<!--quoteo(post=1999342:date=Oct 28 2012, 09:16 PM:name=Techercizer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Techercizer @ Oct 28 2012, 09:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1999342"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well then, mods? We already have NS2C, we need NS2B, for balanced :3.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I am hoping for the same thing as well. Maybe with 1.0 and a bunch of new people, mods will begin to take off.
<!--quoteo(post=1999365:date=Oct 28 2012, 09:36 PM:name=Cat-Poker)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Cat-Poker @ Oct 28 2012, 09:36 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1999365"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I am hoping for the same thing as well. Maybe with 1.0 and a bunch of new people, mods will begin to take off.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Not without talented, dedicated modders who believe in the cause. Fortunately, we have lots of people who meet the first two criteria right here, and launch hasn't even happened yet.
<!--quoteo(post=1999331:date=Oct 28 2012, 07:07 PM:name=RedDragon)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RedDragon @ Oct 28 2012, 07:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1999331"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Implementing an intermediate step between LMGs and some other weapon, or modifying shotguns to be less powerful while offering greater chance to hit are reasonable solutions. But my point is that the problem goes much deeper than just the shotgun. If you make either of these changes today, particularly one that means the shotgun becomes less powerful, aliens (as they are now) will ROFL-Stomp marines.
The shotgun is a problem, but the larger problem are the confused game mechanics. Whats happened is that the game has been designed around a very loose agreement as to what these asymmetrical teams should "look like" without much thought to a rigid design plan. And now we've gone through 225 builds of tweaks based on this very loose conceptualization of game mechanics (many of these builds taking no consideration of how future performance increases will effect mechanics or gameplay) and we're left with a system that is held together by little more than bandaids.
Prove me wrong, and I will be forever grateful. Because I love this game, I truly do. But I don't think I am wrong, which is honestly rather depressing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1999371:date=Oct 28 2012, 09:43 PM:name=eh?)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (eh? @ Oct 28 2012, 09:43 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1999371"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->ns2b actually did exist and it was more balanced and enjoyable than ns2, but there was no interest in it from the developers unfortunately.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> So? Mods don't exist for developer approval; they exist to be enjoyed by players. If we don't believe UWE is appropriately addressing issues with the core game, we can design, code, and implement the fixes ourselves. Either everyone will play on NS2B, which will be fun for us, nobody will play on NS2B, which means the play isn't fun and doesn't improve the game, or some people will play NS2B and some people won't, which will be fun for us.
To me the 5:00 Onos is a strategy that should be in the game. HOWEVER, with the current alien upgrade structure it is not possible. This is due to the aforementioned resilience of the Onos not scaling throughout the game. It has only one set of HP/Armor values which is only modified by carapace. This creates a duality where you have carapace or you don't. As such the Onos comes out at 5 minutes with endgame levels of health with armor that can further be buffed by an upgrade. Also with the Onos HP being nerfed supposedly in the upcoming patch that pigeon holes the lifeform further into getting carapace which is something I thought the devs were trying to avoid.
I hate to harp on this but proper scaling on the alien team is really needed to keep the game balanced during the early game, mid-game and late game.
I think with our current map designs that consist of small, tight corridors shotguns and especially GLs can become very problematic for the Alien team, I'll go ahead and say that I'm not an expert on NS2's metagame but one would think that having the large open spaces that were featured frequently in NS1 would reduce the power of these weapons and give Aliens more room to take advantage of climbing walls or attacking from multiple directions, no?
Something to keep in mind is that this game is going to need to be balanced for 8v8 through 12v12 in order to create any sort player base, or else somehow encouraging smaller games. Nerfing the Onos because it's too strong at 6 minutes is going to make it pure ###### in a 10v10 when it comes out from pres at 10 minutes plus.
<!--quoteo(post=1999390:date=Oct 28 2012, 09:58 PM:name={LoC}Blue_Leader)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ({LoC}Blue_Leader @ Oct 28 2012, 09:58 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1999390"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think with our current map designs that consist of small, tight corridors shotguns and especially GLs can become very problematic for the Alien team, I'll go ahead and say that I'm not an expert on NS2's metagame but one would think that having the large open spaces that were featured frequently in NS1 would reduce the power of these weapons and give Aliens more room to take advantage of climbing walls or attacking from multiple directions, no?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> It would help, but it would also allow marines to maintain longer lines of sight and engage aliens at a much larger range, which would have the opposite effect.
Regardless, the deep issues here won't be solved by any amount of map changes.
<!--quoteo(post=1999395:date=Oct 28 2012, 09:03 PM:name=Techercizer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Techercizer @ Oct 28 2012, 09:03 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1999395"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It would help, but it would also allow marines to maintain longer lines of sight and engage aliens at a much larger range, which would have the opposite effect.
