I also miss sieges being done with turrets that took forever to build and had to be defended while the aliens came at you in desperate waves, but I doubt we'll see a return to that.
I miss this too; it was an exciting, tense time in the game. By comparison ARCs are rather ho-hum.
Yeah but to be fair, the turrets (not the sieges but the regular ones) weren't a joke back then either. Immobible sieges would never last now with the current state of turrets.
Frankly I don't see the problem with ARCs. They aren't used NEARLY as often as other measures to definitively win the game. How many times do people see "Marines win" after ARCs have sieged a hive and it is NOT from concede? Not very often for me.
I'm reticent to put limits on ARCs since they cost res, take time to build, SLOWLY plod across the map, and then take time to enter firing mode. An alien team - if they don't have a drifter out - should still have a player on their team who sees them coming LONG before they reach the hive. If they don't, then that is an alien team failure.
If by chance aliens screw up and miss it, finding marines outside the hive with ARCs, then this is when you get your skulks on the front lines to group up and attack a marine tech point. If you don't take out the power, at least get them to beacon. Then you can have other players attacking the undefended ARCs.
Bottom line, if an early ARC train is able to be built then marines have too much res. If a mid-game/late-game ARC train is able to reach a hive then aliens weren't scouting and/or had bad drifter placement. (not to mention, where were the gorges and other advanced lifeforms?)
I also miss sieges being done with turrets that took forever to build and had to be defended while the aliens came at you in desperate waves, but I doubt we'll see a return to that.
I miss this too; it was an exciting, tense time in the game. By comparison ARCs are rather ho-hum.
Yeah but to be fair, the turrets (not the sieges but the regular ones) weren't a joke back then either. Immobible sieges would never last now with the current state of turrets.
Frankly I don't see the problem with ARCs. They aren't used NEARLY as often as other measures to definitively win the game. How many times do people see "Marines win" after ARCs have sieged a hive and it is NOT from concede? Not very often for me.
I'm reticent to put limits on ARCs since they cost res, take time to build, SLOWLY plod across the map, and then take time to enter firing mode. An alien team - if they don't have a drifter out - should still have a player on their team who sees them coming LONG before they reach the hive. If they don't, then that is an alien team failure.
If by chance aliens screw up and miss it, finding marines outside the hive with ARCs, then this is when you get your skulks on the front lines to group up and attack a marine tech point. If you don't take out the power, at least get them to beacon. Then you can have other players attacking the undefended ARCs.
Bottom line, if an early ARC train is able to be built then marines have too much res. If a mid-game/late-game ARC train is able to reach a hive then aliens weren't scouting and/or had bad drifter placement. (not to mention, where were the gorges and other advanced lifeforms?)
I agree with everything you've posted here. However, ARCs are not as fun as siege bases were. Siege Cannons trump ARCs in every way as far as fun is concerned. It isn't fun escorting ARCs across the map, it isn't fun building them, it isn't fun guarding them. Siege Cannons were fun in all those circumstances, except maybe guarding the siege base once the hive was down. In that regard, ARCs are superior as they can be moved to a safer place or reused.
I like the idea of limiting the amount of arcs because that would maybe open doors for wider range of tactics. You would maybe start to see exos more often that could be purchaced with the surplus tres for example. Then have one exo go with the arc train to guard it. Aliens go to your base to force beacon? No problem, exo will stay to defend the arcs and you might maybe even see sentries there to assist exo when it's alone.
The idea that early game Arcs are OP is just silly. Think about it this way. Arcs are a huge res sink. You have to drop 15 res for the robo, another 10 for the arc upgrade, then another 45 res for 3 arcs (I rarely comm so don't kill me if these numbers are off). If marines choose this route early, then they sacrifice Arms Lab upgrades. So aliens have to counter a arc base with W0A0 marines. A coordinated attack should easily take them out with the arcs. If the marines arc mid/late game, scouting is key. If you discover the arcs early, you can prepare an counter-attack with some bile gorges.
