i'm just going to address a more obvious but clearly blissful core problem for people to analyze, what makes you think aliens are winning 'too much'? Are you going to hurl ns2stats around? because if so then that just more proves the blissful ignorance that is tied to this problem.
<!--quoteo(post=2063413:date=Jan 19 2013, 11:38 PM:name=AshTrai)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (AshTrai @ Jan 19 2013, 11:38 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063413"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I concur. 1 or 2 marines with a very good shot can change this somewhat but what u say is almost always true in public games.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is so true. A couple of good players on either team will completely throw balance but it's much more noticeable if the're on the marine team. Lost an alien game the other day as one marine could consistently win every fight against 1 or 2 skulks, rest of the players were fairly balanced against each other but this one guy took a hive down all by himself with ammo/medpack/nano spam.
<!--quoteo(post=2063413:date=Jan 19 2013, 11:38 PM:name=AshTrai)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (AshTrai @ Jan 19 2013, 11:38 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063413"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I suspect ultimately that marines fall foul of Entropy - There's 3 ways marines can lose (take out the power in their last base, kill them all with no ip's, kill all CC's) whereas there's only 1 way aliens can lose (kill ALL hives). It's overwhelmingly more likely that marines will lose even before the game has begun.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You'd think killing all active hives would be enough to win as marine, but thanks to shift eggs aliens can keep playing even if there down to just one in-construction hive. Played a Veil game were aliens kept marines pinned and took nano and cargo RTs. Managed to get a guy down to pipeline to get a second RT then put a sneaky phase in cargo. Everybody phased in just as aliens dropped cargo hive, killed easily, rushed sub and killed that, aliens drop pipeline as sub dies and spam eggs in nano. Try to rush pipeline to kill that but fail, hive goes up, aliens evolved onos, marines lost. Now the aliens had much better players (that's how they managed the initial containment) but imagine marines losing their first and second base and coming back to win from an emergency drop!
I think one of the aspects that makes alien play so forgiving is shift eggs. As long as you can hold res (3 or more) aliens can egg up everywhere and the map control and reinforcement capability that gives is immense. I've found it much harder to win games with crag hive first vs shift hive (against fairly equal teams), not because of celerity being much better than carapace, but because egg drops are so useful. In larger servers shift first is required to prevent inadvertent egg lock, but in smaller servers it's still nearly always the first hive as well. I'd like to see egg spawning moved to the hive, as firstly shift first wouldn't be necessary in large games, but also it might improve balance a bit removing aliens ability to spawn anywhere.
<!--quoteo(post=2063576:date=Jan 20 2013, 01:44 AM:name=Salt)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Salt @ Jan 20 2013, 01:44 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063576"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i'm just going to address a more obvious but clearly blissful core problem for people to analyze, what makes you think aliens are winning 'too much'? Are you going to hurl ns2stats around? because if so then that just more proves the blissful ignorance that is tied to this problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What's this nonsense you're spouting? 1. Anecdotal experience is that aliens win more. 2. Objective data points to aliens winning 60% (ns2stats)
It's overwhelmingly obvious that at the skill level most games are played, the game is not balanced. The game's balance at that skill level should be tweaked first. Afterwards, if tweaks cause problems for the 1% (competitive play) then those issues can be addressed separately.
If 99% of players are experiencing a 60% alien win rate, clearly that's busted.
<!--quoteo(post=2063547:date=Jan 19 2013, 08:46 PM:name=Shino)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shino @ Jan 19 2013, 08:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063547"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you plant a res node that you "can't cover", it doesn't automatically explode. Aliens have to dedicate someone towards biting that res node. One player down in a boozle is a pretty big thing, and can actually spell defeat for the aliens in that engagement.
The biggest problem here is that pub players have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. They're bringing up exo suits, ns_docking- things that hardly ever come up in a competitive game.
If you really want to balance this game, there really isn't that much you need to do. Add something small like 20 seconds to a harvester's build time. Right now, the only problem is that even if the aliens defend poorly and go down to one harvester, they can rebuild and become a very, very deadly force way too easily right now. In many competitive games, my team has gone down to one harvester as an alien (vs 6 marine harvesters). Throw in some RT harassment, phase gate harassment, and general stalling tactics, and we're back to three harvesters. Got three harvesters? That's a free fade egg after two minutes. And it's nearly impossible to kill a fade every two minutes unless you are wildly outskilled by the marines.
The reason why adding 20 seconds is a big deal (but a small change) is early on, a team will dedicate a carapace battle gorge to building RTs. Early on, this will speed up the build time by half due to healing spray. Later on in the game, if the marines wipe the alien team and take down a harvester, it is much harder for the aliens to plop down their res node and intermediate res node and stabilize again, because that's 20 seconds of slow resource flow (unless they sac 10 more pres for a gorge). It makes successful harvester kills worth so much more game impacting.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure is elitist in here. The game is supposed to be balanced at all levels of intended play, with none being more important than the others. And really, docking isn't played and <i>veil </i>is? How rediculous can a competitive community get (don't answer that, I've heard the horror stories of SSBmelee).
<!--quoteo(post=2063643:date=Jan 20 2013, 04:26 AM:name=sotanaht)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (sotanaht @ Jan 20 2013, 04:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063643"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Sure is elitist in here. The game is supposed to be balanced at all levels of intended play, with none being more important than the others. And really, docking isn't played and <i>veil </i>is? How rediculous can a competitive community get (don't answer that, I've heard the horror stories of SSBmelee).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You need to balance for the highest level of play because if you balance for pubs, the win rate will literally be 95-5 marines-aliens in competitive play.
I have seen a single skulk 1v6 in pubs. Should we balance it out so that's impossible, or should we just balance it so we assume that marines have some sort of semblance of aim?
What is so bad about veil?
The problem with ns2_docking is that arcs own the game on that map. You can siege locker rooms from (1) bar, (2) ball court, (3) maintenance access, (4) hallway above bar. You can double siege departures/generator from stability monitoring. You can completely lock down a departures hive with stability monitoring. Granted they made it a little bit better with the moving of cafeteria's tech node to the middle (so you can't just siege it from the hallway next to marine spawn), it's still a disgustingly marine sided map.
But you didn't know any of that did you? How would you fix docking in your eyes? You've never used an arc before, and you probably also think it's an alien sided / balanced map.
1. Marines commanders have little authority in pub games. Since every marine has their own res pool, the only thing they need the commander for is giving meds, ammo and upgrades. If the players see they have a lot of pres, because they cannot spend it on anything early game, it generates hatred and disobedience. Certain players think, the commander has more of a supporting role, totally unlike anything you would expect to be when playing an RTS game. Therefore it is very hard for a commander to apply a certain strategy with rogue marines.