Regardless, the deep issues here won't be solved by any amount of map changes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Perhaps. I just don't think there's enough space for the Aliens to really make use of their unique abilities to close the gap and it doesn't even matter if Marines have Exos, GLs, Shottys because they just seem to dominate with all those working in unison. It makes me wish that they'd either reduce the explosive range of GLs or bring back personal grenades and remove GLs all together, I can't see that happening though considering that they were in the first game, plus the metagame is balanced to an extent of marines having them.
Long story short it feels that Marines have ranged and to an extent, close combat advantage against Aliens but it doesn't help that Skulks don't exactly scale well late into the game because of all this massive AoE damage that marines will have. Marines even with the stock rifle seem immensely more useful late game than skulks, regardless of upgrades.
I say this as a mostly Marine player, I'm not asking for nerfs but something seems off about Aliens and I can't help but think that GLs have a big part to do with it..plus the game as Aliens gets immensely less 'fun' when you're attempting to dodge barrages of nades raining down on your hive.
Seems extremely obvious to me that comms dropping ###### should cost more (I do not have a finite number, but probably in the 1.5x ballpark) than the pres players pay for them. Should be an abundance of res kinda thing.
Just buff aliens in other ways, like anyone that has played more than 15 minutes of ns2 can suggest.
I don't see the big deal to be honest. Aliens have a lot more trouble obtaining and keeping res. Saving for a quick onos means forgoing upgrades which puts you in a tough spot. Marines will have the upper hand until that onos comes out, so i'm sure there's ways to counter it before it comes out, and capitalize on the aliens not spending anything until it's out (means they have to wait longer for leap, cara, celerity, bile, blink, and anything else they might want)
Also, unless cara is evolved, the onos isn't at full power (and the res spent on cara is just more time to wait for onos).
Also, there's a lot of pressure to perform well as the early onos, and if you die quickly, it's most likely over (i.e. the investment on the early onos can lose you the game if the marine team manages to kill it in a timely fashion and before it does any real damage).
Also, from what I watched of the other tournament, armory blocking in hallways seems to be standard practice for competitive play. This severely reduces what an onos can do. Good luck having a single onos without cara do much at all trying to seige a location blocked by an armory, with a coordinated marine team laying concentrated fire on it out of harms way.
Granted, I haven't been invovled in the competitive scene in ns2, so my points might not mean a lot in the context of higher-level play. Just my 2c
GLs are only a problem in the extremely large pub games and large pub turtles. I also think they should do less player damage, but that's a really minor concern compared to the 5-7 minute onos.
To restate the ridiculousness that is the current 2-hive tres dropped onos: Please watch the inv vs all-in game 5 <a href="http://www.twitch.tv/blindns2/b/337228090" target="_blank">http://www.twitch.tv/blindns2/b/337228090</a> @5:39:00
We drop the onos egg @5:15 game time after getting leap. If we had skipped leap then we could have dropped the onos egg at 4:25!
Now at 5:15 when we dropped the onos egg. Our first lerk was just now gestating (he had 31 pres). Our second lerk had 32 pres and decided to skip lerk all together because we had the onos in under 6 minutes.
Yes, you read that correctly. Our onos egg was dropped and building at the same time our first players could start their lerk. Our lerk came out at 5:30. Our onos came out at 5:48.
Does ANYONE want to defend an onos coming out at 5:48, just 18 seconds after a lerk can first hatch? Does ANYONE actually think this is a fair strategy?
To be fair its pretty damn hard to win a game on aliens without the early onos drop. My idea is simply to increase the onos egg cost so that its a larger investment for the aliens, and subsequently causes it to come later on the field as well. This could be fine tweaked according to what competitive players feel is fair.
I don't see the harm in bumping the res to 125 per onos egg. Considering the time they hit the field I see this to be a fair cost vs 75. The system is incredibly flawed and broken, and the overall game balance relies on this bandaid for marines currently overpowered gameplay. Fades can't get out early enough to make onos less important, and I remember builds and builds ago the onos was nearly useless. It can't be THAT hard to find a healthy balance which makes multiple strategies viable. Competitive players are going to get awfully bored playing the same scenario over and over again because its simply the only (or best) route to victory. This type of gameplay seems laughable for competitive play. We have returned to extreme imbalance that we experienced pre-200 builds.
Upon claiming 3 tech points the onos egg could be reduced in cost to 75 as a bonus for the 3rd tech point. It's not that complicated and I believe it would work if tried. Perhaps 125 is a high mark, but other things could be tweaked such as harvester build times / HP. Something needs to become weaker on the aliens to be made exploitable to slow res flow for 2nd hive onos, either that or simply remove the abomination.
