One thing I have noticed with Marines with Phase syndrome. They have WEAK bases. I phased into a marine base and ate their spawn, gate, then CC and never got resistance. Poor fools were too busy trying to take a hive.
A phase gate costs 20 rp. A single OT costs 14 that a competent gorge simply cant afford. While an OT has about 1200 hp, that's only 120 LMG bullets which a single marine can safely deliver. A phase gate has however many hps and NO alien is safe attacking it. More importantly, it's not a delaying structure but an integral structute to marine tech. Phase gates are too cheap, too fast to build, and have too many hp. Pick one, and fix the other 2 aspects, aliens will have a decent chance, instead of the half-chance they have now.
Phase Gate is ok, but It is a pretty strange if the marines have right at the beginning enough res to build 2 phase gates along with an armoury, observatory and 3 - 4 spawn gates. And if their base gets overrun bey skulks with no sentry active and the guarding marines killed. Damn.
I may have missed this, but can't aliens do a somewhat similar thing by putting up movement chambers before d chambers? I mean a lot of times, you can even get structures like that up in the vent creating a pretty good and safe avenue to the hive.
Or I'm an idiot, which is the most likely scenario.
Before I post I must admit I was one of the first commanders using phase gate rushes. (since the day after NS was released to the public)
I don't think the phasegate is unbalanced. If you destroy it before it's built, problem solved. The key is drawing a line in the sand (preferably at the second hive) and not letting them have a phasegate there. The numbers advantage of the TSA can be overcome if they have to spend a lot of time in transit despite being spawned faster. It's my opinion that on pubs the aliens just have ridiculous ideas about what they can accomplish at the beginning. They aim too high too early- let me try to give some examples.
1- They have this notion they can 'contain' the marines. This isn't going to happen unless the skills of the two teams are really lopsided. The TSA, thanks to inf portals, simply have <i>too many marines, a superiority in numbers impossible to stop.</i> What's even more silly is when skulks camp just outside the marine base. That is hardly an advantage if you take out 1 marine, for a few seconds, so he can respawn 20 feet away and now he knows you are there.
2- The aliens try to defend all hive locations at once- Spreading themselves from one end of the map to the other. Because of slower respawn rates, it is a bigger deal for an alien to die than a marine.
3- Skulks think they are still sneaky after motion tracking is developed- Thinking they are going to kill 4 marines at once because they are sleek destruction machines.
I'm afraid that once motion tracking is developed, and the marines are working together, the only advantages the aliens can use against TSA squads are their high speed, carapace, and how much damage they do in numbers with melee and lerk spike damage.
There are some good arguments about alien strategies taking the second hive at
It's my opinion that the aliens would benefit more from defense, sometimes on the border of turtling. Pick one hive you want to take and just forget about the other. Get a couple OC's and skulks defending the new hive area, and kill the marines before they can build the phasegate in the first place.
"But if we don't attack them at horse shoe /holo room they will get hella more resources!!!11"
They may be capping a node, but at least they are busy and not taking your hive.
"But if we don't stop them from getting resources, they will eventually have HMG's and HA's OMG!"
There's no way to stop them from getting those eventually. Just make sure you get fades ASAP and you will have the tech advantage.
I feel I must add that asking public players to deviate from the current popular strategies /tactics just to mix things up never works. Though trends do eventually change as tactics adapt in a never ending cycle, (a la the "flavor of the month") I think the phasegate rush would eventually be countered naturally. Once it's not so irresistably attractive, vanilla commanders won't use it all the time.
For more on the tendencies of faceless public players in a large social setting where winning is the main goal, check out this article-
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
<!--QuoteBegin--Katsuro+Dec 21 2002, 01:33 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Katsuro @ Dec 21 2002, 01:33 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The resourse model is doing what its supposed to do. It gives res in proportion to how many people are on the team. Its doing the same with aliens, only you dont see it because the resourses are given individually, instead of into a pool. The aliens are getting more resourses, but since theyre being given to everyone, it doesnt go any faster.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Well, the effects of the resource model for varying team sizes does not seem to work correctly.
