for both teams.
First off, the pustules are ridiculously frustrating as they stand now. One rambo marine can cost me ~200 power/energy/lightning-bolt in the early game. I'm fine with cut off sections of DI dying, but it should be a much slower decay. Something I can rescue. Something I can use for a brief period. That in combination to some upgrades for pustules would nice. Possibly more health. DI feels more like glass than creeping infestation at the moment.
Another thing is that the resource model is still not very intuitive. At least I have some pretty pictures to look at to tell me what is what, instead of guessing names, <b>but it sure would be nice to have an intuitive resource model.</b> It is EXTREMELY BACKWARDS that I can have 400~ in resources, very safe RTs everywhere, but virtually zero power/energy/lightning-bolt to build infestation or drifters. That means arguably the most important tool Alien Commander's arsenal is the most fragile and the most difficult to expand. It seems like if anything should benefit from map control, it would be the infestation, but instead it's actually horribly crippled till a second hive. I really like the idea of a extremely precious resource, but it probably shouldn't be infestation related.
And for the love of all that is holy, I would like error messages for when I try to place something, and it doesn't work. During my time as Alien Commander, I spent some of it commanding and most of it <b>trying</b> to command. If my Whip doesn't reach it's destination, please inform me of that so I don't rely on a structure being somewhere it is not while it turns in circles where I uprooted it. If that pustule I tried to place doesn't get placed, please tell me why. I appreciate the 'Not enough resources!' but that does not get the job done on it's own. Most of the time I had plenty of power/energy/lightning-bolt in a non-powered room, yet placing a pustule was next to impossible. I had to select and deselect things a hundred times to place them how I wanted. That might not have even helped! So some error messages would be fantastic.
Last but not least, I'd like some quick jump icons on my HUD as Alien Commander. A button for selecting all my players, a button for selecting all my drifters, individual buttons for each drifter, and individual buttons for all my hives with their respective power/energy/lightning-bolt displayed near them. That alone would make commanding a great deal easier on the Alien team.
[EDIT:]And shotguns enter the field too quickly.
That said, I think this game has come a long way in a short amount of time. For awhile there, I wasn't sure about NS2, but after playing 180 for a bit, I'm as excited as ever to see this happen.
Only thing I dislike, which I don't seem to remember happening in NS1 much, is the:
"OMG, hive up in <location>, everyone grab a shotty and do a kamikazi rush."
Since weapons are no longer a team resource issue, and weapons are extremely cheap, you can just keep doing kamikazi runs with shotties until the hive is down.
Thusly:
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/QnrrJ.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
I agree that the Lerk nerfs were too harsh. Maybe Lerk 2.0 will bring some much needed improvement, with hitscan Spikes and Spore that ignores armor.
Movement slowdown on damage proves to hurt Kharaas more than Marines.
Skulks give too much RFK to Marines due to the recent changes. I think RFK should be limited to 1 per kill, at least during early game to limit the slippery slope syndrome.
Marine weapons are now too cheap.
On the plus side, Whips are now more effective at taking out Power Nodes and other structures, as well as killing Marines. However, Kharaa Structures remain too fragile, and are too costly to build due to the high energy cost of Drifters.
Speaking of Drifters, I noticed their sight range has been reduced (to 1.5?), which is too short IMO.
Hmm, the aliens should be able to attack a dropped weapon (Give them, say, 0 HP and 40 Armour) to kill it.
<!--quoteo(post=1859014:date=Jul 9 2011, 07:22 PM:name=twiliteblue)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (twiliteblue @ Jul 9 2011, 07:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1859014"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Movement slowdown on damage proves to hurt Kharaas more than Marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I thought it was a bit silly that it applied to aliens at all. Actually, make that projectiles. I think they should remove it for anything other than <b>melee</b> attacks (remove it for projectiles). (So for the marines, the axe and riflebutt can still slow on damage.)
<!--quoteo(post=1859014:date=Jul 9 2011, 07:22 PM:name=twiliteblue)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (twiliteblue @ Jul 9 2011, 07:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1859014"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Skulks give too much RFK to Marines due to the recent changes. I think RFK should be limited to 1 per kill, at least during early game to limit the slippery slope syndrome.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
PRFK should be removed. I get the whole "incentive/reward" argument, but I think it's a bit silly. If you see a skulk, and you've got a rifle, are you just going to decide "oh, I'm not getting PRFK for this, so I'm not gonna bother"?
Someone said before that PRFK isn't really significant compared to PR gained from RTs, and this is mostly true. But there are "odd cases": if you are getting a lot of kills (e.g. you are a godly player, or more likely you've got a Big Bad Shotty in a map crawling with skulks), then you <b>are</b> getting a lot of PRFK, and then PRFK does indeed become <b>significant</b>. But why would you want this? Why would someone who is naturally killing more (has the advantage) need a greater advantage? It is these "odd cases" that you want to get rid of.