2. Basetrading and early marine aggression does not work for the marines. It was already stated that the alien field players have less responsibilites than their counterparts. What makes this worse is the powernodes: Since aliens are free to do and harrass what they please, a single skulk chewing on the main base's power can end the game. Mindless rushing early game does not work for the marines versus decent alien teams. A single skulk can take out the command chair or the powernode faster than the rest of the marines can take down the hive. This is because aliens spawn in waves. To prevent that, marines do the incredibly lame thing of egglocking. The bad thing is that egglocking costs a lot of time and ammo which would better be spent at shooting the hive. So if one skulk gets inside the empty base, he can either win the game or force the marines to come back. Alien buildings growing by themself is another reason for this: By the time you trade one hive for an outpost techpoint, the hive grows on its own while the marines have to rebuild cc, pg and powernode at least before moving on.
3. Marine Base defenses are useless. Sentry guns are only semi potent at killing skulks, every other alien lifeform can either easily take them down from afar (spit, bile, spike) or have enough hp to be able to get close and take it down or just ignore it altogether(onos,fade). Mines are expensive and obviously explode only once. Whips do significant damage, even to exos, clogs are free and though blockades, hydras are somewhat similar to sentries but they are much harder to ignore (and focus on more valuable targets) because marines have no innate health regeneration.
<!--quoteo(post=2063220:date=Jan 19 2013, 09:27 AM:name=Savant)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Savant @ Jan 19 2013, 09:27 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063220"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I've said it before, my firm belief is that the marines lose the early game extractor war. It's far too easy to take them down, and all it takes is to kill a few and you've set back the marine economy to a point where the aliens win by default.
The real issue is that marines are supposed to be trying to:
-build buildings at base -claim territory -build extractors -protect extractors -claim a second tech point -secure second tech point
All of this - and more - marines are trying to do, at the same time as being attacked by skulks.
<b>The skulks on the other hand have NO responsibilities at all. Nothing. </b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is overstated. Skulks have also any responsibilitys to protect like marines. Even in earlygame.
If one skulk is atacking a RT its in most cases enough to send out one marine to kill him. For that duration both sides have "lost" one player for that situation so its meaningless. Not to mention that its still "Marine > skulk" in that game.
For middle/endgame there are very effective macs to build any stuff for the commander.
<!--quoteo(post=2063650:date=Jan 20 2013, 04:37 AM:name=Shino)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shino @ Jan 20 2013, 04:37 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063650"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You need to balance for the highest level of play because if you balance for pubs, the win rate will literally be 95-5 marines-aliens in competitive play.
I have seen a single skulk 1v6 in pubs. Should we balance it out so that's impossible, or should we just balance it so we assume that marines have some sort of semblance of aim?
What is so bad about veil?
The problem with ns2_docking is that arcs own the game on that map. You can siege locker rooms from (1) bar, (2) ball court, (3) maintenance access, (4) hallway above bar. You can double siege departures/generator from stability monitoring. You can completely lock down a departures hive with stability monitoring. Granted they made it a little bit better with the moving of cafeteria's tech node to the middle (so you can't just siege it from the hallway next to marine spawn), it's still a disgustingly marine sided map.
But you didn't know any of that did you? How would you fix docking in your eyes? You've never used an arc before, and you probably also think it's an alien sided / balanced map.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You balance based on relatively similar skill. There's no point in trying to balance out the possibility of a single pro player (or hacker, there comes a point the two are indistinguishable) dominating a server, but there is a fairly wide range of average that can be expected and dealt with.
EDIT: Actually nevermind, you shouldn't even TRY to be putting a "pro" player on the same level as an average or worse player. The better player wins, that's what's SUPPOSED to happen.
For starters veil only even has 4 tech points instead of 5, so my early comment of marines holding 3 tech rooms and damn any res nodes without a tech point doesn't even make sense on veil. If the marines are ever holding 3 they've already won. Mid-late game seems to be most balanced around 2 marine techs and 3 hives, which can't exist in veil. Either the marines get 2 tech and have the winning position against 2tech aliens or aliens get 3 and own the whole map
Being able to siege through walls is part of the game though. The way you tell it makes docking to be a more marine sided map, and with the win ratio going so heavily to aliens (I've heard in some cases it's been as high as 90%) that sounds like just what the doctor ordered. Also, I have used an arc.
In response to the people that mentioned that part of the problem might be the autonomic resource model of aliens, I agree that it might be one of the problems introduced in NS2 by moving most of the gorge responsibilities to a commander function.
A possible solution might be:
Allow gorges to spend some pres to create a mini harvester that only harvests a portion of the normal harvested resources and allow the commander to upgrade it to a full harvester for a tres price (which could be 10 tres). Perhaps drifters could be utilized to bypass the gorge requirement to build harvesters, but that makes harvesters way more expensive early game as you lose the drifter through the conversion process. Oh and those mini harvesters dont require infestation, similiar to hydras, but they build way more slowly as well that way.
a simple thing, as a marine there is zero you can do with your personal res without a commander. why not make some upgrades free (maybe basic armory stuff) it would free up resources on the marine side that could be invested in res towers lost to harrasment and it wouldn't be spammable in the beginning either due to personal res cost. give it a servercommand on/off switch and you have your "balance" for pub/comp games.
I might be completly mistaken but I believe to remember that in earlier builds during the beta, the marines actually started with one or two MACs in their base basically in order to have a buildung unit available. Im in complete agreement with the OP that the meta-game currently takes its toll on the marines. In NS1 even aliens had to balance between offensive and defensive as you needed usually at least two gorges for at a typical server which had to spend their ressources in order to build RTs and such. First that means that two players out of the team would stay back, build structures or save ressources maybe for another hive. Secondly it meant, that the gorges had to be protected sometimes resulting in a bit more defensive gameplay for the aliens. The fact that there is no dependance between the khamm and alien team results in a massive offensive potential as the team has nothing else to do than constantly attacking the aliens, usually going for their RTs while the khamm expands and claims map control.
While the marines play pretty much the same then they do in NS1, though their ability to Spring is a massive boost, I think the changes to the alien gameplay makes it very difficult for the marines to keep up in terms of meta-game. I think, just as the OP, that the balance issues lies not in numbers. Some weapons, lifeforms, etc. might need some tweaking but that is usually <b>not</b> the reason you loose a game - you usually loose as a marine because you cannot keep up with the Skulks chasing down the RTs as you have so many responsibilities to fulfill while Skulks just need to be aggressive. When aliens loose on the other hand, it is not because of the superior firepower of the marines, but because the marines somehow managned to seize map control and keep it. I guess the game stands and falls with the map control. Tweaking numbers and abilities is a rather superficial approach. It might do some good or bad but it does not deal with the underlying issue.
Solutions? Well, if that's true, that the strong dependancy between commander/marines and the completly independancy between khamm/aliens is one of the major balance issues, then I think it is obvious how it could be tweaked. Either decrease the dependancy between comm/marines so that marines have more <i>free time</i> on their own to act actively instead of re-acting on the aliens. Or, increase the dependancy between khamm/aliens so that aliens, just as in NS1, are required to balance offensive and defense a bit.