Lets take an extreme example: Assuming you have a 64 player server, ie 32v32 players, how long time do the marines have to wait until they have earned enough to secure a hive - ie, phase gate, turret factory, 10 turrets and a siege? Cost is about 20+50+180+25 or 275RP.
Well, assuming they ONLY hold the resource node they start with, they are earning 10+32*0.23 * 10 = 83.6 res per minute. So it will take 3.2 minutes. If they hold 2 extra resource nodes - perhaps not hard to do with 32 players on your side - they will earn about 225 res per minute and could splat down that kind of hardware about once a minute.
Now, for a small server, 4v4, the marines are earning 10+4*0.23*10 = 19.2 res/min, so it will take about 15 minutes to get the resources ... if they hold two res, it would put them on 37.6 res/min and about 8 minutes to lock down the hive.
For aliens, well .. all those incoming resources are spread out among all the players, so no matter the team size, resources ticks in at the same pace. Things change more or less dramatically once players start hitting their max about 7-9 minutes into the game, at which point the income per minute for a single gorge goes from maybe 10-20 per minute to 200-300 per minute. Unfortunately for the aliens, the game is over by that point.
So, the aliens are basically on a fixed build schedule for the first 10 minutes of the game[1], while what the marines can do varies enormously with team size (for a 4v4 game, paying 45 RP for MT is very expensive - it costs 2.5 minutes worth of early game income. For that 32v32 game, you are talking about a 30 sec worth of income, ie something you do without a second thought).
I have a hard time to see how this can be balanced except for team sizes in a fairly narrow range. Perhaps someone care to enlighten me?
<!--QuoteBegin--Comprox+Dec 21 2002, 02:16 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Comprox @ Dec 21 2002, 02:16 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The main reason I mainly ignore balance posts is the game was fine when it was released, but everyone was new and whined until they had it changed. Now that people have learned how to play the game it will more than likely be rebalanced back to the release state <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Oh God no! If the game was still in 1.0 at this point in time, you'd never see an Alien team win.
I think the biggest change since 1.0 was when the TF goes down, so do the turrets. I couldn't see playing with how it was in 1.0.
The phase gate problem is just a symptom of the spawn-speed problem. If the aliens could refresh their losses as fast as the marines could, sticking a phase in an active alien spawn would be awfully risky. But as it stands, the aliens have to deal with:
1. An enemy team that respawns much faster (both inherently and with beacon). 2. The tendency for phase gates to send you teleporting around the map when you attack them. 3. Gates are pretty damn durable. Plus, since marines show up <i>right on top of them</i>, they are de-facto well defended.
The gate thing might also be symptomatic of commanders becoming more frugal. Used to be you'd see turret farms and capped nodes all over the map. Now it'd odd to see the marines finish the game with more than three or four. If the marines can make do with their spawn and two hives, the rest of the map is just there for scenery.
Sorry, I meant that NS players are lacking creativity. I apologize if I offended anyone - NS is great, it's just that the same stuff keeps happening...
Unfortunately it's starting to seem a little like WC3, where my friends help me when I was just starting out:
Sure, if Marines use the PG tactic their base doesn't ahve hella turrets. But even better than turrets, the whoel Marine team can reappear in seconds if the base is attacked.
Many, many times I've told my team "They hold 2 of our hives soo fast, so their main has to be so weak!!" And for the most part I'm right. We rush in to find 2-3 turrets and we start chomping on stuff. Then instantly the portal lights up and Marines just flood through.
Skulks are so weak, and Marines have only gotten better with tactics and accuracy. It's a very common thing for one Marine to take out 3 skulks with one LMG clip.
I rather like the idea of a phase-gate recharge between transports... Say 10 sec between each player popping through - would change it a lot more from a "get everyone to defend a location instantly" to a regular transport system. Wouldn't be possible to do a phasegate rush anymore.
Additionally, telefragging when 2 people pop through the gate in under 1 sec or something would be kinda cool - would make people think twice about gate hopping when they have full HA/HMGs, 'cause they might lose it all.
One thing I've noticed playing as an alien is that no-one sticks together. If you play as a marine and go running off by yourself, you're gonna get slaughtered. Just because this isn't the case for aliens, woulnd't you think that the aliens would be THAT much of a stronger force if they stuck together.
