Absolutely do not crouch, do not stand still, and do not back up when fighting a skulk. You want to be strafing, in both directions. The objective is to make him miss - moving predictably might make aiming a little bit easier for you, but it makes it a ton easier for the skulk.
Early game skulk vs marine is pretty balanced imo. The reason why skulks have the edge is because marines have to focus on expanding their base (moving out and building stuff), while the skulks just have to focus on killing marines. Because skulks are also faster, they'll be waiting in ambush when marines try to spread out and cap res nodes.
If you arer playing on a random server, not with a clan or a bunch of friends, pay attention to the K/D ratios of the marines early game. I do. I also spectate a lot now too. So I can see what is going on. What is going on is marines are getting mowed down in 1 on 1, 2 on 2 marine versus skulks all the time. There a ton of 2 on 1 as well where one skulk takes out two marines.
We are talking early game, before the marines get a 2nd chair (if they ever do), the K/D ratios are often pathetic. 1 and 5, 2 and 9, etc.. Oh sure you will have one, maybe two HOT players on a streak but thats it. And guess what? This happens, the game is already over. You may as well concede right then. If not you waste 10 more miuntes watching a slow death.
Can't agree. Regardless of race, early game marine vs skulk is the only part of matches I genuinely enjoy and consider relatively well balanced. Except for camo, but let's not go there.
first its a question of skill (which implies your setup more than 80fps in combat, at least a 120hz monitor, a good stable internet connection with a low ping to the server, a low mouse sensitivity and a well set up mouse (1000mhz polling rate, good combination of sensor and mousepad/surface)) getting a good setup going is true ART (and attaches 50% boost to your skillevel)
in comp games you see a lot players taking out 1-3 skulks in a row, happens every game.
the next thing is UWE FIX THE HITREG (cmd & updaterate up to 100/sec server tickrate unlock to 1000fps)
I read, in another post, you uninstalled. If you reinstall, try only advancing with a teammate. Even if your team doesn't really expand and you have a better idea, just stick with at least one teammate. Early game, you should be able to kill more and die less.
The issue is that the guys with good aim can take 3 skulks alone. If we make it easier for stock marines to kills stock skulks, that's gonna be 1 good marine killing 4 skulks at once! At that point 2 good marines would be able to kill the entire other team up to 9v9 (assuming one alien comm).
^This +1. Vanilla marine vs vanilla skulk is in a good place right now. I think it ever so slightly favours marines at the moment. If they were to upset this balance it would be horrible playing skulk vs good marines. (I find it already can be on a marine stack)
The only change I would support to the early game is making gorges slightly (read very slightly) more useful at speeding up extractor / upgrade builds similar to how they are useful for hives.
Mr Choke, do you only play marine still? I remember reading someones whinge thread where they stated that and I thought, who does this? Honestly playing a bit of aliens will improve you as marine as you will learn the enemies tactics at least.
You can't give the marines starting armor without breaking the skulk parasite + 2 perfect bite combo that currently kills marines. That's a very fun combo that rewards skillful play, and it would be a shame to see it go.
Also, I agree with everyone saying that early game marine vs skulk is in a good place right now. Marines might not *accomplish* enough in these early battles, but the battles themselves feel like they're in a good place. I would balance the rewards for winning battles rather than the battles themselves.
Single marine vs single skulk is actually pretty balanced. It really comes down to who's the better player. I'm ok and I probably average 50/50 on skulk vs marine.
Of course the number of times I actually fight one skulk vs one marine is very few. There are always more skulks, or a squad of marines.
Though that said, while the fighting is probably one of the best put together bits of the game, the outcome is less so. If a marine dies it's a lot slower for them to get back into operation than for a skulk. Skulks are faster and can get where they need to be more easily. Marines need to spawn, walk to a place, and squad up to be effective.
It is probably less that skulks are OP in combat, but again that aliens are sort of OP strategically. Skulks don't hurt alien strategic progress when they die, marines do.
I agree that marines usually tend to die a horrible death by single skulks. This is the only game, where I'm having problems with aiming. I've never played NS1, so this is still new for me. Though I've played Quake 3, Enemy Territory and some other faster shooters than your average FPS. Yeah it sucks that I get constantly killed and sometimes my kills feel so lucky and unsatisfied but one must practice to achieve great aim.
