Anyway, why does camo need a high level of execution? Can anyone answer me why it needs to be different, when it functions fine as it is?
because we're discussing things that are overpowered / culprits of balance. if something is very effective with low execution requirement and requires high execution to defend then it seems like a pretty strong case for being overpowererd
@|strofix|: It is not a problem, that the kham would be dependent on gorges. The com is dependent on marines. The whole idea behind "cysts only for gorges" is exactly to introduce the same level of team play required for both teams. You will never have balanced win/loss when one team has more possible ways to screw up, than the other.
The marines are already heavily dependent on teamplay between com and the players on the field. Only if you create a similar dependence at the alien team, you can achieve that balance. Both teams need equally many ways to screw up.
@|strofix|: It is not a problem, that the kham would be dependent on gorges. The com is dependent on marines. The whole idea behind "cysts only for gorges" is exactly to introduce the same level of team play required for both teams. You will never have balanced win/loss when one team has more possible ways to screw up, than the other.
The marines are already heavily dependent on teamplay between com and the players on the field. Only if you create a similar dependence at the alien team, you can achieve that balance. Both teams need equally many ways to screw up.
Fair enough, but similar would entail giving cyst building to skulks, not gorges.
I really like the idea of Gorges placing cysts, especially if they can place them on all parts of a map (walls ceiling etc) Maybe you could make Commander dropping Cysts a 2 hive ability, that way it forces a few gorges early into assisting, but doesn't force them to spend the whole game doing the same task - but obviously gorge dropped cysts can be on walls and ceilings and thus hidden much better?
Anyway, why does camo need a high level of execution? Can anyone answer me why it needs to be different, when it functions fine as it is?
because we're discussing things that are overpowered / culprits of balance. if something is very effective with low execution requirement and requires high execution to defend then it seems like a pretty strong case for being overpowererd
Risk Vs Reward.
Going shade first can screw you over mid-late game.
Camo has a hard counter, silence doesn't.
Edit:Quite frankly, if Camo was OMG OSSIM as you guys claim, you'd be seeing it in competitive play first, instead of Carapace.
well that's a pretty poor argument and I already mentioned above that it is used and to great effect
I rarely see camo in pubs, except after the third hive goes up.
How can something that hardly ever gets used early game be considered overpowered?
Counter to Camo:
Scan the room before your marines go in.
Throw up forward observatories.
Congratulations, you just countered an entire evolution.
I really like the idea of Gorges placing cysts, especially if they can place them on all parts of a map (walls ceiling etc) Maybe you could make Commander dropping Cysts a 2 hive ability, that way it forces a few gorges early into assisting, but doesn't force them to spend the whole game doing the same task - but obviously gorge dropped cysts can be on walls and ceilings and thus hidden much better?
I was thinking about cysts earlier.
What about making them not spread infestation unless a gorge heals them/nutrient mist is used on them?
They'd still link, but only key areas would have infestation(ie: near Resource nozzles).
I really like the idea of Gorges placing cysts, especially if they can place them on all parts of a map (walls ceiling etc) Maybe you could make Commander dropping Cysts a 2 hive ability, that way it forces a few gorges early into assisting, but doesn't force them to spend the whole game doing the same task - but obviously gorge dropped cysts can be on walls and ceilings and thus hidden much better?
I was thinking about cysts earlier.
What about making them not spread infestation unless a gorge heals them/nutrient mist is used on them?
They'd still link, but only key areas would have infestation(ie: near Resource nozzles).
That also has potential, pulls Gorges from front-line early game (reduces offensive skulk>marine ratio) doesn't force gorges to be doing the same job ALL game while mashing there head against keyboards.
That said this discussion is extremely off topic now - the OP in this thread was the economy, which I'm having a hard time agreeing with. Yes the economies are imbalanced, but so are the resource requirements and generation. We haven't really agreed in this thread what we consider to be the actual problem with the balance. I'm finding if I play on servers with experienced players, it's pretty even at the moment. Usually coming down more to individual groups of skilled players, than a particular side
I really like the idea of Gorges placing cysts, especially if they can place them on all parts of a map (walls ceiling etc) Maybe you could make Commander dropping Cysts a 2 hive ability, that way it forces a few gorges early into assisting, but doesn't force them to spend the whole game doing the same task - but obviously gorge dropped cysts can be on walls and ceilings and thus hidden much better?
