So is the game very asymmetrical or are aliens not balanced?
Fappuchino
Join Date: 2012-10-10 Member: 162008Members
Join Date: 2012-10-10 Member: 162008Members
So I just watched a match on the NS2 channel between two teams in the tournament, and the superior marines also turned out to be the superior aliens, which was interesting to watch because the style was completely different. They attacked as a horde or took advantage of their sneaky verticality.
Now my question is, how do people in this forum gauge balance? Because if you think aliens aren't up to snuff based on 1 vs 1 situations where aliens are essentially short marines + axe, isn't that kind of uninteresting? Shouldn't a player's timing and use of the map be more of a determinant of an alien's play-style? Two crucial things, which by the way, I can imagine being lost in public play hence all the complaints.
*Should note I haven't played the game, so feel free to berate me on that note, and I apologize if this has been discussed a hundred times.
Now my question is, how do people in this forum gauge balance? Because if you think aliens aren't up to snuff based on 1 vs 1 situations where aliens are essentially short marines + axe, isn't that kind of uninteresting? Shouldn't a player's timing and use of the map be more of a determinant of an alien's play-style? Two crucial things, which by the way, I can imagine being lost in public play hence all the complaints.
*Should note I haven't played the game, so feel free to berate me on that note, and I apologize if this has been discussed a hundred times.
Comments
It might not be what they come here to do but thats what it usually ends up as.
As for balance, early game favours marines while mid game favours aliens. Late game imo is the most balanced (although it is easier for marines).
<a href="http://ns2stats.org/" target="_blank">http://ns2stats.org/</a>
The sample size is small for every patch, but there hasn't been a single patch where the Marines had more wins than the Aliens according to NS2Stats. Not a one. You think there would be some variation, but no.
The sample size is small for every patch, but there hasn't been a single patch where the Marines had more wins than the Aliens according to NS2Stats. Not a one. You think there would be some variation, but no.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Personally, I'd like to see "minutes spent in winning games" stats. Would be more interesting than number of games won, actually. Short, crappy games shouldn't anyhow.
However yes, Aliens do seem very weak right now. I haven't seen a single instance of aliens winning since this latest patch (albeit I haven't had time to play many matches). But my friends do not tell me good things and as of 222 refuse to even play on Aliens.
<!--quoteo(post=1990769:date=Oct 13 2012, 10:00 AM:name=matso)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (matso @ Oct 13 2012, 10:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1990769"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Personally, I'd like to see "minutes spent in winning games" stats. Would be more interesting than number of games won, actually. Short, crappy games shouldn't anyhow.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is very true. There are many instances of games that last under 5 minutes due to skulk rushing and the marines not being coordinated. Heck I've rushed into the Marine command before they've even had a commander before. Every one just rushed to the nearest extractor point.
edit: Also I've probably only seen one server running NS2stats, and I've rarely been on it. According to NS2stats I've only ever played 4 rounds, with a total of just under 3hours game time (steam reports 95, although some of that will be the editor).
Also, double hive onos egg. I'm sorry but myself and others have been going exclusively for this strategy since it's probably the only viable way to stay in the game as aliens.
It goes like this: 2 hives ASAP, Onos EGG ASAP -> good chance of winning. Any other strategy is more likely to lose you the game, and truth be told; 2 hive onos egg is pretty broken. It's sad we need to resort to broken strategies as an alien commander to ensure that we can still win games at times.
Either way, I sincerely hope UWE doesn't fixate too much on these stats and makes a deeper analysis. Many players will agree the balance is off and alien strategic gameplay is incredibly shallow (no real choices) and while I don't think the 222 patch made it 'considerable worse' it didn't do anything to reverse that trend either. I think the new skulk bite isn't that bad for more advanced players, but it's causes a huge accessibility problem for newer ones.