So, to counteract the phase gate rush I would suggest that all of the skulks attack the outpost at the same time. 4-6 skulks SHOULD be able to take out a similar sized marine team +the phase gate before the re-enforcements get there.
Bottom line: Marines have learnt to work together and move as a group. If aliens did this i bet you would see the aliens winning many more games than they do.
<!--QuoteBegin--sender+Dec 22 2002, 02:42 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (sender @ Dec 22 2002, 02:42 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->One thing I've noticed playing as an alien is that no-one sticks together. If you play as a marine and go running off by yourself, you're gonna get slaughtered. Just because this isn't the case for aliens, woulnd't you think that the aliens would be THAT much of a stronger force if they stuck together.
So, to counteract the phase gate rush I would suggest that all of the skulks attack the outpost at the same time. 4-6 skulks SHOULD be able to take out a similar sized marine team +the phase gate before the re-enforcements get there.
Bottom line: Marines have learnt to work together and move as a group. If aliens did this i bet you would see the aliens winning many more games than they do.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> See, the thing is an outpost witha phase, is never unguarded, there will always be turrets, most liekly shooting at you while you try to take the phase, and if you try to take the turrets, marines will spawn back and jump through to kill you before you can do major damage, while probably getting the com to drop a weilder to repair anything you did damage, while dropping even more turrets to guard the open spots that where missed earlier.
Say without turrets you have 4 skulks against 4 marines. Somehow you sneak up on them and kill all of them while loosing 2 skulks, a smart com will probably have 2+ spawns to get the marines back into action, and through that phase to kill you. They probably wont stop for ammo, I know I wouldn'tm 50/50 bullets is definately more than enough against 2 most likely weakened skulks, you'll either kill them or die before you can use up all your ammo.
The trick to phase gates is that they work for the aliens, too, and commanders doing the rushing often don't have any base defenses, saving up for the gates instead. I've been in a few games where the aliens just hopped into the phase gate that the marines kindly provided for them and proceeded to tear up their base from the inside. Anything spawning or popping up in a portal is helpless for a second, so a couple of Skulks sitting by the gate can turn it into a hamburger machine by shredding everything that appears on it. Or, to be cruel, a Gorge can web over phase gates and infantry portals, so whenever anyone pops in on them...
i just played ns @ lan, and because of server side we only had 1.00, and boy, that was **obscenity**. marines won every single match we played, even when the best players were on aliens.
reason? 1.00 wasn't balanced, at all. pretty hard to take out a 20 turret turret farm in 1.00 when destroying the tf doesnt stop a turret
so. the balance still needs to be resolved, because the two sides are so different balance is going to take a long time, just ask blizzard
<!--QuoteBegin--sender+Dec 22 2002, 02:42 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (sender @ Dec 22 2002, 02:42 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->One thing I've noticed playing as an alien is that no-one sticks together. If you play as a marine and go running off by yourself, you're gonna get slaughtered. Just because this isn't the case for aliens, woulnd't you think that the aliens would be THAT much of a stronger force if they stuck together.
So, to counteract the phase gate rush I would suggest that all of the skulks attack the outpost at the same time. 4-6 skulks SHOULD be able to take out a similar sized marine team +the phase gate before the re-enforcements get there.
Bottom line: Marines have learnt to work together and move as a group. If aliens did this i bet you would see the aliens winning many more games than they do.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> ah yes to bad marines spawns XXX times faster than Khaara does and can instantly TP for my bunghole back into the action...
<!--QuoteBegin--Rion+Dec 22 2002, 03:16 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Rion @ Dec 22 2002, 03:16 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--sender+Dec 22 2002, 02:42 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (sender @ Dec 22 2002, 02:42 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->One thing I've noticed playing as an alien is that no-one sticks together. If you play as a marine and go running off by yourself, you're gonna get slaughtered. Just because this isn't the case for aliens, woulnd't you think that the aliens would be THAT much of a stronger force if they stuck together.
So, to counteract the phase gate rush I would suggest that all of the skulks attack the outpost at the same time. 4-6 skulks SHOULD be able to take out a similar sized marine team +the phase gate before the re-enforcements get there.
