According to that if UWE tripled skulk health causing a huge shift in K/D ratios across the board everything would be dandy because "hey the better players are winning". There is this thing called game balance that we are trying to discuss here that also factors into the outcome.
That you win most of your matches regardless of race means nothing. How can you know you aren't simply a better marine player? We are dealing with averages here and the averages clearly show there is an imbalance waiting to be fixed. Even if somebody managed to come up with any compelling evidence to demonstrate there is indeed any kind of a skill gap between the players of the two races - which I have yet to see -, we can't have a meaningful discussion without assuming equal player skill. Otherwise any argument people disagree with can be shot down by saying "yeah but that guy must have been terrible".
LMG hit rectangle is what... 1 cm wide? Skulk hit rectangle is more than half your screen. At higher levels of play glancing bites shouldn't matter much because people tend to hit their marks anyway but when both sides have bad aim they give a big advantage to skulks. Pardon me for the extreme example but imagine actually pitting two blind players against each other and I can guarantee you the skulk will win most of the engagements, whereas with 100% accurate bots the marine would win every time. The problem is that glancing bites weren't designed with the current hitreg issues in mind and there is only so much accuracy can do before even competitive players begin to feel its balance shifting effect. As much as I hate assuming the wait and see stance, improving hitreg can throw all other speculations out the window.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How exactly would 2 blind people even find each other? That I win most of my matches means that, as it was in beta so it is in the final release. That is to say 1 or 2 good people make a huge difference in this game. Being able to lock down an entire area with 1 or 2 people means that the rest of the team is pushing up the other side and effectively boxing in the other team.
So what if the lmg rectangle isn't half the screen wide and tall, the benefit is that you need all of 9 bullets to kill a skulk and there's no recoil or range limit. I've seen very few good marines in pubs when I play alien. You can tell the good ones cause they find a spot where they can use range to their advantage. They also spread out when they move in groups, why you ask? Well that's because it's extremely easy to shoot a skulk that's dancing around your buddy when you've got a good bit of distance. And is this really any different than a real life scenario? The answer to that is no, studies have shown that someone with a knife will usually get to someone with a gun before being shot if they are within about 7 yards. Soldiers still actually carry knives and even tomahawks because in close quarters melee weapons are still a better option, this is why it's skill related.
Let me tell you another little story about balance and the beta, there were numerous times I remember marines winning about 75+% of the matches and times I remember the opposite being true as well. When people's performance improved, suddenly people could shoot a lot better. When hit reg was way messed up, aliens were winning almost every game. Big changes tend to throw the win and loss rates off quite a bit. Another huge factor is the skill level of the marines, if you can't shoot you're going to lose it's that simple. There is no amount of strategy that will save you from a 3 to 9 k/d ratio. But as people get better with marines you'll see the marines actually start winning far more often.
But here's the biggest flaw in your whole argument about how aliens are winning so much... They're not! The overall ratio on NS2stats right now is 57/43 aliens in the lead, but here's the thing, some of those games don't count. if you look at games that go over 40 minutes, the marines are winning 59% of the time and up to 67% of the time on games last over 50 minutes. Aliens win 100% of the games under 5 minutes, which I wouldn't even consider actually being games and more of just stomps. If you take away the 267 games that aliens win in the first 5 minutes, the ratio goes down to about 53/47. And that is definitely a pretty even ratio. And the last thing I'll say on that, is that the whole NS2stats system is not a good indicator of anything, only a handful of servers use it. So if you're not on one of those the stats don't get recorded, so that's really only a very small snapshot from a very small slice of the community.
What it comes down to is, learn to play the game, stop asking for ways to make the game easier for one side or the other cause you are too lazy to get better.
<!--quoteo(post=2041663:date=Dec 7 2012, 09:45 PM:name=Savant)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Savant @ Dec 7 2012, 09:45 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2041663"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Sorry, I disagree. Marines are the easiest to play precisely because 99% of players who buy NS2 have already played a FPS. They understand the 'point gun and pull trigger' mechanic very well thank you. It's why despite the excessive marine losses you STILL see people stacking the marine portal. Playing marines is 'familiar', they know how to play a FPS style avatar like a marine.
