<!--quoteo(post=2045965:date=Dec 14 2012, 05:20 PM:name=SpaceJew)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SpaceJew @ Dec 14 2012, 05:20 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2045965"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I can't tell if you're serious or trolling Gorgeous. How, or why, do you 'camp' a phase gate when the second a Marine comes through you get tossed across the room as a skulk? Marines respawn so fast that you either kill the phase, or die trying in most situations.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> don't jump and you can camp phase gates
there is so much completely wasted discussion because of inexperience, why bother trying to tell someone about how you think a certain strategy is or how game is played when you don't know how to play?
instead, try to imagine situations of balance through the lens of each player performing at equal and reasonable skill
<!--quoteo(post=2046137:date=Dec 15 2012, 06:08 AM:name=gnoarch)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (gnoarch @ Dec 15 2012, 06:08 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046137"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->who are these experianced players you are talking about?
In fact near every "experianced" player is of the opinion that shade first is weaker than the other chambers or at least an All in betting on the marine comm to fail.
btw. SC first in NS1 also was a troll chamber to kill noob marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not a single good player thinks the current camo is fine in pubs. Who are these experienced players I'm talking about? I don't know, just go read one of the eight topics about this.
It's clearly broken. Only a handful of unknowns (none of whom have any competitive experience, surprise!) are claiming camouflage in the current state is good for gameplay.
<!--quoteo(post=2046145:date=Dec 15 2012, 06:26 AM:name=mushookees)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (mushookees @ Dec 15 2012, 06:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046145"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->sounds like youve lost your argument<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There is no point in arguing with someone who is going to type 1000 words in an incoherent response to one sentence. I'm certainly not going to address point by point of his hypothetical "marines take everything against camo cuz they use scans!!!1" argument. It's a ridiculous premise which he literally makes up as he goes along. It's akin to me writing a play by play about how aliens win every engagement if marines go shotgun first and thus shotgun is bad! See? I wrote his whole post in one sentence.
<!--quoteo(post=2046137:date=Dec 15 2012, 04:08 AM:name=gnoarch)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (gnoarch @ Dec 15 2012, 04:08 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046137"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->who are these experianced players you are talking about?
In fact near every "experianced" player is of the opinion that shade first is weaker than the other chambers or at least an All in betting on the marine comm to fail.
btw. SC first in NS1 also was a troll chamber to kill noob marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
camo is outright broken and one of the many factors that turns alien side to non brainer.
"if marines team up if marines do that if marine be that they can win"
why the hell marines have to have a higher skillcap while the aline side is totally no brainer? thats the reason of win rates in public servers. you don't expect everyone to be pro especially in public games.
i don't give a single ###### for competitive gaming, i bought this game to play in pub games to lower my stress after a hard day's work. i don't care about high-end players or high end tactics. in a moderate game, camo owns.
to deal with camo you have to really good with marines, i particulary have no problem with camo. but my personal skills are averaged by the team so camo ultimately feks my game up.
they should really remove alien command to higlight team play by dividing the responsibility among players. this may balance things up
<!--quoteo(post=2046147:date=Dec 15 2012, 10:35 PM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Dec 15 2012, 10:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046147"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not a single good player thinks the current camo is fine in pubs. Who are these experienced players I'm talking about? I don't know, just go read one of the eight topics about this.
It's clearly broken. Only a handful of unknowns (none of whom have any competitive experience, surprise!) are claiming camouflage in the current state is good for gameplay.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Define good player? Do you put yourself in that category? Sorry but rather than saying "your a lesser player so your opinion does not count" perhaps listen to other people who are voicing strategies tried and tested? Sure I have been on marine sides that lost to camo first, in those games the comm and team was fixated on res nodes and didn't worry about trying to hold tech points.
Try to understand that this game is not and should not be about res nodes but tech points, shade just makes marines have to realise this if they want to win. Despite requests there is no linking of marine tech to tech points held, where aliens there is.
I am an average (is that good?) player and I think camo is in a good place, its not unbeatable but requires a different approach to how you play....guess I am not experienced/good enough eh?
<!--quoteo(post=2046149:date=Dec 15 2012, 12:37 PM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Dec 15 2012, 12:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046149"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There is no point in arguing with someone who is going to type 1000 words in an incoherent response to one sentence. I'm certainly not going to address point by point of his hypothetical "marines take everything against camo cuz they use scans!!!1" argument. It's a ridiculous premise which he literally makes up as he goes along. It's akin to me writing a play by play about how aliens win every engagement if marines go shotgun first and thus shotgun is bad! See? I wrote his whole post in one sentence.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm sorry. I was just trying to explain that the fact that Aliens are OP at the moment is about other stuf than just "Camo OP lol rofl!! NERF"
Let me make my last stement on a more appropriate level:
Camo is broken in pub play because countering camo requires more skill than the average pub team has to begin with. Bad players aren't going to l2p and suddenly boost up marine win rates. They're simply going to quit the game because the pub balance is atrocious.
Camo is fine. If you're getting raped by it then build more observatories and scan your ass off. Nothing will make the aliens team rage against their commander more than well placed observatories against a shade hive.
<!--quoteo(post=2046198:date=Dec 15 2012, 07:34 AM:name=awwwsnap)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (awwwsnap @ Dec 15 2012, 07:34 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046198"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Camo is fine. If you're getting raped by it then build more observatories and scan your ass off. Nothing will make the aliens team rage against their commander more than well placed observatories against a shade hive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your average pub commander isn't going to do this, and your average player isn't going to play more cautious against camo. Meaning that under the context of pub play, camo is dramatically more effective than any other tech path.
Pub players are bad. Bad players don't use appropriate counters on a regular basis. Camo is extremely punishing to bad players, and as a result is a major factor in skewing pub stats and ruining games in where it's researched first. L2P is not an appropriate response. Balancing game mechanics so they have similar impact at most skill levels is the appropriate response.
I feel like the main issue is that Camo turns crappy Skulks into invisible crappy Skulks. They're still crap, but now their complete inability to close the distance without getting gunned down is significantly reduced. Scanning smart, moving in groups, and many other tactics have the potential to counter camoflage, but if two absolutely terrible teams are going at it, the ones that can turn invisible have a strong edge. Assuming they can figure out how to equip camo.
One of the major concerns with camoflage is that it raises the skill floor for Skulks. It's not universally devastating, it can be countered, and there are a variety of tools to deal with it, but it's a lot easier for a Kham to drop a veil than it is for a Com to learn how to scan intelligently and efficiently, or for Marines to learn how to travel in packs and deal with ambushes. Skulks can camp their own territory, walk into enemy territory, hit enemy assets, whatever; as long as some of their units are home to defend (which becomes more and more likely as you spend more and more time moving slowly to stay invisible), they're pretty well prepared for the trickle of rambo players.
The obvious counter to finding a camo hive is to group up, walk to the hive, shoot the hive, and win the game. That requires a lot more team-wide organization that giving your units the ability to crawl around waiting for a marine to blunder into them. Camo isn't game-breakingly overpowered, and we have the tools to deal with it, but in the typical slugfest between camping rambos, the invisible rambo will win hands down.
