Aliens are still way much op, aren't they?
Classic319
Join Date: 2010-11-06 Member: 74789Members
<div class="IPBDescription">haven't tried this build, so just asking</div>
As my laptop cannot afford to run the game, i couldn't try this build on my own.
But i watched lots of streams on twitch.tv or youtube, and i've almost never seen marines winning the game. Even after khammander did lame fail on drifter train, they eventually won the game. And sadly, still easy map domination, even without any gorges. Good ideas on change, but failed ideas so far.
So i'm sure it's still overpowered, as almost no marine wins(at least on summit) at competitive games, but asking because there are some people saying aliens are weaker now. Please don't call it weak if the win rate is decreased from 99% to 97%.
Anyway, my question is whether it's still rly overpowered.
As my laptop cannot afford to run the game, i couldn't try this build on my own.
But i watched lots of streams on twitch.tv or youtube, and i've almost never seen marines winning the game. Even after khammander did lame fail on drifter train, they eventually won the game. And sadly, still easy map domination, even without any gorges. Good ideas on change, but failed ideas so far.
So i'm sure it's still overpowered, as almost no marine wins(at least on summit) at competitive games, but asking because there are some people saying aliens are weaker now. Please don't call it weak if the win rate is decreased from 99% to 97%.
Anyway, my question is whether it's still rly overpowered.
Comments
1) Sightly increased hitreg
2) Slower alien expansion
I've yet to play some more gathers to see how it works out, but I won more pub games as marine then usual, even on mineshaft.
- Some alien lifeforms come out too fast (fade, onos)
- There's too many higher alien lifeforms present at any given time (you can easily see 3 - 4 fades and onos where as in NS 1 you'd rarely see that amount, game is not designed for having 7 marines vs 7 fades or 7 onos really)
Slowing the alien expansion was an important step in cutting the alien map control advantage, though personally I still feel they can take it further, make the gorge even more important (I haven't seen competitive teams run with 1 gorge at the start of the game like was intended with this change, probably because most stuff still builds fast enough without a gorge anyway, the economy - aggression trade-off is not big enough yet) In addition, imo they really need to up the cost of augmentation, and slow/nerf the process of continious hive misting. (8 min lvl 2 alien abilities is still far too fast) and hopefully they will add more depth to the alien khamm decision making process while they're at it
- Some alien lifeforms come out too fast (fade, onos)
- There's too many higher alien lifeforms present at any given time (you can easily see 3 - 4 fades and onos where as in NS 1 you'd rarely see that amount, game is not designed for having 7 marines vs 7 fades or 7 onos really)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Tbh it's not a problem with speed, it's a problem with quantity. As you pointed out in NS1 you didn't see masses of higher lifeforms unless it was late into the game. This is because in NS1 you had a team resource sink via people being forced to go Gorge to drop upgrade chambers, RT's, and hives. You typically had multiple people on the team Gorge at the start to drop those (resource sink) with only a few people who saved up for Fade and/or Onos.
Compare that to NS2 where upgrade chamber(s), RT's, and Hives have all been pushed off to the Alien Commander thus removing the team resource sink. The <b><u>timings</u></b> are probably fine; the <b><u>quantity</u></b> is the problem.
Aliens: Win in 6 minutes with augmented hive.
Marines: Win in 5 minutes before augmented hive.
Any "long" games that have occured happened because of bad players.
Second.
It have been a lame fail, but it was an awesome drifter choo choo train.
Gorge needs skilled abilitys we already have a builder, the Kham.
Gorge needs skilled abilitys we already have a builder, the Kham.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Like I've said, this system takes away the fun of a gorge being able to dictate where and when to place stuff, while still expecting them to have the responsibility of caretaking what the commander places down.
I use to like going gorge in NS1 because it was a way to be the commander without actually having to fight for the chair, or as the case may be in NS2, fighting over the hive.
Wasting large quantities of resources on minicysts and crappy turrets is not a fun way to play gorge.
- Fade blink and number of fades.
- Lerk bilebomb.
- Map problem (random spawn summit with vents in marine start or hard to go out marine start).
About the fade a solution could be to decrease a lot swipe speed, so the fade has to do blink-swipe-blink-swipe instead of blink-swipe-swipe-kill.
Just out of interest, how does the math go with things like medpacks and welding at this point? How much does it take to help the marine survive the 2nd attack?
The res model has been debated for years now, but it's probably going to stay. Now it's more about how to make the present model work rather than reinventing the whole thing.
<!--quoteo(post=1928740:date=Apr 23 2012, 10:06 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Apr 23 2012, 10:06 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1928740"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Just out of interest, how does the math go with things like medpacks and welding at this point? How much does it take to help the marine survive the 2nd attack?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not sure exactly but blink-in/swipe/blink-out/blink-in/swipe should allow for useful medpacking. But it would mainly make the fade more fun for both side, removing delays and cooldowns, I personally find the blink-swipe-swipe-kill and foot battles to be a bit boring. For example with sg you can only shoot once before dying.
The res model should reflect the asynchronous nature of the teams, and at this point it doesn't. Both Marines and Aliens have personal res, and team res. If Khaara have a system with only team res, both they and commander are sharing their res.
Creating a whole team of onos' will severely limit the Khaams spending decisions, and there will need to be much more strategy to how aliens play out.
In this system, the Khaam would be the supreme dictator and would pay team res and create a slot for an evolution. Players evolve menu then only shows lifeforms which the Khaam has payed for.
If this is a too convoluted way to adjust the balance of the game, let me suggest a simpler way. Creat asymmetry in amounts extracted from RTs. If Marines gained more res per RT than aliens do (for example lets say alien RTs gets 2/3 of what a marine RT would get), this will give balance back to the Marine game, giving them a fairer opportunity to meet the Khaara head-on in the field of battle.
If you can find enough people who want to spend the game building cysts and holding down Mouse2 next to buildings rather than killing marines or doing anything fun, sure.
nah, i like heal spraying for 15 minutes. its very engaging and makes me feel like im part of the game. i dont want to build things and be useful i want to hold down my alt fire.
A compromise that I came up with in the other thread was to give gorges full cysts (rather than mini ones) at 1 p.res each with comm cysts costing 2 t.res. This way it's a significant advantage for the alien economy to have a gorge do the cysting, though the comm can still place cysts as well in case of emergencies, if he wants to have an extra skulk on the frontline, etc. This makes the economy-aggression trade-off bigger than it is currently, makes the gorge more enjoyable and doesn't take anything away from the khamm. (He now only gets a choice, do I ask for someone to gorge and do the cysting to save T.res at the cost of more pressure on marines or instead do it myself and put more pressure on marines at the cost of slower tech/expansion)
This is probably the main reason.
My suggestion is to lower pres income, maybe 0.2 per rt/tick and then reintroduce res for kills.
This would solve mass lifeforming at a time (hi 75 res mark) and reward marines a bit more in early game, where they should usually win a 1v1 engagement with a single skulk.
This would close the gap between ns1 and ns2 res model and let the aliens have to depend more on early lerks to maintain map control in the first minutes of the game.