Skulks are fine IMHO. They are deadly at close range, just as they should be. Right now the issue isn't the skulk, it's marines that don't get the upgrades to better withstand skulk attacks. They are not getting those upgrades because marines are res starved because they can't hold res nodes. Aliens are too fast and can go from node to node keeping marines on the defence all game. Put in electrified res nodes and then see how the gameplay evens up real fast.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This, IMHO.
Everytime I play marines (mostly 18-20 servers) I see our res towers being constantly attacked by lonewolf skulks. The only way to prevent it is... being there, since turrets are just so easy to bypass and expensive. That forces you to either fall back and (maybe) save the tower, or lose it.
And if it gets destroyed, 1+ Marine will need to waste additional time getting there and building it, whereas alien structures don't need any assistance.
Skulks can just do that thanks to their mobility and small profile, Marines need some kind of effective defense to prevent/limit that kind of harassment. Maps are way to big to be able to cover most res towers.
That, paired with all the res sinks marines have, can be a game breaker.
"Electrify building" could be a nice little tool. In order to avoid spamming it, you could: <ul><li>Make it expensive enough</li><li>Allow it only on certain structures</li><li>Require marines to manually upgrade structures</li></ul>
Even then, it still wouldn't prevent gorges/lerks/oni from destroying the res towers.
Yeah, I think the electric resource nodes would be a great addition to NS2 simply because there's always the power node that you can chew down without any danger to yourself from the resource nodes 'field'. Then you could chew down the node. I will say that on certain maps it might be somewhat broken, veil comes to mind, but that's because those maps were never properly balanced for NS2 in the first place more than any other reason. That, combined with the Marine sprint on small maps, would make those maps even more one-sided in the Marines favor.
Just get mines. Mines solve a ton of problems in pubs. Place them smart (not too close together or in obvious, easy to see, spots) and you'll swim in kills.
You're going to spend a ton of res per node with turrets? Just get mines.
<!--quoteo(post=2042136:date=Dec 8 2012, 10:51 PM:name=AWhite)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (AWhite @ Dec 8 2012, 10:51 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2042136"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Just get mines. Mines solve a ton of problems in pubs. Place them smart (not too close together or in obvious, easy to see, spots) and you'll swim in kills.
You're going to spend a ton of res per node with turrets? Just get mines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not entirely sure on this, but I think I sometimes detonated mines just by getting into their range and then quickly moving out, without a single point of health lost. If this stands true, decent skulks can just trigger them safely.
Anyway, you could always attack a res tower from above: get to the ceiling, straight up the res tow, fall down, keep biting while on top of it and you avoided any possible mine near it.
Not to mention that 15 res per 3 mines seems a bit too much for me.
<!--quoteo(post=2042147:date=Dec 8 2012, 04:56 PM:name=buhehe)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (buhehe @ Dec 8 2012, 04:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2042147"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm not entirely sure on this, but I think I sometimes detonated mines just by getting into their range and then quickly moving out, without a single point of health lost. If this stands true, decent skulks can just trigger them safely.
Anyway, you could always attack a res tower from above: get to the ceiling, straight up the res tow, fall down, keep biting while on top of it and you avoided any possible mine near it.
Not to mention that 15 res per 3 mines seems a bit too much for me.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It takes 10 parasites, iirc, to detonate a mine. I think the 15res per mine is there to keep people from spamming them all over.
As far as res nodes though, it just seems like some are really, really susceptible to skulk attacks. East wing (docking), trans... or whatever the one is called in refinery(between smelting and marine start), topographical (veil), or skylights. Basically, when you're putting a vent in a room with a res node, it's going to be brought down pretty easily.
Obviously whichever team is doing a better job of killing the other team is probably going to win. Very few times have I lost on marines when I had a score of like 24 to 2 or something, and if I did the reason was because the comm didn't beacon. But see here's what you're saying, aliens win because they have a better K/D ratio. You're saying the better players are playing aliens. This has nothing to do with any balance or jumping issues. This is entirely to do with bad players on the marine team.
I really wish you'd all stop trying to fix things that aren't broken. I have no problem winning on either team, in fact marines are generally an easier win as long as we have a halfway decent comm. Marines can easily steam roll an alien team if they know how to shoot and position themselves, end of story.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pretty much this.