Bottom line: Marines have learnt to work together and move as a group. If aliens did this i bet you would see the aliens winning many more games than they do.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> See, the thing is an outpost witha phase, is never unguarded, there will always be turrets, most liekly shooting at you while you try to take the phase, and if you try to take the turrets, marines will spawn back and jump through to kill you before you can do major damage, while probably getting the com to drop a weilder to repair anything you did damage, while dropping even more turrets to guard the open spots that where missed earlier.
Say without turrets you have 4 skulks against 4 marines. Somehow you sneak up on them and kill all of them while loosing 2 skulks, a smart com will probably have 2+ spawns to get the marines back into action, and through that phase to kill you. They probably wont stop for ammo, I know I wouldn'tm 50/50 bullets is definately more than enough against 2 most likely weakened skulks, you'll either kill them or die before you can use up all your ammo.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Actually, last night I was dead and heard the commander over voice comm... "Don't stop for ammo, get through the phase, you stop for ammo, I don't drop any health or guns for you for the rest of the game. Get through that phase gate!"
The marines phase rushed and the ONLY thing that saved us was the aliens had good communication. Every time the marines would get a phase going, there would be 8 skulks rushing like MAD to get to it and eat it. We usually succeeded, problem was we NEEDED all 8 to be able to stand a chance once the portal itself would get up; eventually they got smart and split their forces. We tried to split ours, but without the numbers, we didn't stand a chance. 4 skulks can't prevail against 5 marines unless they ambush =/
Thankfully our gorge was good; if we hadn't got fades when we did, that game would have been over fast...
Going for an attack without extra ammo can be a good or a bad thing, depending on what you need to do. If it's just attacking skulks, don't waste time on ammo, in a typical fight a marine won't last more than two rifle and pistol reloads. But if you need to take out the occasional chamber, get all the ammo you can.
There are actually two problems being discussed here, the faster resource accumulation for the marines, and the phase gate itself.
For the resource accumulation, a solution would be to make the ready room donation official, some sort of button on the menu to do it, so your resources are spread among team members, with most for gorges. This will not result in fades after just a few minutes, because those who donated to the gorge may help get a hive up quickly, but they will not have the resources to go fade. At worst you get leaping skulks quickly. The best way for a gorge to use the resources probably would be to get RP's up faster, which would probably help the team more. The current problem is that, in the early game, resources are spread to skulks who can only do one sensible thing with it: go gorge. Not everyone needs to go gorge, so a lot of those resources are useless initially. Another option to disallow lerks in the first minutes might be a good idea too on public servers.
For the phase gate: two problems: it's too fast (rush tactics) and it's annoying because marines get stuck in each other sometimes. I propose the following: - permanent force field around phase gates that do not allow anyone on top of them (also disallow building them where marines would get stuck in the ceiling). - when the use button is pressed on a phase gate, there are +/-15 seconds when the shield becomes passable for the marine who pressed the button, on all phase gates. If he doesn't get away from inside a gate when the shield comes back to full power, he gets killed. Also let him choose which phase gate he wants to go to. - optional: extra feature: when an Onos uses a phase gate, the onos is killed instantly, while the phase gate self-destructs and explodes violently (damages both sides). <!--emo&::onos::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tiny.gif'><!--endemo--> is too big for that thing anyway.
Finally, the respawn time is very long for tha aliens in big games, when seeral aliens die. The marines can just build more spawnpoints. Perhaps make the hive work a bit faster when there are lots of dead Kharaa?
Heh, when we playtested no one ever used phase gates for some reason. Maybe they were bugged or something, so I kept reducing their cost and build time, and increasing their health. Now, everyone uses them. :)
I've made some balance changes to address this problem in v1.04, watch for them.
<!--QuoteBegin--Flayra+Dec 22 2002, 08:41 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Flayra @ Dec 22 2002, 08:41 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Heh, when we playtested no one ever used phase gates for some reason. Maybe they were bugged or something, so I kept reducing their cost and build time, and increasing their health. Now, everyone uses them. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I've made some balance changes to address this problem in v1.04, watch for them.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You see? The hive mind knows... It can hear us!