<!--quoteo(post=2046253:date=Dec 15 2012, 10:53 AM:name=Techercizer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Techercizer @ Dec 15 2012, 10:53 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046253"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I feel like the main issue is that Camo turns crappy Skulks into invisible crappy Skulks. They're still crap, but now their complete inability to close the distance without getting gunned down is significantly reduced. Scanning smart, moving in groups, and many other tactics have the potential to counter camoflage, but if two absolutely terrible teams are going at it, the ones that can turn invisible have a strong edge. Assuming they can figure out how to equip camo.
One of the major concerns with camoflage is that it raises the skill floor for Skulks. It's not universally devastating, it can be countered, and there are a variety of tools to deal with it, but it's a lot easier for a Kham to drop a veil than it is for a Com to learn how to scan intelligently and efficiently, or for Marines to learn how to travel in packs and deal with ambushes. Skulks can camp their own territory, walk into enemy territory, hit enemy assets, whatever; as long as some of their units are home to defend (which becomes more and more likely as you spend more and more time moving slowly to stay invisible), they're pretty well prepared for the trickle of rambo players.
The obvious counter to finding a camo hive is to group up, walk to the hive, shoot the hive, and win the game. That requires a lot more team-wide organization that giving your units the ability to crawl around waiting for a marine to blunder into them. Camo isn't game-breakingly overpowered, and we have the tools to deal with it, but in the typical slugfest between camping rambos, the invisible rambo will win hands down.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What the above distills into is:
Crappy players vs Crappy players - Aliens win if they go camo.
Crappy players who aren't good at the game make up the vast majority of pub players. As a result, camo is distinctly overpowered in pubs because of what it does to the Skulk skill floor at getting in and attacking marines. It's just an incredibly bad pub mechanic right now.
Camo isn't "overpowered in pubs". It's a mechanic with the potential to greatly raise the skill floor for one side which can result in disproportionate amounts of success at equal skill.
Your "distillation" of my analysis fails to take in several key points > Being overpowered is completely different from having a different skill floor. Frenzy Onos was overpowered. Camouflage may or may not be, and I'm leaning towards not.
> There was a lot more detail in my pvp analysis than "crappy players vs crappy players". I specifically referenced evasively-impaired skulks and rambo-oriented Marines. Generalizing that to just "bad players" removes the meaning behind the analysis, making it a poor abridging.
> The concept of "pub balance" or "pub mechanics" in general is just obtuse. You can balance for varying tactical skill and combat proficiency, and you can balance for varying game sizes, but there isn't some unique point where the game becomes a "pub game".
Contrary to the statement of the OP as it may be, the title of this thread is that Camo isn't overpowered, but that it is broken. Whether that statement is true or not remains to be seen. NS2 is an asymmetrical game; it's certainly possible that different teams may need different amounts of skill and effort to deal with some strategies. Having camouflage be a go-to evolution for low tier play isn't much different from spamming turrets against skulks who don't know how to fight them.
<!--quoteo(post=2046305:date=Dec 15 2012, 11:48 AM:name=gnoarch)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (gnoarch @ Dec 15 2012, 11:48 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046305"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->just played an alien round on Yo clan server. Kahmm got shade first. we did not even get second hive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> why bother making posts like these to support your point?
"just had a game where we had 5 Onos and still lost!!!" - making pointless statements like that don't help fuel the discussion. you have to understand the circumstances under which you lost, and the reality is most players aren't good enough to analyze their own games and understand why they won or lost.
I'm having some luck against camo with spending alot of res to get 3 tech points, then just turtling HARD till max upgrades and dual exos, then pushing out for victory.
Regardless, I've still khammed 12 pub games (and counting) with camo, all relatively easy victories.
Why dont we get rid of Camo entirely and replace it with something more adequate?If Im not mistaking such thing happened with Fake Death.
It stomps pub gamers,it is not used in competetive games(judging by information on the forum),so NS2 would be better without it.We need to think of another alien Shade upgrade,since this one cant be altered without it either becomming useless or even more broken.
It will make no difference, as it is already a bad strategy. Making bad aliens commanders better is the net result of a Camo nerf, as any change to make an ineffective chamber worse is irrelevant to any decent teams in the current build.
You can argue that Camo first <i>is</i> a powerful strategy, but that's a side argument to whether Camo should actually be nerfed.
I think ensuring that Shift/Crag/Shade is the build order 100% of games will be the end result. Since that combination is already the most effective build order no matter what skill level the Marines have I think that ultimately it will make bad alien commanders better. The Alien command is already brain dead compared to Marines command even with a troll early game strategy that wins versus bad Marines. Taking out such a troll strategy will probably make Marines players happier, as they know exactly what the build order and progression of the Aliens tech tree will be in 100% of games versus an Alien commander that knows what even half the buttons on his interface do.
I mean, that is what we're talking about right? Because Camo is <i>only</i> useful at all in it's current state due to it's 100% invisibility, and even within the 'nerf cloaking' threads there isn't agreement on if it's actually over powered. The benefits of cloaking certainly aren't the speed of a cloaked Skulk, or the fact that Camo is hard to counter. The only relevant question is the cost of a scan, which if a 3 T.Res scan compounded by length of match and number of times used is too much, then perhaps the Marines command in general needs to be improved before nerfing the aliens to bring them in balance of some mythical already balanced Marines team. (Which they aren't, when looking at the overall difficulty of doing the job well.)
Making aliens even more linear will not make Marines win any more than they do right now. You could excise camouflage from the game entirely and not see a single difference in win rate, so go ahead. No one cares except people that don't know any better.
<!--quoteo(post=2046343:date=Dec 16 2012, 08:38 AM:name=SpaceJew)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SpaceJew @ Dec 16 2012, 08:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046343"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Nerf Camo. Go ahead and do it.
It will make no difference, as it is already a bad strategy. Making bad aliens commanders better is the net result of a Camo nerf, as any change to make an ineffective chamber worse is irrelevant to any decent teams in the current build.
You can argue that Camo first <i>is</i> a powerful strategy, but that's a side argument to whether Camo should actually be nerfed.
I think ensuring that Shift/Crag/Shade is the build order 100% of games will be the end result. Since that combination is already the most effective build order no matter what skill level the Marines have I think that ultimately it will make bad alien commanders better. The Alien command is already brain dead compared to Marines command even with a troll early game strategy that wins versus bad Marines. Taking out such a troll strategy will probably make Marines players happier, as they know exactly what the build order and progression of the Aliens tech tree will be in 100% of games versus an Alien commander that knows what even half the buttons on his interface do.
I mean, that is what we're talking about right? Because Camo is <i>only</i> useful at all in it's current state due to it's 100% invisibility, and even within the 'nerf cloaking' threads there isn't agreement on if it's actually over powered. The benefits of cloaking certainly aren't the speed of a cloaked Skulk, or the fact that Camo is hard to counter. The only relevant question is the cost of a scan, which if a 3 T.Res scan compounded by length of match and number of times used is too much, then perhaps the Marines command in general needs to be improved before nerfing the aliens to bring them in balance of some mythical already balanced Marines team. (Which they aren't, when looking at the overall difficulty of doing the job well.)
Making aliens even more linear will not make Marines win any more than they do right now. You could excise camouflage from the game entirely and not see a single difference in win rate, so go ahead. No one cares except people that don't know any better.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I guess we should just stay focused on teh fact UWE want more than 1 build order on aliens to be viable. That and it took a long time for the camo to be 100%, for a long period during the beta it was 90% which meant we never saw it until after shift and crag hives.