I was thinking about cysts earlier.
What about making them not spread infestation unless a gorge heals them/nutrient mist is used on them?
They'd still link, but only key areas would have infestation(ie: near Resource nozzles).
I made a suggestion like this a while ago. Basically a cyst would only spread infestation if it itself was on infestation. So instead of rapidly placing cysts outwards, and having infestation instantly spreading at a res node, it would slowly move forward like a wave front. A gorge would increase the speed of this wave front by +- 50%, with infestation quickly spreading outwards from a cyst being healsprayed.
With that said it becomes tremendously important to kill harvesters, which in my experience is the last thing the general populace thinks about shooting. The game might be balanced but until the psychology of the gamer is unified we wont know for sure.
As a commander I always greatly emphasize the need for marines to go in and kill harvesters, even if it costs them their life. That I have to take this approach, both as a commander as well as as a player greatly annoys me however. In NS 1, marine gameplay was primarily about pushing forward as a team and slowly securing areas and not so much about solely going deep behind alien lines killing harvesters. (If people went behind lines it was to get ninja phasegates in primarily) Unfortunately that's ALL the marine gameplay these days dwindles down to, which in a way I suppose is identical to the way aliens play for the most part of the game. As a result, you have both sides franatically focussing on killing eachother's harvesters, a kind of gameplay in which aliens clearly have an advantage not only because they are simply more mobile from the get go but also because they have a relatively cheap tech system and accompanying resilient economy. It's not good gameplay, it's not fun gameplay and to me it's the ultimate proof that something is fundamentally broken in the economic balance.
UWE claims NS 2 is an FPS first and RTS second, but that's not at all the case if you are playing marines.
I think you hit the nail on the head but have only scratched the surface.
One huge difference between NS1 and NS2 is that Alien RTs no longer come from PRes. In NS1, you had a flat cost of 10 res to go Gorge, then 15 res to drop a RT after that. If you stayed Gorge, then that meant one less Skulk on the field, so that was a tradeoff that had to be made if you wanted to drop additional RTs without spending another 10 res on Gorge. A short-term disadvantage for a long-term payoff, one of the fundamentals in a RTS.
Now RTs come from TRes, which is pooled instead of distributed evenly between all Aliens. With standard competitive team sizes of 6v6, this means the pool from which RTs are dropped now grows 6 times faster than it did in NS1. In a larger pub setting, it gets even worse. Losing an RT used to be a devastating blow because it meant a single player had to spend 15-25 res to rebuild it, which was a significant amount for an individual player. But coming from TRes, it's just a drop in the bucket. The Alien economy is amazingly resilient because they can just redrop RTs with only a small impact down the road - it doesn't really delay lifeforms because they use PRes. One RT gives, what, 1 res every 6 seconds? Meaning it'll pay for itself in just 1:30 in TRes terms, and that's not including the contribution to PRes. Even if I'm down to just 2 RTs, redropping a RT will delay me by just 45 seconds. It's a no-brainer. The Alien economic system has been made drastically more resilient, yet there has been no corresponding change to their effectiveness on the field.
I can already anticipate people pointing out that the Marines have the same res model, but they don't have the same time-economy. The Alien Commander doesn't need individual Aliens to run around the map to expand, he can just drop cysts and RTs that will grow on their own. In short, Aliens can spend all their time attacking and defending, while Marines not only need to attack and defend, they need to keep recapping and building structures/power nodes. Playing the RT-trading mobility game is a losing proposition for Marines, which is why they're forced to put pressure on the Aliens to draw them away from the rest of the map. But of course, with such a resilient economy, Alien RTs aren't nearly as important as they used to be and even spawncamping the Hive isn't as effective when Aliens spawn in waves.
What this does, at least in theory, is effectively get rid of a lot of the problems that result from the current economic setup. If we can get some server hosts to install it, please give it a whirl .
Let me know if I missed something. I didn't really write out the plethora of possible solutions offered in this thread, I think first we need to actually get the devs to acknowledge some of these issues. I'm sure they'll come digging in this thread for ideas, or come up with some of their own, if they ever decide to make any changes based on this input. It was a fruitful discussion at least, and while I acknowledge there's other factors at play, I do believe we've touched upon some of the most fundamental problems resulting from NS2's design
Nothing in there about scaling?