The real problem with arcing is the maps. Docking was broken but is now fixed. Arcing locker from bar was just plain silliness. Mineshaft is the real culprit here. Arcing depo from central is really dumb. AFAIK, you can also arc depo from gap as well. Descent has a few odd spots too. Arcing from the upper corner of security is also a bit dangerous for aliens since it is really hard to get marines out of there.
Map flaws aside, arcs are extremely useful and balanced right now. Like some other posters said, if you let the marines build a huge arc-train, you lost already.
I think there should be a limit of, let's say, three arcs per room. It's enough to aid in a push, but not enough to fucking kill everything in seconds without the aid of marines.
This also means that if marines do indeed want to kill everything in seconds, they are required to control multiple rooms around their target, making it riskier to defend all of the ARC locations.
I suggest this because I dislike the idea of "Okay guys, i'm moving arcs up. DO NOT PUSH INTO THE HIVE, just defend the arcs!". ARCs should be a supplement to a push, not be the entire push.
I have no idea how they would be able to put a cap on a mobile unit per room. O_O
If anything, make a cap of X number of arcs per robo built. (ie 3 arcs / robo)
It really isn't needed though.
ARCs are extremly efficient against all alien evolutions besides onos. The only alien evolution that has a chance of killing an ARC is the onos though.
As a skulk, I've almost completely given up on trying to kill an ARC.
Arcs need less health you can take them down in a finite amount of time. Lower health such that you have to actually defend them, not just throw them at a hive knowing their health will tank long enough to snipe the hive.
All I know is that when I see 6+ arcs coming to a hive (even undefended), I think "Oh @#$%, there's no way we're going to be able to deal with those in time"
Just to be clear, I don't think ARCs need balance changes, they need gameplay changes.
What does that even mean? lol
It means that the times when an ARC train is stopped is equally balanced by the times that it is effective, but in most of those cases the process isn't fun or entertaining for either side.
They're fine balance wise, they're just not fine gameplay wise.
Kouji_SanSr. Hινε UÏкεεÏεг - EUPT DeputyThe NetherlandsJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
I personally find ARCs to be quite annoying on lower populous servers. If the Marines have the resources for them, the tactic of sending in ARCs to one Hive, while the Marine squad goes off into a different direction to shoot down the Hive, is something the aliens cannot do. Whips moving out also need infestation to root, which severely lowers the effectiveness of this. Combine that with ranged firepower of marines...
Marines can basically create a damage sponch that can go anywhere and if left alone, will destroy your base. Forcing the aliens to split up their fighting force or deal with the loss of one base.
The old Siege Cannons we're a local area lockdown, still having loads more PVP interaction. instead of this PVE/PVP split. Now it can be said that the ARC trains are a valid tactic, I find it a bit troublesome on lower populous servers (12p/18p)
I personally find ARCs to be quite annoying on lower populous servers. If the Marines have the resources for them, the tactic of sending in ARCs to one Hive, while the Marine squad goes off into a different direction to shoot down the Hive, is something the aliens cannot do. Whips moving out also need infestation to root, which severely lowers the effectiveness of this. Combine that with ranged firepower of marines...
Marines can basically create a damage sponch that can go anywhere and if left alone, will destroy your base. Forcing the aliens to split up their fighting force or deal with the loss of one base.
The old Siege Cannons we're a local area lockdown, still having loads more PVP interaction. instead of this PVE/PVP split. Now it can be said that the ARC trains are a valid tactic, I find it a bit troublesome on lower populous servers (12p/18p)
The time honored tradition of beating a dead horse on this: make it so marines have to deploy ARCs. The disconnect between players and ARCs has always bothered me.
I'm all for mobile sentries (little dmg buff OR 360°, max count (3 to 5 per command station)) and static arcs (3 per room, need battery, longer build time). Just swap the guns on the model bases. Would be great imo because it would nerf arcs and make sentries usable the same time.
