The Lerk Change: Smoke Trails on Spikes
NousWanderer
Join Date: 2010-05-07 Member: 71646Members
Join Date: 2010-05-07 Member: 71646Members
What are your thoughts on this change?
The new spike visual effect significantly limits the lerk's ability to harass from range, which was a viable tool in the lerk's arsenal. Sure, I can still divebomb from behind and follow up with a bite, but it's much harder to force marines to look for me now - a tactic which used to take up their time and provide an adequate distraction for the rest of my team to make a move. There are even reports on these very forums of marines enjoying the "find the lerk" mechanic.
I understand that certain areas of certain maps offered a great number of relatively secluded perch points for lerks (example: central drilling on mineshaft), but these were easily dealt with via scans or observatory placement in what is essentially the most important room of the map (in other words 'a sensible pub decision'). Lerking this way is also something that effectively gets nullified once marines have jetpacks, and in any event is far less damaging than a skulk going gorge on the railing. Lerk harassment wasn't what was winning games for aliens.
More importantly, spikes really don't do that much damage. In every area where hidden spiking is potentially a problem to marines, competent players should be able to respond accordingly by retreating to cover, hitting up the armory and communicating/coordinating to drive the lerk out. Also, it takes ages to bring down structures with spikes, so that can hardly be the issue here (there's one air tunnel covered with a fan in central drilling that should have its entrance moved, since it's too easy to spike the power node annoyingly from inside...although it's virtually impossible to be anything more than annoying while doing this).
Lerks are by no means OP. I rarely see competent lerks in pub games. While I and a handful of other pub players are pretty adept with them, I think it's clear that the skill floor is also quite high and is usually a prohibitive barrier to entry for the average player (especially for an investment of 30 personal resources). The majority of players who try to get their lerk game to a competent level give up before they get there, for whatever reasons, and the recent change definitely works against the hide-portion of 'hide and harass'. Arguably the developers have a different and perhaps narrower idea of how lerks should operate, and that's fine. I'll just miss those moments of distraction.
The new spike visual effect significantly limits the lerk's ability to harass from range, which was a viable tool in the lerk's arsenal. Sure, I can still divebomb from behind and follow up with a bite, but it's much harder to force marines to look for me now - a tactic which used to take up their time and provide an adequate distraction for the rest of my team to make a move. There are even reports on these very forums of marines enjoying the "find the lerk" mechanic.
I understand that certain areas of certain maps offered a great number of relatively secluded perch points for lerks (example: central drilling on mineshaft), but these were easily dealt with via scans or observatory placement in what is essentially the most important room of the map (in other words 'a sensible pub decision'). Lerking this way is also something that effectively gets nullified once marines have jetpacks, and in any event is far less damaging than a skulk going gorge on the railing. Lerk harassment wasn't what was winning games for aliens.
More importantly, spikes really don't do that much damage. In every area where hidden spiking is potentially a problem to marines, competent players should be able to respond accordingly by retreating to cover, hitting up the armory and communicating/coordinating to drive the lerk out. Also, it takes ages to bring down structures with spikes, so that can hardly be the issue here (there's one air tunnel covered with a fan in central drilling that should have its entrance moved, since it's too easy to spike the power node annoyingly from inside...although it's virtually impossible to be anything more than annoying while doing this).
Lerks are by no means OP. I rarely see competent lerks in pub games. While I and a handful of other pub players are pretty adept with them, I think it's clear that the skill floor is also quite high and is usually a prohibitive barrier to entry for the average player (especially for an investment of 30 personal resources). The majority of players who try to get their lerk game to a competent level give up before they get there, for whatever reasons, and the recent change definitely works against the hide-portion of 'hide and harass'. Arguably the developers have a different and perhaps narrower idea of how lerks should operate, and that's fine. I'll just miss those moments of distraction.
Comments
As far as the most common issue is concerned - central drilling on mineshaft - the biggest issue is the poor placement of the vent/air tunnel. A lerk can hang out in there and attempt to snipe the power node (rarely succeeding, but also being persistently annoying in the process - marines tend to locate the lerk quickly, but have little they can do in response until jetpacks and/or grenade launchers are researched). I see this as more of a map issue than a lerk issue, so to speak.