<!--QuoteBegin--Flayra+Dec 22 2002, 03:41 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Flayra @ Dec 22 2002, 03:41 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Heh, when we playtested no one ever used phase gates for some reason. Maybe they were bugged or something, so I kept reducing their cost and build time, and increasing their health. Now, everyone uses them. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I've made some balance changes to address this problem in v1.04, watch for them.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Boo-urns. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
Flayra. I hold your in the highest regards (up there w. Molyneaux, Spector and Meier) so I trust your judgement. Just be careful...the phase gate is basically the only reason marines are winning nowadays. Nerfing the phase gates severely nerfs the marines...
<!--QuoteBegin--Flayra+Dec 22 2002, 03:41 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Flayra @ Dec 22 2002, 03:41 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Heh, when we playtested no one ever used phase gates for some reason. Maybe they were bugged or something, so I kept reducing their cost and build time, and increasing their health. Now, everyone uses them. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I've made some balance changes to address this problem in v1.04, watch for them.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Thank you Flayra... I was hoping to get just a straight response from someone in the dev team, be it yea or nay.
Add this to the things I love about NS : The dev team isn't this 'invisible force that changes the mod', they actually listen and respond to the players who have questions <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Notice also that the observatory has absolutely no health and marines need it to build a phase gate. Plus, commanders usually put the observatory out of the way where there aren't any turrets.
It would be nice if destroying the observatory shut down existing phase gates, but at least you can stop the marines from building new ones for a while (in a large game, only 1-2 skulks are needed to accomplish this feat).
<!--QuoteBegin--e=mc^256+Dec 21 2002, 11:15 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (e=mc^256 @ Dec 21 2002, 11:15 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I would agree that the marine phase rush works, but only against an uncoordinated alien team (i.e. public server) That's the problem with us large public server aliens: no team coordination, takes forever to respawn once dead (long lines becuz some newbies keep dying), and resources slow to a crawl (lots of people + 4 newbie gorges). Sigh...
So I guess the issue here is not balance (as a good plan of protecting a second hive is better than rushing IMHO), but simply coordination. At least the marines have a commander.
Sucks to have to join a clan to play NS with competent aliens... (while I admit that there's seasoned vets, most public players are pretty fresh...)
For now it's:
I OWNERS J00!!! NOOOO! <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> This is exactly it. A coordinated alien team will know not to initially rush the marine spawn (and creating long lines at the hive from the beginning). A coordinated alien team will know to attack marine spawn once it's become deserted after most of the marines are either on way to a new hive or already there building and defending.
In other words, I really believe that two coordinated teams (alien and marine) will have fun playing on most maps, and with little or many people. The only advantage that marines have in my opinion is inherent coordination associated with the commander (assigning waypoints and telling your marines what to do).
I think the coolest thing that the developers could do to fix this little problem would be to put in some factor that would coordinate the alien team a little more, even on pub servers. What that is, I'm not sure, but it would add more depth to the game and patch up the little problem of an unfocused alien team (at least early on).
Check the news page on n-s.org for the v1.04 changelog. It should be more difficult and risky to pull off a phase rush. I will address this problem more in detail for v1.1, when I'm able to make more radical changes as well.
Comments
Or I'm an idiot, which is the most likely scenario.
You have to have the other hives to use the teleportation of the movement nodes.
If you just have one hive then the node is a one way trip, if you get my gist.
I don't think the phasegate is unbalanced. If you destroy it before it's built, problem solved. The key is drawing a line in the sand (preferably at the second hive) and not letting them have a phasegate there. The numbers advantage of the TSA can be overcome if they have to spend a lot of time in transit despite being spawned faster. It's my opinion that on pubs the aliens just have ridiculous ideas about what they can accomplish at the beginning. They aim too high too early- let me try to give some examples.
1- They have this notion they can 'contain' the marines. This isn't going to happen unless the skills of the two teams are really lopsided. The TSA, thanks to inf portals, simply have <i>too many marines, a superiority in numbers impossible to stop.</i> What's even more silly is when skulks camp just outside the marine base. That is hardly an advantage if you take out 1 marine, for a few seconds, so he can respawn 20 feet away and now he knows you are there.