This
I always found it strange that the marine unit used to kill static structures was mobile, but the marine unit used to kill mobile players was static.
I'm all for mobile sentries (little dmg buff OR 360°, max count (3 to 5 per command station)) and static arcs (3 per room, need battery, longer build time). Just swap the guns on the model bases. Would be great imo because it would nerf arcs and make sentries usable the same time.
This
I always found it strange that the marine unit used to kill static structures was mobile, but the marine unit used to kill mobile players was static.
I have no idea how they would be able to put a cap on a mobile unit per room. O_O
If anything, make a cap of X number of arcs per robo built. (ie 3 arcs / robo)
It really isn't needed though.
I was thinking that if the amount of arcs in a room is > X, any others who try to enter stop at the edge/door. The limit with the robo factory sounds fine as well.
Some sort of diminishing returns could be implemented to discourage spamming, say after 3 arcs the damage the arcs begin to deal is reduced. This could be on a per-room basis. This way there are no hard limits on arcs but it becomes increasingly ineffective to just drive a large amount of them into one room.
ARCs are extremly efficient against all alien evolutions besides onos. The only alien evolution that has a chance of killing an ARC is the onos though.
As a skulk, I've almost completely given up on trying to kill an ARC.
I don't think we're talking about the same kind of Arc. Arc's can't hurt you?
I personally find ARCs to be quite annoying on lower populous servers. If the Marines have the resources for them, the tactic of sending in ARCs to one Hive, while the Marine squad goes off into a different direction to shoot down the Hive, is something the aliens cannot do. Whips moving out also need infestation to root, which severely lowers the effectiveness of this. Combine that with ranged firepower of marines...
Marines can basically create a damage sponch that can go anywhere and if left alone, will destroy your base. Forcing the aliens to split up their fighting force or deal with the loss of one base.
The old Siege Cannons we're a local area lockdown, still having loads more PVP interaction. instead of this PVE/PVP split. Now it can be said that the ARC trains are a valid tactic, I find it a bit troublesome on lower populous servers (12p/18p)
If there are no marines gaurding the Arcs, or even just a few, all it would take is a couple of aliens to kill the people, then a single gorge with Bile to take out the deployed Arcs. It's definitely a distraction tactic but as long as you can bile, you can kill an arc group quite quickly.
The time honored tradition of beating a dead horse on this: make it so marines have to deploy ARCs. The disconnect between players and ARCs has always bothered me.
Now that is an interesting idea. It wouldn't change much, but it would connect the players a bit more.
I'm still a fan of Arcs as they are. They really don't have that much health, they have a fair amount of armor when they aren't deployed, which I supposed could be changed, but they're still really easy to kill unless there are marines guarding them.
Arcs really don't need a hard-coded limit. It's just taking away a possibility from a comm. Their limit is their price. If you want to limit them more, increase the cost, but don't put a hard-coded limit on them. If I can afford a 7 Arc arc train, I'm going to two shot your hive. If a limit simply must be added in though, I'd prefer it to be by robo factory than chair.
I see no issue with ARCs. One gorge can destroy any number of them. If you're not able to do that then it means their marines are killing your aliens, so the ARCs aren't really the problem.
I suggest this because I dislike the idea of "Okay guys, i'm moving arcs up. DO NOT PUSH INTO THE HIVE, just defend the arcs!". ARCs should be a supplement to a push, not be the entire push.
This is never a very popular order. "Hey guys, I'm moving these ARCs forward, don't let them die. Hey... the ARCs are alone. Hey... ARCs are getting biled, someone kill that gorge... Hey... *BOOM*... nevermind."
So I always end up forgetting about them until late game. The idea of rushing ARCs is intriguing though. But if it fails your name will be mud.
I usually try to get my marines to push into the hive and lock it down while the arcs fire. Depending on the situation. Of course, departures from stability is just a case of 'sit tight guys, 2 hives coming down in 3...2...1...'