1) I guess UWE had their reasons to cut the starting MACs but I think it might be worthwhile to bring them back. Let the marines start with two MACs and marines could, just like Skulks, start seizing map control right from the beginng as MACs could build the starting buildings, armory and such and could build RTs or even repair some. I guess that might help the marines at the beginning to keep up with the no-brainer expansion of the khamm.
2) Increase the build time for alien structure so that gorges need to complete them as it takes a pretty long while till a building is finished. It might not result in a very fun gameplay for the gorges though, but then again, marines are expected to do the same so I see know reasons why gorges should not act as a important building unit on their own. In the current state, it is nice to have a gorge building your RTs but then again, it is also okay to have none. Aside from that I cannot really come up with anything else. The khamm/cyst-system is so heavily interwoven that I think it is very difficult to do anything about with unless you start to reconsider the whole system. Taking away options to give them to the alien team would anyway result in a even more dull khamm-experience as right now, as the khamm is pretty much a passive oberserver who has hardly any options to engange in the ongoing combat. Feels somewhat like the indirect control you have in games like dungeon keeper, just watching your creature fight, die and - usually - win.
Guess granting the marines a few MACs at the beginning might do some good and be a start to help them keeping up in the early "RT-War".
Maybe drifters should be used to nuture buildings similiar to a mac right now and nothing grows automatically anymore except cysts. Only 1 drifter per building so gorges still form a nice synergy (buildings are build by drifters at the same speed as they are now without any gorge support). So marines can try to shoot down the drifters early game while they are building stuff. Assymetrical stuff only goes so far, but I think this is just warranted and would in fact give aliens khamms more things to do early game.
I think there are three main non-performance-related sources for imbalance in NS2 gameplay.
<b>1) Aliens building with no player investment.</b> problems: --Cyst spam denying areas and making it very hard to fight both lifeforms and cysts in the mid-late game due to sheer health pools. --The ability to drop buildings anywhere. 3 marines one room from your hive? Emergency 3 crags -- no preplanning required! They just fall out of the sky and 20s later are complete in making your hive very difficult to kill without arc/gl. --Territory expansion even if aliens are simply trading kills with marines.
possible fixes: +more cyst nerfs. I want a longer cooldown and lower maximum health. Possible even something drastic like 0tres cost, but 5s global cool down and a varying build time based on distance from nearest hive. +I also wish to see something changed with how buildings are started by the alien commander. I think it is broken how they can just plop buildings onto the field. I frequently see this overwhelm marines in the mid-late game because the aliens start churning out buildings faster than marines can kill them. I liked the old drifter method -- where you had to run a drifter from your hive to your building spot and then it would turn into a building. This gave marines ample time to deny the path and kill the drifter. Costs could easily be accomendated for this (IE drop 3 tres off the price of each building because drifters cost 3 tres).
<b>2) Onos having such a huge skill floor.</b> problems: --The onos always comes out in any 15+m game with relatively even teams. --The onos' strength stems from his giant health pool which sees little difference between a great player and an average player. --The onos is a huge force multiplier. One onos is worth at least 3 marines in any engagement, so if two onos walk into a phase gate room in an 8v8, they're already effectively equal to the entire marine team being in that room. This leaves the other 6 aliens to overwhelm the marines in said room. --Mobility. Exosuits have a huge disadvantage due to their mobility. Onos are so damn fast without even using charge that they are always where they need to be. Unlike exosuits, you can never really force onos out of position unless they make big mistakes. A unit whose power is derived from a non-skill-based-attribute with no big weakness completely wrecks balance at the low-mid level of play that you see in pubs.
preliminary ideas on fixes: +Significantly reduce onos speed and speed bonus from celerity. Slightly decrease onos attack energy cost. This would overall greatly reduce the onos' ability to move about the map while (hopefully) allowing him enough burst mobility to survive in large scale combat via charge + gore. +Perhaps move charge to be researched on two hives for onos.
<b>3) Aliens' lack of tres sinks.</b> problems: --Late game aliens is horrendous in game play when compared to late game marines. After you research carapace/leap/the other few necessary upgrades you are left with an abundance of res. Because aliens should not be losing these various upgrades/abilities, they're typically one-time expenditures. After they're completely, the aliens simply spam buildings around the map. As a marine in the mid-end game, it gets to the point where killing alien buildings is a waste of your time. --If aliens get up to 3-4 RTs, killing RTs has little. If aliens get up to 5-6 RTS for even a few minutes, marines basically auto-lose because aliens can re-drop an RT with just two ticks of res income. This can be mitigated in competitive play by stronger marine teamwork, but it is a death knell in pubs. Combined with my first point about no player investment, the alien economy can quickly spiral out of control. If the first couple engagements don't go decent for marines, there is no chance of coming back. --Lack of Tres sinks allow aliens to compete from just 2 TP + 2-3 RTs where as a marine team will quickly fold if aliens are allowed 3 TP + 5-7 RTs.
<!--quoteo(post=2063788:date=Jan 20 2013, 07:11 PM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Jan 20 2013, 07:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063788"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think there are three main non-performance-related sources for imbalance in NS2 gameplay.
<b>1) Aliens building with no player investment.</b> problems: --Cyst spam denying areas and making it very hard to fight both lifeforms and cysts in the mid-late game due to sheer health pools. --The ability to drop buildings anywhere. 3 marines one room from your hive? Emergency 3 crags -- no preplanning required! They just fall out of the sky and 20s later are complete in making your hive very difficult to kill without arc/gl. --Territory expansion even if aliens are simply trading kills with marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Cyst Spam? not diffrent from Medspam. What bs are you talking about? marines buildings are dropping from the sky too You really should to learn how to play the game and stop your crying just because u cant play the game, learn to play!
<!--quoteo(post=2063788:date=Jan 20 2013, 07:11 PM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Jan 20 2013, 07:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063788"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->possible fixes: +more cyst nerfs. I want a longer cooldown and lower maximum health. Possible even something drastic like 0tres cost, but 5s global cool down and a varying build time based on distance from nearest hive. +I also wish to see something changed with how buildings are started by the alien commander. I think it is broken how they can just plop buildings onto the field. I frequently see this overwhelm marines in the mid-late game because the aliens start churning out buildings faster than marines can kill them. I liked the old drifter method -- where you had to run a drifter from your hive to your building spot and then it would turn into a building. This gave marines ample time to deny the path and kill the drifter. Costs could easily be accomendated for this (IE drop 3 tres off the price of each building because drifters cost 3 tres).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Totaly stupid idea, that is just crying about a frustrated marine player...cysts are weak! Why only change how buildings are starded by aliens? marines build their buildings in just a sec, while aliens have to wait or spend 10 pres to go gorge +be weak. Just another crying
<!--quoteo(post=2063788:date=Jan 20 2013, 07:11 PM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Jan 20 2013, 07:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063788"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><b>2) Onos having such a huge skill floor.</b> problems: --The onos always comes out in any 15+m game with relatively even teams. --The onos' strength stems from his giant health pool which sees little difference between a great player and an average player. --The onos is a huge force multiplier. One onos is worth at least 3 marines in any engagement, so if two onos walk into a phase gate room in an 8v8, they're already effectively equal to the entire marine team being in that room. This leaves the other 6 aliens to overwhelm the marines in said room. --Mobility. Exosuits have a huge disadvantage due to their mobility. Onos are so damn fast without even using charge that they are always where they need to be. Unlike exosuits, you can never really force onos out of position unless they make big mistakes. A unit whose power is derived from a non-skill-based-attribute with no big weakness completely wrecks balance at the low-mid level of play that you see in pubs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> OMG the onos COST 75 RES and have to be strong, you have to play together, same as aliens to kill down a dual minigun exo... NO big weakness? Are you out of your mind? these maps are huge, ever heard about MINIGUN, DUAL MINIGUNS or JETPACKS??