Here's what I would propose off the top of my head, I can only dream we see this happen one day
- Smaller skulk model (makes skulk more forgiving to play and will require better aiming for marines, currently it's a breeze to hit dog-size skulks)
- Better collision models for skulks and marines (This is BIG, marines getting on top of skulk heads and all, makes melee gameplay frustrating)
- Commander onos egg at 3 hives or higher cost at 2 hives (It would be interesting if all lifeforms can be dropped at any stage but their cost is based on number of hives)
- FOCUS, please bring this back
- Better egg spawn rate (This is definitely one of the reasons why alien commanders feel they have to go shift and/or second hive)
- Better wall jump mechanic, 222 is a step in the right direction but it's not good enough yet.
- Lerk gas at T1 again (It's incredibly viable in countering early marine rushes and phase tech, but at T2 it just comes into the game too late) Some players argue lerks need spikes to counter shotguns, but I honestly never see lerks do that effectively anyway. Make spikes much better at T2 so aliens can tech it if they want to counter shotguns with lerks...
- Up the hydra limit or make them a little tankier
- Make gorge tankier, reduce belly-slide energy cost and/or further lower some of it's energy costz.
- Give adren a better regeneration rate. (It's not proportional to the larger pool currently, so it's actually somewhat of a debuff, no other upgrade gives debuffs anymore)
From the troll himself!
- Better collision models for skulks and marines (This is BIG, marines getting on top of skulk heads and all, makes melee gameplay frustrating)
...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
if you mean with this that marines are able to step over skulks: this is fixed for build 224
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->- Give adren a better regeneration rate. (It's not proportional to the larger pool currently, so it's actually somewhat of a debuff, no other upgrade gives debuffs anymore)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> so carapace is a debuff as well because it takes you longer to get healed? :) but i wouldnt mind to increase the regen rate a bit (just not twice as much...) together with buffing other upgrades
With a good commander, marines will win most of their games. A good commander for aliens does very little to benefit them.
In pubs you will see alot of bad commanders and uncoordinated teams, which penalizes marines more.
In competitive matches, aliens have to stay in a skulk horde to overcome the good marine commanders medpack spam.
Its hard to balance for both pub and competitive play when the commanders influence in a match is so different. Balancing for pub play has left aliens underpowered in competitive matches.
The sample size is small for every patch, but there hasn't been a single patch where the Marines had more wins than the Aliens according to NS2Stats. Not a one. You think there would be some variation, but no.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That statistic is irrelevant, the amount of games that end after 30 seconds from an alien baserush generally makes up the difference, if you look at the sample size and how many games are in the aliens favour its usually around 20-30. So really is quite a pointless strategy.
In pubs the difference is the commanders, khamm doesnt really influence fights in the slightest whilst comm can totally save marines etc.
Also when i play as marines i notice i get res much faster regardless of how mant rt's my team controls. I think this is from the fact you get points from killing cysts (2res per kill) and the fact that Alien upgrades are so easy to kill with one or two grenades. This allows for personal resource generation rather quickly. You don't see arms labs being killed frequently through the game (upgrades also do not have to be re-researched as a marine)
The basic fresh spawned marine also scales as the game goes on. Where as the Skulk does not scale at all (If you want to take cara into account then he does get marginally better but its basically paper armour)
There are a couple of other things i can think of but will leave them for another time (dont want you to zone out too quickly).
Basically even if my team is winning as an alien if im unlucky enough to lose a life form it is much harder to get enough res to get it back then it is for a marine to just pick up a GL or Shotgun or even earn enough res to do so.
All of my views come from playing on public servers, but i feel they are just as valid as a competitive players view, because the player base will come from new players playing on public servers, then progressing to competitive play.
Also if the aliens are not fun to play or feel much weaker it will lead to marine team stacking which will drive off new players and reduce sales etc. which leads to less money for UWE and less support for this otherwise amazing game.
/rambleoff
Just remember: any marine alone against a fade has almost no chance of winning, and generally a fade will get more kills per res spent than a shotgunner, even with guns being recycled
PS - it was mentioned in another thread to have guns disapear quicker on infestation, and i wholeheartedly agree with this notion
This is great to hear, thanks!