Lerk strafing is harder to hit because tracers obscure vision a little
Lerk camping ceiling can be found easily now for marines from long distances
Honestly I think it's the best of both worlds
One scan?
The trails have made lerk sniping, even with silence, absolutely useless. Never roost and shoot. You will be dead in seconds.
I get why it was done, I just think it is overkill. Finding theerk was never too hard. Taking damage front the left? The lerk is on your left.
Pre-patch, it was probably too easy for a lerk to tie up the marine team by spiking and flying around. This patch has made it wayyyy harder to do that which is a rough adjustment, but I think it makes sense.
on the left, sometimes in 100% darkness so he was impossible to see.
seriously there was NO spike effect before - it was clearly a placeholder for a tracer of some sort. it looked cheap and it played cheap.
My suggestion is to only show the trail from the Lerk to 1/4 out instead of the entire path of the spike.
This would still make it easier for marines to find Llerks but if you had a good spot and it was dark enough, they wouldn't be able to see the "dust" trail without their flashlight on.
I love the way it looks and hope it gets tweaked a little but stays in.
2) they need to be instant.. it drives me mad when tracers in games are slower than the projectile, it gives poor visual feedback, and worse gets in the way of your next shot frequently.
(my tracer mod i have not published. [watch in 1080 for those who have trouble noticing])
What fun is sniping/harassing when you're constantly giving yourself away? What sniper would EVER use tracer rounds?
Moreover, why is this dust coming out and following the spike? Is the projectile so fast that the bones actually chips off during flight?
"Find the Lerk" was as hard as, "Commander, I need a scan here".
And then Lord God spake from the heavens;
"And I shall grant the commander of the marine team the ability to scan and locate the enemy anywhere on the map!"
Also the red thingie on your UI will point you in the direction of the lerk, even if they wont spot him. The game isnt supposed to be frikking easy mode against a 30pres life form that is already pretty frail in close combat.
it costs 20 res (?) and 99% of the time the lerk can just fly away after forcing a scan.
Not saying there isn't a time to just shoot spikes, like in groups scenarios when you can dps down marines pretty quickly in obscurity, but that won't be hindered by the trails too much.
I've suggested a few times that perhaps silence and/or camouflage could lessen the opacity of the lerk's tracers or eliminate them outright. Meta-mechanics like that seem like an interesting way to boost shade tech traits without buffing the main aspect of the trait too much. Either way I don't really mind the tracer and I won't be bothered if they stay how they are. They're kind of nice just to watch how good a teammate or enemy lerk is with landing their spikes as you can see the shot distribution very clearly and get a pretty good idea of how skilled the player is at almost a glance.
I think they added it after watching countless marines wander around a room having no idea where damage was coming from. Power nodes, RT's, PG's, etc would just be taking damage while green sprays of mystery goo would just silently shoot up from the structure. Only way to find a the lerk would be to run through the LOS and take damage.
Scan isnt even a valid option just to find a lerk. Unless you have a lot of RT's no one is going to waste a scan on a lerk when you are saving to make sure you don't screw your team.
I have to disagree with this sentiment that several people seem to have.
Sure it was annoying but not the most annoying since you can use something called logical reasoning and pinpoint the lerks possible positions based on what direction the damage is coming from. You had to actually use your eyes and look at every little thing (there's only so many places they could be hiding) but now without that advantage the lerk loses a lot of offensive capabilities.
So I like the tracers. What they could possibly do is only send out a tracer once every X spikes instead of with each one. That way they are still leaving a trail, but it's not as obvious.
This is yet another area where the game will reward skill. It may be harder to camp, but that means people who can master flying and shooting will still come out on top. Spikes are still just as deadly.
Hopefully this will encourage lerks to swoop into combat along with whatever aliens jumping into the thick of it rather just sit behind shooting 'silly' spikes when they could do more havoc with their poison bite/spores.
Overall I feel it adds to the 'completion' of the lerk when it comes to polishing it's visual effects. (in this case the use of spikes)