<!--quoteo(post=2063788:date=Jan 20 2013, 07:11 PM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Jan 20 2013, 07:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063788"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->preliminary ideas on fixes: +Significantly reduce onos speed and speed bonus from celerity. Slightly decrease onos attack energy cost. This would overall greatly reduce the onos' ability to move about the map while (hopefully) allowing him enough burst mobility to survive in large scale combat via charge + gore. +Perhaps move charge to be researched on two hives for onos.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Decrease onos attack? Maybe you should play the game, for that is the flamethrower and something called TEAMPLAY!
All i can see here is crying about the aliens, i have no clue whats the official statistics are about but as a player who play much, the game seems balanced. The huge problem is about the marines is the teamplay!
<!--quoteo(post=2063797:date=Jan 20 2013, 01:34 PM:name=RTV)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RTV @ Jan 20 2013, 01:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063797"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Cyst Spam? not diffrent from Medspam. What bs are you talking about? marines buildings are dropping from the sky too You really should to learn how to play the game and stop your crying just because u cant play the game, learn to play!
Totaly stupid idea, that is just crying about a frustrated marine player...cysts are weak! Why only change how buildings are starded by aliens? marines build their buildings in just a sec, while aliens have to wait or spend 10 pres to go gorge +be weak. Just another crying
OMG the onos COST 75 RES and have to be strong, you have to play together, same as aliens to kill down a dual minigun exo... NO big weakness? Are you out of your mind? these maps are huge, ever heard about MINIGUN, DUAL MINIGUNS or JETPACKS??
Decrease onos attack? Maybe you should play the game, for that is the flamethrower and something called TEAMPLAY!
All i can see here is crying about the aliens, i have no clue whats the official statistics are about but as a player who play much, the game seems balanced. The huge problem is about the marines is the teamplay!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <a href="https://www.hookedonphonics.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/3UqRt.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
<!--quoteo(post=2063797:date=Jan 20 2013, 07:34 PM:name=RTV)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RTV @ Jan 20 2013, 07:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063797"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What bs are you talking about? marines buildings are dropping from the sky too<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I can completely agree on the subject of this. The main problem i have with imbalancing is the fact that Aliens dont have to actually go in and set up buildings, while marines have to do so from the ground up. I have an ingenious idea to fix this though, and it wouldnt require but a simple edit in the lua code for the game.
Make alien structure generate time EXTREAMLY long, so players will go gorge and speed up the process. In fact, Because this thread is here, ima just put this here to: <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=121713303" target="_blank">http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/file...s/?id=121713303</a>
I will add The above mentioned to Beta 4 and hopefully it will work as planned.
<b>Gorgeous </b>definitely posted the most accurate set of reasons, with the economy/structure model being the biggest factor. NS2 is won by the attacking team, but marine players must spend time building.
This creates a variety of problem scenarios, many of which happen every single game. Some examples being (a) idling waiting for the comm to drop your node, and (b) idling in a base that just had 2+ buildings dropped, being unsure whether the comm wants to drop more. All of these little bits of inefficiency add up to a significant reduction in map presence. There have been so many times I've waited 60 full seconds calling out to the comm to drop a resource node -- usually being the #1 killer and scorer on my team.
Basically the commander's slowness will cause marines to go idle, even if they're the best marines on the team, and devastate marine effectiveness.
<b>Bertror's</b> post made no sense at all. Marine commanders have plenty of deserved authority. It depends on the comm of course, but due to the major factors we're pointing out here, the marine team is more reliant on their com (and vice-versa) than aliens. Also, calling marine base defenses useless because they can be taken down from afar when basic marines have an LMG is a bit odd -- including <i>Mines </i>in the list of "useless" things is hilarious.
<!--quoteo(post=2063797:date=Jan 20 2013, 11:34 AM:name=RTV)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RTV @ Jan 20 2013, 11:34 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063797"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Cyst Spam? not diffrent from Medspam. What bs are you talking about? marines buildings are dropping from the sky too You really should to learn how to play the game and stop your crying just because u cant play the game, learn to play!
Totaly stupid idea, that is just crying about a frustrated marine player...cysts are weak! Why only change how buildings are starded by aliens? marines build their buildings in just a sec, while aliens have to wait or spend 10 pres to go gorge +be weak. Just another crying
OMG the onos COST 75 RES and have to be strong, you have to play together, same as aliens to kill down a dual minigun exo... NO big weakness? Are you out of your mind? these maps are huge, ever heard about MINIGUN, DUAL MINIGUNS or JETPACKS??
Decrease onos attack? Maybe you should play the game, for that is the flamethrower and something called TEAMPLAY!
All i can see here is crying about the aliens, i have no clue whats the official statistics are about but as a player who play much, the game seems balanced. The huge problem is about the marines is the teamplay!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
-Cyst spam denies areas entirely with little to no investment, and 0 from any player. Medpack drops rely on Marine skill to make the investment worth it, thus making the resources spent being based on skill. Cyst spam however is pretty easily countered by Welders in the current state.
-Gorgeous is actually likely a far better player then you are. He knows how to play pretty well at the competitive level. Telling him to L2P is pretty amusing.
-Onos is pretty annoying but you'd have to be careful with how you nerf him. He is a big target so the same can be said in the skill floor with being able to hit an Onos.
-Your mention of the Flamethrower is pretty funny regarding Onos. As Onos don't use too much energy unless they are charge spamming. But anyways it's a little too pricey for what it does atm.
"The huge problem is about the marines is the teamplay!"
It is freakin hard to pinpoint the problem here.This game is way too asymetrical.
I'm still raging over the fact that from either perspective, you die at different times than you expected to die.
For a Marine player that means you see a skulk jumping at you and in half a second you are dead.In that time he MAGICALLY got 3 bites in you.Now I know that from a Skulk perspective, getting 3 bites in so fast is impossible, not to mention impossible the other way.I see a Marine.I go to chomp him, but MAGICALLY get killed in half a second of him BARELY reacting to me(seeing me from an eyecorner).