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->so carapace is a debuff as well because it takes you longer to get healed? :) but i wouldnt mind to increase the regen rate a bit (just not twice as much...) together with buffing other upgrades<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I suppose that's a good point, but yea, just a little faster regen would already go a long way in making adren more viable. (Double regen rate was broken, I 100% agree on that)
Oh and I forgot one:
- Xenocide! Please fix this. It's really a great ability, but I feel that by the time it comes out marines usually have A3 and the ability does in fact become useless. With a more dynamic tech system, where aliens can get T3 abilities at 2 hives and T2 at 1 hive, but at a larger cost and/or research time, we'd not only see the strategic options for khammanders multiply, we'd also have some of these abilities like xenocide actually become useful (since they then an actually be gotten faster, at a time when they might still have a much bigger impact on the game....Same can be said for stomp, by the time you get T3 marines usually have jetpacks and exos)
i just have the feeling, that there is a lack of skill the reason for the complaints ...
there are some things, that are unbalanced at the moment, but many games from the alienside could be won, if the aliens would play as a team ... running in 1v1 situations as a skulk is something you should loose, if u are not hiding at a ceiling, or atacking from behind or out of a vent ...
and the talking about alien baserushing the rines and keeping the statistics even with it, is something i can't confirm ...
i had no single skulkbaserush since 2 to 3 weeks and im playing very much lately ...
and respective xenocide ... it's kind of a relict, that made it from ns1 to ns2 ... in ns1 it was used to weaken marinebunkers ... but because noone is bunkering and marines can not stay in the game that long anymore, there is no real need of researching it ... if u can get it with a 2nd hive it would be ways too strong
That describes the problem pretty good, Kharaa have a narrow window of opportunity to turn the round in their favor, if they miss it they end up fighting another uphill battle like early game.
<!--quoteo(post=1990809:date=Oct 13 2012, 12:37 PM:name=Sewlek)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Sewlek @ Oct 13 2012, 12:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1990809"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->so carapace is a debuff as well because it takes you longer to get healed? :) but i wouldnt mind to increase the regen rate a bit (just not twice as much...) together with buffing other upgrades<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually carapace on the Onos feels like an debuff, way too much HP/Armor to fill up in relation to the healing output of crags/gorges.
So you either waste a ton of time running all the way back to a hive or spent an considerable amount of time looking at a gorge blowing you ;)
It's not just marines that walk over skulks.
Marines, exos, fades, onos walk over skulks and gorges.
Someone also said they increased the fire rate on lmgs? is that why I feel like a paper skulk now? I noticed right away that I seemed to be dieing much faster as a skulks then normal, and other people noticed it in the server as well it was like a consensus without having to say anything.
I dunno someone else in this thread said it better, Alien team just got a whole lot less fun with this patch. The few times I played on marine were kind of un notable, as the alien team had one of those wildcard players on it in each occurance. The ones that go 70-4 without breaking a sweat, so it was really hard to tell if marines were op, just right, or too weak. As that particular player was just stomping on every marine that spawned. Then When I finally thought we had an alien match won, inv.joe kills 74 skulks all by himself repeatedly killing 4-6 at once as the team desperately tried to get him out of our base. Or finish off a CC area that we had already won, to which he would single handedly defend against our whole team....
sigh... This game is impossible to balance... but I can say from my exp with b223 alien side has lost a lot of it's "fun"
(See what I did there.)
Anecdotal evidence is rarely useful.
Continue to play the game, make the most of it, don't stack teams, continue to try and see what happens.
If the recent beta cup tourney showed us anything, its that superior players win on both sides, no matter what. There is no automatic wins simply because of sides.
(See what I did there.)
Anecdotal evidence is rarely useful.
Continue to play the game, make the most of it, don't stack teams, continue to try and see what happens.
If the recent beta cup tourney showed us anything, its that superior players win on both sides, no matter what. There is no automatic wins simply because of sides.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The difference is your evidence is based from your already decided upon goal of proving the game is balanced, whereas other people are presenting their evidence to back up their general feelings. Did you truely find that the teams were balanced in all 3 games? Did you use the fast hive fast leap, onos strategy every game vs a less experienced marine commander? Did you really feel in your games since the new patch that both teams are even?
If you really feel its balanced, thats great and you could even be right, but it seems to me that the majority of people are coming down on the opposite side of things from you.
I can't speak for others but that's how I feel after this patch and I truly don't believe I have an alien bais.