I loved BT at first, but i've gotten incredibly bored with it these past few days. It seems like the new "meta" is sentry spam in every room, and aliens have to devote someone to suicide bile rush all game. It's not just me either, virsoul merc'd for my team yesterday and he actually assigned one of us to be on constant bile duty. It seemed like that was a huge factor in the BT cup as well, I noticed godar trying to suicide bile over and over again in a few matches, and every scrim we've played the past week or so has devolved into bile spam as well.
For marines it's been turrets in every room + flamethrowers. It's significantly worse than when it was just shotguns and carapace because at least back then you were required to have the ability to aim.
Sentries were already being used to defend key locations in vanilla. And we were doing bile harassment in vanilla too, it's nothing new for us.
Exo's being able to be purchased on hive 1 is bad. It only amplifies the ability for the marines to turtle. It doesn't add any thing to game play other the frustration. Please make exos a 2 cc requirement.
Also, welding seems like it should be AOE. Sometimes I want to weld the marine building a structure and it's not easily done at all, you always go default to the structure. Or when I want to weld a skulk to death biting a rt i always weld the rt instead of doing damage to the skulk!
Hey guys, I see potential exploit in self weld feature:
Comm drops ghost power node in a room it's never needed, marine welds it to 99% and restores armor. Free armor repair.
Now, ghost power nodes is whole another problem. Why should marines be able to make it ready to 99% without any risk? Shouldn't it be better with other structure system: you touched the blueprint, now it can be destroyed.
Last time I decided to build a power node to repair armor I only gained 22 armor. To call it an exploit is ridiculous and should be considered a clever use of game mechanics.
@nachos assuming perfect timing and landing of medpacks for every single potential fade encounter, as well as assuming that such a narrow scoped benefit somehow impacts the mechanic enough to make it viable based on said cost, is well..... unconvincing.
I'm gonna go with redundant.
Timing??? There is no perfect timing other than landing it when the marine is in combat and has taken damage. If you can't med a marine in 1-2 seconds of expected combat, you're not a good comm.
Every single potential fade encounter??? You don't have to med every single encounter for A3 to be effective. It's effective the whole game and the longer the game gets the more effective it is and has made med packing less res intensive.
Narrow scoped benefit?? 1 res to get that 1 extra 200+ dmg shotgun off? Maybe 1 res to save that 15 pres jetpack? Not to mention that A3 is 40 res so as soon as you spend 80 res on meds because of A2, you're on res terms with A3 (Not taking into account perfect res management to save and not need meds etc etc). Now we're seeing 40-50 minute long games, it does make a difference.
A3 has its place in the game. Whethere you should get it straight after A2 is obviously debatable. But then again, I don't see why you think A3 should come before jetpacks or something else (Which is what you're saying. You've acknowledged that it affects med packs and therefore life expectancy and you've also acknowledged that you think A3 is worse than other upgrades). Jetpacks is viable after A2. Go for it. A3 has its place in the game.
I think BT as it currently stands gets easier for marines as player count scales up. It might be balanced for 6v6 but there's clearly problems at 9v9 and I think 12v12 will be worse. My BT experience so far has been on an 18 slot server with varying population but I've played a few 6v6 pugs too. I expect to see win/loss ratios favour marines unless something is changed mainly because most games by volume will happen on 24 slot servers (regrettably).
As I see it, the main causes are:
Flamer and Grenade Launcher
I am glad to see FT & GL being worthwhile (they're useless in vanilla), it brings in a bit of variety. But currently they are low skill, spammy weapons instead of support weapons. In other words it's too viable/effective to have numerous FT and/or GLs in play. An early game FT hive rush is pretty unstoppable. GL reload rates and damage output mean a pair of GL marines can suppress all lower lifeform transit through room-connecting passageways. GL barrages on connecting passageways are especially effective at keeping gorges out of bile bomb range of ARCs. I don't know what aliens can do. It seems disproportionate risk to send in Lerks or Fades against that kind of spam. I would prefer to see GL be less effective against lifeforms either directly in terms of damage or indirectly in terms of a longer reload window, as in vanilla. And as for the FT, I would prefer for it to do more and lasting damage to energy and less direct damage/DOT.