In ns1 you would often see fades hitting the field quite early. Usually around 4-5 min mark and they were the meta switch. Now we are getting onos before fades... because fades aren't getting on the field early enough to establish map control / area denial.
This is pretty obvious slap you in the face stuff here. Watching all these games should be an eye opener to the game developers to get serious about balancing and tweaking the game.
<!--quoteo(post=1999449:date=Oct 29 2012, 12:14 AM:name=.ADHd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (.ADHd @ Oct 29 2012, 12:14 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1999449"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->To be fair its pretty damn hard to win a game on aliens without the early onos drop.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think that's a larger problem stemming from factors like having better responsive movement for the Kharaa.
I didn't realize how sluggish Skulks feel when I connected to NS2 after playing Quake Live.
<!--quoteo(post=1999156:date=Oct 29 2012, 12:45 AM:name=IeptBarakat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (IeptBarakat @ Oct 29 2012, 12:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1999156"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think Alien commanders dropping lifeforms is a great addition for strategic play, just that it should be 3 hives to be able to drop an Onos egg.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1999455:date=Oct 28 2012, 11:21 PM:name=Zomb3h)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zomb3h @ Oct 28 2012, 11:21 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1999455"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think that's a larger problem stemming from factors like having better responsive movement for the Kharaa.
I didn't realize how sluggish Skulks feel when I connected to NS2 after playing Quake Live.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't see this as an issue to be honest. Skulk play is based on ambush tactics / evasion, but relies most heavily on teamplay and coordination. I think the skulks move fast and precise, and I never understood the complaining about skulk movement lately. The skulks already possess enough movement abilities / upgrades. Skulk movement isn't related at all to the imbalance of 2nd hive onos drop.
In my opinion, fades need to be brought back to glory and onos should be coming up much later into the game. You can kill a fade in less than 1 lmg clip currently, even if they have carapace. In NS1 it took considerable more firepower to take down fades than 1 lmg magazine. Fades were much stronger in NS1, and I am not necessarily saying to boost fade HP. Tweaking res flow (Or other aspects concerning cyst build times / harvester) and fades could be the answer to making onos unessential to holding ground in early / mid game. I can't believe I'm actually talking about onos in early / mid game haha.
I disagree with 3rd hive onos because if the res is in the bank the commander should be able to use it to buy necessary lifeforms for various reasons. The most obvious reason is that the gameplay is currently based around teams holding 2 tech points... not 3. A rework of that entire system at this point will cause more problems than it solves. If the marines take your 3rd hive you should still be very much in the game, but onos will still be necessary. Its already frustrating enough to win a game even WITH 2nd hive onos. The imbalance is small at the moment, and doesn't require drastic measures. It wouldn't make sense to take away the ability to spend tres on onos with only 2 tech points. Most of the game and fighting will be centered around teams holding 2 tech points. Requiring aliens to have 3 will cause imbalance as well. A better solution is to look deeper into all the factors of res income, and also tres cost of the onos.
Currently, the biggest issue that I have noticed is hitreg issues keeping marines from being able to pressure early harvesters. Fix the reg and the 2nd hive onos becomes less OP, but still requires a rework.
Maybe make stomp available at hive 2 but reduce Onos speed considerably? I don't like the idea of the Onos appearing in locations moments after skulks and other more supposedly agile lifeforms. When Oni are only slightly less mobile than fades, what is the incentive to get anything else?
Basically what I'm saying is you don't need to strictly nerf the Onos in order to make rushing it less desirable. If you reduce its capacity to roam the entire map, you reduce its effectiveness in certain situations, while keeping it largely the same in others. Say aliens just get a 2nd hive up and have 75 res, but uh oh, marines are setting up a fortified position outside one of the hives. Get that Onos out there and do some damage. The threat is concentrated enough that the Onos can be fully effective while confining himself to a very small area of the map. On the other hand, what if the marines aren't creating any immediate threat, but are taking far too many resource points all over the map? Get some fades out to patrol with their superior mobility.
Stomp is so incredibly broken that it being 3 hive is the only reason you don't see the forums flooded with complaints about it.
One stomp can cause a marine to be stunned multiple times back to back. The animations can also get off sync causing stomp to trigger seconds before or after when it looks like it should be triggering on your screen.
Making onos A LOT slower could be a good first step toward balancing them early game, but it comes with the side effect of probably making them terrible later in the game. Most of this problem is that the onos, an endgame unit, is coming out in 5-10 minutes instead of the actual end game. The onos is coming out when the lerk should be coming out, never mind the fact that fades come out after onos in the current system.
Any fix which doesn't greatly push back the onos to after when fades hit the field is missing the entire point of the problem created by an end game unit showing up in the early to mid game.