I disagree entirely with 2A. Marines don't purchase weapon and armor upgrades with p.res. They're applied automatically. They purchase weapons. Advanced lifeforms can be considered alien's "weapons".
If you trying to make aliens purchase upgrades with p.res, then marines will need to purchase armor and weapon upgrades with p.res from the armory. Or you make lifeforms cheaper to compensate for having to purchase the upgrades, and make it possible to swap between upgrades.
I really like the idea of Gorges placing cysts, especially if they can place them on all parts of a map (walls ceiling etc) Maybe you could make Commander dropping Cysts a 2 hive ability, that way it forces a few gorges early into assisting, but doesn't force them to spend the whole game doing the same task - but obviously gorge dropped cysts can be on walls and ceilings and thus hidden much better?
I was thinking about cysts earlier.
What about making them not spread infestation unless a gorge heals them/nutrient mist is used on them?
They'd still link, but only key areas would have infestation(ie: near Resource nozzles).
I made a suggestion like this a while ago. Basically a cyst would only spread infestation if it itself was on infestation. So instead of rapidly placing cysts outwards, and having infestation instantly spreading at a res node, it would slowly move forward like a wave front. A gorge would increase the speed of this wave front by +- 50%, with infestation quickly spreading outwards from a cyst being healsprayed.
Yup, I'm sure a lot of Gorge players would much rather be nursing an entire map full of cysts, since you need one every ten feet or so, versus Marines who build a few things in a small area and move on.
You should totally move every job in NS2 that no one wants to do in a video game and give it to the Gorge.
After all, I'm sure you'll always find two players that find micromanaging useless structures to be fun! Why should the aliens commander be allowed to have all that 'fun' of nursing cysts along so they can build even more useless junk on top of the infestation!
I'm sure it will never even occur to the aliens team that cysts can be quite literally ignored in favor of a second hive immediately. It's the cyst that keeps on giving.
EDIT:
What you're doing is requiring the aliens to be down even more players than they already are, and relegating a task that no one wants to do onto one particular class. At least all Marines share the responsibility of building stuff. Making an advanced class that the player pays for and does what the commander should be doing is, at heart, a really bad idea.
I disagree entirely with 2A. Marines don't purchase weapon and armor upgrades with p.res. They're applied automatically. They purchase weapons. Advanced lifeforms can be considered alien's "weapons".
Except that lifeforms 'out of the box' are incredibly effective even without those 'weapons'. Onos doesn't need stomp to be effective, yet it's a much more powerful 75 p.res investment than D exo can ever be. AND it will generally arrive on the field significantly faster...
The Alien economy is amazingly resilient because they can just redrop RTs with only a small impact down the road - it doesn't really delay lifeforms because they use PRes. One RT gives, what, 1 res every 6 seconds? Meaning it'll pay for itself in just 1:30 in TRes terms, and that's not including the contribution to PRes. Even if I'm down to just 2 RTs, redropping a RT will delay me by just 45 seconds. It's a no-brainer. The Alien economic system has been made drastically more resilient, yet there has been no corresponding change to their effectiveness on the field.
I disagree entirely with 2A. Marines don't purchase weapon and armor upgrades with p.res. They're applied automatically. They purchase weapons. Advanced lifeforms can be considered alien's "weapons".
Except that lifeforms 'out of the box' are incredibly effective even without those 'weapons'. Onos doesn't need stomp to be effective, yet it's a much more powerful 75 p.res investment than D exo can ever be. AND it will generally arrive on the field significantly faster...
Which can be solved by adding in scaling. Holy shit, what a concept!
Maybe if there was a way for aliens to scale similar to marines with weapon and armor upgrades (like exo suits), those out of the box onos wouldn't be so devastating at 9 mins.
I've only said this since beta.
Current upgrades shouldn't be what "scales" aliens (1 drop upgrade isn't scaling- looking at you, carapace). Evolve-able upgrades should change up the playing style a little, not... again, be what scales aliens.
Give aliens a mutation chamber that lets them up their armor, damage and/or/whatnot speed with a tier system. 2 on the first hive, last 1 on the second hive. (or 1 per hive with the third hive giving a huge increase.)
Hell, it might even give the alien com some more buttons to push.
Maybe if there was a way for aliens to scale similar to marines with weapon and armor upgrades (like exo suits), those out of the box onos wouldn't be so devastating at 9 mins.
