Shade is the HAAXXXORZ
SeeVee
Join Date: 2012-10-31 Member: 165206Members
Join Date: 2012-10-31 Member: 165206Members
It's so easy to be an alien and rack up kills by walking around the marine base and killing everyone you come across without being seen. I feel like I am using a cheat. Cloaked aliens should show up with marine observatory if they are moving and not on infestation at the very least... but I think aliens should only have the ability to cloak when they are touching infestation. Anyone else agree?
Comments
I still say if they are not on infestation they shouldn't be cloaked.
Compare it to making certain marine weapons only work in powered rooms, that would make them too weak as well.
Compare it to making certain marine weapons only work in powered rooms, that would make them too weak as well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Do sentry guns stop working if the room loses power?
Now. If you feel that cloak is really too strong, please come up with good arguments and a possible solution.
I honestly can't think of a reason to change it right now, I feel like it's exactly where it needs to be. Useful in some situations, but easy to counter as I described earlier.
EDIT: Typo.
Not if the main base has an obs ;)
But yeah for the chaotic and unpredictable nature of pubplay it is quite powerful, I'd like to see at the very least the 100% invisibility removed and move back to the way it was (slightly visible)
Camo is, indeed, incredibly useful versus a Marine team that doesn't have a single clue between 8 or 12 players. Especially if their commander doesn't have a clue to his name. However, if they are no longer a green name and have commanded even a few successful games in the past Camo is a fail strategy. 'Good' aliens teams will lose to 'good' Marines teams if they go Camo first or second Hive. It puts extra emphasis on that third hive to be able to win the game.
Your options with Shade as First or Second hive (discounting Silence upgrade of course):
Camo+Carapace
Camo+Adrenaline
Camo+Celerity
Camo+Regen
Nowhere in this list do you have a combination that can effectively break a Marines base with a single Obs. Yes, the scans and extra Obs the Marines will need to completely counter your shade hive will slow down their inevitable win, but it's still an inevitable win. You will end up with what amounts to one chamber upgrade by mid-game against good Marines.
That isn't to say camo never works, but in the situations where it does work anything else would have worked too. So what's the argument? That bad teams are, in fact, bad? Shall we nerf Camo so that it's just never researched at all? Because I'll be honest here, Camo as it is right now is only in the game to troll green name commanders. Planning a strategy against the worst of players might win you a game or two, but I guarantee you through experience that it will lose you far more games than it will win if you play on servers with even intermediate players.
If camo got nerfed, why not just leave your third hive 'blank' in case you lose one of your useful hives? I mean, that's what I usually do already given the relative usefulness of Shade hive. Making it useless against even the worst of teams just guarantees it never gets researched. Especially if it's anything less than total invisibility. It would just make it that much more profitable to disable all the extra graphics options in NS2 to really make those 'camouflaged but still visible' aliens a total joke.
Remember camo makes aliens have to go slow, so keep on the move, stay with your buddies, and watch their backs. Even after a second hive they are either missing movement speed or armor
Your options with Shade as First or Second hive (discounting Silence upgrade of course):
Camo+Carapace
Camo+Adrenaline
Camo+Celerity
Camo+Regen
Nowhere in this list do you have a combination that can effectively break a Marines base with a single Obs. Yes, the scans and extra Obs the Marines will need to completely counter your shade hive will slow down their inevitable win, but it's still an inevitable win. You will end up with what amounts to one chamber upgrade by mid-game against good Marines.
That isn't to say camo never works, but in the situations where it does work anything else would have worked too. So what's the argument? That bad teams are, in fact, bad? Shall we nerf Camo so that it's just never researched at all? Because I'll be honest here, Camo as it is right now is only in the game to troll green name commanders. Planning a strategy against the worst of players might win you a game or two, but I guarantee you through experience that it will lose you far more games than it will win if you play on servers with even intermediate players.
If camo got nerfed, why not just leave your third hive 'blank' in case you lose one of your useful hives? I mean, that's what I usually do already given the relative usefulness of Shade hive. Making it useless against even the worst of teams just guarantees it never gets researched. Especially if it's anything less than total invisibility. It would just make it that much more profitable to disable all the extra graphics options in NS2 to really make those 'camouflaged but still visible' aliens a total joke.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your whole idea fails because
a) camo puts you to such a great early lead that taking a third hive isn't very hard.
b) shift upgrades (adren and celerity) really don't do anything to help break a phasegate held tech point.
c) carapace is still available on 2nd hive and that's what is important.
You think only noobs suffer from camo, but in fact it tends to be only noobs that think it is balanced. Imagine that irony.
There's lots of people who are irked by camo movement being 100% invisible. Though there are others that beleive anything other than 100% visible may aswell be 100% visible to a keen set of eyes (I am of this camp). I think a good compromise would be having 100% invisible cloak movement on infestation, but some 99% visible predator effect off infestation.
I still think the better option would to fix the effect constant scanning has on the marine economy. Camoflague is counterable with scan, but is still expensive, and it's not as if the extra micro the commander has to do doesn't have it's drawbacks already (if only slightly). I've said this countless times in other threads - make scanning cost no res. Either have a massive cooldown, or have a small energy pool and regeneration rate to prevent spamming and force the marines to spend more res on multiple observatories to scan more often (although still costs res, is a one time investment and costs less than having to scan every 30 seconds).
But yeah for the chaotic and unpredictable nature of pubplay it is quite powerful, I'd like to see at the very least the 100% invisibility removed and move back to the way it was (slightly visible)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And then we will again only ever see shade hives going up after 2 other hives have already been built.
We tried the whole partial cloaking over the Beta (heck you where there ;)) and it was useless until it made you 100% invisible.