2- The aliens try to defend all hive locations at once- Spreading themselves from one end of the map to the other. Because of slower respawn rates, it is a bigger deal for an alien to die than a marine.
3- Skulks think they are still sneaky after motion tracking is developed- Thinking they are going to kill 4 marines at once because they are sleek destruction machines.
I'm afraid that once motion tracking is developed, and the marines are working together, the only advantages the aliens can use against TSA squads are their high speed, carapace, and how much damage they do in numbers with melee and lerk spike damage.
There are some good arguments about alien strategies taking the second hive at
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=21&t=15354' target='_blank'>http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/in...ST&f=21&t=15354</a>
It's my opinion that the aliens would benefit more from defense, sometimes on the border of turtling. Pick one hive you want to take and just forget about the other. Get a couple OC's and skulks defending the new hive area, and kill the marines before they can build the phasegate in the first place.
"But if we don't attack them at horse shoe /holo room they will get hella more resources!!!11"
They may be capping a node, but at least they are busy and not taking your hive.
"But if we don't stop them from getting resources, they will eventually have HMG's and HA's OMG!"
There's no way to stop them from getting those eventually. Just make sure you get fades ASAP and you will have the tech advantage.
-Leu
For more on the tendencies of faceless public players in a large social setting where winning is the main goal, check out this article-
<a href='http://www.wotmud.org/forums/viewtopic.php?type=0&topic=20744&forum=52&7' target='_blank'>http://www.wotmud.org/forums/viewtopic.php...0744&forum=52&7</a>
there are quite a number of strategies in NS - but like I've said a hundred times ...
the public doesn't care - they use what works and don't want to change - so, don't get mad at NS for it ...
Well, the effects of the resource model for varying team sizes does not seem to work correctly.
Lets take an extreme example: Assuming you have a 64 player server, ie 32v32 players, how long time do the marines have to wait until they have earned enough to secure a hive - ie, phase gate, turret factory, 10 turrets and a siege? Cost is about 20+50+180+25 or 275RP.
Well, assuming they ONLY hold the resource node they start with, they are earning 10+32*0.23 * 10 = 83.6 res per minute. So it will take 3.2 minutes. If they hold 2 extra resource nodes - perhaps not hard to do with 32 players on your side - they will earn about 225 res per minute and could splat down that kind of hardware about once a minute.
Now, for a small server, 4v4, the marines are earning 10+4*0.23*10 = 19.2 res/min, so it will take about 15 minutes to get the resources ... if they hold two res, it would put them on 37.6 res/min and about 8 minutes to lock down the hive.
For aliens, well .. all those incoming resources are spread out among all the players, so no matter the team size, resources ticks in at the same pace. Things change more or less dramatically once players start hitting their max about 7-9 minutes into the game, at which point the income per minute for a single gorge goes from maybe 10-20 per minute to 200-300 per minute. Unfortunately for the aliens, the game is over by that point.
So, the aliens are basically on a fixed build schedule for the first 10 minutes of the game[1], while what the marines can do varies enormously with team size (for a 4v4 game, paying 45 RP for MT is very expensive - it costs 2.5 minutes worth of early game income. For that 32v32 game, you are talking about a 30 sec worth of income, ie something you do without a second thought).
I have a hard time to see how this can be balanced except for team sizes in a fairly narrow range. Perhaps someone care to enlighten me?
[1] Barring ready-room donations.
Oh God no! If the game was still in 1.0 at this point in time, you'd never see an Alien team win.
I think the biggest change since 1.0 was when the TF goes down, so do the turrets. I couldn't see playing with how it was in 1.0.
1. An enemy team that respawns much faster (both inherently and with beacon).
2. The tendency for phase gates to send you teleporting around the map when you attack them.
3. Gates are pretty damn durable. Plus, since marines show up <i>right on top of them</i>, they are de-facto well defended.
The gate thing might also be symptomatic of commanders becoming more frugal. Used to be you'd see turret farms and capped nodes all over the map. Now it'd odd to see the marines finish the game with more than three or four. If the marines can make do with their spawn and two hives, the rest of the map is just there for scenery.