I've only said this since beta.
I completely agree that scaling is another way to address the issue, and it has indeed been brought up several times since alpha. Unfortunately though, it doesn't look like UWE has any intention of taking said route. Lifeform strength scaling would allow for a lot more variety and depth in gameplay, as timing would no longer be a balance issue but rather a specific strategic choice.
Maybe if there was a way for aliens to scale similar to marines with weapon and armor upgrades (like exo suits), those out of the box onos wouldn't be so devastating at 9 mins.
I've only said this since beta.
I completely agree that scaling is another way to address the issue, and it has indeed been brought up several times since alpha. Unfortunately though, it doesn't look like UWE has any intention of taking said route. Lifeform strength scaling would allow for a lot more variety and depth in gameplay, as timing would no longer be a balance issue but rather a specific strategic choice.
Hence why I think it's a fool's errand trying to give suggestions to fix this game. An obvious fix that could help alleviate a lot of problems plaguing this game, that's constantly ignored, doesn't give a whole lot of faith they'll fix it using other suggestions. They're more worried about what new, pretty, shiny object they can stuff into the game.
At the risk of being a captain obvious here, but I always thought that the main reason for aliens being unbalanced is the fact that they don't have to build anything, the alien commander doesn't need anyone to expand, skulks can maintain marines busy while alien khamm gets all the RTs/tech points.
The marine comm also has to babysit his soldiers with medpacks and stuff to stand a chance against zergs, using that precious (and little) res they have, that sets them back a lot.
that's way worse in comp play, where all we see is carapace first and coordinated alien attacks, not to mention lots of RT chewing.
At the risk of being a captain obvious here, but I always thought that the main reason for aliens being unbalanced is the fact that they don't have to build anything, the alien commander doesn't need anyone to expand, skulks can maintain marines busy while alien khamm gets all the RTs/tech points.
The marine comm also has to babysit his soldiers with medpacks and stuff to stand a chance against zergs, using that precious (and little) res they have, that sets them back a lot.
that's way worse in comp play, where all we see is carapace first and coordinated alien attacks, not to mention lots of RT chewing.
I half disagree, and that button didn't exist so:
You would be hardpressed to convince anyone that the ability to drop medpacks and nano shields is somehow a disadvantage.
As for the independent alien expansion, its a bit more complicated than it blatantly being the problem. For example, even if the alien comm immediately began expanding upon game start, and all the other aliens immediately base rushed the marine's forcing them to stand and defend, potentially killing them all, but then getting new marine respawns in, the marine team can then still get their second extractor up before the alien team does.
At the risk of being a captain obvious here, but I always thought that the main reason for aliens being unbalanced is the fact that they don't have to build anything, the alien commander doesn't need anyone to expand, skulks can maintain marines busy while alien khamm gets all the RTs/tech points.
The marine comm also has to babysit his soldiers with medpacks and stuff to stand a chance against zergs, using that precious (and little) res they have, that sets them back a lot.
that's way worse in comp play, where all we see is carapace first and coordinated alien attacks, not to mention lots of RT chewing.
I half disagree, and that button didn't exist so:
You would be hardpressed to convince anyone that the ability to drop medpacks and nano shields is somehow a disadvantage.
As for the independent alien expansion, its a bit more complicated than it blatantly being the problem. For example, even if the alien comm immediately began expanding upon game start, and all the other aliens immediately base rushed the marine's forcing them to stand and defend, potentially killing them all, but then getting new marine respawns in, the marine team can then still get their second extractor up before the alien team does.
As you might have noticed, english is not my first language so I can probably be misunderstood sometimes.
I didn't say it is a disadvantage, but more like an "investment", and like any other, if it fails, it hurts.
On RTs: that's true, but because of skulks superior mobility, you can harass extractors constantly. Marines are forced to defend or their upgrades will be delayed, all of this while aliens are getting res and higher lifeforms.
The reverse can also happen, marines playing aggressively hitting alien RTs and forcing them to defend, but imo that only happens if there is a huge disparity of skill between the teams (ie: marines probably can hive rush with welders and win the game)
Someone was mentioning crags a few pages ago, and I have to bring those up again.