By the way, one thing that is annoying is the bad frames I'm getting in some occasions that don't help me to stay accurate.
How often do you see a single marine kill a single skulk? Next to never. Unless the skulk player is brand new to the game and goes in a straight line toward the marine, the marine will almost always lose.
You uh, might be retarded...wait here, I'll do some research and let you know.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
I am going to bail out this topic if this trend keeps on im afraid.
Lets not get in a fight with the OP about L2P, regardless if its true or not, for him specificly.
I am more annoyed however that my points about learning marine movements for NEW & fresh marines is a lot harder, is completely ignored.
New players start early game and if they can not learn right there & then, it will not matter late game.
Now lets ignore personal bashing and get back on track with the topic.
I demand some good debating about my points about movement damnit.
I agree that marines usually tend to die a horrible death by single skulks. This is the only game, where I'm having problems with aiming. I've never played NS1, so this is still new for me. Though I've played Quake 3, Enemy Territory and some other faster shooters than your average FPS. Yeah it sucks that I get constantly killed and sometimes my kills feel so lucky and unsatisfied but one must practice to achieve great aim.
By the way, one thing that is annoying is the bad frames I'm getting in some occasions that don't help me to stay accurate.
One of the biggest problems for newcomers to NS games is that your targets require a lot of VERTICAL tracking - not something found to the same degree in the vast majority of shooters. It does just take practise, I'm afraid! The newbie servers are there to ease people into the game, but in my experience from NS1, it takes a lot longer than the 'green' period to get even used to doing this, let alone good at it!
The problem with marine movement is the lagcompensation. When you think, "I better get some distance between me and that skulk" the skulk is already chewing on your legs thanks to you seeing only an afterimage of him. It is also really hard not to spray lots of bullets into dead skulks because of the fast fire rate of an lmg and the delay to make your shots count. So you end up with all your marines waste their bullets on one skulk and the next one can at least pick off one marine for free while everyone is reloading.
This gets even worse when higher lifeforms are involved.
[*]I think rifle bash is a joke:-) Haven't killed a single Skulk with it.
I've killed with it, but it is pretty useless. Your nearly always better off switching to pistol and then to ax then to try and use rifle bash. If they changed it so you could carry on reloading during a rifle bash attack then it would be worth while. (Speaking of reloading what's with Onos attacks causing reloads to stop?)
Then you are using it wrong. It should not be spammed.
Switch to pistol when you still have range.
Switch to axe when you are out of ammo or need to reload on both guns. (or when hitting structures)
Bash when a skulk is in melee range purely to conserve ammo between bursts, or to buy time for a reload.
So if you see it as a way to contain ammo and all in all buy time, you're good to go. If you see it for a way to do damage, thats using it wrong. Although it does enought damage on its own if need be.
I never said anything about spamming it?
I switch to pistol as soon as my LMG is out UNLESS I have range/time that will give me time to reload.
Again if both guns are out I switch to axe UNLESS I have range/time to reload.
Bashing at melee range, I could probably do it more but generally I find it easier to just keep shooting. As for the idea that it buys you time to reload... I don't see that, it interrupts your reload cycle so your nearly always better of switching to your pistol to get 10 fast 20 dmg shots rather than one slow 20 dmg bash.
I could probably use it more, I have had a fair number of kills with it, but I feel I've had more from going LMG->pistol->axe.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Dont quote me on this, but it seems bash has a knockback. (atleast every skulk I bash always 'lost' me as a target for a second orso, and seems further away then before the bash)
This gives you ample time to reload.
And in my experience, a lmg is better up close then a pistol.
But do not get me wrong. if a pistol works for you, use it. Its more ment as a comment for the folk who dont see options and die.
Not SureJoin Date: 2013-01-06Member: 177758Members
MrChoke, dude.. I've been in games with you. I really don't understand how you can rationalize this bullshit argument when you've seen firsthand both sides of this coin. I can distinctly recall a server we were both on a few days ago.
Aliens won a game, and then marines won, and then aliens won, and then marines won. You know what changed each round? The commander.
The fights were all situational of course, but I watched plenty of marines win 1v1 and plenty of skulks win 1v1.
The problem here is ... there is no problem. You're imagining a fault in the game when really it's just people having different skill levels.