Unfortunately it's starting to seem a little like WC3, where my friends help me when I was just starting out:
Me: ok, what now?
Friend: peasant, peasant, gold, farm, barracks, 5 footmen...
I just hope there's NEVER a clear-cut strategy for winning that someone will figure out...
Many, many times I've told my team "They hold 2 of our hives soo fast, so their main has to be so weak!!" And for the most part I'm right. We rush in to find 2-3 turrets and we start chomping on stuff. Then instantly the portal lights up and Marines just flood through.
Skulks are so weak, and Marines have only gotten better with tactics and accuracy. It's a very common thing for one Marine to take out 3 skulks with one LMG clip.
Additionally, telefragging when 2 people pop through the gate in under 1 sec or something would be kinda cool - would make people think twice about gate hopping when they have full HA/HMGs, 'cause they might lose it all.
N.
So, to counteract the phase gate rush I would suggest that all of the skulks attack the outpost at the same time. 4-6 skulks SHOULD be able to take out a similar sized marine team +the phase gate before the re-enforcements get there.
Bottom line: Marines have learnt to work together and move as a group. If aliens did this i bet you would see the aliens winning many more games than they do.
So, to counteract the phase gate rush I would suggest that all of the skulks attack the outpost at the same time. 4-6 skulks SHOULD be able to take out a similar sized marine team +the phase gate before the re-enforcements get there.
Bottom line: Marines have learnt to work together and move as a group. If aliens did this i bet you would see the aliens winning many more games than they do.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
See, the thing is an outpost witha phase, is never unguarded, there will always be turrets, most liekly shooting at you while you try to take the phase, and if you try to take the turrets, marines will spawn back and jump through to kill you before you can do major damage, while probably getting the com to drop a weilder to repair anything you did damage, while dropping even more turrets to guard the open spots that where missed earlier.
Say without turrets you have 4 skulks against 4 marines. Somehow you sneak up on them and kill all of them while loosing 2 skulks, a smart com will probably have 2+ spawns to get the marines back into action, and through that phase to kill you. They probably wont stop for ammo, I know I wouldn'tm 50/50 bullets is definately more than enough against 2 most likely weakened skulks, you'll either kill them or die before you can use up all your ammo.
reason? 1.00 wasn't balanced, at all. pretty hard to take out a 20 turret turret farm in 1.00 when destroying the tf doesnt stop a turret
so. the balance still needs to be resolved, because the two sides are so different balance is going to take a long time, just ask blizzard
So, to counteract the phase gate rush I would suggest that all of the skulks attack the outpost at the same time. 4-6 skulks SHOULD be able to take out a similar sized marine team +the phase gate before the re-enforcements get there.
Bottom line: Marines have learnt to work together and move as a group. If aliens did this i bet you would see the aliens winning many more games than they do.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
ah yes to bad marines spawns XXX times faster than Khaara does and can instantly TP for my bunghole back into the action...
So, to counteract the phase gate rush I would suggest that all of the skulks attack the outpost at the same time. 4-6 skulks SHOULD be able to take out a similar sized marine team +the phase gate before the re-enforcements get there.
Bottom line: Marines have learnt to work together and move as a group. If aliens did this i bet you would see the aliens winning many more games than they do.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
See, the thing is an outpost witha phase, is never unguarded, there will always be turrets, most liekly shooting at you while you try to take the phase, and if you try to take the turrets, marines will spawn back and jump through to kill you before you can do major damage, while probably getting the com to drop a weilder to repair anything you did damage, while dropping even more turrets to guard the open spots that where missed earlier.
Say without turrets you have 4 skulks against 4 marines. Somehow you sneak up on them and kill all of them while loosing 2 skulks, a smart com will probably have 2+ spawns to get the marines back into action, and through that phase to kill you. They probably wont stop for ammo, I know I wouldn'tm 50/50 bullets is definately more than enough against 2 most likely weakened skulks, you'll either kill them or die before you can use up all your ammo.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, last night I was dead and heard the commander over voice comm... "Don't stop for ammo, get through the phase, you stop for ammo, I don't drop any health or guns for you for the rest of the game. Get through that phase gate!"