Only since then have we seen people actually going shade hive first (for more than just sh1ts and giggles) as a somewhat viable strat.
Aliens get to land 1 bite...wow...they need 3 to kill a a0 marine...and it gois up from there, this is not an insta-gib ability the aliens get..its simply to land the first bite.
Shade is easily countered, just slow your game play down, obs and tech points are crucial...more than res nodes as unless they can get 3 hives the aliens will struggle.
People need to realise there is more than 1 strat in this game...some of them will change how you have to play...shade is just one such example.
You realize this is effectively like saying "just build a phasegate at their second hive and then you win!" Well, duh, but you kind of skipped over the part where you actually go do it.
I like how you justify camo as being balanced by saying "if a large marine group only loses 1-3 marines to a skulk then everything is fine!"
This is also not a bad compromise between the '100% invisible is OP' and 'not 100% invisible may as well be 100% visible' camps.
I'm still more for an economy-based solution. Camo already has a counter available. It just costs too much, especially in the early game when res is tight.
If Camo gets changed, it will prove that UWE caters to forum goers that don't know how to play the game.
Then we can all make snarky forum topics about how OP the Marines are all the time with their ranged weapons, hard counters, AoE explosives, and mobile turrets that shoot through walls.
Frankly, I think it's <i> hilarious</i> that people whine and complain about something that costs 3 T.Res. It's the same cost as three dropped med packs, so which is worse? Dropping tons of health packs on Marines that are fighting fast or armored aliens; or dropping a scan around grouped Marines at obvious ambush locations? Scan keeps you from even needing the health packs, since Camo aliens are not only slow but also have no health to speak of.
Rush weapons upgrades and armor upgrades, scan often, win the game.
If you can't win against Camo first aliens, congratulations your team is <i>awful</i> and would have lost to <i>no upgrades at all</i>.
And Shade ink countering scans? If you're psychic and know when and where the Marine commander is going to scan next you should never lose games. The obvious retort is when Marines assault a hive. Realistically, by the time Marines are assaulting that hive they won't even need the scan any more due to egg lock on a crappy Aliens team.
EDIT: Spelling.
If Camo gets changed, it will prove that UWE caters to forum goers that don't know how to play the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't think it will prove that at all. Your stating an opinion, not a fact.
This whole thread is nothing except belly aching and conjecture, followed by opinion. Why should I be any different?
There are no real statistics that we have access to in order to see the actual win rate of shade first hive let alone second hive. Maybe UWE does, who knows? Everyone bases their opinion on their game play experience, of which they are a common factor. If a bad player loses constantly to camo, is it camo's fault or the players?
Since there's an easy, cheap counter I would say it's the player. Obviously, people that routinely play with crappy commanders or are themselves poor commanders will have a different experience. (Namely, losing constantly to teams that are so much better they win with troll tactics.)
I do know, for a fact, that <i>I</i> prefer doing Shade last because it has the lowest chance to win versus Marine teams that are good. I prefer to plan around the other team not being idiots, so that I don't lose the very few good games between evenly matched teams.
This does say a lot... however not in the way you intended.
Regardless of what you say about the game and whether or not people know how to play it, I still stand with the opinion that I feel like I am using a hack when fully inviso. I think the alien should have a predator-like cloak when moving or at least pulse to this every few seconds while moving. If the alien is still and inviso I don't have an issue with that. Being able to walk almost everywhere fully inviso I do have a problem with.
a little less dramatic & minus the glowing eyes: <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JcIe4EsmDYA/TUXEYkRbAbI/AAAAAAAABEA/kYY1nDlMTcA/s1600/predator+invisibility.jpg" target="_blank">http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JcIe4EsmDYA/TUXE...nvisibility.jpg</a>
Regardless of what you say about the game and whether or not people know how to play it, I still stand with the opinion that I feel like I am using a hack when fully inviso. I think the alien should have a predator-like cloak when moving or at least pulse to this every few seconds while moving. If the alien is still and inviso I don't have an issue with that. Being able to walk almost everywhere fully inviso I do have a problem with.
a little less dramatic & minus the glowing eyes: <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JcIe4EsmDYA/TUXEYkRbAbI/AAAAAAAABEA/kYY1nDlMTcA/s1600/predator+invisibility.jpg" target="_blank">http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JcIe4EsmDYA/TUXE...nvisibility.jpg</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So you criticize me putting forward opinion then proceed to put out your own opinion with far less backing than what I said.
Well played sir, well played.
I'm going to repost what I said in another forum topic started by an equally poor NS2 player complaining about the same thing.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Go ahead and nerf camo though. I honestly don't care. It is a moronic idea as is when commanders pull this poor excuse of a strategy. I would prefer breaking bad alien commanders of this belief that it's useful since we're talking about an upgrade that's already researched last on decent teams. I'm very serious when I say this, it makes no difference.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
... and now back to the topic
<!--quoteo(post=2045923:date=Dec 14 2012, 06:36 PM:name=SeeVee)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SeeVee @ Dec 14 2012, 06:36 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2045923"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I still stand with the opinion that I feel like I am using a hack when fully inviso. I think the alien should have a predator-like cloak when moving or at least pulse to this every few seconds while moving. If the alien is still and inviso I don't have an issue with that. Being able to walk almost everywhere fully inviso I do have a problem with.
a little less dramatic & minus the glowing eyes: <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JcIe4EsmDYA/TUXEYkRbAbI/AAAAAAAABEA/kYY1nDlMTcA/s1600/predator+invisibility.jpg" target="_blank">http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JcIe4EsmDYA/TUXE...nvisibility.jpg</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->