Hm....well the only situation I feel like ARCs are unfair in is when having deposit and getting ARC'd from central. Because that way dropping the deposit hive makes you having to secure two locations.
Those resources are not going into jetpacks, weapons or exos.
It's a tech choice.
There's no such situation where the marine team is "100% equipped" and then there will be an inevitable ARC mass countdown to alien loss. Does not happen.
In short, ARCs are fine.
P.S. Mother of God how I hate all of you "limit plz limit this limit that" people. Please go make some other game boring.
EDIT: P.P.S. I think echo is supposed to be the "marine-free-arc-train" -counter. It's just that echo is way too expensive.
you need an arc train, this means you have to have not 1 but 5-6 or more of these clumsy poorly pathed crappy AI units taking up alot of space often in small cramped corridors that make it difficult to fight around that require aliens to use bilebombs huge splash damage in order to deal with them
theres no limit to how much ARC damage stacks, i guess the only limit is how many arcs you can get within range of a hive (if you are arcing from another room) This is why when people ARC, they go for the quick hive kill .. they wont bother just using 1 or 2 ARCs .. that takes too much time and requires too many scans ... rather build 5-6 ARCS and kill the hive within seconds and save res on scans.
if the bare minimum amount of arcs required to do anything is 2-3 arcs ... then why not buff the arcs hp/attack and increase their cost/build time so that you only need 1 of them as the bare minimum ? this would improve performance, solve clipping issues, stop the ARC clutter cluster f@#k
Because then you would have to increase ARC hp accordingly, making bilebomb much less effective against it. (Since no AoE) ...if you can call the nerfed-to-oblivion bilebomb effective at anything anymore...
Comments
Frankly I don't see the problem with ARCs. They aren't used NEARLY as often as other measures to definitively win the game. How many times do people see "Marines win" after ARCs have sieged a hive and it is NOT from concede? Not very often for me.
I'm reticent to put limits on ARCs since they cost res, take time to build, SLOWLY plod across the map, and then take time to enter firing mode. An alien team - if they don't have a drifter out - should still have a player on their team who sees them coming LONG before they reach the hive. If they don't, then that is an alien team failure.
If by chance aliens screw up and miss it, finding marines outside the hive with ARCs, then this is when you get your skulks on the front lines to group up and attack a marine tech point. If you don't take out the power, at least get them to beacon. Then you can have other players attacking the undefended ARCs.
Bottom line, if an early ARC train is able to be built then marines have too much res. If a mid-game/late-game ARC train is able to reach a hive then aliens weren't scouting and/or had bad drifter placement. (not to mention, where were the gorges and other advanced lifeforms?)
I agree with everything you've posted here. However, ARCs are not as fun as siege bases were. Siege Cannons trump ARCs in every way as far as fun is concerned. It isn't fun escorting ARCs across the map, it isn't fun building them, it isn't fun guarding them. Siege Cannons were fun in all those circumstances, except maybe guarding the siege base once the hive was down. In that regard, ARCs are superior as they can be moved to a safer place or reused.
The real problem with arcing is the maps. Docking was broken but is now fixed. Arcing locker from bar was just plain silliness. Mineshaft is the real culprit here. Arcing depo from central is really dumb. AFAIK, you can also arc depo from gap as well. Descent has a few odd spots too. Arcing from the upper corner of security is also a bit dangerous for aliens since it is really hard to get marines out of there.
Map flaws aside, arcs are extremely useful and balanced right now. Like some other posters said, if you let the marines build a huge arc-train, you lost already.
This also means that if marines do indeed want to kill everything in seconds, they are required to control multiple rooms around their target, making it riskier to defend all of the ARC locations.
I suggest this because I dislike the idea of "Okay guys, i'm moving arcs up. DO NOT PUSH INTO THE HIVE, just defend the arcs!". ARCs should be a supplement to a push, not be the entire push.