The marines phase rushed and the ONLY thing that saved us was the aliens had good communication. Every time the marines would get a phase going, there would be 8 skulks rushing like MAD to get to it and eat it. We usually succeeded, problem was we NEEDED all 8 to be able to stand a chance once the portal itself would get up; eventually they got smart and split their forces. We tried to split ours, but without the numbers, we didn't stand a chance. 4 skulks can't prevail against 5 marines unless they ambush =/
Thankfully our gorge was good; if we hadn't got fades when we did, that game would have been over fast...
There are actually two problems being discussed here, the faster resource accumulation for the marines, and the phase gate itself.
For the resource accumulation, a solution would be to make the ready room donation official, some sort of button on the menu to do it, so your resources are spread among team members, with most for gorges. This will not result in fades after just a few minutes, because those who donated to the gorge may help get a hive up quickly, but they will not have the resources to go fade. At worst you get leaping skulks quickly. The best way for a gorge to use the resources probably would be to get RP's up faster, which would probably help the team more. The current problem is that, in the early game, resources are spread to skulks who can only do one sensible thing with it: go gorge. Not everyone needs to go gorge, so a lot of those resources are useless initially. Another option to disallow lerks in the first minutes might be a good idea too on public servers.
For the phase gate: two problems: it's too fast (rush tactics) and it's annoying because marines get stuck in each other sometimes. I propose the following:
- permanent force field around phase gates that do not allow anyone on top of them (also disallow building them where marines would get stuck in the ceiling).
- when the use button is pressed on a phase gate, there are +/-15 seconds when the shield becomes passable for the marine who pressed the button, on all phase gates. If he doesn't get away from inside a gate when the shield comes back to full power, he gets killed. Also let him choose which phase gate he wants to go to.
- optional: extra feature: when an Onos uses a phase gate, the onos is killed instantly, while the phase gate self-destructs and explodes violently (damages both sides). <!--emo&::onos::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tiny.gif'><!--endemo--> is too big for that thing anyway.
Finally, the respawn time is very long for tha aliens in big games, when seeral aliens die. The marines can just build more spawnpoints. Perhaps make the hive work a bit faster when there are lots of dead Kharaa?
I've made some balance changes to address this problem in v1.04, watch for them.
I've made some balance changes to address this problem in v1.04, watch for them.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You see? The hive mind knows... It can hear us!
I've made some balance changes to address this problem in v1.04, watch for them.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Boo-urns. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
Flayra. I hold your in the highest regards (up there w. Molyneaux, Spector and Meier) so I trust your judgement. Just be careful...the phase gate is basically the only reason marines are winning nowadays. Nerfing the phase gates severely nerfs the marines...
I've made some balance changes to address this problem in v1.04, watch for them.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thank you Flayra... I was hoping to get just a straight response from someone in the dev team, be it yea or nay.
Add this to the things I love about NS : The dev team isn't this 'invisible force that changes the mod', they actually listen and respond to the players who have questions <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
It would be nice if destroying the observatory shut down existing phase gates, but at least you can stop the marines from building new ones for a while (in a large game, only 1-2 skulks are needed to accomplish this feat).
So I guess the issue here is not balance (as a good plan of protecting a second hive is better than rushing IMHO), but simply coordination. At least the marines have a commander.
Sucks to have to join a clan to play NS with competent aliens...
(while I admit that there's seasoned vets, most public players are pretty fresh...)
For now it's:
I OWNERS J00!!! NOOOO!
<!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is exactly it. A coordinated alien team will know not to initially rush the marine spawn (and creating long lines at the hive from the beginning). A coordinated alien team will know to attack marine spawn once it's become deserted after most of the marines are either on way to a new hive or already there building and defending.
In other words, I really believe that two coordinated teams (alien and marine) will have fun playing on most maps, and with little or many people. The only advantage that marines have in my opinion is inherent coordination associated with the commander (assigning waypoints and telling your marines what to do).
I think the coolest thing that the developers could do to fix this little problem would be to put in some factor that would coordinate the alien team a little more, even on pub servers. What that is, I'm not sure, but it would add more depth to the game and patch up the little problem of an unfocused alien team (at least early on).
/ Wheatevo