<!--quoteo(post=1999496:date=Oct 29 2012, 07:10 AM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Oct 29 2012, 07:10 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1999496"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Stomp is so incredibly broken that it being 3 hive is the only reason you don't see the forums flooded with complaints about it.
One stomp can cause a marine to be stunned multiple times back to back. The animations can also get off sync causing stomp to trigger seconds before or after when it looks like it should be triggering on your screen.
Making onos A LOT slower could be a good first step toward balancing them early game, but it comes with the side effect of probably making them terrible later in the game. Most of this problem is that the onos, an endgame unit, is coming out in 5-10 minutes instead of the actual end game. The onos is coming out when the lerk should be coming out, never mind the fact that fades come out after onos in the current system.
Any fix which doesn't greatly push back the onos to after when fades hit the field is missing the entire point of the problem created by an end game unit showing up in the early to mid game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If a marine team doesn't endeavor to get any upgrades past level 1 armour/weaps, how long would it take them to get jetpacks? Before or after the current 5-6 minute Onos? Are they not of a comparable tech level? If not, what about a 5-6 minute exo drop? Would this not stop the Onos onslaught?
If I was the Developer I would look back to my NS1 roots to fix this problem, By adding the HMG back into the god damn game. NS2:Classic already done all the hard work. you might want to speak with them for a code port/quick fix.
everything wrong with the onos has to do with everything that's wrong with the alien side, namely that they don't scale with game time. a 5 minute onos should be significantly weaker than a 10 or 15 minute onos by virtue of the fact that they don't have a good amount of upgrades. this is completely absent since there is 0 upgrade scaling by hive.
<!--quoteo(post=1999544:date=Oct 29 2012, 08:17 AM:name=Wheeee)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wheeee @ Oct 29 2012, 08:17 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1999544"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->everything wrong with the onos has to do with everything that's wrong with the alien side, namely that they don't scale with game time. a 5 minute onos should be significantly weaker than a 10 or 15 minute onos by virtue of the fact that they don't have a good amount of upgrades. this is completely absent since there is 0 upgrade scaling by hive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Its a symptom of the all eggs in one basket nature of the alien team it seems. 75 res all dumped into a single lifeform. All resources acquired for 2, max 3 harvesters. Max level of an upgrade gained from a single shell.
There is little room for variance when its all or nothing.
<!--quoteo(post=1999433:date=Oct 28 2012, 10:53 PM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Oct 28 2012, 10:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1999433"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->GLs are only a problem in the extremely large pub games and large pub turtles. I also think they should do less player damage, but that's a really minor concern compared to the 5-7 minute onos.
To restate the ridiculousness that is the current 2-hive tres dropped onos: Please watch the inv vs all-in game 5 <a href="http://www.twitch.tv/blindns2/b/337228090" target="_blank">http://www.twitch.tv/blindns2/b/337228090</a> @5:39:00
We drop the onos egg @5:15 game time after getting leap. If we had skipped leap then we could have dropped the onos egg at 4:25!
Now at 5:15 when we dropped the onos egg. Our first lerk was just now gestating (he had 31 pres). Our second lerk had 32 pres and decided to skip lerk all together because we had the onos in under 6 minutes.
Yes, you read that correctly. Our onos egg was dropped and building at the same time our first players could start their lerk. Our lerk came out at 5:30. Our onos came out at 5:48.
Does ANYONE want to defend an onos coming out at 5:48, just 18 seconds after a lerk can first hatch? Does ANYONE actually think this is a fair strategy?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> GORGEous i watched all 5 of your games today w/ all-in and ya, onos at 5:48 is clearly ridiculous. Contrary to the many knee-jerk cries of "broken" and "imbalanced" around the chat and forums, I actually feel that NS is quite well balanced but this issue does need to be dealt with. Onos is intended as a late game unit and rines really get set back when they are facing one down at 5-6 min mark.
In my mind, there is an easy answer: jetpacks and exos, the onos "counterparts" need to be researched, so make advanced alien lifeforms also researchable. You could even just limit it to having onos eggs and fade eggs needing to be researched if you wanted to be very specific in balancing this issue. In my mind, jetpacks and exos should be coming out around the same time as an onos in a game b/w two evenly matched sides, which means we shouldn't be seeing the onos till much later in the game. Then UWE can tightly control the timing to ensure competitive balance is reached, and also that we see a logical progression of lerk-->fade-->onos.
That said, I feel that there ARE answers to 6 min onos in the current build, and it's too easy to start crying imba after just a few matches. First of all, watching today's match b/w Inversion and All-in, it is clear both sides alien play was stronger, which is why aliens won 5 out of 5. In the aforementioned game 5, I would note that in the stats, marines never had a positive k/d at any time in the match, killed 0 extractors, let aliens hold min. 3 extractors for the whole game, and as far as I can tell, never even dmg'd a hive. On veil! When you get to the 5:48 mark as marines and this is the case, you have dug yourself a huge hole. Marines need to pressure hard early, RTs and/or hives, in order to delay the onos egg drop and keep aliens on the back foot.