I can tell you I used to die something like 98% of the time 1v1 against skulks. So I started doing this thing where when I heard them coming, I'd sprint back to the end of a long tunnel or open room, and fight them there. Lo and behold, I can actually kill skulks sometimes now.
As important as reflexes are I think knowledge is more than half the battle in this game, and no one wants to think.
MrChoke, dude.. I've been in games with you. I really don't understand how you can rationalize this bullshit argument when you've seen firsthand both sides of this coin. I can distinctly recall a server we were both on a few days ago.
Aliens won a game, and then marines won, and then aliens won, and then marines won. You know what changed each round? The commander.
The fights were all situational of course, but I watched plenty of marines win 1v1 and plenty of skulks win 1v1.
The problem here is ... there is no problem. You're imagining a fault in the game when really it's just people having different skill levels.
I can tell you I used to die something like 98% of the time 1v1 against skulks. So I started doing this thing where when I heard them coming, I'd sprint back to the end of a long tunnel or open room, and fight them there. Lo and behold, I can actually kill skulks sometimes now.
As important as reflexes are I think knowledge is more than half the battle in this game, and no one wants to think.
I remember seeing you before as well but I don't know how long ago. If it was before build 238, my frustration was not as bad as it is now. Since build 238 I have only won 10 out of 46 games as marine. Since build 238 I have only played marines. Before that I usually played random. I remember one night on build 238, I won like 4 games as marine, maybe you were playing then.
Regarding people with different skill levels, funny how skilled players must really love aliens then. You should run your own stats. Maybe aliens win more than you think.
Not SureJoin Date: 2013-01-06Member: 177758Members
edited February 2013
I don't know about compiling stats; I just go by memory. You say maybe good players just stack aliens.... Gee, you think?
I don't want to get into why it happens because I don't really know, but it's all about skill. Aliens win more because the better players have a tendency to play alien more often than marines.
If I really had to guess, I'd say it's easier to go aliens because when you have a bad commander, you can just keep telling him "get celerity, get celerity, get celerity" or "cyst into etc., cyst man cyst in there", whereas if you have a bad marine commander you basically have to hold his hand every step of the way or he blows the game.
If the player is at least average, a single marine easily beats a single skulk.
If the player is a strong player with FPS experience, a single marine can easily pull off K/D ratios of 6-1 or more on pubs, often times killing skulks in 1v2s routinely.
If you are losing to skulks constantly in a 1v1 situation you are a terrible player. Stop blaming the game for your lack of FPS talent.
If the player is at least average, a single marine easily beats a single skulk.
If the player is a strong player with FPS experience, a single marine can easily pull off K/D ratios of 6-1 or more on pubs, often times killing skulks in 1v2s routinely.
If you are losing to skulks constantly in a 1v1 situation you are a terrible player. Stop blaming the game for your lack of FPS talent.
This is the biggest BS, stupid, pathetic response I have ever read. You are a moron.
If the player is at least average, a single marine easily beats a single skulk.
If the player is a strong player with FPS experience, a single marine can easily pull off K/D ratios of 6-1 or more on pubs, often times killing skulks in 1v2s routinely.
If you are losing to skulks constantly in a 1v1 situation you are a terrible player. Stop blaming the game for your lack of FPS talent.
This is the biggest BS, stupid, pathetic response I have ever read. You are a moron.
You're welcome to join a server I'm on as I steamroll skulks repeatedly in 1v3s or more.
Beating skulks 1v1 requires an ultra bare minimum of FPS skill. It's not difficult in the least, and the fact that you think it is speaks volumes about your level of FPS skill.
This game is asymmetrically balanced by one factor: Ranged vs. Melee. Chances are, if a decent skulk can close distance from you, they will kill you. As a marine it is your job to keep distance, same way that it is the aliens job to close it. You have a gun, that gun is meant to take down aliens from long distances away. Sure, it is not impossible to kill a skulk that gets the drop on you, but it is true that that is where they shine. A 1v1 encounter is not always the same, it mostly has to do with positioning. If you can spot the skulk, and have a decent level of aim, you should be able to win the encounter. The situation is swapped on aliens. A good alien will focus on closing distance and staying hidden- Crawling on ceilings, holding shift, waiting for marines to walk by- in order to get the close ranged advantage.