The fact it is now actually an alternate build order, its not uneatable just worry about holding 3 tech points and not 5 res nodes. Change your focus from res nodes to tech points (after all your enemy needs them) and sit and turtle those 3 bases until you tech up.
People who are saying its OP'd need to learn to play a different way, bad players do learn...to insinuate otherwise is insulting to everyone here. None of us started playing NS and where 1337 right off the bat, we all had to learn how to play...its what playing a new game is all about. You may be used to running and gunning from games like COD and against other hives this is a valid strat BUT against shade a more cautious approach is needed.
Its not hard to overcome shade hives...just slow down and dont expect the same level of map control. Ironic that the side who is not meant to have early map control (due to lower mobility) complains about how shade causes them to lose their early map dominance (by which they mean their number of res nodes).
I just hope UWE are looking at this the right way, which is "we finally have shade hive being built before other two are built". Aliens have become more fun to play. Good job UWE, camo is as it should be, finally useful and a valid strategic option for aliens. Both sides have to change how they play but either side can win.
<!--quoteo(post=2046137:date=Dec 15 2012, 06:08 AM:name=gnoarch)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (gnoarch @ Dec 15 2012, 06:08 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046137"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->btw. SC first in NS1 also was a troll chamber to kill noob marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe before focus... You know, the most powerful upgrade in the entire game
A few of you are giving examples of why camo is good/bad. Here's how must games I play with camo pan out:
Early game skulks continue rushing marines over and over forcing there expansion to only a couple RT's and one extra tech point by time camo comes up.
Now that camo is up skulks keep killing marines left and right. This can result in two situations.
The comm scans for his marines often, sacrificing tons of res. This means expansion is very hard to maintain. While the aliens have 5+ RT's 2 Tech points, the marines have 2-4 RT's and 2 tech points. eventually aliens push back on the third tech point and solidify it as there base: Marines fight for the third tech point for a bit then resort to turtling until mid game.
Or the other situation. Marines don't scan, giving them plenty of res to get armor and weapon upgrades. In this situation marines often have 2 solidly maintained tech points 3-4Rt's, While aliens have 5+ RT's and 3 tech points: Marines turtle till mid game.
Now it's mid game, this is where things take a turn for the worst. Near noone has bought any higher lifeforms yet because they have camo as skulk. This is the point where multiple People suddenly go onos at the same time. Marines lose after about 5 minutes at this point. They simply can't defend against a 3+onos power rush.
So as you can see camo may be weak late game. But in reality camo will almost always ensure 3 tech point map control by mid game. This isn't the worst thing in the world but when aliens have 3 tech points and haven't spent there Pres yet, you can guarantee the marines lose.
Also things like "marines should just group up and do a solid push don't work. When they try that it just causes them to lose faster, they either lose a base or are forced to beacon wasting more Tres.
P.S. Oh and keep in mind I often play as a sort of field commander in NS2. So this situation pretty much always happens for me because I lead tell people where to go and what to do. I try to field command marines too but it's just not as easy due to camo, camo turns a bad player into a great player. Where as if a marine is bad they're still bad.
<!--quoteo(post=2046200:date=Dec 15 2012, 06:38 AM:name=JAMESEARLJONOS)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JAMESEARLJONOS @ Dec 15 2012, 06:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046200"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Your average pub commander isn't going to do this, and your average player isn't going to play more cautious against camo. Meaning that under the context of pub play, camo is dramatically more effective than any other tech path.
Pub players are bad. Bad players don't use appropriate counters on a regular basis. Camo is extremely punishing to bad players, and as a result is a major factor in skewing pub stats and ruining games in where it's researched first. L2P is not an appropriate response. Balancing game mechanics so they have similar impact at most skill levels is the appropriate response.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm sorry, but this isn't a casual game. When compared to another game you would be looking at Dota, Counterstrike, Starcraft. These games don't get changed so bad players can feel good about themselves. Bad players get better, or they stay bad. It's completely up to them. If you want this game to be taken seriously, make it have more depth. Do not take depth away, or make it easier than it already is because NS2 is not a hard game at all. Think about it reasonably; Marine guns have no recoil and are not hindered by distance. The game in and of itself is decided by the decisions the players make, much like it is in Dota or Starcraft. You should not nerf a strategy because people can't think hard enough to build observatories, especially when Marines generally have more RT's than aliens.
Keep in mind that the game is fairly new and players haven't figured it out yet. No real need to make drastic changes this early.
Once players realize Shade hive isn't that great to start with because marines are going to be going for phase tech asap anyway, you'll see a lot less of them. At least until Feign Death is brought back lol. Give it more time, if more companies listened to people like you we'd all be playing CoD ripoffs.
<!--quoteo(post=2046486:date=Dec 15 2012, 07:52 PM:name=awwwsnap)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (awwwsnap @ Dec 15 2012, 07:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046486"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm sorry, but this isn't a casual game. When compared to another game you would be looking at Dota, Counterstrike, Starcraft. These games don't get changed so bad players can feel good about themselves. Bad players get better, or they stay bad. It's completely up to them. If you want this game to be taken seriously, make it have more depth. Do not take depth away, or make it easier than it already is because NS2 is not a hard game at all. Think about it reasonably; Marine guns have no recoil and are not hindered by distance. The game in and of itself is decided by the decisions the players make, much like it is in Dota or Starcraft. You should not nerf a strategy because people can't think hard enough to build observatories, especially when Marines generally have more RT's than aliens.
Keep in mind that the game is fairly new and players haven't figured it out yet. No real need to make drastic changes this early.
Once players realize Shade hive isn't that great to start with because marines are going to be going for phase tech asap anyway, you'll see a lot less of them. At least until Feign Death is brought back lol. Give it more time, if more companies listened to people like you we'd all be playing CoD ripoffs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your understanding of game design is really limited.
You can create games with ridiculously deep skill curves, and you can also do that while maintaining relatively even balance across <b>all</b> skill levels. You do that by not introducing mechanics that are intensely lopsided in terms of skill to execute vs skill to defend.
Camo is extremely easy to execute, and significantly more difficult to defend. Thus leading to the skill being drastically overpowered in pubs. Ideally Camo should get replaced with a skill that has a high skill ceiling, but isn't dominant at low levels like camo is now.
<!--quoteo(post=2046486:date=Dec 15 2012, 10:52 PM:name=awwwsnap)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (awwwsnap @ Dec 15 2012, 10:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046486"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm sorry, but this isn't a casual game. When compared to another game you would be looking at Dota, Counterstrike, Starcraft. These games don't get changed so bad players can feel good about themselves. Bad players get better, or they stay bad. It's completely up to them. If you want this game to be taken seriously, make it have more depth. Do not take depth away, or make it easier than it already is because NS2 is not a hard game at all.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You do realize the main issue with camo is that it makes a bad skulk good. which is exactly what you're saying is what you don't want?...
