Aliens need less coordination than marines
nicholmikey
Join Date: 2012-10-31 Member: 165281Members
Join Date: 2012-10-31 Member: 165281Members
<div class="IPBDescription">balance needed</div>No matter how many times the devs nerf aliens and buff marines I think marines will continue to lose on average, for two reasons :
- New players pick marines
- marines take coordination
Ok the game starts, you are playing one of these 8v8 "Official" servers (16p)
Humans and aliens have 1 commander, so on the field it's 7v7.
Humans and aliens have 2 nearby resource points. Aliens don't need to send anyone, humans need to send at least 2 out. So now if the aliens attack the human's main right at the start its 7v5. 7 skulks vs 5 marines that can't aim for ######.
Now the marines run back to base to defend their IP, and aliens can easily kill those 2 collectors they just built. So now humans have 1 collector in main, and have lost 20 res on the two destroyed collectors.
How many games have you played that sound like this? this is easily 75-80% of the games I have played.
I am interested in your opinions on how to fix this.
I think that alien resource collectors should not auto build, but should need a gorge to build, making the main attack 5v5.
Here is another issue, lets say you want a second base.
- <b>Aliens</b>
- Drop a hive, tell your men to defend or harass marine main
- <b>humans</b>
- build an observatory
- research phase tech
- send your men to a base
- tell your men to get the power up
- drop a phase gate
- build a chair
- tell your men to defend or harass aliens
Dropping a second base for marines takes so much coordination, and ties up so many men that could be defending resource collectors.
I am also interested in your opinions on how to fix this. I think either a gorge could be required to build a hive, or hives could require infestation before being built.
- New players pick marines
- marines take coordination
Ok the game starts, you are playing one of these 8v8 "Official" servers (16p)
Humans and aliens have 1 commander, so on the field it's 7v7.
Humans and aliens have 2 nearby resource points. Aliens don't need to send anyone, humans need to send at least 2 out. So now if the aliens attack the human's main right at the start its 7v5. 7 skulks vs 5 marines that can't aim for ######.
Now the marines run back to base to defend their IP, and aliens can easily kill those 2 collectors they just built. So now humans have 1 collector in main, and have lost 20 res on the two destroyed collectors.
How many games have you played that sound like this? this is easily 75-80% of the games I have played.
I am interested in your opinions on how to fix this.
I think that alien resource collectors should not auto build, but should need a gorge to build, making the main attack 5v5.
Here is another issue, lets say you want a second base.
- <b>Aliens</b>
- Drop a hive, tell your men to defend or harass marine main
- <b>humans</b>
- build an observatory
- research phase tech
- send your men to a base
- tell your men to get the power up
- drop a phase gate
- build a chair
- tell your men to defend or harass aliens
Dropping a second base for marines takes so much coordination, and ties up so many men that could be defending resource collectors.
I am also interested in your opinions on how to fix this. I think either a gorge could be required to build a hive, or hives could require infestation before being built.
Comments
New players picking marines is leaning on becoming a myth around here and team coordination actually has more weight on what the enemy is doing first
I could go on to toss out scenarios where marines are favored even in situations where nobody on their team is commanding yet
I can toss these out because I've seen games like this happen
What's happening is probably confusion over early game advantage that one side has that quickly becomes negated the moment phase gates get up
Don't even get me started on how hard it is to get people to leave base. :P
NOT SAYING this is the biggest problem in my life lol, just sayin' you need to wait out before tossing teamwork requirement threads.
Marines:
Commander had to buy guns.
Marines built buildings.
Marines had to weld each other to fix armor.
Commander had to drop meds or build armories to heal health.
Aliens:
Buildings grow themselves.
Aliens can heal themselves, unlimited ammo.
No commander, any player can gorge and drop buildings.
Aliens pick their own upgrades and evolutions.
NS2 is significantly more symmetric than NS1, but I see no reason to make it more so. The differences between the teams are what makes NS exciting and fresh.
To put it another way, marines are supposed to work as a team, aliens are supposed to work as a 'collective'. (IE, think BORG - a group of individuals that work towards a common goal as a group.)
One of the biggest problems in NS1 with aliens was that in many ways they needed to have more teamwork than marines. They (as a team) had to coordinate building of structures since there was no khamm and each player used his personal res to build structures and hives.
However the marines are the ones that should have the higher level of teamwork. That's how the game is designed.
Personally I think the armory is actually a significant source of the problem. It's a crutch, marines don't ever want to be without their armor so whenever they get hurt they'll run home. It results in them never actually getting anywhere and just staying tethered to the places that feel safe. If I were to suggest a solution, it would be to remove armor healing from the armory, and make welders a permanent upgrade for all marines that spawn in. Not only does this intuitively teach marines to stay together, it also encourages them to fix eachother up in the field and call for medpacks rather than go home. It removes the extreme dependency on selfless PRes purchases that many pub marines are unlikely to ever make.
you risk making this game way too imbalanced, and would need yet another balance once people learn to play.
marines needs to works together tightly.
aliens needs to work together, however those solo rambo's ain't hurting the team if they harass enemy rt's or bases.
without phase gate and the ability to use phase gates opportunistically; marines are sour diarrhea.