Even after the onos arrives, there are still answers. The onos is big and fairly slow. If he gets too far away from heal support, either hive or gorge, it is very vulnerable to being surrounded. Particularly in the early game w/o carapace even lvl0 weapons can take out an exposed onos. That is why most smart onos players will just stick around a hive and defend it. In a 6v6 w/ CO on each side, that leaves 5 "outfielders," if say one alien is gorge, that leaves just 4 aliens, now if an onos is dedicated to hive defense, you've only got 3 aliens left against 5 marines in the field. This numbers imbalance can be exploited by marines to expand, establish map control + take out alien res.
Check out the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZT8KMG7_xY&feature=plcp" target="_blank">recent game 3 of exertus v archaea in the guru final</a>. Exertus as aliens on veil got onos at the 6:20 mark. How did marines respond? Armory block for their PG at subsector, then ninja PG in Y junction and shotgun rush the undefended hive at Cargo. Onos is too slow to cross the map before the other hive goes down. Game. OK I know it's archaea and they are going to win anyway, but there is a reason they win, they use the best strategies.
I think 6min onos should be removed, but I also think that before immediately jumping to conclude that the game balance is "broken," players should try harder to adapt and come up with answers.
<!--quoteo(post=1999502:date=Oct 28 2012, 09:13 PM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Oct 28 2012, 09:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1999502"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If a marine team doesn't endeavor to get any upgrades past level 1 armour/weaps, how long would it take them to get jetpacks? Before or after the current 5-6 minute Onos? Are they not of a comparable tech level? If not, what about a 5-6 minute exo drop? Would this not stop the Onos onslaught?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, no upgrade jetpack Marines just bleed 10Pres, they don't really accomplish anything in regards to fighting the Onos. Especially if he chooses a good room to engage in.
Exosuit? Uhhh, 25 heavy DPS is actually more useless than a couple rifles. There's a REASON they removed heavy armor from Onos and just spiked his hp to 1300/1000.. so that the Exosuit DIDN'T just rape the Onos really easily. So the Exo penetrates armor and has the highest damage type.. but to a ###### load of HP that isn't high armor.. much less effective.
Regarding current balance: The alien dominance we are seeing is mostly due to hitreg problems (or whatever is causing marines to fire so uneffectively currently) and bite buffs. With the hitreg fixed the marines will have better early game map control, but I would still like to see nerfs to skulk secondary and tertiary cones. Something like 20dmg and 40dmg would allow marines without armour to survive a crucial bit longer.
Now, the early onos is way too attractive a strategy right now. It was a crutch that kept competitive aliens standing in the last few patches but now it is unnecessary. The tweak to it doesn't need to be huge (if hitreg and bite tweaks are successful).
Since I personally would like to see the onos appear later and I would like to see late game aliens able to buy tres onoses to make a come-back from losing their second hive, here is a quick suggestion for you to bash. Just to explore our options here, really... Onos Hatchery. Structure that requires 2 hives to build, costs 20-30 res and takes something like 60 seconds to grow. Onos egg drops not locked to hives but to a grown hatchery, so 1 hive aliens with hatchery could still try a comeback with tres onoses.
Make Onos egg costlier so it doesn't appear early mid-game, buff other lifeforms (especially Lerks since they appear early mid-game and could act as a counter to Shotguns).
Comments
I am hoping for the same thing as well. Maybe with 1.0 and a bunch of new people, mods will begin to take off.
Not without talented, dedicated modders who believe in the cause. Fortunately, we have lots of people who meet the first two criteria right here, and launch hasn't even happened yet.
The shotgun is a problem, but the larger problem are the confused game mechanics. Whats happened is that the game has been designed around a very loose agreement as to what these asymmetrical teams should "look like" without much thought to a rigid design plan. And now we've gone through 225 builds of tweaks based on this very loose conceptualization of game mechanics (many of these builds taking no consideration of how future performance increases will effect mechanics or gameplay) and we're left with a system that is held together by little more than bandaids.
Prove me wrong, and I will be forever grateful. Because I love this game, I truly do. But I don't think I am wrong, which is honestly rather depressing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree. :c
So? Mods don't exist for developer approval; they exist to be enjoyed by players. If we don't believe UWE is appropriately addressing issues with the core game, we can design, code, and implement the fixes ourselves. Either everyone will play on NS2B, which will be fun for us, nobody will play on NS2B, which means the play isn't fun and doesn't improve the game, or some people will play NS2B and some people won't, which will be fun for us.