<!--quoteo(post=2046497:date=Dec 15 2012, 10:28 PM:name=Shrimm)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shrimm @ Dec 15 2012, 10:28 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046497"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You do realize the main issue with camo is that it makes a bad skulk good. which is exactly what you're saying is what you don't want?...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Using logic like that, why don't Marines rush Grenade Launchers? I mean, they're great for new players to rack up tons of kills, because they have a big explosion radius and can be fired at your friends feet to 100% protect against skulks even mid-game. Even invisible ones. Right?
Oh wait, that's a horrible idea because it would lose the game versus a decent other team. Just like Camo.
Is it a perfect example? Of course not. It illustrates the thought process that's going on though. There's even an expensive hard counter on the other team in a whip structure that costs as much as 5 scans.
I could even cite games where getting early grenade launchers worked and use it as 'proof'. Would that help?
<!--quoteo(post=2046489:date=Dec 15 2012, 08:06 PM:name=JAMESEARLJONOS)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JAMESEARLJONOS @ Dec 15 2012, 08:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046489"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Your understanding of game design is really limited.
You can create games with ridiculously deep skill curves, and you can also do that while maintaining relatively even balance across <b>all</b> skill levels. You do that by not introducing mechanics that are intensely lopsided in terms of skill to execute vs skill to defend.
Camo is extremely easy to execute, and significantly more difficult to defend. Thus leading to the skill being drastically overpowered in pubs. Ideally Camo should get replaced with a skill that has a high skill ceiling, but isn't dominant at low levels like camo is now.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You know what else is easy to execute? Holding "E" and building an observatory. Especially right next to your offensively placed Phase Gates. I'm not sure what servers you've been playing on, but I've yet to run into any alien team that went shade hive first and really stomped marines hard. Shade hive is really just not that good(as a primary hive), and camo is a non issue in most cases. Marines can defend against camo in 2 easy ways: Mines and Observatories. If you don't think there are huge drawbacks to going Shade first then your understanding of this game is lacking.
The thing that you, and many other people that play this game need to learn is that this game relies just as much(if not more) on decision making as opposed to "twitch shooting"(which coincidentally is way easier when aliens go Shade first). This is just inherent with any game that has ARTS components to it.
<!--quoteo(post=2046497:date=Dec 15 2012, 08:28 PM:name=Shrimm)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shrimm @ Dec 15 2012, 08:28 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046497"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You do realize the main issue with camo is that it makes a bad skulk good. which is exactly what you're saying is what you don't want?...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It doesn't make a bad skulk good, it makes a bad marine look bad. Skulks with no other upgrade than camo are nothing but spectators on the map. They are slow, they are weak, and there isnt anything they can do against mines. Heck, there isn't anything their team can do against mines because they went Shade first, and lost all their Lerks, and they can't get Bile Bomb until they have a lot more res. They'll soon be res locked and then the game will drag on for another 20 minutes because its a pub and marines like to shoot moving targets rather than structures like hives or upgrades.
Reminds me of the old "Stealth Assassin op cuz invis" argument bad players used to make in Dota.
<!--quoteo(post=2046486:date=Dec 16 2012, 03:52 AM:name=awwwsnap)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (awwwsnap @ Dec 16 2012, 03:52 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046486"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm sorry, but this isn't a casual game. When compared to another game you would be looking at Dota, Counterstrike, Starcraft. These games don't get changed so bad players can feel good about themselves. Bad players get better, or they stay bad. It's completely up to them. If you want this game to be taken seriously, make it have more depth. Do not take depth away, or make it easier than it already is because NS2 is not a hard game at all. Think about it reasonably; Marine guns have no recoil and are not hindered by distance. The game in and of itself is decided by the decisions the players make, much like it is in Dota or Starcraft. You should not nerf a strategy because people can't think hard enough to build observatories, especially when Marines generally have more RT's than aliens.
Keep in mind that the game is fairly new and players haven't figured it out yet. No real need to make drastic changes this early.
Once players realize Shade hive isn't that great to start with because marines are going to be going for phase tech asap anyway, you'll see a lot less of them. At least until Feign Death is brought back lol. Give it more time, if more companies listened to people like you we'd all be playing CoD ripoffs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm sorry but I really don't see why every game needs an MLG attitude attached to it these days ? "Oh you play Minecraft on a combat MCMMO server well we're an MLG Minecraft Clan" and yes I've actually seen that happen. What the hell is wrong with changing a mechanic if as so many are saying it's already useless in high end play ? If its useless there then surely there should be no objection to changing it so another section of the community where its a problem don't have to have it forever be a problem.
<!--quoteo(post=2046506:date=Dec 16 2012, 04:39 AM:name=awwwsnap)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (awwwsnap @ Dec 16 2012, 04:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046506"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You know what else is easy to execute? Holding "E" and building an observatory. Especially right next to your offensively placed Phase Gates. I'm not sure what servers you've been playing on, but I've yet to run into any alien team that went shade hive first and really stomped marines hard. Shade hive is really just not that good(as a primary hive), and camo is a non issue in most cases. Marines can defend against camo in 2 easy ways: Mines and Observatories. If you don't think there are huge drawbacks to going Shade first then your understanding of this game is lacking.
The thing that you, and many other people that play this game need to learn is that this game relies just as much(if not more) on decision making as opposed to "twitch shooting"(which coincidentally is way easier when aliens go Shade first). This is just inherent with any game that has ARTS components to it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> You know what though to counter Camo which lets the enemy force you into going for tech point 2. they can harass your RTs with plenty of ease as you have to group up to such an extent. Also a good alien team can use shade to hide their first hive if you failed to find it before they got shade up, meaning your commander will have to essentially either flip and coin or waste a scan more to find the thing.
The Fact shade provides such a good way to hide and create traps isn't realised by everyone. You can essentially set up right under the Marines Noses without them knowing.
Also Mines to counter Shade, really ?
If that's working so well I have to know what servers you're playing on as each door has 1 way for Marines to enter 4 ways for Skulks so to use mines to perfectly secure a single door its 4 per door. Also a determined Skulk can kill your mines without even going near them as if you set up right you can dart the mine down, it takes time but it can be done and is one of the few times an Adrenaline Skulk gets a real use.
As everyone is posting evidence from anecdotal evidence I'll throw in mine.
the loss on the DB server of a team of Marines to a shade hive first on Refinery, despite Marines having 3 tech points up which phase gates and obs due to you guessed it a split forces attack one of 3 Onos and one of a shade and team of Skulks.
15 games on a rookie server recently (as I do consider myself still a rookie and wanted to command a bit if I could) 14 of those games won by Aliens due to shade first 1 win by marines as the Aliens went for carapace first. that's how effective cloak is on a rookie server and while everyone is saying how it cripples teams etc on other servers its more due to the fact Alien commanders don't seem to go past just the upgrade on shade hives. They forget they have a structure that come with it which can block scans and force the enemy commander to waste scans by intelligent use of hallucinations. as if a commander sees an enemy in a room they will then feel the need to scan incase the enemy is all there and incase that 1 enemy just gave the game away. Only to waste that scan only to show it was a hallucination of the Marines.