Not to mention fps issues, that slow things down anyway.(my problem obviously)
<!--quoteo(post=2063797:date=Jan 20 2013, 10:34 AM:name=RTV)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RTV @ Jan 20 2013, 10:34 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063797"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You really should to learn how to play the game and stop your crying just because u cant play the game, learn to play!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=2063829:date=Jan 20 2013, 12:34 PM:name=Frustration)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Frustration @ Jan 20 2013, 12:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063829"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It is freakin hard to pinpoint the problem here.This game is way too asymetrical.
I'm still raging over the fact that from either perspective, you die at different times than you expected to die.
For a Marine player that means you see a skulk jumping at you and in half a second you are dead.In that time he MAGICALLY got 3 bites in you.Now I know that from a Skulk perspective, getting 3 bites in so fast is impossible, not to mention impossible the other way.I see a Marine.I go to chomp him, but MAGICALLY get killed in half a second of him BARELY reacting to me(seeing me from an eyecorner).
Not to mention fps issues, that slow things down anyway.(my problem obviously)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's mostly the interpolation and delay in the game. It feels like he's only bit you once because things are so delayed. In actuality on his screen he's bit you 3x.
People like to call people hackers over this also, which is amusing haha.
Same goes for Marines shooting skulks, the Skulk thinks he is able to predict and he is already behind the Marine in an engagement, the reality is he's dead .5 seconds ago.
I would agree with that it is the skulk relentless throwing themselves at marines and extractors... while marines are a bit slower moving early game around the map and securing nodes.
Why won't they implement the same pathing algorithm for arcs as they have for cysts to determine where they can shoot? I'm fine if it's shoot thorough walls, but if it takes half an hour to get from attacked place to arcs, it's a bad design. Like, you can place arcs right around the corner and they will be covered, but dammit, take deposit for example... It takes forever and a day to get to central, and then you have to kill supporting crew and only then you can kill arcs? Mission impossible.
I keep seeing people say that Marines need to be more aggressive. Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but when as an alien I can see enemies through walls and then pounce on them from one of many convenient hiding places, it's a lot easier to be aggressive than when I'm playing as a Marine, slowed down by needing to axe cysts to death, hoping that a Skulk doesn't drop from the ceiling or out of a vent somewhere and kill me before I can respond.
It's also a lot harder for marines to push Kharaa bases than vice versa, in my experience. Turrets aren't much of a threat to the aliens, but basic defensive structures eat up ammo and health on the marines, forcing them to either retreat or depend on the commander to continually drop supplies. Meanwhile aliens can run into a marine base, eat a turret or two, run away and heal.
In general it seems that the aliens can operate much more independently and, when played properly, are much harder to kill than their marine counterparts. Fades and Oni can retreat when hurt much more effectively than Exosuits, and even Jetpackers go down to a few quick bites if they don't see it coming. A poor alien player may not accomplish much, but a good Onos can run into a room, kill a few marines, and get out to heal before the marines have any hope of killing him. An exo can't do the same at all, and it seems to make marine losses much more decisive. Either your push gets to the enemy hive, or you're dead.
I'm not an expert by any means but although I prefer playing humans, I'm much more successful as alien.
Blink should he harder to get.I think I've never seen people without it.
Once a Fade has Blink, no party of 2 can survive.And those Fades are from those a-holes who get 12 kills and 1 death during the metagame.Really f-ing hate people, who only play one game and not get tired of it.
Comments
Are you going to hurl ns2stats around? because if so then that just more proves the blissful ignorance that is tied to this problem.
1 or 2 marines with a very good shot can change this somewhat but what u say is almost always true in public games.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is so true. A couple of good players on either team will completely throw balance but it's much more noticeable if the're on the marine team. Lost an alien game the other day as one marine could consistently win every fight against 1 or 2 skulks, rest of the players were fairly balanced against each other but this one guy took a hive down all by himself with ammo/medpack/nano spam.
<!--quoteo(post=2063413:date=Jan 19 2013, 11:38 PM:name=AshTrai)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (AshTrai @ Jan 19 2013, 11:38 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063413"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I suspect ultimately that marines fall foul of Entropy - There's 3 ways marines can lose (take out the power in their last base, kill them all with no ip's, kill all CC's) whereas there's only 1 way aliens can lose (kill ALL hives). It's overwhelmingly more likely that marines will lose even before the game has begun.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You'd think killing all active hives would be enough to win as marine, but thanks to shift eggs aliens can keep playing even if there down to just one in-construction hive. Played a Veil game were aliens kept marines pinned and took nano and cargo RTs. Managed to get a guy down to pipeline to get a second RT then put a sneaky phase in cargo. Everybody phased in just as aliens dropped cargo hive, killed easily, rushed sub and killed that, aliens drop pipeline as sub dies and spam eggs in nano. Try to rush pipeline to kill that but fail, hive goes up, aliens evolved onos, marines lost. Now the aliens had much better players (that's how they managed the initial containment) but imagine marines losing their first and second base and coming back to win from an emergency drop!
I think one of the aspects that makes alien play so forgiving is shift eggs. As long as you can hold res (3 or more) aliens can egg up everywhere and the map control and reinforcement capability that gives is immense. I've found it much harder to win games with crag hive first vs shift hive (against fairly equal teams), not because of celerity being much better than carapace, but because egg drops are so useful.
In larger servers shift first is required to prevent inadvertent egg lock, but in smaller servers it's still nearly always the first hive as well. I'd like to see egg spawning moved to the hive, as firstly shift first wouldn't be necessary in large games, but also it might improve balance a bit removing aliens ability to spawn anywhere.
Are you going to hurl ns2stats around? because if so then that just more proves the blissful ignorance that is tied to this problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What's this nonsense you're spouting?
1. Anecdotal experience is that aliens win more.
2. Objective data points to aliens winning 60% (ns2stats)
It's overwhelmingly obvious that at the skill level most games are played, the game is not balanced. The game's balance at that skill level should be tweaked first. Afterwards, if tweaks cause problems for the 1% (competitive play) then those issues can be addressed separately.
If 99% of players are experiencing a 60% alien win rate, clearly that's busted.
The biggest problem here is that pub players have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. They're bringing up exo suits, ns_docking- things that hardly ever come up in a competitive game.
If you really want to balance this game, there really isn't that much you need to do. Add something small like 20 seconds to a harvester's build time. Right now, the only problem is that even if the aliens defend poorly and go down to one harvester, they can rebuild and become a very, very deadly force way too easily right now. In many competitive games, my team has gone down to one harvester as an alien (vs 6 marine harvesters). Throw in some RT harassment, phase gate harassment, and general stalling tactics, and we're back to three harvesters. Got three harvesters? That's a free fade egg after two minutes. And it's nearly impossible to kill a fade every two minutes unless you are wildly outskilled by the marines.
The reason why adding 20 seconds is a big deal (but a small change) is early on, a team will dedicate a carapace battle gorge to building RTs. Early on, this will speed up the build time by half due to healing spray. Later on in the game, if the marines wipe the alien team and take down a harvester, it is much harder for the aliens to plop down their res node and intermediate res node and stabilize again, because that's 20 seconds of slow resource flow (unless they sac 10 more pres for a gorge). It makes successful harvester kills worth so much more game impacting.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure is elitist in here. The game is supposed to be balanced at all levels of intended play, with none being more important than the others. And really, docking isn't played and <i>veil </i>is? How rediculous can a competitive community get (don't answer that, I've heard the horror stories of SSBmelee).