So yes, you are correct that a single alien can take out a single marine in the proper situation, but the same could be said otherwise. It's all about learning the maps, alien behavior, and best places to gain distance and sight.
9 bullets to kill a skulk, pretty easy down a hallway.
The rifle magazine contains 50 bullets, enough to kill 5 skulks and seriously wound a 6th. I've always laughed at this... 50 bullets and maybe 10% actually hits a skulk before it kills a nub marine.
Beating skulks 1v1 requires an ultra bare minimum of 40 FPS in combat.
FTFY
My aim goes up when my FPS goes up. Once I run into early mid-game and there are cysts and crap everywhere, I find it much harder to aim because nothing is smooth anymore.
My aim goes up when my FPS goes up. Once I run into early mid-game and there are cysts and crap everywhere, I find it much harder to aim because nothing is smooth anymore.
You really feel this as game go on. Early game I can be taking 2 or 3 Skulks at once. Then by mid game against exactly the same Skulks I struggle to take out 1. By the end the only thing I can reliably hit is an Onos.
I should probably turn my settings down even further, but except textures (medium), anti aliasing (on) and resolution (1280x800) everything's already at minimum. And my machine isn't bad, gtx 580, a 3 GHz i7 950 and 12GB of memory.
If they keep pushing the performance requirements down more and more people are going to be able to aim properly.
Comments
If you arer playing on a random server, not with a clan or a bunch of friends, pay attention to the K/D ratios of the marines early game. I do. I also spectate a lot now too. So I can see what is going on. What is going on is marines are getting mowed down in 1 on 1, 2 on 2 marine versus skulks all the time. There a ton of 2 on 1 as well where one skulk takes out two marines.
We are talking early game, before the marines get a 2nd chair (if they ever do), the K/D ratios are often pathetic. 1 and 5, 2 and 9, etc.. Oh sure you will have one, maybe two HOT players on a streak but thats it. And guess what? This happens, the game is already over. You may as well concede right then. If not you waste 10 more miuntes watching a slow death.
Huh?
I can agree with that if aliens are running in a straight line, aren't planning ambushes and still winning.
Doesn't happen too often.
in comp games you see a lot players taking out 1-3 skulks in a row, happens every game.
the next thing is UWE FIX THE HITREG (cmd & updaterate up to 100/sec server tickrate unlock to 1000fps)
^This +1. Vanilla marine vs vanilla skulk is in a good place right now. I think it ever so slightly favours marines at the moment. If they were to upset this balance it would be horrible playing skulk vs good marines. (I find it already can be on a marine stack)
The only change I would support to the early game is making gorges slightly (read very slightly) more useful at speeding up extractor / upgrade builds similar to how they are useful for hives.
Mr Choke, do you only play marine still? I remember reading someones whinge thread where they stated that and I thought, who does this? Honestly playing a bit of aliens will improve you as marine as you will learn the enemies tactics at least.
Also, I agree with everyone saying that early game marine vs skulk is in a good place right now. Marines might not *accomplish* enough in these early battles, but the battles themselves feel like they're in a good place. I would balance the rewards for winning battles rather than the battles themselves.
Just saying. They're Super under-rated.
Of course the number of times I actually fight one skulk vs one marine is very few. There are always more skulks, or a squad of marines.
Though that said, while the fighting is probably one of the best put together bits of the game, the outcome is less so. If a marine dies it's a lot slower for them to get back into operation than for a skulk. Skulks are faster and can get where they need to be more easily. Marines need to spawn, walk to a place, and squad up to be effective.
It is probably less that skulks are OP in combat, but again that aliens are sort of OP strategically. Skulks don't hurt alien strategic progress when they die, marines do.
By the way, one thing that is annoying is the bad frames I'm getting in some occasions that don't help me to stay accurate.
You uh, might be retarded...wait here, I'll do some research and let you know.
EDIT: The results came back...I'm sorry man.
Lets not get in a fight with the OP about L2P, regardless if its true or not, for him specificly.
I am more annoyed however that my points about learning marine movements for NEW & fresh marines is a lot harder, is completely ignored.
New players start early game and if they can not learn right there & then, it will not matter late game.
Now lets ignore personal bashing and get back on track with the topic.
I demand some good debating about my points about movement damnit.
Yes.. mines are godly for rt coverage.