With Camo a good skulk can easily get 150 damage on a Marine in seconds, heck a bad skulk can get 75 on a Marine and due to them being able to start the attack at point blank range you can say what you like about twitch shooting skills but they won't be saying you. Camo is only useless if people keep running making noise using it rather than creeping about still with it. If people creep with it then you can get serious advantages from using it
<!--quoteo(post=2046542:date=Dec 16 2012, 01:24 AM:name=Dwavenhobble)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dwavenhobble @ Dec 16 2012, 01:24 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046542"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm sorry but I really don't see why every game needs an MLG attitude attached to it these days ? "Oh you play Minecraft on a combat MCMMO server well we're an MLG Minecraft Clan" and yes I've actually seen that happen. What the hell is wrong with changing a mechanic if as so many are saying it's already useless in high end play ? If its useless there then surely there should be no objection to changing it so another section of the community where its a problem don't have to have it forever be a problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I think it's good that there are players out there that care about being legitimately the best at the game they play. At the same time, I wanted to point out that blizzard has made many changes in StarCraft 2 exactly for lower skilled players so the game is balanced more effectively amongst that rank. If something is completely useless at the competitive level, that alone should be indication that it needs some adjusting, weather that's adjusting to balance it at lower levels, or adjusting to make it actually viable at the highest level.
<!--quoteo(post=2046510:date=Dec 15 2012, 11:48 PM:name=awwwsnap)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (awwwsnap @ Dec 15 2012, 11:48 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046510"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It doesn't make a bad skulk good, it makes a bad marine look bad. Skulks with no other upgrade than camo are nothing but spectators on the map. They are slow, they are weak, and there isnt anything they can do against mines. Heck, there isn't anything their team can do against mines because they went Shade first, and lost all their Lerks, and they can't get Bile Bomb until they have a lot more res. They'll soon be res locked and then the game will drag on for another 20 minutes because its a pub and marines like to shoot moving targets rather than structures like hives or upgrades.
Reminds me of the old "Stealth Assassin op cuz invis" argument bad players used to make in Dota.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm sorry but do you even play the game? You seem to think quite a few things that are just incorrect.
First off You think skulks with camo sneak around the entire map.. It's in fact quite the opposite, Skulks with camo run around the entire map only cloaking when they hear a nearby marine.
You seem to think 20 armor from carapace is better for fighting than camo, by saying they are weak. When in fact a skulk with camo can close the gap without ever getting shot. Where as a skulk with cara has to close the gap by being often out in the open and noisy, often giving marines enough time to make them easy pickings. You also seem to think mines are the be all end all to skulks? When really mines don't mean anything. The job of a camo skulk isn't to attack the marine base, but rather to run around the map sneaking in on any marines trying to expand. Completely denying the map in the first place. The only way mines would ever help marines against camo skulks is if they wasted all there Pres on them mining everywhere, which in reality would just screw the marines over.
You also seem to imply that shade first cost more res than shift or crag.. It cost the same amount of res meaning expansion is just as fast. Actually expansion is faster for shade aliens because all the aliens are doing is picking off marines that try to expand, giving khamm more than half the RT's on the map. The games where the aliens expand across the map extremely fast are almost exclusively the games that aliens go camo over cara or celer first.
Any attempt for marines to fight back against shade, be it scans, big offensive groups, or turtling. ultimately lead to hurting the team more. If you're scanning you are wasting tons of Tres to ensure skulks don't kill your marines trying to expand, ultimately doing more damage to your economy than good. If you push in big offensive groups skulks will destroy your base or force you to beacon either way costing you more Tres. If you turtle you can usually sit on two tech points and build them up but it ultimately proves useless because of my final point.
Skulks with camo don't need to evolve to higher lifeforms to be a huge contribution to the team by themselves. This means half or more of your team gets a quick onos at the same time. At that point the marines lose, there's nothing they can do against a 3+ onos rush on the power node. Even if they beacon the power still goes down and then the onos' turn to the marines and quickly kill all of them.
<!--quoteo(post=2046589:date=Dec 16 2012, 12:20 PM:name=Shrimm)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shrimm @ Dec 16 2012, 12:20 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046589"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Any attempt for marines to fight back against shade, be it scans, big offensive groups, or turtling. ultimately lead to hurting the team more. If you're scanning you are wasting tons of Tres to ensure skulks don't kill your marines trying to expand, ultimately doing more damage to your economy than good. If you push in big offensive groups skulks will destroy your base or force you to beacon either way costing you more Tres. If you turtle you can usually sit on two tech points and build them up but it ultimately proves useless because of my final point.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Right.
That's why against camo you just get 2 Hives as marines. Get obs, mines and PG there. So what is the advantage of camo in this scenario? Nothing! because you just cant use camo around an obs.
Wait, I know your answer "But we will never get 2 hives, skulks just kill us!!!!11 Camo skulks are better than Onos!!!11"...
Let's just wait for 1 or 2 moths how metagame evolves and then talk about camo again.
Comments
don't jump and you can camp phase gates
there is so much completely wasted discussion because of inexperience, why bother trying to tell someone about how you think a certain strategy is or how game is played when you don't know how to play?
instead, try to imagine situations of balance through the lens of each player performing at equal and reasonable skill
In fact near every "experianced" player is of the opinion that shade first is weaker than the other chambers or at least an All in betting on the marine comm to fail.
btw. SC first in NS1 also was a troll chamber to kill noob marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not a single good player thinks the current camo is fine in pubs. Who are these experienced players I'm talking about? I don't know, just go read one of the eight topics about this.
It's clearly broken. Only a handful of unknowns (none of whom have any competitive experience, surprise!) are claiming camouflage in the current state is good for gameplay.
There is no point in arguing with someone who is going to type 1000 words in an incoherent response to one sentence. I'm certainly not going to address point by point of his hypothetical "marines take everything against camo cuz they use scans!!!1" argument. It's a ridiculous premise which he literally makes up as he goes along. It's akin to me writing a play by play about how aliens win every engagement if marines go shotgun first and thus shotgun is bad! See? I wrote his whole post in one sentence.
In fact near every "experianced" player is of the opinion that shade first is weaker than the other chambers or at least an All in betting on the marine comm to fail.
btw. SC first in NS1 also was a troll chamber to kill noob marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
camo is outright broken and one of the many factors that turns alien side to non brainer.
"if marines team up
if marines do that
if marine be that
they can win"
why the hell marines have to have a higher skillcap while the aline side is totally no brainer? thats the reason of win rates in public servers. you don't expect everyone to be pro especially in public games.
i don't give a single ###### for competitive gaming, i bought this game to play in pub games to lower my stress after a hard day's work. i don't care about high-end players or high end tactics. in a moderate game, camo owns.
to deal with camo you have to really good with marines, i particulary have no problem with camo. but my personal skills are averaged by the team so camo ultimately feks my game up.
they should really remove alien command to higlight team play by dividing the responsibility among players. this may balance things up
It's clearly broken. Only a handful of unknowns (none of whom have any competitive experience, surprise!) are claiming camouflage in the current state is good for gameplay.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Define good player? Do you put yourself in that category?
Sorry but rather than saying "your a lesser player so your opinion does not count" perhaps listen to other people who are voicing strategies tried and tested?
Sure I have been on marine sides that lost to camo first, in those games the comm and team was fixated on res nodes and didn't worry about trying to hold tech points.
Try to understand that this game is not and should not be about res nodes but tech points, shade just makes marines have to realise this if they want to win.
Despite requests there is no linking of marine tech to tech points held, where aliens there is.