Marine mobility, Infestation & Drifters
This is a complex interplay of some of the changes which results in too much disadvantage for the aliens. It's particularly noticeable in the early game and I'll use Summit as an example. Marines in sub, aliens in atrium. With pretty even team skills I've seen marines bottle aliens in to their hive by rushing to reactor and crevice for the express purpose of attacking the cyst adjacent to the res node and any drifters used to build nodes there. Getting those cysts or drifters is a small but immediate economic win for marines. The bigger benefit comes from stifled expansion, lost harvesters and forcing aliens to engage marines there. The marines can comfortably camp those rooms and aim at chokepoints. Meanwhile the extractors die and the Kham can't do anything in terms of expansion. I don't want to suggest solutions here but I think one or more of these factors needs to be reconsidered:
Unlimited sprint means marines can initially get to and later reinforce those positions quickly.
Aliens no longer benefit from drifter intel so they don't necessarily know marines are getting in to those rooms until it's too late. I recongnise the role of skulks and parasite here and maybe things will improve as players get more experience with BT.
Cysts have a slow build rate, low HP, long maturity time and are slow to regrow infestation. Even if a room is cleared and the cyst is redropped, I've often seen marines get back in to that room before the infestation has regrown over the node. It's then quickly picked off with a few bullets. Now, I like not having to spend entire clips on cysts, that old system was painful. But this is a factor that contributes to the current problem.
These problems are slightly exaggerated on the smaller, 4 tech point maps.
Hey guys, I see potential exploit in self weld feature:
Comm drops ghost power node in a room it's never needed, marine welds it to 99% and restores armor. Free armor repair.
I wouldn't worry about this. It's not a very time-effective thing for a marine to do.
Now, ghost power nodes is whole another problem. Why should marines be able to make it ready to 99% without any risk? Shouldn't it be better with other structure system: you touched the blueprint, now it can be destroyed.
I think that current system is pretty daggy. Pros make a big deal out of newbies fully building power nodes and it makes me cringe for the community. But replacing the current system with what you recommend would clearly be doing a favour to the aliens. I don't think the marines need that kind of penalty to be introduced untried/untested just as BT is about to become the official build.
I loved BT at first, but i've gotten incredibly bored with it these past few days. It seems like the new "meta" is sentry spam in every room, and aliens have to devote someone to suicide bile rush all game. It's not just me either, virsoul merc'd for my team yesterday and he actually assigned one of us to be on constant bile duty. It seemed like that was a huge factor in the BT cup as well, I noticed godar trying to suicide bile over and over again in a few matches, and every scrim we've played the past week or so has devolved into bile spam as well.
For marines it's been turrets in every room + flamethrowers. It's significantly worse than when it was just shotguns and carapace because at least back then you were required to have the ability to aim.
Sentries were already being used to defend key locations in vanilla. And we were doing bile harassment in vanilla too, it's nothing new for us.
I wasn't saying you guys were doing it more than anyone else or trying to comment on how you guys play, just trying to show that it hasn't been limited to the teams that we've been scrimming against and you were the first team that came to mind. But it's gotten to the point where the bilebomb and sentries are ubiquitous, much more so than they ever were before, and it's getting really boring.
And i'm not talking about sentries set up to help defend mezanine or whatever, I'm talking about teams completely ignoring upgrades in favor of putting sentries in every techpoint on the map.
Last time I decided to build a power node to repair armor I only gained 22 armor. To call it an exploit is ridiculous and should be considered a clever use of game mechanics.
what about teammates refusing to weld you so that they can steal your weapon? if all you play is comp, obviously this isnt an issue, but in my short time playing BT public, it has happened on several occassions.
*not attacking you btw, just tagging my comment onto the relevant 'thread'.
To be honest I've played a lot more pub than comp in the balance mod and I have very rarely had a problem with getting welded from team mates. And, unless I am <20 pres I usually buy a welder as well and drop it for mates if need be. The instance I was refering to was in a 6v6 when my mates had died, and we had gotten a fade pretty low, I wanted to gain some quick armor and a good position before the fade returned to finish me off. I think something like that is totally legit and in no way an exploit.
Also, just because you are quoting me does not mean I'm taking it as an attack. :]
I think BT as it currently stands gets easier for marines as player count scales up. It might be balanced for 6v6 but there's clearly problems at 9v9 and I think 12v12 will be worse. My BT experience so far has been on an 18 slot server with varying population but I've played a few 6v6 pugs too. I expect to see win/loss ratios favour marines unless something is changed mainly because most games by volume will happen on 24 slot servers (regrettably).