There are a lot of marine losses simply because people join marines to shoot ###### and that means hardly anyone wants to command, which means a large portion of games go a whole minute without a comm which just destroys the round for everyone.
This isn't something the developers can easily overcome in regards to passive balance changes.
Bottom line is there are a lot of selfish marine players who want to play how they want to play at the expense of their team. Marines standing around for 30-40 seconds in their HQ seriously breaks the round against a team which doesn't have to play defencivley and will be in your base and on your res points in no time.
If the game didn't start until each team chooses a commander this would be a huge help. But until something like that is implemented...
<!--quoteo(post=2041329:date=Dec 7 2012, 05:19 AM:name=include)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (include @ Dec 7 2012, 05:19 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2041329"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Couldn't you have just said 4 out of 5?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
8 out of 10 is much more accurate. furthermore: 80 out of 100 < 800 out of 1000
same thing applies to decimal figures: 4<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--> (could be 4.1)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> 4.0 <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(could be 4.01)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> 4.00 <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(could be 4.001)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> 4.000 <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(could be 4.0001)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
the number seems to be identical but 4.000 is much more accurate, because it means you rounded at the 4th decimal place.
<!--quoteo(post=2042810:date=Dec 10 2012, 08:18 AM:name=Sehzade)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Sehzade @ Dec 10 2012, 08:18 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2042810"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Couldn't you have just said 4 out of 5?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> 8 out of 10 is much more accurate. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
OMG this made the math nerd in me giggle. I would have thought you made a funny math joke, but reading your full post you really think you are on to something here! :D But anyways... back to the subject.
<!--quoteo(post=2042810:date=Dec 10 2012, 02:18 AM:name=Sehzade)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Sehzade @ Dec 10 2012, 02:18 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2042810"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->8 out of 10 is much more accurate. furthermore: 80 out of 100 < 800 out of 1000
same thing applies to decimal figures: 4<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--> (could be 4.1)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> 4.0 <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(could be 4.01)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> 4.00 <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(could be 4.001)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> 4.000 <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(could be 4.0001)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
the number seems to be identical but 4.000 is much more accurate, because it means you rounded at the 4th decimal place.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually 4<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(could be 4.00000000001)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> and you would never know the difference because once you truncate a number its decimal place approximation fails to matter. Even if you are simply rounding it will only matter if the manner in which you are round takes in a variable number of decimal places and resolves them right to left. However that was not the point of me posting.
On Topic: With all of the talk of Marine losing more games than Aliens and the resultant proposed balance changes someone much more observant than I made the point that if you make marine play more forgiving you are impacting the balance twice as severely as you may imagine. This is due to the fact that the Alien Khammander has no way of forcing the end of the game other than bleeding a competent marine team dry. Now before I get flamed off the boards let me say that while I don't post here much I've been playing this game a fair amount since release and almost exclusively play commander. What I've found is while the marine commander may have a steeper initial curve it has a much larger impact on the gameplay directly in the lategame than an Alien Khammander. Now I'm not saying that this is inherently an issue, but it is something that must be considered when talking about balancing marine gameplay to make playing marine "more forgiving"
Comments
According to that if UWE tripled skulk health causing a huge shift in K/D ratios across the board everything would be dandy because "hey the better players are winning". There is this thing called game balance that we are trying to discuss here that also factors into the outcome.
That you win most of your matches regardless of race means nothing. How can you know you aren't simply a better marine player? We are dealing with averages here and the averages clearly show there is an imbalance waiting to be fixed. Even if somebody managed to come up with any compelling evidence to demonstrate there is indeed any kind of a skill gap between the players of the two races - which I have yet to see -, we can't have a meaningful discussion without assuming equal player skill. Otherwise any argument people disagree with can be shot down by saying "yeah but that guy must have been terrible".
