So what's happening with the onos?
Xarius
Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
Join Date: 2003-12-21 Member: 24630Members, Reinforced - Supporter
Before PAX it was established that the onos was OP, i.e when it came out as early as it did, it was completely uncounterable. UWE promised us they would deliver a fix after PAX, but in fact no fix was delivered. The progress tracker says nothing about this issue any more, the only thing that's listed is a redesign of gore. Did UWE just forget about this issue? Are they still working on something big? Because to be fair, the onos in its current state is still as broken as ever, slowing alien expansion has done nothing to address this. In addition, the only thing the onos hide nerf achieved was to make the onos worse lategame, as it stands currently the onos is far too strong early but will fall off late game
A gore redesign will do little to address the issue of the onos because:
The onos is too strong not necessarily because of its abilities, but particularly because early game a good onos is impossible to take down and requires multiple marines if not an entire team (or sentryspam) to keep at bay. Even with a single onos the aliens can wreck marine map control entirely, something non-augmented lerks and fades definitely can't. When multiple players decide to go onos at the same time at this stage of the game it's just GG. Even if gore no longer had that annoying knockback, the onos would still be a far too powerful lifeform early game.
I.e unlike the lerk and fade, the onos relies less on his abilities. (A non augmented onos is almost just as big of a problem as an augmented one, where as for example a fade without blink is significantly easier to deal with)
Easiest Solution:
- Make the onos weaker until hive has matured (or a tech is researched) I.e Without a mature hive the onos will have less armour/hp like in NS 1 (make the onos smaller/visibly weaker to represent this, easy fix) This will allow proper scaling of the onos throughout the game.
- Alternatively, cut p.res gain/starting p.res to delay higher lifeforms from coming out as quickly as they do currently (buys marines some necessary time)
- Tie amount of onos per team amount of (mature) hives. (This would not fix the issue of a single onos early in the game however, so it may still have to be combined with one of the above)
Thoughts?
A gore redesign will do little to address the issue of the onos because:
The onos is too strong not necessarily because of its abilities, but particularly because early game a good onos is impossible to take down and requires multiple marines if not an entire team (or sentryspam) to keep at bay. Even with a single onos the aliens can wreck marine map control entirely, something non-augmented lerks and fades definitely can't. When multiple players decide to go onos at the same time at this stage of the game it's just GG. Even if gore no longer had that annoying knockback, the onos would still be a far too powerful lifeform early game.
I.e unlike the lerk and fade, the onos relies less on his abilities. (A non augmented onos is almost just as big of a problem as an augmented one, where as for example a fade without blink is significantly easier to deal with)
Easiest Solution:
- Make the onos weaker until hive has matured (or a tech is researched) I.e Without a mature hive the onos will have less armour/hp like in NS 1 (make the onos smaller/visibly weaker to represent this, easy fix) This will allow proper scaling of the onos throughout the game.
- Alternatively, cut p.res gain/starting p.res to delay higher lifeforms from coming out as quickly as they do currently (buys marines some necessary time)
- Tie amount of onos per team amount of (mature) hives. (This would not fix the issue of a single onos early in the game however, so it may still have to be combined with one of the above)
Thoughts?
Comments
EDIT: Also, how is it any easier for new players to know the rifle does normal damage, pistol/shotgun do light, etc?
The only possible tweak they need is a small armor reduction, so they're more vulnerable without support.
After witnessing Onos frequently going down to focused fire (both in organised and pub matches) over about 10 games, I don't think they're overpowered anymore.
The only possible tweak they need is a small armor reduction, so they're more vulnerable without support.
After witnessing Onos frequently going down to focused fire (both in organised and pub matches) over about 10 games, I don't think they're overpowered anymore.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Strongly disagree, onos going down to focussed fire only happens when the onos was dumb enough to charge into a base unsupported. A good onos won't easily go down, since he will pick his engagements carefully. Not to mention that if 3 or more players go onos (which is a perfectly viable tactic for aliens) it is a guaranteed GG. One onos may go down to focussed fire but 3 or 4 will just stomp an entire team. The only reason why we do not see this every game is because it is UTTER cheese and most players don't want to win games that way. (So instead they opt for fades or lerks)
In addition, nerfing the onos stats even more will just result in the onos being worse lategame when he REALLY needs to scale. I think the argument that armour/hp scaling with hives/tech is unintuitive is nonsense, and you can easily represent a weaker onos visually as well.
Not to mention the ability to charge stomp and go around the corner to insta stun marines or 180 degree stomps when running away.
Good luck countering 5+ onos at that stage of the game. (I've seen it happen with just 3 even, and that was already gamebreaking.) The problem exists for fades and lerks as well I suppose (Entire team rushing a lifeform, 5+ fades) but that can be addressed through augmentation (slowing the speed and upping the cost/cutting the tech into individual abilities to research would make those kind of strategies far less viable since they would occur later in the game... Unlike the onos problem
The game not being feature complete is a poor argument for not balancing it.
why is that counter intuitive? if anything it's the complete opposite, why WOULDN'T players expect to get stronger after getting more hives? tell me someone else sees this, I feel like i'm taking crazy pills
Suddenly, multiple commanders appear!
The onos was always the odd lifeform out, its no better now.
Even i have no clue what to do with it for my mod.
HAHA, that guy is literally famous.
I like this. Expecially if it was visiably shown. A smaller onos with less of the hard shell on its frond and as the hives mature they get bigger and the armour shows up more untill it looks like it is now.
Forget? Didn't they reduce his armor, reduce stun duration on gore, and reduce his damage to structures to 1/3 of it's previous value? Onos is significantly weaker now, two Oni working together used to be able to almost insta-kill a CC.
Get with the times man, all the cool kids know Lerk is the OP alien now. Yesterday I saved my resources from the beginning of the game, spending none, wanting to go fast Onos. Lerk BB rush ended the game when I was still at about 70 res.
Hipster aliens liked Lerk before it was cool.
Onos OP? That was sooooooo March 2012.
The problem with every single one of those changes is that they don't address the need for scaling, i.e they make the onos only marginally weaker early game and significantly weaker later on. As long as his hp/armour is as massive as it is currently early game, 2 - 3 players saving for onos can win a game for aliens in under 15 minutes, without even needing augmentation.