Instead, they should introduce TRFK, and change all support costs to TR, so that <i>the resources gained from killing go to the same place that you're getting your support from</i>.
So true...
+1
Maybe only slow on projectile hit could be tweaked. But that would need tweaking and gameplay testing.
Edit: not to mention is has the effect of making resource balancing that much harder to get right.
Health remaining, example: a glancing shot will always cripple the low health/armor skulk.
That sounds like a good idea!
Edit: not to mention is has the effect of making resource balancing that much harder to get right.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Just limit personal res to 100.
Every income given when reaching max res, is randomly distributed to another player (or even the comm).
So if someone is a good skulks, he can fade early. Upon maxing his own res, he also helps the other players to get higher lifeforms
That's an interesting concept, I might be on board for it, but...
- it makes the two sides a little more similar, some people value the asymmetry; but I think you should just get it where you can, and not worry that the sides are too similar in other respects.
- I <b>want</b> the current system to work - a large network that connects to hives.
<!--quoteo(post=1859056:date=Jul 9 2011, 10:18 PM:name=subshadow)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (subshadow @ Jul 9 2011, 10:18 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1859056"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Just limit personal res to 100.
Every income given when reaching max res, is randomly distributed to another player (or even the comm).
So if someone is a good skulks, he can fade early. Upon maxing his own res, he also helps the other players to get higher lifeforms<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But... <a href="http://www.sirlin.net/articles/slippery-slope-and-perpetual-comeback.html?postSubmitted=true¤tPage=5#comments" target="_blank">the slippery slope</a>...
As much as I resited... this made me chuckle, alien style
</u></b>
1. I agree that infestation can't be used to break a marine base any more. I thought I read somewhere that Infestation would deal damage to structures to prevent stalemate. That isn't happening any more.
2. I don't think that the new lerk flight is that bad. It is just the lame close range combat part of the lerk which ruins it. The lerk was a great counter to the shotgun as the shotgun was close range and the lerk was long range. Now the shotgun is just terribly overpowered.
3. The slow on hit affects the aliens more than the marines. The gorge is basically immobilised if it gets hit by the shotgun allowing the shotgunner to kill the gorge with ease. The slow on hit and the rifle butt have made the Tier 1 skulks crap compared to the Tier 1 riflemen. What happened to the "We don't want anything that makes movement impaired"? You might as well just have Onos devour as well if this is going to be the case.
4. The fade is annoying, why do you need an assassin at Tier 2? You need to properly attack and push instead of waiting for them to go close to you.
5. Whips are still rubbish, they can't be used in any defence because they <u>always</u> seem to have a weak point where they can be easily killed.
EDIT: 6. Cysts are not that good either. I hate the fact that the other cysts have to be in the LOS of other cysts or they aren't connected. This means that the cysts can't be placed strategically so marines can't see them. Why do gorges have to use up their own PRes just to place cysts? This is just lame considering that the gorge is not an offensive class and can't get his own res that easily. The hive uses its own energy to place cysts so why can't the gorge?
- it makes the two sides a little more similar, some people value the asymmetry; but I think you should just get it where you can, and not worry that the sides are too similar in other respects.
- I <b>want</b> the current system to work - a large network that connects to hives.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You could combine the two, part of the problem with cysts is that on maps as spread out as summit, the supply lines are rather stretched.
If it was possible to place a super cyst of sorts, which would act as a hub for infestation much like the hive (and be similarly tough to kill, say 2500HP and bigger than a crag) you could make multiple redundant backups. Super cysts would cost say 20 T res so they'd be expensive, but worth adding a few in places like generator or crevice, as a break in the infestation line would just leave two ends connected to different things.
Because cysts are effectively free, or at least they come from an energy pool you can't really use for much else, it would be wise to use both types of cyst to infest a room, place a super cyst then spread lots of little ones, attacking infestation you could either kill the super cyst and then try to cut the room off from the hive, or you could just blow up the entire room. Still has the supply line mechanic but gives you a way to make it stronger which you currently can't really do because you are limited by the size of the corridors.
That too, it would solve some of the issues with supply line weakness but I think you still need the ability to put money in and get strength out. Relying on time to strengthen your lines isn't practical when the marines can generally attack your lines right off the bat.
Gorge would also need to be able to climb as well.
The movement is really just to replace the 'build siege turrets, kill stuff, move forward, recycle siege turrets, build new siege turrets' mechanic. Instead you just move the siege turrets.