You need to balance for the highest level of play because if you balance for pubs, the win rate will literally be 95-5 marines-aliens in competitive play.
I have seen a single skulk 1v6 in pubs. Should we balance it out so that's impossible, or should we just balance it so we assume that marines have some sort of semblance of aim?
What is so bad about veil?
The problem with ns2_docking is that arcs own the game on that map. You can siege locker rooms from (1) bar, (2) ball court, (3) maintenance access, (4) hallway above bar. You can double siege departures/generator from stability monitoring. You can completely lock down a departures hive with stability monitoring. Granted they made it a little bit better with the moving of cafeteria's tech node to the middle (so you can't just siege it from the hallway next to marine spawn), it's still a disgustingly marine sided map.
But you didn't know any of that did you? How would you fix docking in your eyes? You've never used an arc before, and you probably also think it's an alien sided / balanced map.
Thanks guys.
2. Basetrading and early marine aggression does not work for the marines. It was already stated that the alien field players have less responsibilites than their counterparts. What makes this worse is the powernodes: Since aliens are free to do and harrass what they please, a single skulk chewing on the main base's power can end the game. Mindless rushing early game does not work for the marines versus decent alien teams. A single skulk can take out the command chair or the powernode faster than the rest of the marines can take down the hive. This is because aliens spawn in waves. To prevent that, marines do the incredibly lame thing of egglocking. The bad thing is that egglocking costs a lot of time and ammo which would better be spent at shooting the hive. So if one skulk gets inside the empty base, he can either win the game or force the marines to come back. Alien buildings growing by themself is another reason for this: By the time you trade one hive for an outpost techpoint, the hive grows on its own while the marines have to rebuild cc, pg and powernode at least before moving on.
3. Marine Base defenses are useless. Sentry guns are only semi potent at killing skulks, every other alien lifeform can either easily take them down from afar (spit, bile, spike) or have enough hp to be able to get close and take it down or just ignore it altogether(onos,fade). Mines are expensive and obviously explode only once. Whips do significant damage, even to exos, clogs are free and though blockades, hydras are somewhat similar to sentries but they are much harder to ignore (and focus on more valuable targets) because marines have no innate health regeneration.
The real issue is that marines are supposed to be trying to:
-build buildings at base
-claim territory
-build extractors
-protect extractors
-claim a second tech point
-secure second tech point
All of this - and more - marines are trying to do, at the same time as being attacked by skulks.
<b>The skulks on the other hand have NO responsibilities at all. Nothing. </b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is overstated. Skulks have also any responsibilitys to protect like marines. Even in earlygame.
If one skulk is atacking a RT its in most cases enough to send out one marine to kill him. For that duration both sides have "lost" one player for that situation so its meaningless. Not to mention that its still "Marine > skulk" in that game.
For middle/endgame there are very effective macs to build any stuff for the commander.
I have seen a single skulk 1v6 in pubs. Should we balance it out so that's impossible, or should we just balance it so we assume that marines have some sort of semblance of aim?
What is so bad about veil?
The problem with ns2_docking is that arcs own the game on that map. You can siege locker rooms from (1) bar, (2) ball court, (3) maintenance access, (4) hallway above bar. You can double siege departures/generator from stability monitoring. You can completely lock down a departures hive with stability monitoring. Granted they made it a little bit better with the moving of cafeteria's tech node to the middle (so you can't just siege it from the hallway next to marine spawn), it's still a disgustingly marine sided map.
But you didn't know any of that did you? How would you fix docking in your eyes? You've never used an arc before, and you probably also think it's an alien sided / balanced map.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You balance based on relatively similar skill. There's no point in trying to balance out the possibility of a single pro player (or hacker, there comes a point the two are indistinguishable) dominating a server, but there is a fairly wide range of average that can be expected and dealt with.
EDIT: Actually nevermind, you shouldn't even TRY to be putting a "pro" player on the same level as an average or worse player. The better player wins, that's what's SUPPOSED to happen.
For starters veil only even has 4 tech points instead of 5, so my early comment of marines holding 3 tech rooms and damn any res nodes without a tech point doesn't even make sense on veil. If the marines are ever holding 3 they've already won. Mid-late game seems to be most balanced around 2 marine techs and 3 hives, which can't exist in veil. Either the marines get 2 tech and have the winning position against 2tech aliens or aliens get 3 and own the whole map
Being able to siege through walls is part of the game though. The way you tell it makes docking to be a more marine sided map, and with the win ratio going so heavily to aliens (I've heard in some cases it's been as high as 90%) that sounds like just what the doctor ordered. Also, I have used an arc.
A possible solution might be:
Allow gorges to spend some pres to create a mini harvester that only harvests a portion of the normal harvested resources and allow the commander to upgrade it to a full harvester for a tres price (which could be 10 tres). Perhaps drifters could be utilized to bypass the gorge requirement to build harvesters, but that makes harvesters way more expensive early game as you lose the drifter through the conversion process. Oh and those mini harvesters dont require infestation, similiar to hydras, but they build way more slowly as well that way.
While the marines play pretty much the same then they do in NS1, though their ability to Spring is a massive boost, I think the changes to the alien gameplay makes it very difficult for the marines to keep up in terms of meta-game. I think, just as the OP, that the balance issues lies not in numbers. Some weapons, lifeforms, etc. might need some tweaking but that is usually <b>not</b> the reason you loose a game - you usually loose as a marine because you cannot keep up with the Skulks chasing down the RTs as you have so many responsibilities to fulfill while Skulks just need to be aggressive. When aliens loose on the other hand, it is not because of the superior firepower of the marines, but because the marines somehow managned to seize map control and keep it. I guess the game stands and falls with the map control. Tweaking numbers and abilities is a rather superficial approach. It might do some good or bad but it does not deal with the underlying issue.
Solutions? Well, if that's true, that the strong dependancy between commander/marines and the completly independancy between khamm/aliens is one of the major balance issues, then I think it is obvious how it could be tweaked. Either decrease the dependancy between comm/marines so that marines have more <i>free time</i> on their own to act actively instead of re-acting on the aliens. Or, increase the dependancy between khamm/aliens so that aliens, just as in NS1, are required to balance offensive and defense a bit.
1) I guess UWE had their reasons to cut the starting MACs but I think it might be worthwhile to bring them back. Let the marines start with two MACs and marines could, just like Skulks, start seizing map control right from the beginng as MACs could build the starting buildings, armory and such and could build RTs or even repair some. I guess that might help the marines at the beginning to keep up with the no-brainer expansion of the khamm.