LMG hit rectangle is what... 1 cm wide? Skulk hit rectangle is more than half your screen. At higher levels of play glancing bites shouldn't matter much because people tend to hit their marks anyway but when both sides have bad aim they give a big advantage to skulks. Pardon me for the extreme example but imagine actually pitting two blind players against each other and I can guarantee you the skulk will win most of the engagements, whereas with 100% accurate bots the marine would win every time. The problem is that glancing bites weren't designed with the current hitreg issues in mind and there is only so much accuracy can do before even competitive players begin to feel its balance shifting effect. As much as I hate assuming the wait and see stance, improving hitreg can throw all other speculations out the window.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How exactly would 2 blind people even find each other? That I win most of my matches means that, as it was in beta so it is in the final release. That is to say 1 or 2 good people make a huge difference in this game. Being able to lock down an entire area with 1 or 2 people means that the rest of the team is pushing up the other side and effectively boxing in the other team.
So what if the lmg rectangle isn't half the screen wide and tall, the benefit is that you need all of 9 bullets to kill a skulk and there's no recoil or range limit. I've seen very few good marines in pubs when I play alien. You can tell the good ones cause they find a spot where they can use range to their advantage. They also spread out when they move in groups, why you ask? Well that's because it's extremely easy to shoot a skulk that's dancing around your buddy when you've got a good bit of distance. And is this really any different than a real life scenario? The answer to that is no, studies have shown that someone with a knife will usually get to someone with a gun before being shot if they are within about 7 yards. Soldiers still actually carry knives and even tomahawks because in close quarters melee weapons are still a better option, this is why it's skill related.
Let me tell you another little story about balance and the beta, there were numerous times I remember marines winning about 75+% of the matches and times I remember the opposite being true as well. When people's performance improved, suddenly people could shoot a lot better. When hit reg was way messed up, aliens were winning almost every game. Big changes tend to throw the win and loss rates off quite a bit. Another huge factor is the skill level of the marines, if you can't shoot you're going to lose it's that simple. There is no amount of strategy that will save you from a 3 to 9 k/d ratio. But as people get better with marines you'll see the marines actually start winning far more often.
But here's the biggest flaw in your whole argument about how aliens are winning so much... They're not! The overall ratio on NS2stats right now is 57/43 aliens in the lead, but here's the thing, some of those games don't count. if you look at games that go over 40 minutes, the marines are winning 59% of the time and up to 67% of the time on games last over 50 minutes. Aliens win 100% of the games under 5 minutes, which I wouldn't even consider actually being games and more of just stomps. If you take away the 267 games that aliens win in the first 5 minutes, the ratio goes down to about 53/47. And that is definitely a pretty even ratio. And the last thing I'll say on that, is that the whole NS2stats system is not a good indicator of anything, only a handful of servers use it. So if you're not on one of those the stats don't get recorded, so that's really only a very small snapshot from a very small slice of the community.
What it comes down to is, learn to play the game, stop asking for ways to make the game easier for one side or the other cause you are too lazy to get better.
Skulks are fine IMHO. They are deadly at close range, just as they should be. Right now the issue isn't the skulk, it's marines that don't get the upgrades to better withstand skulk attacks. They are not getting those upgrades because marines are res starved because they can't hold res nodes. Aliens are too fast and can go from node to node keeping marines on the defence all game. Put in electrified res nodes and then see how the gameplay evens up real fast.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This, IMHO.
Everytime I play marines (mostly 18-20 servers) I see our res towers being constantly attacked by lonewolf skulks.
The only way to prevent it is... being there, since turrets are just so easy to bypass and expensive.
That forces you to either fall back and (maybe) save the tower, or lose it.
And if it gets destroyed, 1+ Marine will need to waste additional time getting there and building it, whereas alien structures don't need any assistance.
Skulks can just do that thanks to their mobility and small profile, Marines need some kind of effective defense to prevent/limit that kind of harassment.
Maps are way to big to be able to cover most res towers.
That, paired with all the res sinks marines have, can be a game breaker.
"Electrify building" could be a nice little tool.
In order to avoid spamming it, you could:
<ul><li>Make it expensive enough</li><li>Allow it only on certain structures</li><li>Require marines to manually upgrade structures</li></ul>
Even then, it still wouldn't prevent gorges/lerks/oni from destroying the res towers.
(For the record, I play mostly Aliens).
You're going to spend a ton of res per node with turrets? Just get mines.
