The problem with whips being a hard counter to grenade launchers.
Frothybeverage
Join Date: 2003-02-15 Member: 13593Members
Join Date: 2003-02-15 Member: 13593Members
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What exactly are you suggesting? Make whips or gls cost more/less?
And just to throw out other numbers..
Shotguns (25) are a counter to fades/lerks (50/30).
Jetpacks (10) are a counter to onos (75)
mines(15) are a counter to skulks (0)
I'm not sure this suggests any thing......
BUT: if you do have a team clamouring for exos, then a coulpe of jetpackers with GLs can be very useful to keep those trundling coffins alive a little longer. Bit niche, really, IMHO.
GLs help the marine turtle too much, while not being so useful in attacking because of the whip's grenade knockback, I think.
The other side of the argument is that if an alien comm is spamming whips down, they are either really hurting their economy, or they have more than enough res towers already. In both cases, GLs are not the answer to the problem...
And gunning down a whip costs roughly 2 clips.
I think the bigger problem is that Whips are a hard counter at all, need to implement them as a soft-counter instead. Maybe a miss-rate or a cooldown on knocking nades back? Random knockback trajectory?
Whips are the only thing preventing a lone or even multiple marines w/ JP rushing into your hive and destroying all your upgrades and then being able to fly back to safety just to rinse and repeat.
Solo JP's w/ shotgun can be a pain too as they are able to do the same thing but they have to actually get in close to take out upgrades and they can only kill them one at a time. This gives aliens a chance to kill him before he does too much damage, where as JP's w/ GL can lobe nades from a safe distance and possible take out multiples upgrades at once.
For everything else, there's MasterCard
I think the bigger problem is that Whips are a hard counter at all, need to implement them as a soft-counter instead. Maybe a miss-rate or a cooldown on knocking nades back? Random knockback trajectory?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ive had whips knock nades back at me around corners, that is freaking ridiculous. Im in for random trajectory, or at least not knocking around corners.
BUT: if you do have a team clamouring for exos, then a coulpe of jetpackers with GLs can be very useful to keep those trundling coffins alive a little longer. Bit niche, really, IMHO.
GLs help the marine turtle too much, while not being so useful in attacking because of the whip's grenade knockback, I think.
The other side of the argument is that if an alien comm is spamming whips down, they are either really hurting their economy, or they have more than enough res towers already. In both cases, GLs are not the answer to the problem...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How many alien comms actually put a number of whips down BEFORE nades hit the field? At 15 res each and needing multiple per room (multiple per door if you are using them as anti-marine rather than just anti-nade) covering anything but your most vulnerable or important areas seems like a fairly bad idea until you have or would have 3 hives.
The knocking them through walls and corners is a bug that has been fixed just recently (none release I think, I don't remember :P)
Can't be true, yesterday I had a whip knocking em while I was in a vent just under where whip was
The fact that an anti structure weapon is hardcountered by a structure is simply not logical.
This is what I was referring to above, and why I think making it more of a soft counter would be better.
Though, I'm against whips randomly missing grenades, luck-based mechanics can be pretty frustrating.
I'd simply increase the cooldown between "Whacks", so that a single whip can, say, bounce 2-3 grenades instead of 4.
Which means a single whip will whack the first and third grenade, letting the second and fourth through (assuming you fire those 4 grenades as fast as u can)
Hence it would take 2 whips to hard counter 1 GL.
Which costs 1 res for the commander to give you 5 clips. Non-issue. Whips cost 15 res. Killing them <u><b>IS</b></u> a big blow.
<!--quoteo(post=2066450:date=Jan 25 2013, 10:13 AM:name=Hockeybeard)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Hockeybeard @ Jan 25 2013, 10:13 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066450"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think the bigger problem is that Whips are a hard counter at all, need to implement them as a soft-counter instead. Maybe a miss-rate or a cooldown on knocking nades back? Random knockback trajectory?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
All of those were tried during beta. They made whips effectively useless and GLs were rampant. The random trajectory was the worst as more often than not it would throw the grenade into another alien structure. Whips were subsequently not used outside of a late game res sink (which disappeared entirely when TRes eggs were thrown into the mix). All they need to fix is the throwback working through walls so that banking grenades actually works and you don't get a grenade back in your face. Thus the whip can be handled in three ways. 1) Just shoot it 2) Bank grenades creatively 3) use a flamethrower to light it on fire preventing the throwback.
Gets old watching games with perfectly good Marine pushes getting shut down by 3x crags, a whip and a gorge because the whip hits every grenade back, the gorge and crags heal the whip. And the rifles/shotguns are usually on lifeforms or occasionally dumping meaningless damage into said structures.
Kthanks.
It's true that whips aren't an absolute 100% hard-counter to grenades for this reason.
But if the marine team is fielding 2-3 (or more!) GLs, they've already lost basically, and to actually overcome whip anti-GL tosses results in a ton of damage back at the marines themselves.
While the OP's argument doesn't really make sense (a counter costs less than what it counters? SHOCKER!), the fact that a <i>building</i> counters an anti-building weapon is the real oddity. There are many paths to better gameplay (pick one):
1. The anti-grenade ability is a free upgrade for a whip after it's placed, but cuts the whip's HP and direct damage in half.
2. The ability is no longer automatic, but a temporary buff for whips (like the activated passives on Crags) which costs team resources.
The former creates a more balanced counter system (Anti-GL whips remain awesome against GLs, but die even faster to LMG fire) while the latter increases alien commander engagement (which is sorely lacking compared to the marine team; although admittedly this is a pretty minor improvement and what alien commanders really need is a medpack-like expenditure which has them continually interacting with fights and expending resources.)
And those are just two quick suggestions. I'm sure even better ideas exist.
What a worthless post.
How long have you been sitting on this information!
What exactly are you suggesting? Make whips or gls cost more/less?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Make them the same price.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And just to throw out other numbers..
Shotguns (25) are a counter to fades/lerks (50/30).
Jetpacks (10) are a counter to onos (75)
mines(15) are a counter to skulks (0)
I'm not sure this suggests any thing......<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Player skill has an affect on all of those things.
Just because a shotgun CAN kill a Fade, doesn't mean it will.
The same goes for Jetpacks/Onos.
An onos only needs to hit any specific Jetpacker 2-3 times.
Mines are OP, but with the fact that marines lose most of the time it doesn't matter.
<!--quoteo(post=2066581:date=Jan 25 2013, 11:40 AM:name=Brad_R)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Brad_R @ Jan 25 2013, 11:40 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066581"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Sounds like somebody blew themselves up.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, I com most of the time.
I just think it's silly that a structure counters an anti-structure weapon.
It's also hilarious when you bounce the Grenade off a wall around the corner, and the grenade travels back to you in the exact same trajectory and angle.
Once that's fixed then we can talk about structures hard countering a weapon.
Until then, such an idea would just allow those GLs to be an unchallenged spam fest of splash damage.
Once that's fixed then we can talk about structures hard countering a weapon.
Until then, such an idea would just allow those GLs to be an unchallenged spam fest of splash damage.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I counter GLs with Bone Wall.
You're talking about a gun that can one-shot multiple skulks. Point me at a similar mechanic for Aliens to one shot several Marines, then we can have a discussion.
And no, Spores do not one-shot Marines.
EDIT:
You're looking at it backwards, too. If one Marine with a GL hits the field, how much will it cost the Aliens to put whips at every important juncture?