One of the biggest problems for newcomers to NS games is that your targets require a lot of VERTICAL tracking - not something found to the same degree in the vast majority of shooters. It does just take practise, I'm afraid! The newbie servers are there to ease people into the game, but in my experience from NS1, it takes a lot longer than the 'green' period to get even used to doing this, let alone good at it!
Roo
This gets even worse when higher lifeforms are involved.
I never said anything about spamming it?
I switch to pistol as soon as my LMG is out UNLESS I have range/time that will give me time to reload.
Again if both guns are out I switch to axe UNLESS I have range/time to reload.
Bashing at melee range, I could probably do it more but generally I find it easier to just keep shooting. As for the idea that it buys you time to reload... I don't see that, it interrupts your reload cycle so your nearly always better of switching to your pistol to get 10 fast 20 dmg shots rather than one slow 20 dmg bash.
I could probably use it more, I have had a fair number of kills with it, but I feel I've had more from going LMG->pistol->axe.
This gives you ample time to reload.
And in my experience, a lmg is better up close then a pistol.
But do not get me wrong. if a pistol works for you, use it. Its more ment as a comment for the folk who dont see options and die.
Aliens won a game, and then marines won, and then aliens won, and then marines won. You know what changed each round? The commander.
The fights were all situational of course, but I watched plenty of marines win 1v1 and plenty of skulks win 1v1.
The problem here is ... there is no problem. You're imagining a fault in the game when really it's just people having different skill levels.
I can tell you I used to die something like 98% of the time 1v1 against skulks. So I started doing this thing where when I heard them coming, I'd sprint back to the end of a long tunnel or open room, and fight them there. Lo and behold, I can actually kill skulks sometimes now.
As important as reflexes are I think knowledge is more than half the battle in this game, and no one wants to think.
I remember seeing you before as well but I don't know how long ago. If it was before build 238, my frustration was not as bad as it is now. Since build 238 I have only won 10 out of 46 games as marine. Since build 238 I have only played marines. Before that I usually played random. I remember one night on build 238, I won like 4 games as marine, maybe you were playing then.
Regarding people with different skill levels, funny how skilled players must really love aliens then. You should run your own stats. Maybe aliens win more than you think.
Win.
I don't want to get into why it happens because I don't really know, but it's all about skill. Aliens win more because the better players have a tendency to play alien more often than marines.
If I really had to guess, I'd say it's easier to go aliens because when you have a bad commander, you can just keep telling him "get celerity, get celerity, get celerity" or "cyst into etc., cyst man cyst in there", whereas if you have a bad marine commander you basically have to hold his hand every step of the way or he blows the game.
If the player is a strong player with FPS experience, a single marine can easily pull off K/D ratios of 6-1 or more on pubs, often times killing skulks in 1v2s routinely.
If you are losing to skulks constantly in a 1v1 situation you are a terrible player. Stop blaming the game for your lack of FPS talent.
This is the biggest BS, stupid, pathetic response I have ever read. You are a moron.
You're welcome to join a server I'm on as I steamroll skulks repeatedly in 1v3s or more.
Beating skulks 1v1 requires an ultra bare minimum of FPS skill. It's not difficult in the least, and the fact that you think it is speaks volumes about your level of FPS skill.
So yes, you are correct that a single alien can take out a single marine in the proper situation, but the same could be said otherwise. It's all about learning the maps, alien behavior, and best places to gain distance and sight.
The rifle magazine contains 50 bullets, enough to kill 5 skulks and seriously wound a 6th. I've always laughed at this... 50 bullets and maybe 10% actually hits a skulk before it kills a nub marine.
FTFY
My aim goes up when my FPS goes up. Once I run into early mid-game and there are cysts and crap everywhere, I find it much harder to aim because nothing is smooth anymore.
You really feel this as game go on. Early game I can be taking 2 or 3 Skulks at once. Then by mid game against exactly the same Skulks I struggle to take out 1. By the end the only thing I can reliably hit is an Onos.
I should probably turn my settings down even further, but except textures (medium), anti aliasing (on) and resolution (1280x800) everything's already at minimum. And my machine isn't bad, gtx 580, a 3 GHz i7 950 and 12GB of memory.
If they keep pushing the performance requirements down more and more people are going to be able to aim properly.