I hate to harp on this but proper scaling on the alien team is really needed to keep the game balanced during the early game, mid-game and late game.
It would help, but it would also allow marines to maintain longer lines of sight and engage aliens at a much larger range, which would have the opposite effect.
Regardless, the deep issues here won't be solved by any amount of map changes.
Regardless, the deep issues here won't be solved by any amount of map changes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Perhaps. I just don't think there's enough space for the Aliens to really make use of their unique abilities to close the gap and it doesn't even matter if Marines have Exos, GLs, Shottys because they just seem to dominate with all those working in unison. It makes me wish that they'd either reduce the explosive range of GLs or bring back personal grenades and remove GLs all together, I can't see that happening though considering that they were in the first game, plus the metagame is balanced to an extent of marines having them.
Long story short it feels that Marines have ranged and to an extent, close combat advantage against Aliens but it doesn't help that Skulks don't exactly scale well late into the game because of all this massive AoE damage that marines will have. Marines even with the stock rifle seem immensely more useful late game than skulks, regardless of upgrades.
I say this as a mostly Marine player, I'm not asking for nerfs but something seems off about Aliens and I can't help but think that GLs have a big part to do with it..plus the game as Aliens gets immensely less 'fun' when you're attempting to dodge barrages of nades raining down on your hive.
Just buff aliens in other ways, like anyone that has played more than 15 minutes of ns2 can suggest.
Also, unless cara is evolved, the onos isn't at full power (and the res spent on cara is just more time to wait for onos).
Also, there's a lot of pressure to perform well as the early onos, and if you die quickly, it's most likely over (i.e. the investment on the early onos can lose you the game if the marine team manages to kill it in a timely fashion and before it does any real damage).
Also, from what I watched of the other tournament, armory blocking in hallways seems to be standard practice for competitive play. This severely reduces what an onos can do. Good luck having a single onos without cara do much at all trying to seige a location blocked by an armory, with a coordinated marine team laying concentrated fire on it out of harms way.
Granted, I haven't been invovled in the competitive scene in ns2, so my points might not mean a lot in the context of higher-level play. Just my 2c
To restate the ridiculousness that is the current 2-hive tres dropped onos:
Please watch the inv vs all-in game 5
<a href="http://www.twitch.tv/blindns2/b/337228090" target="_blank">http://www.twitch.tv/blindns2/b/337228090</a>
@5:39:00
We drop the onos egg @5:15 game time after getting leap. If we had skipped leap then we could have dropped the onos egg at 4:25!
Now at 5:15 when we dropped the onos egg. Our first lerk was just now gestating (he had 31 pres). Our second lerk had 32 pres and decided to skip lerk all together because we had the onos in under 6 minutes.
Yes, you read that correctly. Our onos egg was dropped and building at the same time our first players could start their lerk. Our lerk came out at 5:30. Our onos came out at 5:48.
Does ANYONE want to defend an onos coming out at 5:48, just 18 seconds after a lerk can first hatch? Does ANYONE actually think this is a fair strategy?
<b>Edit:</b>
To be fair its pretty damn hard to win a game on aliens without the early onos drop. My idea is simply to increase the onos egg cost so that its a larger investment for the aliens, and subsequently causes it to come later on the field as well. This could be fine tweaked according to what competitive players feel is fair.
I don't see the harm in bumping the res to 125 per onos egg. Considering the time they hit the field I see this to be a fair cost vs 75. The system is incredibly flawed and broken, and the overall game balance relies on this bandaid for marines currently overpowered gameplay. Fades can't get out early enough to make onos less important, and I remember builds and builds ago the onos was nearly useless. It can't be THAT hard to find a healthy balance which makes multiple strategies viable. Competitive players are going to get awfully bored playing the same scenario over and over again because its simply the only (or best) route to victory. This type of gameplay seems laughable for competitive play. We have returned to extreme imbalance that we experienced pre-200 builds.
Upon claiming 3 tech points the onos egg could be reduced in cost to 75 as a bonus for the 3rd tech point. It's not that complicated and I believe it would work if tried. Perhaps 125 is a high mark, but other things could be tweaked such as harvester build times / HP. Something needs to become weaker on the aliens to be made exploitable to slow res flow for 2nd hive onos, either that or simply remove the abomination.
In ns1 you would often see fades hitting the field quite early. Usually around 4-5 min mark and they were the meta switch. Now we are getting onos before fades... because fades aren't getting on the field early enough to establish map control / area denial.
This is pretty obvious slap you in the face stuff here. Watching all these games should be an eye opener to the game developers to get serious about balancing and tweaking the game.
I think that's a larger problem stemming from factors like having better responsive movement for the Kharaa.