As I see it, the main causes are:
Flamer and Grenade Launcher
I am glad to see FT & GL being worthwhile (they're useless in vanilla), it brings in a bit of variety. But currently they are low skill, spammy weapons instead of support weapons. In other words it's too viable/effective to have numerous FT and/or GLs in play. An early game FT hive rush is pretty unstoppable. GL reload rates and damage output mean a pair of GL marines can suppress all lower lifeform transit through room-connecting passageways. GL barrages on connecting passageways are especially effective at keeping gorges out of bile bomb range of ARCs. I don't know what aliens can do. It seems disproportionate risk to send in Lerks or Fades against that kind of spam. I would prefer to see GL be less effective against lifeforms either directly in terms of damage or indirectly in terms of a longer reload window, as in vanilla. And as for the FT, I would prefer for it to do more and lasting damage to energy and less direct damage/DOT.
Marine mobility, Infestation & Drifters
This is a complex interplay of some of the changes which results in too much disadvantage for the aliens. It's particularly noticeable in the early game and I'll use Summit as an example. Marines in sub, aliens in atrium. With pretty even team skills I've seen marines bottle aliens in to their hive by rushing to reactor and crevice for the express purpose of attacking the cyst adjacent to the res node and any drifters used to build nodes there. Getting those cysts or drifters is a small but immediate economic win for marines. The bigger benefit comes from stifled expansion, lost harvesters and forcing aliens to engage marines there. The marines can comfortably camp those rooms and aim at chokepoints. Meanwhile the extractors die and the Kham can't do anything in terms of expansion. I don't want to suggest solutions here but I think one or more of these factors needs to be reconsidered:
Unlimited sprint means marines can initially get to and later reinforce those positions quickly.
Aliens no longer benefit from drifter intel so they don't necessarily know marines are getting in to those rooms until it's too late. I recongnise the role of skulks and parasite here and maybe things will improve as players get more experience with BT.
Cysts have a slow build rate, low HP, long maturity time and are slow to regrow infestation. Even if a room is cleared and the cyst is redropped, I've often seen marines get back in to that room before the infestation has regrown over the node. It's then quickly picked off with a few bullets. Now, I like not having to spend entire clips on cysts, that old system was painful. But this is a factor that contributes to the current problem.
These problems are slightly exaggerated on the smaller, 4 tech point maps.
qft.
On many maps marines currently manage to establish a hold right at the primary alien RTs before those are even dropped and can easily expand to the rest of the map, just holding enough RTs to get fast upgrades and starving the aliens on 2-3 RTs. The infinite sprinting adds a lot to that problem.
While the sprinting might be necessary (which I actually doubt) to allow marines to react to ambushes on far away RTs in time, it gives them too much map control compared to aliens. Aliens need their speed advantage for hit and run tactics, but the current marine equivalent is too strong.
Alternatively, the new Drifter system simply doesn't work out. It does not add any real time delay to good alien micromanagement, just additional economical costs from losing to marines that you could not scout for. Marines can scout without danger at the cost of a scan at any point of the map. Aliens don't get that immediate scouting from Drifters, their actual effective range is limited by the territory that marines control and they are almost certain to die when used for scouting.
What remains on the alien side are Skulks, but they don't work that well either because at some point your Skulks evolve to higher lifeforms. Plus it's tedious to parasite marines and the effect is pretty low if they have an armory nearby (and it became pretty pointless to use it on buildings as well since buildings can be repaired again to remove the effect). And the "scouting" isn't really one because it doesn't give you any information for your ground units before the ground units actually encounter that information on their own. There is no early warning benefit from the new scouting gameplay for aliens.
The cloaked but still slightly visible Drifter approach worked out fine and wasn't tested long enough, imho. Good marines would still easily spot Drifters in a close proximity if they paid attention, so you still had to keep an eye out for micromanaging them. I'd rather see the Drifter building requirement gone again and instead only have a 10-20% longer default build time on alien structures to encourage the use of Gorges without actually requiring it.
i would agree about your point wiry with the getting advantage out of selfweld where possible - the disclaimer was there just to make sure i wasnt misunderstood though i would agree that my thing is generally not a problem and that most people weld if they have the chance, but it is a nasty side effect of the armory change and it does happen (incidentally, the last player to do it to me was a miau player ^^).
dePARA, naturally, but its much less of an issue there and you can actually do something about it if you want. in BT you are powerless against it other than to look for random things to weld.
It does not add any real time delay to good alien micromanagement, just additional economical costs from losing to marines that you could not scout for. Marines can scout without danger at the cost of a scan at any point of the map. Aliens don't get that immediate scouting from Drifters, their actual effective range is limited by the territory that marines control and they are almost certain to die when used for scouting.