What was their nerf lately? Max heal rate of 40? What's the actual numbers behind their healing? Is it percent based, or based in definite numbers? Like in NS1, a defense chamber would heal 10 HP per second to all nearby alien life forms, while hives would heal based on a percentage. Crags seem to be MUCH higher than this. I mentioned before that I watched a recent competitive game, and the marines had the aliens cornered in their hive and were actively sieging it with 2 ARCs.
Granted, 2 ARCs isn't much, but it should still be enough to take down a hive, especially if they're firing constantly.
A gorge and 2 crags were able to completely out heal these ARCs. I thought it was standard in almost all games that defense abilities/structures were always able to put up a fight, but easily countered by offensive units/tactics. How is this fair that a marine team cannot hope to stop a few measley crags, especially when whips put their only anti-structure infantry weapon completely out of commission?
Hugh also stated that the skulk vs marine balance was slightly (1.2) bent toward skulk. I'm not sure how the stats we're made, and they certainly hide skill scaling, but if this is correct it's also a fundamental issue imo (skulk vs vanilla marine balance being a trivial design goal).
Hugh also stated that the skulk vs marine balance was slightly (1.2) bent toward skulk. I'm not sure how the stats we're made, and they certainly hide skill scaling, but if this is correct it's also a fundamental issue imo (skulk vs vanilla marine balance being a trivial design goal).
Trivial in what way though?
Trivial as in possibly central to the balance of the entire game? Or trivial as in an easy to ensure starting step?
I think trying to get 50/50 skulk marine balance is a lost cause. From my experience, a vanilla skulk will beat a vanilla marine almost all the time if both are complete noobs. Yet at competitive level marines will very rarely go down 1v1 to a skulk. So how does one balance that?
I think alien scaling is a great idea. And I also think it could be as simple as being based on the number of hives they have (each one increasing some combination of health, speed, damage, energy, etc.), but I guess a mutation chamber could add some depth to it. I also think the game needs to reward having 3 tech points a lot more for both teams. This scaling mechanism would be the alien's incentive. For the marines, I think their weapon/armor upgrades should require additional command chairs, to the point that they lose them when losing tech points. E.g. you can't keep lvl 3 upgrades and go down to lvl 2 if you only have one chair. This would help break the pointless end-game turtling that the marines are currently so good at.
I always thought marines easily carried the economic advantage with being able to build nodes without having to spend 4-8 more res on a cyst chain first
Some maps the marine team can build 3 nodes before the aliens get up one
At that point the marine team can literally sacrifice one in order to power down an alien node or block further advancement
If Phase is rushed the marines can literally cap both sides of the aliens base with a split front line and lock aliens inside while 1 person goes around and freely back-caps all other nodes (commonly seen on Docking with mines replacing the phase because of how easy it is to run across mid)
At the risk of being a captain obvious here, but I always thought that the main reason for aliens being unbalanced is the fact that they don't have to build anything, the alien commander doesn't need anyone to expand, skulks can maintain marines busy while alien khamm gets all the RTs/tech points.
The marine comm also has to babysit his soldiers with medpacks and stuff to stand a chance against zergs, using that precious (and little) res they have, that sets them back a lot.
that's way worse in comp play, where all we see is carapace first and coordinated alien attacks, not to mention lots of RT chewing.
You say the marine comm has to babysit his soldiers with medpacks, I say the alien comm has to watch helplessly as his skulks get slaughtered.
Comments
The marines are already heavily dependent on teamplay between com and the players on the field. Only if you create a similar dependence at the alien team, you can achieve that balance. Both teams need equally many ways to screw up.
Fair enough, but similar would entail giving cyst building to skulks, not gorges.
Going shade first can screw you over mid-late game.
I rarely see camo in pubs, except after the third hive goes up.
How can something that hardly ever gets used early game be considered overpowered?
Counter to Camo:
Scan the room before your marines go in.
Throw up forward observatories.
Congratulations, you just countered an entire evolution.
I was thinking about cysts earlier.
What about making them not spread infestation unless a gorge heals them/nutrient mist is used on them?
They'd still link, but only key areas would have infestation(ie: near Resource nozzles).
That also has potential, pulls Gorges from front-line early game (reduces offensive skulk>marine ratio) doesn't force gorges to be doing the same job ALL game while mashing there head against keyboards.