If anything, make a cap of X number of arcs per robo built. (ie 3 arcs / robo)
It really isn't needed though.
As a skulk, I've almost completely given up on trying to kill an ARC.
All I know is that when I see 6+ arcs coming to a hive (even undefended), I think "Oh @#$%, there's no way we're going to be able to deal with those in time"
What does that even mean? lol
I mean MACs and Drifters already have limits per Tech Point. Why not ARCs?
It means that the times when an ARC train is stopped is equally balanced by the times that it is effective, but in most of those cases the process isn't fun or entertaining for either side.
They're fine balance wise, they're just not fine gameplay wise.
Marines can basically create a damage sponch that can go anywhere and if left alone, will destroy your base. Forcing the aliens to split up their fighting force or deal with the loss of one base.
The old Siege Cannons we're a local area lockdown, still having loads more PVP interaction. instead of this PVE/PVP split. Now it can be said that the ARC trains are a valid tactic, I find it a bit troublesome on lower populous servers (12p/18p)
The time honored tradition of beating a dead horse on this: make it so marines have to deploy ARCs. The disconnect between players and ARCs has always bothered me.
I always found it strange that the marine unit used to kill static structures was mobile, but the marine unit used to kill mobile players was static.
+2
I was thinking that if the amount of arcs in a room is > X, any others who try to enter stop at the edge/door. The limit with the robo factory sounds fine as well.
If there are no marines gaurding the Arcs, or even just a few, all it would take is a couple of aliens to kill the people, then a single gorge with Bile to take out the deployed Arcs. It's definitely a distraction tactic but as long as you can bile, you can kill an arc group quite quickly.
Now that is an interesting idea. It wouldn't change much, but it would connect the players a bit more.
I'm still a fan of Arcs as they are. They really don't have that much health, they have a fair amount of armor when they aren't deployed, which I supposed could be changed, but they're still really easy to kill unless there are marines guarding them.
Arcs really don't need a hard-coded limit. It's just taking away a possibility from a comm. Their limit is their price. If you want to limit them more, increase the cost, but don't put a hard-coded limit on them. If I can afford a 7 Arc arc train, I'm going to two shot your hive. If a limit simply must be added in though, I'd prefer it to be by robo factory than chair.
This is never a very popular order. "Hey guys, I'm moving these ARCs forward, don't let them die. Hey... the ARCs are alone. Hey... ARCs are getting biled, someone kill that gorge... Hey... *BOOM*... nevermind."
So I always end up forgetting about them until late game. The idea of rushing ARCs is intriguing though. But if it fails your name will be mud.
I wouldn't mind a limited number of ARCs though.
Those resources are not going into jetpacks, weapons or exos.
It's a tech choice.
There's no such situation where the marine team is "100% equipped" and then there will be an inevitable ARC mass countdown to alien loss. Does not happen.
In short, ARCs are fine.
P.S. Mother of God how I hate all of you "limit plz limit this limit that" people. Please go make some other game boring.
EDIT: P.P.S. I think echo is supposed to be the "marine-free-arc-train" -counter. It's just that echo is way too expensive.
you need an arc train, this means you have to have not 1 but 5-6 or more of these clumsy poorly pathed crappy AI units taking up alot of space often in small cramped corridors that make it difficult to fight around that require aliens to use bilebombs huge splash damage in order to deal with them
theres no limit to how much ARC damage stacks, i guess the only limit is how many arcs you can get within range of a hive (if you are arcing from another room) This is why when people ARC, they go for the quick hive kill .. they wont bother just using 1 or 2 ARCs .. that takes too much time and requires too many scans ... rather build 5-6 ARCS and kill the hive within seconds and save res on scans.
if the bare minimum amount of arcs required to do anything is 2-3 arcs ... then why not buff the arcs hp/attack and increase their cost/build time so that you only need 1 of them as the bare minimum ? this would improve performance, solve clipping issues, stop the ARC clutter cluster f@#k