This.
Placing a scouting role on the skulk is a great move on paper, but its not really intuitive or fun, and has it's consequences.
If i go somewhere on the map without any action, sure i'll parasite (because i parasite everything that moves intentionally, unlike 99% of new players) but i'm also going to engage because i don't want the enemy to have the foothold, and anything i can do to hold them back, i will do it. When i die, thats 1 less player on the field for my team at the cost of my scouting, that an invisible drifter would have otherwise accomplished.
The problem here is not communicating to a new player said role, and worse, in that it somewhat assumes veterans are playing.. vets who are constantly checking the map for areas where there is no team presence, to parasiting everything, to knowing your roles and limitations.
The player who hasn't spent 20+ hours playing this game won't check the map, and even if he does will go where his teamates are. And even if he doesnt do that, when he gets to his location he will attack, not scout. Of course said new player going to this unoccupied portion of the map will die, going alone.
TL;DR : Drifters provided a scouting mechanic that was useful, taking on a boring yet necessary role, in equal opposition to marine scan.
Now that they're used to build /expand instead of scouting, it not only discourages gorge /commander coordination, but also puts it's previous role on a lifeform that has no clue of this responsibility nor would enjoy it.
Is it balanced? Maybe..idk.. but I do see it as a nerf to the alien team, overall.
I've been solo burning a Hive yesterday when all the action was at other hive, lerk came by and I BURNED IT, then 2 skulks went after me and they got barbecued as well, when hive was about 5%, 3 more skulk attacked me, hive went down and then all 3 skulks turned to ashes within seconds.
One might say that those were noobs, but they weren't, they are (were?) my NS friends which I know well for some time.
One might say I'm just hardcore pro, but my usual K/D is 0.25.
ScatterJoin Date: 2012-09-02Member: 157341Members, Squad Five Blue
no real aim necessary for the FT but I am not sure what can be done with it otherwise? Perhaps less direct damage and more area denial through burning surfaces or some other utility other than burning lerk gas.
I've been solo burning a Hive yesterday when all the action was at other hive, lerk came by and I BURNED IT, then 2 skulks went after me and they got barbecued as well, when hive was about 5%, 3 more skulk attacked me, hive went down and then all 3 skulks turned to ashes within seconds.
One might say that those were noobs, but they weren't, they are (were?) my NS friends which I know well for some time.
One might say I'm just hardcore pro, but my usual K/D is 0.25.
The problem with saying it's OP is that it really isn't. There's no reason that 2 skulks and a lerk shouldn't have been able to kill 1 flamethrower unless they went at you 1 by 1.
The problem with the flamethrower is it's a low skill high reward weapon, which is probably what it was intended to be, but when used en masse in an all-in flamethrower rush it has the potential to be absolutely devastating to alien structures. However, a pack of flamethrower marines can be taken out pretty quickly with a few fades.
If they nerf the flamethrower TOO much, it'll go back to being never used. If they leave it as is, it's not really OP but it's detrimental to the game imo. Any low skill/high reward mechanic is bad imo.
I think the correct way to balance the flamethrower would be to reduce the fuel capacity per magazine by half, give it more magazines, and increase the reload speed slightly. That way it would take a little bit longer to burn down a hive and provide more opportunity for aliens to move in for the kill.
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
Strange thing to complain about, but the hit detection on the welder is really, really bad. You have no idea what the percentage sign is in relation to or what you are welding. Every game I run into the situation where someone without full armor is building an rt next to me and the percentage sign just swaps around constantly. Almost regardless of what I am aiming on with the welder.
no real aim necessary for the FT but I am not sure what can be done with it otherwise? Perhaps less direct damage and more area denial through burning surfaces or some other utility other than burning lerk gas.
The main problem is how dramatically the damage stacks when multiple FTs are involved. I'd be tempted to reduce the initial damage and increase the DoT.
[EDIT] oop, it seems that the DoT already doesn't stack.
My suggestion on FT would be to make em profit from weapon upgrades, where W3 = current FT, so 3 minute FT rushes are a little less devastating.
We did a few of those rushes, I couldn't see possibility for aliens to counter it, despite early bile bomb counter rush. Then again, those were all in rushes, if we left 2 FTs at base, they'd counter any counter rush possible at 5 mintues into the game.
Much of the discussion on this thread highlights the real problem that NS2 has faced since its release, if not its creation. Most of the comments are delving into minutiae, bringing up issues, points and counter-points that are just far too academic.