That said this discussion is extremely off topic now - the OP in this thread was the economy, which I'm having a hard time agreeing with. Yes the economies are imbalanced, but so are the resource requirements and generation. We haven't really agreed in this thread what we consider to be the actual problem with the balance. I'm finding if I play on servers with experienced players, it's pretty even at the moment. Usually coming down more to individual groups of skilled players, than a particular side
I made a suggestion like this a while ago. Basically a cyst would only spread infestation if it itself was on infestation. So instead of rapidly placing cysts outwards, and having infestation instantly spreading at a res node, it would slowly move forward like a wave front. A gorge would increase the speed of this wave front by +- 50%, with infestation quickly spreading outwards from a cyst being healsprayed.
One huge difference between NS1 and NS2 is that Alien RTs no longer come from PRes. In NS1, you had a flat cost of 10 res to go Gorge, then 15 res to drop a RT after that. If you stayed Gorge, then that meant one less Skulk on the field, so that was a tradeoff that had to be made if you wanted to drop additional RTs without spending another 10 res on Gorge. A short-term disadvantage for a long-term payoff, one of the fundamentals in a RTS.
Now RTs come from TRes, which is pooled instead of distributed evenly between all Aliens. With standard competitive team sizes of 6v6, this means the pool from which RTs are dropped now grows 6 times faster than it did in NS1. In a larger pub setting, it gets even worse. Losing an RT used to be a devastating blow because it meant a single player had to spend 15-25 res to rebuild it, which was a significant amount for an individual player. But coming from TRes, it's just a drop in the bucket. The Alien economy is amazingly resilient because they can just redrop RTs with only a small impact down the road - it doesn't really delay lifeforms because they use PRes. One RT gives, what, 1 res every 6 seconds? Meaning it'll pay for itself in just 1:30 in TRes terms, and that's not including the contribution to PRes. Even if I'm down to just 2 RTs, redropping a RT will delay me by just 45 seconds. It's a no-brainer. The Alien economic system has been made drastically more resilient, yet there has been no corresponding change to their effectiveness on the field.
I can already anticipate people pointing out that the Marines have the same res model, but they don't have the same time-economy. The Alien Commander doesn't need individual Aliens to run around the map to expand, he can just drop cysts and RTs that will grow on their own. In short, Aliens can spend all their time attacking and defending, while Marines not only need to attack and defend, they need to keep recapping and building structures/power nodes. Playing the RT-trading mobility game is a losing proposition for Marines, which is why they're forced to put pressure on the Aliens to draw them away from the rest of the map. But of course, with such a resilient economy, Alien RTs aren't nearly as important as they used to be and even spawncamping the Hive isn't as effective when Aliens spawn in waves.
P.S: Hire me for Game Systems Designer
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=125462355
What this does, at least in theory, is effectively get rid of a lot of the problems that result from the current economic setup. If we can get some server hosts to install it, please give it a whirl
Nothing in there about scaling?
I disagree entirely with 2A. Marines don't purchase weapon and armor upgrades with p.res. They're applied automatically. They purchase weapons. Advanced lifeforms can be considered alien's "weapons".
If you trying to make aliens purchase upgrades with p.res, then marines will need to purchase armor and weapon upgrades with p.res from the armory. Or you make lifeforms cheaper to compensate for having to purchase the upgrades, and make it possible to swap between upgrades.
Yup, I'm sure a lot of Gorge players would much rather be nursing an entire map full of cysts, since you need one every ten feet or so, versus Marines who build a few things in a small area and move on.
You should totally move every job in NS2 that no one wants to do in a video game and give it to the Gorge.
After all, I'm sure you'll always find two players that find micromanaging useless structures to be fun! Why should the aliens commander be allowed to have all that 'fun' of nursing cysts along so they can build even more useless junk on top of the infestation!
I'm sure it will never even occur to the aliens team that cysts can be quite literally ignored in favor of a second hive immediately. It's the cyst that keeps on giving.
EDIT:
What you're doing is requiring the aliens to be down even more players than they already are, and relegating a task that no one wants to do onto one particular class. At least all Marines share the responsibility of building stuff. Making an advanced class that the player pays for and does what the commander should be doing is, at heart, a really bad idea.
Except that lifeforms 'out of the box' are incredibly effective even without those 'weapons'. Onos doesn't need stomp to be effective, yet it's a much more powerful 75 p.res investment than D exo can ever be. AND it will generally arrive on the field significantly faster...
Exactly!