2) Increase the build time for alien structure so that gorges need to complete them as it takes a pretty long while till a building is finished. It might not result in a very fun gameplay for the gorges though, but then again, marines are expected to do the same so I see know reasons why gorges should not act as a important building unit on their own. In the current state, it is nice to have a gorge building your RTs but then again, it is also okay to have none. Aside from that I cannot really come up with anything else. The khamm/cyst-system is so heavily interwoven that I think it is very difficult to do anything about with unless you start to reconsider the whole system. Taking away options to give them to the alien team would anyway result in a even more dull khamm-experience as right now, as the khamm is pretty much a passive oberserver who has hardly any options to engange in the ongoing combat. Feels somewhat like the indirect control you have in games like dungeon keeper, just watching your creature fight, die and - usually - win.
Guess granting the marines a few MACs at the beginning might do some good and be a start to help them keeping up in the early "RT-War".
<b>1) Aliens building with no player investment.</b>
problems:
--Cyst spam denying areas and making it very hard to fight both lifeforms and cysts in the mid-late game due to sheer health pools.
--The ability to drop buildings anywhere. 3 marines one room from your hive? Emergency 3 crags -- no preplanning required! They just fall out of the sky and 20s later are complete in making your hive very difficult to kill without arc/gl.
--Territory expansion even if aliens are simply trading kills with marines.
possible fixes:
+more cyst nerfs. I want a longer cooldown and lower maximum health. Possible even something drastic like 0tres cost, but 5s global cool down and a varying build time based on distance from nearest hive.
+I also wish to see something changed with how buildings are started by the alien commander. I think it is broken how they can just plop buildings onto the field. I frequently see this overwhelm marines in the mid-late game because the aliens start churning out buildings faster than marines can kill them. I liked the old drifter method -- where you had to run a drifter from your hive to your building spot and then it would turn into a building. This gave marines ample time to deny the path and kill the drifter. Costs could easily be accomendated for this (IE drop 3 tres off the price of each building because drifters cost 3 tres).
<b>2) Onos having such a huge skill floor.</b>
problems:
--The onos always comes out in any 15+m game with relatively even teams.
--The onos' strength stems from his giant health pool which sees little difference between a great player and an average player.
--The onos is a huge force multiplier. One onos is worth at least 3 marines in any engagement, so if two onos walk into a phase gate room in an 8v8, they're already effectively equal to the entire marine team being in that room. This leaves the other 6 aliens to overwhelm the marines in said room.
--Mobility. Exosuits have a huge disadvantage due to their mobility. Onos are so damn fast without even using charge that they are always where they need to be. Unlike exosuits, you can never really force onos out of position unless they make big mistakes. A unit whose power is derived from a non-skill-based-attribute with no big weakness completely wrecks balance at the low-mid level of play that you see in pubs.
preliminary ideas on fixes:
+Significantly reduce onos speed and speed bonus from celerity. Slightly decrease onos attack energy cost. This would overall greatly reduce the onos' ability to move about the map while (hopefully) allowing him enough burst mobility to survive in large scale combat via charge + gore.
+Perhaps move charge to be researched on two hives for onos.
<b>3) Aliens' lack of tres sinks.</b>
problems:
--Late game aliens is horrendous in game play when compared to late game marines. After you research carapace/leap/the other few necessary upgrades you are left with an abundance of res. Because aliens should not be losing these various upgrades/abilities, they're typically one-time expenditures. After they're completely, the aliens simply spam buildings around the map. As a marine in the mid-end game, it gets to the point where killing alien buildings is a waste of your time.
--If aliens get up to 3-4 RTs, killing RTs has little. If aliens get up to 5-6 RTS for even a few minutes, marines basically auto-lose because aliens can re-drop an RT with just two ticks of res income. This can be mitigated in competitive play by stronger marine teamwork, but it is a death knell in pubs. Combined with my first point about no player investment, the alien economy can quickly spiral out of control. If the first couple engagements don't go decent for marines, there is no chance of coming back.
--Lack of Tres sinks allow aliens to compete from just 2 TP + 2-3 RTs where as a marine team will quickly fold if aliens are allowed 3 TP + 5-7 RTs.
solutions:
+no idea
<b>1) Aliens building with no player investment.</b>
problems:
--Cyst spam denying areas and making it very hard to fight both lifeforms and cysts in the mid-late game due to sheer health pools.
--The ability to drop buildings anywhere. 3 marines one room from your hive? Emergency 3 crags -- no preplanning required! They just fall out of the sky and 20s later are complete in making your hive very difficult to kill without arc/gl.
--Territory expansion even if aliens are simply trading kills with marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Cyst Spam? not diffrent from Medspam.
What bs are you talking about? marines buildings are dropping from the sky too
You really should to learn how to play the game and stop your crying just because u cant play the game, learn to play!
<!--quoteo(post=2063788:date=Jan 20 2013, 07:11 PM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Jan 20 2013, 07:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063788"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->possible fixes:
+more cyst nerfs. I want a longer cooldown and lower maximum health. Possible even something drastic like 0tres cost, but 5s global cool down and a varying build time based on distance from nearest hive.
+I also wish to see something changed with how buildings are started by the alien commander. I think it is broken how they can just plop buildings onto the field. I frequently see this overwhelm marines in the mid-late game because the aliens start churning out buildings faster than marines can kill them. I liked the old drifter method -- where you had to run a drifter from your hive to your building spot and then it would turn into a building. This gave marines ample time to deny the path and kill the drifter. Costs could easily be accomendated for this (IE drop 3 tres off the price of each building because drifters cost 3 tres).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Totaly stupid idea, that is just crying about a frustrated marine player...cysts are weak!
Why only change how buildings are starded by aliens? marines build their buildings in just a sec, while aliens have to wait or spend 10 pres to go gorge +be weak.
Just another crying
<!--quoteo(post=2063788:date=Jan 20 2013, 07:11 PM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Jan 20 2013, 07:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063788"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><b>2) Onos having such a huge skill floor.</b>
problems:
--The onos always comes out in any 15+m game with relatively even teams.
--The onos' strength stems from his giant health pool which sees little difference between a great player and an average player.
--The onos is a huge force multiplier. One onos is worth at least 3 marines in any engagement, so if two onos walk into a phase gate room in an 8v8, they're already effectively equal to the entire marine team being in that room. This leaves the other 6 aliens to overwhelm the marines in said room.
--Mobility. Exosuits have a huge disadvantage due to their mobility. Onos are so damn fast without even using charge that they are always where they need to be. Unlike exosuits, you can never really force onos out of position unless they make big mistakes. A unit whose power is derived from a non-skill-based-attribute with no big weakness completely wrecks balance at the low-mid level of play that you see in pubs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
OMG the onos COST 75 RES and have to be strong, you have to play together, same as aliens to kill down a dual minigun exo...
NO big weakness? Are you out of your mind? these maps are huge, ever heard about MINIGUN, DUAL MINIGUNS or JETPACKS??
<!--quoteo(post=2063788:date=Jan 20 2013, 07:11 PM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Jan 20 2013, 07:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063788"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->preliminary ideas on fixes:
+Significantly reduce onos speed and speed bonus from celerity. Slightly decrease onos attack energy cost. This would overall greatly reduce the onos' ability to move about the map while (hopefully) allowing him enough burst mobility to survive in large scale combat via charge + gore.