I didn't realize how sluggish Skulks feel when I connected to NS2 after playing Quake Live.
I'd second this.
I didn't realize how sluggish Skulks feel when I connected to NS2 after playing Quake Live.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't see this as an issue to be honest. Skulk play is based on ambush tactics / evasion, but relies most heavily on teamplay and coordination. I think the skulks move fast and precise, and I never understood the complaining about skulk movement lately. The skulks already possess enough movement abilities / upgrades.
Skulk movement isn't related at all to the imbalance of 2nd hive onos drop.
In my opinion, fades need to be brought back to glory and onos should be coming up much later into the game. You can kill a fade in less than 1 lmg clip currently, even if they have carapace. In NS1 it took considerable more firepower to take down fades than 1 lmg magazine. Fades were much stronger in NS1, and I am not necessarily saying to boost fade HP. Tweaking res flow (Or other aspects concerning cyst build times / harvester) and fades could be the answer to making onos unessential to holding ground in early / mid game. I can't believe I'm actually talking about onos in early / mid game haha.
I disagree with 3rd hive onos because if the res is in the bank the commander should be able to use it to buy necessary lifeforms for various reasons. The most obvious reason is that the gameplay is currently based around teams holding 2 tech points... not 3. A rework of that entire system at this point will cause more problems than it solves. If the marines take your 3rd hive you should still be very much in the game, but onos will still be necessary. Its already frustrating enough to win a game even WITH 2nd hive onos. The imbalance is small at the moment, and doesn't require drastic measures. It wouldn't make sense to take away the ability to spend tres on onos with only 2 tech points. Most of the game and fighting will be centered around teams holding 2 tech points. Requiring aliens to have 3 will cause imbalance as well. A better solution is to look deeper into all the factors of res income, and also tres cost of the onos.
Currently, the biggest issue that I have noticed is hitreg issues keeping marines from being able to pressure early harvesters. Fix the reg and the 2nd hive onos becomes less OP, but still requires a rework.
Basically what I'm saying is you don't need to strictly nerf the Onos in order to make rushing it less desirable. If you reduce its capacity to roam the entire map, you reduce its effectiveness in certain situations, while keeping it largely the same in others. Say aliens just get a 2nd hive up and have 75 res, but uh oh, marines are setting up a fortified position outside one of the hives. Get that Onos out there and do some damage. The threat is concentrated enough that the Onos can be fully effective while confining himself to a very small area of the map. On the other hand, what if the marines aren't creating any immediate threat, but are taking far too many resource points all over the map? Get some fades out to patrol with their superior mobility.
One stomp can cause a marine to be stunned multiple times back to back. The animations can also get off sync causing stomp to trigger seconds before or after when it looks like it should be triggering on your screen.
Making onos A LOT slower could be a good first step toward balancing them early game, but it comes with the side effect of probably making them terrible later in the game. Most of this problem is that the onos, an endgame unit, is coming out in 5-10 minutes instead of the actual end game. The onos is coming out when the lerk should be coming out, never mind the fact that fades come out after onos in the current system.
Any fix which doesn't greatly push back the onos to after when fades hit the field is missing the entire point of the problem created by an end game unit showing up in the early to mid game.
One stomp can cause a marine to be stunned multiple times back to back. The animations can also get off sync causing stomp to trigger seconds before or after when it looks like it should be triggering on your screen.
Making onos A LOT slower could be a good first step toward balancing them early game, but it comes with the side effect of probably making them terrible later in the game. Most of this problem is that the onos, an endgame unit, is coming out in 5-10 minutes instead of the actual end game. The onos is coming out when the lerk should be coming out, never mind the fact that fades come out after onos in the current system.
Any fix which doesn't greatly push back the onos to after when fades hit the field is missing the entire point of the problem created by an end game unit showing up in the early to mid game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If a marine team doesn't endeavor to get any upgrades past level 1 armour/weaps, how long would it take them to get jetpacks? Before or after the current 5-6 minute Onos? Are they not of a comparable tech level? If not, what about a 5-6 minute exo drop? Would this not stop the Onos onslaught?
NS2:Classic already done all the hard work. you might want to speak with them for a code port/quick fix.
Got that marine a HMG.
Marines love HMG's.
@5:39:00<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Lol I actually watched like 5 mins of that, (making me viewer #55). I really think they need to so SOMETHING to onos rushing.
Its a symptom of the all eggs in one basket nature of the alien team it seems. 75 res all dumped into a single lifeform. All resources acquired for 2, max 3 harvesters. Max level of an upgrade gained from a single shell.
There is little room for variance when its all or nothing.
