OP is relative. Yes, an onos can outheal an unfocused sentry battery now, but, by the same token a skulk can outflank it, and gorge and lerk outrange it. of course, we're talking aobut big and tanky and needing a squad to take down.
On the other hand, exos acutally have to move in and target support stuctures now.
Craig hive in general got a huge buff. Craigs do healing via percentages now, and while regen and craig heal is in a good place for skulks, for fades and onos it got ridiculous. It's also ABSURDLY powerful when healing other structures.
Avid alien-team lover as I am, it is pretty thoroughly OP. Regen based on percentages <i>is </i>a much more fit design; before with the constant rate skulks would get heals in ~3 secs, where onos would take literally minutes. No one would get regen win higher lifeforms.
Improvement as it is, the percentages are WAY off. Onos and fades, hell whatever, can cause an unprecedented amount of harassment. A single onos managing his HP properly can preoccupy half a marine team until they loose
Just tweak the rates. I think 5 +1.5% hp would be best. And crags are even more unbalanced. Should reset those to whatever rates were in NS1.
The issue has been acknowledged by the devs (forget which post), I believe Charlie said that the regen changes were going to be reverted. Take what you will from that.
I don't think you can get any useful information on balance from pubs right now, every game I have played today the marines were stacked with players that hardly knew what to do.
Regen is too strong on Onos, strong on Fade (Still get 2HK from shotty though) and good for everything else. Gong back to what it was is a mistake IMO.
Just played a Gather, and planet 4 Crags around the hive, and me as Gorge in/on the hive
Weapon 3 2xGL 3xLMG no Aliens apart from me as Gorge
the Marines got 2 Minutes until my team comes back, gatherd and killed them.... the hive went down to 40% at its lowerst point, i jumped in the hive to press the active heal from the crags, than i jumped back out to healed, from my point as the Gorge it was fun, but it is way to much healing from the crags.
The Marine Rush after that, they focused the crags, 2 of 4 died in 1 Minute, wich is to long!
I think the crag heal in special the active heal is way to big, i would say OP, there was some points in that game, who 4-5 Marines shot a Onos who stands next to a few Crags, he was outhealing them!
I think there is more to it. The aiming feels different in 229 than in 228. I find it much harder to hit skulks even from the very first minute of the game as a marine. Whereas I find that when I'm a skulk it is very easy to get in under the marines fire and kill him. The only time I get in trouble as a skulk now is if there are two marines and one is back covering the first one. Combine this with the fact that regen and crag buffs came in and quick onos drops still exist and things get one sided quickly.
Every match as marines seems to be: spread out to get rts. If you spread too far before phasegate you will lose most of the rts you've built. If you don't spread out the alien khamm takes all the nodes while the skulks stream in from a centrally located shift to two different sides. About 6 minutes later fades and lerks come in if the aliens are bored of winning as onos'. If the aliens really want to win they tres an onos egg and systematically destroy what little the marines have been able to build up.
Despite the NS2 stats I really think that aliens are winning much much more than 40% atleast for the last 2 days or so.
Almost a 10% increase in alien win ratio<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
it feels like more than that, but when i'm on the losing marine side i press tab and see that my team has like 3 frags 20 deaths or 5 frags 19 deaths etc.
that's quite a telling sign of lesser skilled players. your teammates were getting ripped apart by skulks - how does that happen? it's not because of regen or any of the 229 changes... i think this swing was to be expected even without the patch, marine team attracts the newer players :O
it's also a significant problem with the fundamental game design in the 'lower skill' bracket... skulk can 2-shot a marine in early game, so it's to be expected that new marine players struggle with the deadly accurate weapons and panic fire - miss their shots and then get taken down instantly even to new skulk players who have much easier time aiming with the massive cone.
<!--quoteo(post=2027369:date=Nov 17 2012, 04:48 PM:name=sharnrock)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (sharnrock @ Nov 17 2012, 04:48 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2027369"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Almost a 10% increase in alien win ratio<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Don't look at the 10% shift but look at it from what it was in build 228. However no matter how much UWE trys to balance I don't think there will ever be a perfect 50/50 win loose percentage in this game.
I think its pretty obvious that crag heals shouldn't stack. Shifts and shades don't stack.
Before this patch, there was the problem in needing multiple crags for it to be effective. Now its that multiple crags are cheese.
Keep the current percentage heal rate, but remove the stacking. Only reason to build multiple crags should be to cover more space...just like shades and shifts.
Just wanted to add that it seems like as player count goes up the balance shifts towards marines a bit more. The negative of needing people to build is lessened. You are more likely to have people available to phase in for defense. Additionally you take out more people with ranged fire as they come in before they get into the dangerous melee range. I'm finding 20+ servers to be much more balanced than the 16 people servers.