I am an average (is that good?) player and I think camo is in a good place, its not unbeatable but requires a different approach to how you play....guess I am not experienced/good enough eh?
I'm sorry. I was just trying to explain that the fact that Aliens are OP at the moment is about other stuf than just "Camo OP lol rofl!! NERF"
Let me make my last stement on a more appropriate level:
lol stfu noob. l2p.
Your average pub commander isn't going to do this, and your average player isn't going to play more cautious against camo. Meaning that under the context of pub play, camo is dramatically more effective than any other tech path.
Pub players are bad. Bad players don't use appropriate counters on a regular basis. Camo is extremely punishing to bad players, and as a result is a major factor in skewing pub stats and ruining games in where it's researched first. L2P is not an appropriate response. Balancing game mechanics so they have similar impact at most skill levels is the appropriate response.
One of the major concerns with camoflage is that it raises the skill floor for Skulks. It's not universally devastating, it can be countered, and there are a variety of tools to deal with it, but it's a lot easier for a Kham to drop a veil than it is for a Com to learn how to scan intelligently and efficiently, or for Marines to learn how to travel in packs and deal with ambushes. Skulks can camp their own territory, walk into enemy territory, hit enemy assets, whatever; as long as some of their units are home to defend (which becomes more and more likely as you spend more and more time moving slowly to stay invisible), they're pretty well prepared for the trickle of rambo players.
The obvious counter to finding a camo hive is to group up, walk to the hive, shoot the hive, and win the game. That requires a lot more team-wide organization that giving your units the ability to crawl around waiting for a marine to blunder into them. Camo isn't game-breakingly overpowered, and we have the tools to deal with it, but in the typical slugfest between camping rambos, the invisible rambo will win hands down.
One of the major concerns with camoflage is that it raises the skill floor for Skulks. It's not universally devastating, it can be countered, and there are a variety of tools to deal with it, but it's a lot easier for a Kham to drop a veil than it is for a Com to learn how to scan intelligently and efficiently, or for Marines to learn how to travel in packs and deal with ambushes. Skulks can camp their own territory, walk into enemy territory, hit enemy assets, whatever; as long as some of their units are home to defend (which becomes more and more likely as you spend more and more time moving slowly to stay invisible), they're pretty well prepared for the trickle of rambo players.
The obvious counter to finding a camo hive is to group up, walk to the hive, shoot the hive, and win the game. That requires a lot more team-wide organization that giving your units the ability to crawl around waiting for a marine to blunder into them. Camo isn't game-breakingly overpowered, and we have the tools to deal with it, but in the typical slugfest between camping rambos, the invisible rambo will win hands down.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What the above distills into is:
Crappy players vs Crappy players - Aliens win if they go camo.
Crappy players who aren't good at the game make up the vast majority of pub players. As a result, camo is distinctly overpowered in pubs because of what it does to the Skulk skill floor at getting in and attacking marines. It's just an incredibly bad pub mechanic right now.
Your "distillation" of my analysis fails to take in several key points
> Being overpowered is completely different from having a different skill floor. Frenzy Onos was overpowered. Camouflage may or may not be, and I'm leaning towards not.
> There was a lot more detail in my pvp analysis than "crappy players vs crappy players". I specifically referenced evasively-impaired skulks and rambo-oriented Marines. Generalizing that to just "bad players" removes the meaning behind the analysis, making it a poor abridging.
> The concept of "pub balance" or "pub mechanics" in general is just obtuse. You can balance for varying tactical skill and combat proficiency, and you can balance for varying game sizes, but there isn't some unique point where the game becomes a "pub game".
Contrary to the statement of the OP as it may be, the title of this thread is that Camo isn't overpowered, but that it is broken. Whether that statement is true or not remains to be seen. NS2 is an asymmetrical game; it's certainly possible that different teams may need different amounts of skill and effort to deal with some strategies. Having camouflage be a go-to evolution for low tier play isn't much different from spamming turrets against skulks who don't know how to fight them.
Kahmm got shade first.
we did not even get second hive.
Kahmm got shade first.
we did not even get second hive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
why bother making posts like these to support your point?
"just had a game where we had 5 Onos and still lost!!!" - making pointless statements like that don't help fuel the discussion. you have to understand the circumstances under which you lost, and the reality is most players aren't good enough to analyze their own games and understand why they won or lost.
Regardless, I've still khammed 12 pub games (and counting) with camo, all relatively easy victories.
It stomps pub gamers,it is not used in competetive games(judging by information on the forum),so NS2 would be better without it.We need to think of another alien Shade upgrade,since this one cant be altered without it either becomming useless or even more broken.
It will make no difference, as it is already a bad strategy. Making bad aliens commanders better is the net result of a Camo nerf, as any change to make an ineffective chamber worse is irrelevant to any decent teams in the current build.
You can argue that Camo first <i>is</i> a powerful strategy, but that's a side argument to whether Camo should actually be nerfed.
I think ensuring that Shift/Crag/Shade is the build order 100% of games will be the end result. Since that combination is already the most effective build order no matter what skill level the Marines have I think that ultimately it will make bad alien commanders better. The Alien command is already brain dead compared to Marines command even with a troll early game strategy that wins versus bad Marines. Taking out such a troll strategy will probably make Marines players happier, as they know exactly what the build order and progression of the Aliens tech tree will be in 100% of games versus an Alien commander that knows what even half the buttons on his interface do.
I mean, that is what we're talking about right? Because Camo is <i>only</i> useful at all in it's current state due to it's 100% invisibility, and even within the 'nerf cloaking' threads there isn't agreement on if it's actually over powered. The benefits of cloaking certainly aren't the speed of a cloaked Skulk, or the fact that Camo is hard to counter. The only relevant question is the cost of a scan, which if a 3 T.Res scan compounded by length of match and number of times used is too much, then perhaps the Marines command in general needs to be improved before nerfing the aliens to bring them in balance of some mythical already balanced Marines team. (Which they aren't, when looking at the overall difficulty of doing the job well.)
Making aliens even more linear will not make Marines win any more than they do right now. You could excise camouflage from the game entirely and not see a single difference in win rate, so go ahead. No one cares except people that don't know any better.
It will make no difference, as it is already a bad strategy. Making bad aliens commanders better is the net result of a Camo nerf, as any change to make an ineffective chamber worse is irrelevant to any decent teams in the current build.
You can argue that Camo first <i>is</i> a powerful strategy, but that's a side argument to whether Camo should actually be nerfed.
I think ensuring that Shift/Crag/Shade is the build order 100% of games will be the end result. Since that combination is already the most effective build order no matter what skill level the Marines have I think that ultimately it will make bad alien commanders better. The Alien command is already brain dead compared to Marines command even with a troll early game strategy that wins versus bad Marines. Taking out such a troll strategy will probably make Marines players happier, as they know exactly what the build order and progression of the Aliens tech tree will be in 100% of games versus an Alien commander that knows what even half the buttons on his interface do.
I mean, that is what we're talking about right? Because Camo is <i>only</i> useful at all in it's current state due to it's 100% invisibility, and even within the 'nerf cloaking' threads there isn't agreement on if it's actually over powered. The benefits of cloaking certainly aren't the speed of a cloaked Skulk, or the fact that Camo is hard to counter. The only relevant question is the cost of a scan, which if a 3 T.Res scan compounded by length of match and number of times used is too much, then perhaps the Marines command in general needs to be improved before nerfing the aliens to bring them in balance of some mythical already balanced Marines team. (Which they aren't, when looking at the overall difficulty of doing the job well.)