You're going to spend a ton of res per node with turrets? Just get mines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not entirely sure on this, but I think I sometimes detonated mines just by getting into their range and then quickly moving out, without a single point of health lost.
If this stands true, decent skulks can just trigger them safely.
Anyway, you could always attack a res tower from above: get to the ceiling, straight up the res tow, fall down, keep biting while on top of it and you avoided any possible mine near it.
Not to mention that 15 res per 3 mines seems a bit too much for me.
If this stands true, decent skulks can just trigger them safely.
Anyway, you could always attack a res tower from above: get to the ceiling, straight up the res tow, fall down, keep biting while on top of it and you avoided any possible mine near it.
Not to mention that 15 res per 3 mines seems a bit too much for me.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It takes 10 parasites, iirc, to detonate a mine. I think the 15res per mine is there to keep people from spamming them all over.
As far as res nodes though, it just seems like some are really, really susceptible to skulk attacks. East wing (docking), trans... or whatever the one is called in refinery(between smelting and marine start), topographical (veil), or skylights. Basically, when you're putting a vent in a room with a res node, it's going to be brought down pretty easily.
Obviously whichever team is doing a better job of killing the other team is probably going to win. Very few times have I lost on marines when I had a score of like 24 to 2 or something, and if I did the reason was because the comm didn't beacon. But see here's what you're saying, aliens win because they have a better K/D ratio. You're saying the better players are playing aliens. This has nothing to do with any balance or jumping issues. This is entirely to do with bad players on the marine team.
I really wish you'd all stop trying to fix things that aren't broken. I have no problem winning on either team, in fact marines are generally an easier win as long as we have a halfway decent comm. Marines can easily steam roll an alien team if they know how to shoot and position themselves, end of story.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pretty much this.
There are a lot of marine losses simply because people join marines to shoot ###### and that means hardly anyone wants to command, which means a large portion of games go a whole minute without a comm which just destroys the round for everyone.
This isn't something the developers can easily overcome in regards to passive balance changes.
Bottom line is there are a lot of selfish marine players who want to play how they want to play at the expense of their team. Marines standing around for 30-40 seconds in their HQ seriously breaks the round against a team which doesn't have to play defencivley and will be in your base and on your res points in no time.
If the game didn't start until each team chooses a commander this would be a huge help. But until something like that is implemented...
8 out of 10 is much more accurate.
furthermore:
80 out of 100 < 800 out of 1000
same thing applies to decimal figures:
4<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--> (could be 4.1)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
4.0 <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(could be 4.01)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
4.00 <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(could be 4.001)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
4.000 <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(could be 4.0001)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
the number seems to be identical but 4.000 is much more accurate, because it means you rounded at the 4th decimal place.
8 out of 10 is much more accurate.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
OMG this made the math nerd in me giggle. I would have thought you made a funny math joke, but reading your full post you really think you are on to something here! :D But anyways... back to the subject.
furthermore:
80 out of 100 < 800 out of 1000
same thing applies to decimal figures:
4<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--> (could be 4.1)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
4.0 <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(could be 4.01)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
4.00 <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(could be 4.001)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
4.000 <!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(could be 4.0001)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
the number seems to be identical but 4.000 is much more accurate, because it means you rounded at the 4th decimal place.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually 4<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->(could be 4.00000000001)<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> and you would never know the difference because once you truncate a number its decimal place approximation fails to matter. Even if you are simply rounding it will only matter if the manner in which you are round takes in a variable number of decimal places and resolves them right to left. However that was not the point of me posting.
On Topic: With all of the talk of Marine losing more games than Aliens and the resultant proposed balance changes someone much more observant than I made the point that if you make marine play more forgiving you are impacting the balance twice as severely as you may imagine. This is due to the fact that the Alien Khammander has no way of forcing the end of the game other than bleeding a competent marine team dry. Now before I get flamed off the boards let me say that while I don't post here much I've been playing this game a fair amount since release and almost exclusively play commander. What I've found is while the marine commander may have a steeper initial curve it has a much larger impact on the gameplay directly in the lategame than an Alien Khammander. Now I'm not saying that this is inherently an issue, but it is something that must be considered when talking about balancing marine gameplay to make playing marine "more forgiving"