I just had such an agressive game where we pushed for the their second hive early on and we even got to the point to own the entire map exept for their main hive.
Now tell me how many times have you been in the oposite situation? Marines with main base and aliens with entire map. That always ends in an alien win. It'll happen sooner or later.
Well guess what: in that before mentioned game the aliens got enough res to get 4 onai! Which was plenty to turn the battle around, get rid of our exos and win the game!
And here's the unbalance: while marines need two command chairs to build exos, aliens can get onai as long as they have the res and sincerely I feel it's unfair! They should have at least two hives to be able to evolve into onai!
Oh and try to be agressive when every skulk you encounter at the start of the game has camouflage! You'll want to see them but will not be able unless the comm spams scans all over your path spending 3res for each one of the scans and this is an expense you can't take early game.
So yeah I agree there is an unbalance right now and it has nothing to do with pub players. The successful marine pushes you're talking about is when the alien team is made out of newbies that's it. Cause if you have experienced player in both camps then the aliens will have the upper hand.
I just had such an agressive game where we pushed for the their second hive early on and we even got to the point to own the entire map exept for their main hive.
Now tell me how many times have you been in the oposite situation? Marines with main base and aliens with entire map. That always ends in an alien win. It'll happen sooner or later.
Well guess what: in that before mentioned game the aliens got enough res to get 4 onai! Which was plenty to turn the battle around, get rid of our exos and win the game!
And here's the unbalance: while marines need two command chairs to build exos, aliens can get onai as long as they have the res and sincerely I feel it's unfair! They should have at least two hives to be able to evolve into onai!
Oh and try to be agressive when every skulk you encounter at the start of the game has camouflage! You'll want to see them but will not be able unless the comm spams scans all over your path spending 3res for each one of the scans and this is an expense you can't take early game.
So yeah I agree there is an unbalance right now and it has nothing to do with pub players. The successful marine pushes you're talking about is when the alien team is made out of newbies that's it. Cause if you have experienced player in both camps then the aliens will have the upper hand.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Is this for real? 1hive Onos are pathetically weak, and if you had killed them they would have been waiting a long time to do it again on 1 or 2 extractors. Marines are better able to stage a comeback because aliens need more map control to be at peak power. They also have phase gates which are excellent for staging a comeback with a sneaky phase. Not that I've seen comebacks very often from either team.
Yeah for real, and everything you said is true, except for the one hive onos being weak (come on who even believes that) but when you get 4 exos at the same time there's simply nothing marines can do. Why? Just try to put four double barelled exos in the same corridor and you'll see. They'll start shooting each other in the back without hitting a single onos, not to mention that you wouldn't have any way of effectively maintining them with high armor.
Perfect
Don't even get me started on how hard it is to get people to leave base. :P
NOT SAYING this is the biggest problem in my life lol, just sayin' you need to wait out before tossing teamwork requirement threads.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So I took this to heart and played 3 games as marine commander, super aggressive, and I won all 3. Rather than build up 2 bases then move on I rushed a phase outside of the main hive and kept pressure on aliens at all times. So I think you may have a point.
Personally I think the armory is actually a significant source of the problem. It's a crutch, marines don't ever want to be without their armor so whenever they get hurt they'll run home. It results in them never actually getting anywhere and just staying tethered to the places that feel safe. If I were to suggest a solution, it would be to remove armor healing from the armory, and make welders a permanent upgrade for all marines that spawn in. Not only does this intuitively teach marines to stay together, it also encourages them to fix eachother up in the field and call for medpacks rather than go home. It removes the extreme dependency on selfless PRes purchases that many pub marines are unlikely to ever make.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The only problem I have with that is that the Welder is really sort of awful at killing certain buildings. Unless you did it like NS1 and just let them have both the melee and the welder at the same time, I guess.
Now the marines run back to base to defend their IP, and aliens can easily kill those 2 collectors they just built. So now humans have 1 collector in main, and have lost 20 res on the two destroyed collectors.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I am sort of confused - you said aliens didn't require coordination.
But what you mentioned is a coordinated attack.
Aliens attacking IP and then taking out res node when mariens retreat? Sounds pretty darn coordinated to me.
I salute you, Sir.
Pretty much. My most successful games I have half the marines hold near alien hive, pressuring it with an armoury. I rush phase tech and as the other half of marines take the map, I eventually connect phase gate up then we can rush their newly dropped hive.