+Perhaps move charge to be researched on two hives for onos.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Decrease onos attack? Maybe you should play the game, for that is the flamethrower and something called TEAMPLAY!
All i can see here is crying about the aliens, i have no clue whats the official statistics are about but as a player who play much, the game seems balanced.
The huge problem is about the marines is the teamplay!
What bs are you talking about? marines buildings are dropping from the sky too
You really should to learn how to play the game and stop your crying just because u cant play the game, learn to play!
Totaly stupid idea, that is just crying about a frustrated marine player...cysts are weak!
Why only change how buildings are starded by aliens? marines build their buildings in just a sec, while aliens have to wait or spend 10 pres to go gorge +be weak.
Just another crying
OMG the onos COST 75 RES and have to be strong, you have to play together, same as aliens to kill down a dual minigun exo...
NO big weakness? Are you out of your mind? these maps are huge, ever heard about MINIGUN, DUAL MINIGUNS or JETPACKS??
Decrease onos attack? Maybe you should play the game, for that is the flamethrower and something called TEAMPLAY!
All i can see here is crying about the aliens, i have no clue whats the official statistics are about but as a player who play much, the game seems balanced.
The huge problem is about the marines is the teamplay!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="https://www.hookedonphonics.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/3UqRt.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
(don't forget to click the pug)
They don't build themselves. Nuff' said.
Make alien structure generate time EXTREAMLY long, so players will go gorge and speed up the process.
In fact, Because this thread is here, ima just put this here to:
<a href="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=121713303" target="_blank">http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/file...s/?id=121713303</a>
I will add The above mentioned to Beta 4 and hopefully it will work as planned.
-Lanix
This creates a variety of problem scenarios, many of which happen every single game. Some examples being (a) idling waiting for the comm to drop your node, and (b) idling in a base that just had 2+ buildings dropped, being unsure whether the comm wants to drop more. All of these little bits of inefficiency add up to a significant reduction in map presence. There have been so many times I've waited 60 full seconds calling out to the comm to drop a resource node -- usually being the #1 killer and scorer on my team.
Basically the commander's slowness will cause marines to go idle, even if they're the best marines on the team, and devastate marine effectiveness.
<b>Bertror's</b> post made no sense at all. Marine commanders have plenty of deserved authority. It depends on the comm of course, but due to the major factors we're pointing out here, the marine team is more reliant on their com (and vice-versa) than aliens. Also, calling marine base defenses useless because they can be taken down from afar when basic marines have an LMG is a bit odd -- including <i>Mines </i>in the list of "useless" things is hilarious.
What bs are you talking about? marines buildings are dropping from the sky too
You really should to learn how to play the game and stop your crying just because u cant play the game, learn to play!
Totaly stupid idea, that is just crying about a frustrated marine player...cysts are weak!
Why only change how buildings are starded by aliens? marines build their buildings in just a sec, while aliens have to wait or spend 10 pres to go gorge +be weak.
Just another crying
OMG the onos COST 75 RES and have to be strong, you have to play together, same as aliens to kill down a dual minigun exo...
NO big weakness? Are you out of your mind? these maps are huge, ever heard about MINIGUN, DUAL MINIGUNS or JETPACKS??
Decrease onos attack? Maybe you should play the game, for that is the flamethrower and something called TEAMPLAY!
All i can see here is crying about the aliens, i have no clue whats the official statistics are about but as a player who play much, the game seems balanced.
The huge problem is about the marines is the teamplay!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
-Cyst spam denies areas entirely with little to no investment, and 0 from any player. Medpack drops rely on Marine skill to make the investment worth it, thus making the resources spent being based on skill. Cyst spam however is pretty easily countered by Welders in the current state.
-Gorgeous is actually likely a far better player then you are. He knows how to play pretty well at the competitive level. Telling him to L2P is pretty amusing.
-Onos is pretty annoying but you'd have to be careful with how you nerf him. He is a big target so the same can be said in the skill floor with being able to hit an Onos.
-Your mention of the Flamethrower is pretty funny regarding Onos. As Onos don't use too much energy unless they are charge spamming. But anyways it's a little too pricey for what it does atm.
"The huge problem is about the marines is the teamplay!"
<a href="http://ns2stats.org/" target="_blank">http://ns2stats.org/</a>
Filter competitive.
See Aliens win roughly 70% of games.
Understand at the competitive level teamplay is typically at it's best.
Profit.
I'm still raging over the fact that from either perspective, you die at different times than you expected to die.
For a Marine player that means you see a skulk jumping at you and in half a second you are dead.In that time he MAGICALLY got 3 bites in you.Now I know that from a Skulk perspective, getting 3 bites in so fast is impossible, not to mention impossible the other way.I see a Marine.I go to chomp him, but MAGICALLY get killed in half a second of him BARELY reacting to me(seeing me from an eyecorner).
Not to mention fps issues, that slow things down anyway.(my problem obviously)
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/pQlA9.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />
I'm still raging over the fact that from either perspective, you die at different times than you expected to die.
For a Marine player that means you see a skulk jumping at you and in half a second you are dead.In that time he MAGICALLY got 3 bites in you.Now I know that from a Skulk perspective, getting 3 bites in so fast is impossible, not to mention impossible the other way.I see a Marine.I go to chomp him, but MAGICALLY get killed in half a second of him BARELY reacting to me(seeing me from an eyecorner).
Not to mention fps issues, that slow things down anyway.(my problem obviously)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's mostly the interpolation and delay in the game. It feels like he's only bit you once because things are so delayed. In actuality on his screen he's bit you 3x.
People like to call people hackers over this also, which is amusing haha.
Same goes for Marines shooting skulks, the Skulk thinks he is able to predict and he is already behind the Marine in an engagement, the reality is he's dead .5 seconds ago.
It's also a lot harder for marines to push Kharaa bases than vice versa, in my experience. Turrets aren't much of a threat to the aliens, but basic defensive structures eat up ammo and health on the marines, forcing them to either retreat or depend on the commander to continually drop supplies. Meanwhile aliens can run into a marine base, eat a turret or two, run away and heal.
In general it seems that the aliens can operate much more independently and, when played properly, are much harder to kill than their marine counterparts. Fades and Oni can retreat when hurt much more effectively than Exosuits, and even Jetpackers go down to a few quick bites if they don't see it coming. A poor alien player may not accomplish much, but a good Onos can run into a room, kill a few marines, and get out to heal before the marines have any hope of killing him. An exo can't do the same at all, and it seems to make marine losses much more decisive. Either your push gets to the enemy hive, or you're dead.
I'm not an expert by any means but although I prefer playing humans, I'm much more successful as alien.
Once a Fade has Blink, no party of 2 can survive.And those Fades are from those a-holes who get 12 kills and 1 death during the metagame.Really f-ing hate people, who only play one game and not get tired of it.