<!--quoteo(post=2027541:date=Nov 18 2012, 05:09 AM:name=MuteLunatic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MuteLunatic @ Nov 18 2012, 05:09 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2027541"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Just wanted to add that it seems like as player count goes up the balance shifts towards marines a bit more. The negative of needing people to build is lessened. You are more likely to have people available to phase in for defense. Additionally you take out more people with ranged fire as they come in before they get into the dangerous melee range. I'm finding 20+ servers to be much more balanced than the 16 people servers.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, that's a common rules in multiplayer games. A bigger flock makes it easier to carry the weak links. If you play Left 4 Dead and one guy in the team keeps dying or can't keep up, the entire rest of the team will suffer greatly from being one man down. In Planetside will you probably not even notice the new guy who keeps getting killed over and over again. In 16 player matches in NS2 is every player more in the need to perform exceptionally well and to be able to hold positions on his own. In 20+ matches will he likely always have some backup.
I'd agree to leaving the percentages and trying cutting stacks. Maybe adjust regen percents., Haven't played the patch but onos shouldn't heal that fast. He already tanks and should have need of gorge support and/or a crag. But I can say prior to this I never took regen because it just wasn't that good in comparison to carapace with a healing gorge. Also I'd agree with the suggestion that win percentages are off due to marine stacks. Random team has become alien team.
<!--quoteo(post=2027396:date=Nov 17 2012, 07:21 PM:name=tarquinbb)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tarquinbb @ Nov 17 2012, 07:21 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2027396"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->it feels like more than that, but when i'm on the losing marine side i press tab and see that my team has like 3 frags 20 deaths or 5 frags 19 deaths etc.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah. I've played 8 games today, and Aliens/Kharaa won all 8 games.
I already preferred playing as Alien, but now there's almost no reason to ever join Marines.
Comments
On the other hand, exos acutally have to move in and target support stuctures now.
Improvement as it is, the percentages are WAY off. Onos and fades, hell whatever, can cause an unprecedented amount of harassment. A single onos managing his HP properly can preoccupy half a marine team until they loose
Just tweak the rates. I think 5 +1.5% hp would be best. And crags are even more unbalanced. Should reset those to whatever rates were in NS1.
Camo + Regen is super fun.
Weapon 3
2xGL
3xLMG
no Aliens apart from me as Gorge
the Marines got 2 Minutes until my team comes back, gatherd and killed them.... the hive went down to 40% at its lowerst point, i jumped in the hive to press the active heal from the crags, than i jumped back out to healed, from my point as the Gorge it was fun, but it is way to much healing from the crags.
The Marine Rush after that, they focused the crags, 2 of 4 died in 1 Minute, wich is to long!
I think the crag heal in special the active heal is way to big, i would say OP, there was some points in that game, who 4-5 Marines shot a Onos who stands next to a few Crags, he was outhealing them!
to powerfull in my opinion!
Almost a 10% increase in alien win ratio
Every match as marines seems to be: spread out to get rts. If you spread too far before phasegate you will lose most of the rts you've built. If you don't spread out the alien khamm takes all the nodes while the skulks stream in from a centrally located shift to two different sides. About 6 minutes later fades and lerks come in if the aliens are bored of winning as onos'. If the aliens really want to win they tres an onos egg and systematically destroy what little the marines have been able to build up.
Despite the NS2 stats I really think that aliens are winning much much more than 40% atleast for the last 2 days or so.
Almost a 10% increase in alien win ratio<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
it feels like more than that, but when i'm on the losing marine side i press tab and see that my team has like 3 frags 20 deaths or 5 frags 19 deaths etc.
that's quite a telling sign of lesser skilled players. your teammates were getting ripped apart by skulks - how does that happen? it's not because of regen or any of the 229 changes... i think this swing was to be expected even without the patch, marine team attracts the newer players :O
it's also a significant problem with the fundamental game design in the 'lower skill' bracket... skulk can 2-shot a marine in early game, so it's to be expected that new marine players struggle with the deadly accurate weapons and panic fire - miss their shots and then get taken down instantly even to new skulk players who have much easier time aiming with the massive cone.
Don't look at the 10% shift but look at it from what it was in build 228. However no matter how much UWE trys to balance I don't think there will ever be a perfect 50/50 win loose percentage in this game.
Before this patch, there was the problem in needing multiple crags for it to be effective. Now its that multiple crags are cheese.
Keep the current percentage heal rate, but remove the stacking. Only reason to build multiple crags should be to cover more space...just like shades and shifts.
Well, that's a common rules in multiplayer games. A bigger flock makes it easier to carry the weak links.
If you play Left 4 Dead and one guy in the team keeps dying or can't keep up, the entire rest of the team will suffer greatly from being one man down. In Planetside will you probably not even notice the new guy who keeps getting killed over and over again.
In 16 player matches in NS2 is every player more in the need to perform exceptionally well and to be able to hold positions on his own. In 20+ matches will he likely always have some backup.
Yeah. I've played 8 games today, and Aliens/Kharaa won all 8 games.
I already preferred playing as Alien, but now there's almost no reason to ever join Marines.