Making aliens even more linear will not make Marines win any more than they do right now. You could excise camouflage from the game entirely and not see a single difference in win rate, so go ahead. No one cares except people that don't know any better.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I guess we should just stay focused on teh fact UWE want more than 1 build order on aliens to be viable.
That and it took a long time for the camo to be 100%, for a long period during the beta it was 90% which meant we never saw it until after shift and crag hives.
The fact it is now actually an alternate build order, its not uneatable just worry about holding 3 tech points and not 5 res nodes.
Change your focus from res nodes to tech points (after all your enemy needs them) and sit and turtle those 3 bases until you tech up.
People who are saying its OP'd need to learn to play a different way, bad players do learn...to insinuate otherwise is insulting to everyone here.
None of us started playing NS and where 1337 right off the bat, we all had to learn how to play...its what playing a new game is all about.
You may be used to running and gunning from games like COD and against other hives this is a valid strat BUT against shade a more cautious approach is needed.
Its not hard to overcome shade hives...just slow down and dont expect the same level of map control.
Ironic that the side who is not meant to have early map control (due to lower mobility) complains about how shade causes them to lose their early map dominance (by which they mean their number of res nodes).
I just hope UWE are looking at this the right way, which is "we finally have shade hive being built before other two are built".
Aliens have become more fun to play.
Good job UWE, camo is as it should be, finally useful and a valid strategic option for aliens. Both sides have to change how they play but either side can win.
Maybe before focus... You know, the most powerful upgrade in the entire game
Early game skulks continue rushing marines over and over forcing there expansion to only a couple RT's and one extra tech point by time camo comes up.
Now that camo is up skulks keep killing marines left and right. This can result in two situations.
The comm scans for his marines often, sacrificing tons of res. This means expansion is very hard to maintain. While the aliens have 5+ RT's 2 Tech points, the marines have 2-4 RT's and 2 tech points. eventually aliens push back on the third tech point and solidify it as there base:
Marines fight for the third tech point for a bit then resort to turtling until mid game.
Or the other situation. Marines don't scan, giving them plenty of res to get armor and weapon upgrades. In this situation marines often have 2 solidly maintained tech points 3-4Rt's, While aliens have 5+ RT's and 3 tech points:
Marines turtle till mid game.
Now it's mid game, this is where things take a turn for the worst. Near noone has bought any higher lifeforms yet because they have camo as skulk. This is the point where multiple People suddenly go onos at the same time. Marines lose after about 5 minutes at this point. They simply can't defend against a 3+onos power rush.
So as you can see camo may be weak late game. But in reality camo will almost always ensure 3 tech point map control by mid game. This isn't the worst thing in the world but when aliens have 3 tech points and haven't spent there Pres yet, you can guarantee the marines lose.
Also things like "marines should just group up and do a solid push don't work. When they try that it just causes them to lose faster, they either lose a base or are forced to beacon wasting more Tres.
P.S.
Oh and keep in mind I often play as a sort of field commander in NS2. So this situation pretty much always happens for me because I lead tell people where to go and what to do. I try to field command marines too but it's just not as easy due to camo, camo turns a bad player into a great player. Where as if a marine is bad they're still bad.
Pub players are bad. Bad players don't use appropriate counters on a regular basis. Camo is extremely punishing to bad players, and as a result is a major factor in skewing pub stats and ruining games in where it's researched first. L2P is not an appropriate response. Balancing game mechanics so they have similar impact at most skill levels is the appropriate response.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm sorry, but this isn't a casual game. When compared to another game you would be looking at Dota, Counterstrike, Starcraft. These games don't get changed so bad players can feel good about themselves. Bad players get better, or they stay bad. It's completely up to them. If you want this game to be taken seriously, make it have more depth. Do not take depth away, or make it easier than it already is because NS2 is not a hard game at all. Think about it reasonably; Marine guns have no recoil and are not hindered by distance. The game in and of itself is decided by the decisions the players make, much like it is in Dota or Starcraft. You should not nerf a strategy because people can't think hard enough to build observatories, especially when Marines generally have more RT's than aliens.
Keep in mind that the game is fairly new and players haven't figured it out yet. No real need to make drastic changes this early.
Once players realize Shade hive isn't that great to start with because marines are going to be going for phase tech asap anyway, you'll see a lot less of them. At least until Feign Death is brought back lol. Give it more time, if more companies listened to people like you we'd all be playing CoD ripoffs.
Keep in mind that the game is fairly new and players haven't figured it out yet. No real need to make drastic changes this early.
Once players realize Shade hive isn't that great to start with because marines are going to be going for phase tech asap anyway, you'll see a lot less of them. At least until Feign Death is brought back lol. Give it more time, if more companies listened to people like you we'd all be playing CoD ripoffs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your understanding of game design is really limited.
You can create games with ridiculously deep skill curves, and you can also do that while maintaining relatively even balance across <b>all</b> skill levels. You do that by not introducing mechanics that are intensely lopsided in terms of skill to execute vs skill to defend.
Camo is extremely easy to execute, and significantly more difficult to defend. Thus leading to the skill being drastically overpowered in pubs. Ideally Camo should get replaced with a skill that has a high skill ceiling, but isn't dominant at low levels like camo is now.
You do realize the main issue with camo is that it makes a bad skulk good. which is exactly what you're saying is what you don't want?...
Using logic like that, why don't Marines rush Grenade Launchers? I mean, they're great for new players to rack up tons of kills, because they have a big explosion radius and can be fired at your friends feet to 100% protect against skulks even mid-game. Even invisible ones. Right?
Oh wait, that's a horrible idea because it would lose the game versus a decent other team. Just like Camo.
Is it a perfect example? Of course not. It illustrates the thought process that's going on though. There's even an expensive hard counter on the other team in a whip structure that costs as much as 5 scans.
I could even cite games where getting early grenade launchers worked and use it as 'proof'. Would that help?
You can create games with ridiculously deep skill curves, and you can also do that while maintaining relatively even balance across <b>all</b> skill levels. You do that by not introducing mechanics that are intensely lopsided in terms of skill to execute vs skill to defend.
Camo is extremely easy to execute, and significantly more difficult to defend. Thus leading to the skill being drastically overpowered in pubs. Ideally Camo should get replaced with a skill that has a high skill ceiling, but isn't dominant at low levels like camo is now.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You know what else is easy to execute? Holding "E" and building an observatory. Especially right next to your offensively placed Phase Gates. I'm not sure what servers you've been playing on, but I've yet to run into any alien team that went shade hive first and really stomped marines hard. Shade hive is really just not that good(as a primary hive), and camo is a non issue in most cases. Marines can defend against camo in 2 easy ways: Mines and Observatories. If you don't think there are huge drawbacks to going Shade first then your understanding of this game is lacking.
The thing that you, and many other people that play this game need to learn is that this game relies just as much(if not more) on decision making as opposed to "twitch shooting"(which coincidentally is way easier when aliens go Shade first). This is just inherent with any game that has ARTS components to it.