To restate the ridiculousness that is the current 2-hive tres dropped onos:
Please watch the inv vs all-in game 5
<a href="http://www.twitch.tv/blindns2/b/337228090" target="_blank">http://www.twitch.tv/blindns2/b/337228090</a>
@5:39:00
We drop the onos egg @5:15 game time after getting leap. If we had skipped leap then we could have dropped the onos egg at 4:25!
Now at 5:15 when we dropped the onos egg. Our first lerk was just now gestating (he had 31 pres). Our second lerk had 32 pres and decided to skip lerk all together because we had the onos in under 6 minutes.
Yes, you read that correctly. Our onos egg was dropped and building at the same time our first players could start their lerk. Our lerk came out at 5:30. Our onos came out at 5:48.
Does ANYONE want to defend an onos coming out at 5:48, just 18 seconds after a lerk can first hatch? Does ANYONE actually think this is a fair strategy?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
GORGEous i watched all 5 of your games today w/ all-in and ya, onos at 5:48 is clearly ridiculous. Contrary to the many knee-jerk cries of "broken" and "imbalanced" around the chat and forums, I actually feel that NS is quite well balanced but this issue does need to be dealt with. Onos is intended as a late game unit and rines really get set back when they are facing one down at 5-6 min mark.
In my mind, there is an easy answer: jetpacks and exos, the onos "counterparts" need to be researched, so make advanced alien lifeforms also researchable. You could even just limit it to having onos eggs and fade eggs needing to be researched if you wanted to be very specific in balancing this issue. In my mind, jetpacks and exos should be coming out around the same time as an onos in a game b/w two evenly matched sides, which means we shouldn't be seeing the onos till much later in the game. Then UWE can tightly control the timing to ensure competitive balance is reached, and also that we see a logical progression of lerk-->fade-->onos.
That said, I feel that there ARE answers to 6 min onos in the current build, and it's too easy to start crying imba after just a few matches. First of all, watching today's match b/w Inversion and All-in, it is clear both sides alien play was stronger, which is why aliens won 5 out of 5. In the aforementioned game 5, I would note that in the stats, marines never had a positive k/d at any time in the match, killed 0 extractors, let aliens hold min. 3 extractors for the whole game, and as far as I can tell, never even dmg'd a hive. On veil! When you get to the 5:48 mark as marines and this is the case, you have dug yourself a huge hole. Marines need to pressure hard early, RTs and/or hives, in order to delay the onos egg drop and keep aliens on the back foot.
Even after the onos arrives, there are still answers. The onos is big and fairly slow. If he gets too far away from heal support, either hive or gorge, it is very vulnerable to being surrounded. Particularly in the early game w/o carapace even lvl0 weapons can take out an exposed onos. That is why most smart onos players will just stick around a hive and defend it. In a 6v6 w/ CO on each side, that leaves 5 "outfielders," if say one alien is gorge, that leaves just 4 aliens, now if an onos is dedicated to hive defense, you've only got 3 aliens left against 5 marines in the field. This numbers imbalance can be exploited by marines to expand, establish map control + take out alien res.
Check out the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZT8KMG7_xY&feature=plcp" target="_blank">recent game 3 of exertus v archaea in the guru final</a>. Exertus as aliens on veil got onos at the 6:20 mark. How did marines respond? Armory block for their PG at subsector, then ninja PG in Y junction and shotgun rush the undefended hive at Cargo. Onos is too slow to cross the map before the other hive goes down. Game. OK I know it's archaea and they are going to win anyway, but there is a reason they win, they use the best strategies.
I think 6min onos should be removed, but I also think that before immediately jumping to conclude that the game balance is "broken," players should try harder to adapt and come up with answers.
No, no upgrade jetpack Marines just bleed 10Pres, they don't really accomplish anything in regards to fighting the Onos. Especially if he chooses a good room to engage in.
Exosuit? Uhhh, 25 heavy DPS is actually more useless than a couple rifles. There's a REASON they removed heavy armor from Onos and just spiked his hp to 1300/1000.. so that the Exosuit DIDN'T just rape the Onos really easily. So the Exo penetrates armor and has the highest damage type.. but to a ###### load of HP that isn't high armor.. much less effective.
Now, the early onos is way too attractive a strategy right now. It was a crutch that kept competitive aliens standing in the last few patches but now it is unnecessary. The tweak to it doesn't need to be huge (if hitreg and bite tweaks are successful).
Since I personally would like to see the onos appear later and I would like to see late game aliens able to buy tres onoses to make a come-back from losing their second hive, here is a quick suggestion for you to bash. Just to explore our options here, really... Onos Hatchery. Structure that requires 2 hives to build, costs 20-30 res and takes something like 60 seconds to grow. Onos egg drops not locked to hives but to a grown hatchery, so 1 hive aliens with hatchery could still try a comeback with tres onoses.