Which can be solved by adding in scaling. Holy shit, what a concept!
Maybe if there was a way for aliens to scale similar to marines with weapon and armor upgrades (like exo suits), those out of the box onos wouldn't be so devastating at 9 mins.
I've only said this since beta.
Current upgrades shouldn't be what "scales" aliens (1 drop upgrade isn't scaling- looking at you, carapace). Evolve-able upgrades should change up the playing style a little, not... again, be what scales aliens.
Give aliens a mutation chamber that lets them up their armor, damage and/or/whatnot speed with a tier system. 2 on the first hive, last 1 on the second hive. (or 1 per hive with the third hive giving a huge increase.)
Hell, it might even give the alien com some more buttons to push.
Hence why I think it's a fool's errand trying to give suggestions to fix this game. An obvious fix that could help alleviate a lot of problems plaguing this game, that's constantly ignored, doesn't give a whole lot of faith they'll fix it using other suggestions. They're more worried about what new, pretty, shiny object they can stuff into the game.
The marine comm also has to babysit his soldiers with medpacks and stuff to stand a chance against zergs, using that precious (and little) res they have, that sets them back a lot.
that's way worse in comp play, where all we see is carapace first and coordinated alien attacks, not to mention lots of RT chewing.
I half disagree, and that button didn't exist so:
You would be hardpressed to convince anyone that the ability to drop medpacks and nano shields is somehow a disadvantage.
As for the independent alien expansion, its a bit more complicated than it blatantly being the problem. For example, even if the alien comm immediately began expanding upon game start, and all the other aliens immediately base rushed the marine's forcing them to stand and defend, potentially killing them all, but then getting new marine respawns in, the marine team can then still get their second extractor up before the alien team does.
As you might have noticed, english is not my first language so I can probably be misunderstood sometimes.
I didn't say it is a disadvantage, but more like an "investment", and like any other, if it fails, it hurts.
On RTs: that's true, but because of skulks superior mobility, you can harass extractors constantly. Marines are forced to defend or their upgrades will be delayed, all of this while aliens are getting res and higher lifeforms.
The reverse can also happen, marines playing aggressively hitting alien RTs and forcing them to defend, but imo that only happens if there is a huge disparity of skill between the teams (ie: marines probably can hive rush with welders and win the game)
What was their nerf lately? Max heal rate of 40? What's the actual numbers behind their healing? Is it percent based, or based in definite numbers? Like in NS1, a defense chamber would heal 10 HP per second to all nearby alien life forms, while hives would heal based on a percentage. Crags seem to be MUCH higher than this. I mentioned before that I watched a recent competitive game, and the marines had the aliens cornered in their hive and were actively sieging it with 2 ARCs.
Granted, 2 ARCs isn't much, but it should still be enough to take down a hive, especially if they're firing constantly.
A gorge and 2 crags were able to completely out heal these ARCs. I thought it was standard in almost all games that defense abilities/structures were always able to put up a fight, but easily countered by offensive units/tactics. How is this fair that a marine team cannot hope to stop a few measley crags, especially when whips put their only anti-structure infantry weapon completely out of commission?
Hey there! Yeah I did the old 45 minute one. You may want to check out quadrazid's 32:55 single-segment run:
Though I still hold the record on Jedi Knight.
Trivial in what way though?
Trivial as in possibly central to the balance of the entire game? Or trivial as in an easy to ensure starting step?
I think trying to get 50/50 skulk marine balance is a lost cause. From my experience, a vanilla skulk will beat a vanilla marine almost all the time if both are complete noobs. Yet at competitive level marines will very rarely go down 1v1 to a skulk. So how does one balance that?
>So how does one balance that?
Skilled based movement mainly, but also stuff like glancing bites.
I always thought marines easily carried the economic advantage with being able to build nodes without having to spend 4-8 more res on a cyst chain first
Some maps the marine team can build 3 nodes before the aliens get up one
At that point the marine team can literally sacrifice one in order to power down an alien node or block further advancement
If Phase is rushed the marines can literally cap both sides of the aliens base with a split front line and lock aliens inside while 1 person goes around and freely back-caps all other nodes (commonly seen on Docking with mines replacing the phase because of how easy it is to run across mid)
You say the marine comm has to babysit his soldiers with medpacks, I say the alien comm has to watch helplessly as his skulks get slaughtered.