It doesn't make a bad skulk good, it makes a bad marine look bad. Skulks with no other upgrade than camo are nothing but spectators on the map. They are slow, they are weak, and there isnt anything they can do against mines. Heck, there isn't anything their team can do against mines because they went Shade first, and lost all their Lerks, and they can't get Bile Bomb until they have a lot more res. They'll soon be res locked and then the game will drag on for another 20 minutes because its a pub and marines like to shoot moving targets rather than structures like hives or upgrades.
Reminds me of the old "Stealth Assassin op cuz invis" argument bad players used to make in Dota.
Keep in mind that the game is fairly new and players haven't figured it out yet. No real need to make drastic changes this early.
Once players realize Shade hive isn't that great to start with because marines are going to be going for phase tech asap anyway, you'll see a lot less of them. At least until Feign Death is brought back lol. Give it more time, if more companies listened to people like you we'd all be playing CoD ripoffs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm sorry but I really don't see why every game needs an MLG attitude attached to it these days ?
"Oh you play Minecraft on a combat MCMMO server well we're an MLG Minecraft Clan" and yes I've actually seen that happen.
What the hell is wrong with changing a mechanic if as so many are saying it's already useless in high end play ?
If its useless there then surely there should be no objection to changing it so another section of the community where its a problem don't have to have it forever be a problem.
<!--quoteo(post=2046506:date=Dec 16 2012, 04:39 AM:name=awwwsnap)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (awwwsnap @ Dec 16 2012, 04:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046506"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You know what else is easy to execute? Holding "E" and building an observatory. Especially right next to your offensively placed Phase Gates. I'm not sure what servers you've been playing on, but I've yet to run into any alien team that went shade hive first and really stomped marines hard. Shade hive is really just not that good(as a primary hive), and camo is a non issue in most cases. Marines can defend against camo in 2 easy ways: Mines and Observatories. If you don't think there are huge drawbacks to going Shade first then your understanding of this game is lacking.
The thing that you, and many other people that play this game need to learn is that this game relies just as much(if not more) on decision making as opposed to "twitch shooting"(which coincidentally is way easier when aliens go Shade first). This is just inherent with any game that has ARTS components to it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You know what though to counter Camo which lets the enemy force you into going for tech point 2. they can harass your RTs with plenty of ease as you have to group up to such an extent. Also a good alien team can use shade to hide their first hive if you failed to find it before they got shade up, meaning your commander will have to essentially either flip and coin or waste a scan more to find the thing.
The Fact shade provides such a good way to hide and create traps isn't realised by everyone. You can essentially set up right under the Marines Noses without them knowing.
Also Mines to counter Shade, really ?
If that's working so well I have to know what servers you're playing on as each door has 1 way for Marines to enter 4 ways for Skulks so to use mines to perfectly secure a single door its 4 per door. Also a determined Skulk can kill your mines without even going near them as if you set up right you can dart the mine down, it takes time but it can be done and is one of the few times an Adrenaline Skulk gets a real use.
As everyone is posting evidence from anecdotal evidence I'll throw in mine.
the loss on the DB server of a team of Marines to a shade hive first on Refinery, despite Marines having 3 tech points up which phase gates and obs due to you guessed it a split forces attack one of 3 Onos and one of a shade and team of Skulks.
15 games on a rookie server recently (as I do consider myself still a rookie and wanted to command a bit if I could) 14 of those games won by Aliens due to shade first 1 win by marines as the Aliens went for carapace first. that's how effective cloak is on a rookie server and while everyone is saying how it cripples teams etc on other servers its more due to the fact Alien commanders don't seem to go past just the upgrade on shade hives. They forget they have a structure that come with it which can block scans and force the enemy commander to waste scans by intelligent use of hallucinations. as if a commander sees an enemy in a room they will then feel the need to scan incase the enemy is all there and incase that 1 enemy just gave the game away. Only to waste that scan only to show it was a hallucination of the Marines.
With Camo a good skulk can easily get 150 damage on a Marine in seconds, heck a bad skulk can get 75 on a Marine and due to them being able to start the attack at point blank range you can say what you like about twitch shooting skills but they won't be saying you. Camo is only useless if people keep running making noise using it rather than creeping about still with it. If people creep with it then you can get serious advantages from using it
"Oh you play Minecraft on a combat MCMMO server well we're an MLG Minecraft Clan" and yes I've actually seen that happen.
What the hell is wrong with changing a mechanic if as so many are saying it's already useless in high end play ?
If its useless there then surely there should be no objection to changing it so another section of the community where its a problem don't have to have it forever be a problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I think it's good that there are players out there that care about being legitimately the best at the game they play. At the same time, I wanted to point out that blizzard has made many changes in StarCraft 2 exactly for lower skilled players so the game is balanced more effectively amongst that rank. If something is completely useless at the competitive level, that alone should be indication that it needs some adjusting, weather that's adjusting to balance it at lower levels, or adjusting to make it actually viable at the highest level.
Reminds me of the old "Stealth Assassin op cuz invis" argument bad players used to make in Dota.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm sorry but do you even play the game? You seem to think quite a few things that are just incorrect.
First off You think skulks with camo sneak around the entire map.. It's in fact quite the opposite, Skulks with camo run around the entire map only cloaking when they hear a nearby marine.
You seem to think 20 armor from carapace is better for fighting than camo, by saying they are weak. When in fact a skulk with camo can close the gap without ever getting shot. Where as a skulk with cara has to close the gap by being often out in the open and noisy, often giving marines enough time to make them easy pickings. You also seem to think mines are the be all end all to skulks? When really mines don't mean anything. The job of a camo skulk isn't to attack the marine base, but rather to run around the map sneaking in on any marines trying to expand. Completely denying the map in the first place. The only way mines would ever help marines against camo skulks is if they wasted all there Pres on them mining everywhere, which in reality would just screw the marines over.
You also seem to imply that shade first cost more res than shift or crag.. It cost the same amount of res meaning expansion is just as fast. Actually expansion is faster for shade aliens because all the aliens are doing is picking off marines that try to expand, giving khamm more than half the RT's on the map. The games where the aliens expand across the map extremely fast are almost exclusively the games that aliens go camo over cara or celer first.
Any attempt for marines to fight back against shade, be it scans, big offensive groups, or turtling. ultimately lead to hurting the team more. If you're scanning you are wasting tons of Tres to ensure skulks don't kill your marines trying to expand, ultimately doing more damage to your economy than good. If you push in big offensive groups skulks will destroy your base or force you to beacon either way costing you more Tres. If you turtle you can usually sit on two tech points and build them up but it ultimately proves useless because of my final point.
Skulks with camo don't need to evolve to higher lifeforms to be a huge contribution to the team by themselves. This means half or more of your team gets a quick onos at the same time. At that point the marines lose, there's nothing they can do against a 3+ onos rush on the power node. Even if they beacon the power still goes down and then the onos' turn to the marines and quickly kill all of them.
Right.
That's why against camo you just get 2 Hives as marines. Get obs, mines and PG there.
So what is the advantage of camo in this scenario? Nothing! because you just cant use camo around an obs.
Wait, I know your answer "But we will never get 2 hives, skulks just kill us!!!!11 Camo skulks are better than Onos!!!11"...
Let's just wait for 1 or 2 moths how metagame evolves and then talk about camo again.