Early game a marine should win 1v1 against a skulk. If you, as commander, are witnessing them losing constantly then teams are stacked and its not going to go well. In pubs lately I end up crippling myself by trying to supply medpacks, then end up losing out on research.
If more weapons had secondary fires that gave marines more moment to moment options (say pushback on the flamethrower) we'd free marines up to spread out more.
If more weapons had secondary fires that gave marines more moment to moment options (say pushback on the flamethrower) we'd free marines up to spread out more.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think the weapons are fine as they are now, I just wish there were more things for marines to buy. Run speed boots or bigger clips or regenerating ammo belts or something. I hate having 30-40 res early game and not knowing how to spend it.
Everything in the Alien arsenal supports aggressive play outside of the Shade hive. The Medpack/ammo spam supports aggressive Marines play, but that system needs to be automated in my opinion. Let your Marines spend P.Res on Ammo, Health drops, and perhaps even ping with an available Obs and you will see an amazing increase in Marines win-rates, especially if you let the Marine commander spend T.Res on them as well. It would be balanced enough in my opinion by the requirement to have your Marines carry welders and spend P.Res on things other than guns/JP/Exo. Also, a welder seriously dampens a Marine's ability to outright kill alien structures and would give the Aliens time to arrive, kill, and replace Cysts on damaged structures. This would also give the Marines the benefit of much faster structure building which would encourage playing smart versus being Rambo.
Marines simply need to be more effective individually and in groups, as it stands if you're a crappy Marine's player you are a sitting duck for even an equally crappy Alien. Ammo and health drops by the Marine with their P.Res should also obviously be limited to out of combat with perhaps a 3 to 5 second wait between drops. Again, just my opinion but it sounds better than constantly nerfing everything the Aliens can do to try and make things easier for noobish Marines. If might also require an extra research tree for the Observatory, but that would need to be tested to be confirmed. It would also rely on rebuffing the Aliens structures, and would ultimately be a win for both teams to be more fun.
Why it wasn't designed that way in the first place is a mystery to me, as the Marine's commander should be more interested in manipulating MAC's, ARC's, dropping buildings, and securing locations. Basically the same as the Aliens commander, only with a different twist. You know, just like the entire rest of the game. Symmetry through asymmetrical balance.
If you want a game where the FPS players can do everything themselves, Halo 4 is still fairly active. This game is (still) about more than that.
If you want a game where the FPS players can do everything themselves, Halo 4 is still fairly active. This game is (still) about more than that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The very same could literally be said of the Aliens commander at this point, and I think that the commanders 'largest contribution to gameplay' is a big factor in the Marines losing the game as it stands now. Letting the Marine commander build structures without smart Marines would at least give him the <i>option</i> to focus on something other than spamming health and ammo. You might be right on this one, but I think it would do more to 'balance' things out than constant Alien nerfs.
Also, the result of those nerfs has relegated the Alien command to nothing but building res nodes and upgrading one of four upgrades up until the end-game. I specifically mentioned to leave ammo and health drops from the commander in the game, but giving an automated option would help mitigate a newer commander being unable to multitask and hence lead to more Marines victories without any nerfs. IF you're unwilling to make Marines command an easier, more inviting option to new players you're going to end up with very few new players being interested in commanding. That's going to lead to what we have now, an imbalance in Alien wins.
Sure you can blame it on OP Aliens, but aren't buff's to the Marines perhaps a better option when the Aliens are already bereft of any real strategic options in the current build?
Just something to think about.
They really are, and so are ARC units.
The reason, I believe, is that newer commanders are overwhelmed by bad marines players needing a ton of ammo and med packs. Letting the individual Marine manage his health and ammo levels in the field through P.Res spent will free up commander time to actually micromanage his structures and NPC units while still allowing an excellent commander to do what they already did while saving a little more T.Res for other things.
It will also free up a small amount of time for newer players to focus on their build orders rather than doing three things at once. With packs and ammo on P.Res he would focus on NPC units and constructing bases. As his skill improved more of that med and ammo would come from him, allowing individual Marines more P.Res for weapons and Exo's.
MAC's still need cover from players, and Marines can still vastly outspeed a MAC on building structures. The perceived benefit of a welder would go up, and this would help the individual Marines still be the superior choice in all things while giving a good team with a poor commander a slightly better chance at winning.
I just like Buff's more than nerf's, and right now there aren't many effective buff's to Marines mostly just effective nerf's to the Aliens. (Although there are notable exceptions to this for Marines, such as improved ARC's that no one uses and more starting armor on Exo's that likewise make little difference as they're still fielded after A2 in most realistic situations.)
They also not nearly as gimped without a second tech point.
Edit: Also, once marines do get a phase gate up they enjoy mobility around the map that the aliens will never match and once they get shotguns they become much stronger then skulks and aliens have to wait for higher lifeforms before they will be able to match marines again.