I have played a few games of BT mod and what I see, as a seasoned public player (low k/ds, old PC, and all that) is a totally different game to what I've been playing since release day last October. That is how the vast majority of the player base will see it, and quite frankly, I won't be surprised if most of the player population says enough is enough and just quits the game altogether.
Much of the scientific discussion about whether or not flamethrowers should only damage energy, whether self-welding a power-node to 99% allows armor welding, etc., are just irrelevant. Ultimately, the game is being changed in fundamental ways, and the pro- and non-pro players alike are responding to the evolutionary pressure. In short, people are adapting to the game.
This is to be expected, but why does it seem like most of the commentators here are criticizing these adaptations and new behaviors? Why are they complaining that: "Oh now that marines can run fast they are blocking alien expansion" and similar stuff? When you create any set of rules for a *game* (and let us not forget that this is just a game), it is human nature to use the rules and conditions to the maximum advantage of their team. There is absolutely no point in making new changes or new rules to counteract the response to the first set of changes -- even contemplating such self-defeating circular actions borders on dictatorial tendencies that I would hope have no place in a computer game.
It's this never-ending over-analysis and fanatical tinkering by both the proplayer commentators on the forum and the developers alike, and the resultant zealous and unrelenting enactment of gameplay changes by the developers, that is one of the biggest -- if not the biggest -- weakness of this game.
I personally have enjoyed a lot of the games I have played on NS2, and sometimes I have been bored stiff by the game itself. But I never saw the need for this gigantic change in gameplay. What we needed was a pro mod so the tinkerers could have been happy, leaving the rest of us at peace to enjoy vanilla. What the game needed in order to thrive, retain its current casual players, rejuvenate the game, and enthrall new customers, was more weapons/abilities and a real fleshing out of the tech tree, and some new maps.
NS2 had so much potential, but I greatly fear that 250 will be the last patch we are ever going to see because the game dies after it, except for the handful of pros that will continue to play it. Another factor was probably the long development process during which the game kept changing from build to build. This has set a particular, peculiar, mindset within UWE, in which changes like this are OK. The problem is that after release, updates should have been called "patches," or "updates," and though the playing population were "players" during development, after release they became "customers." And you should not do this sort of thing to customers.
I don't even understand. A lot has changed for alien comms, sure, but to a field player, it's essentially the same game with minor changes apart from the new alien movement.
That said, I know lots of people, pub and comp players alike, who have implied they might quit once BT goes live.
Comments
Sentries were already being used to defend key locations in vanilla. And we were doing bile harassment in vanilla too, it's nothing new for us.
Also, welding seems like it should be AOE. Sometimes I want to weld the marine building a structure and it's not easily done at all, you always go default to the structure. Or when I want to weld a skulk to death biting a rt i always weld the rt instead of doing damage to the skulk!
Comm drops ghost power node in a room it's never needed, marine welds it to 99% and restores armor. Free armor repair.
Now, ghost power nodes is whole another problem. Why should marines be able to make it ready to 99% without any risk? Shouldn't it be better with other structure system: you touched the blueprint, now it can be destroyed.
Timing??? There is no perfect timing other than landing it when the marine is in combat and has taken damage. If you can't med a marine in 1-2 seconds of expected combat, you're not a good comm.
Every single potential fade encounter??? You don't have to med every single encounter for A3 to be effective. It's effective the whole game and the longer the game gets the more effective it is and has made med packing less res intensive.
Narrow scoped benefit?? 1 res to get that 1 extra 200+ dmg shotgun off? Maybe 1 res to save that 15 pres jetpack? Not to mention that A3 is 40 res so as soon as you spend 80 res on meds because of A2, you're on res terms with A3 (Not taking into account perfect res management to save and not need meds etc etc). Now we're seeing 40-50 minute long games, it does make a difference.
A3 has its place in the game. Whethere you should get it straight after A2 is obviously debatable. But then again, I don't see why you think A3 should come before jetpacks or something else (Which is what you're saying. You've acknowledged that it affects med packs and therefore life expectancy and you've also acknowledged that you think A3 is worse than other upgrades). Jetpacks is viable after A2. Go for it. A3 has its place in the game.
As I see it, the main causes are:
Flamer and Grenade Launcher
I am glad to see FT & GL being worthwhile (they're useless in vanilla), it brings in a bit of variety. But currently they are low skill, spammy weapons instead of support weapons. In other words it's too viable/effective to have numerous FT and/or GLs in play. An early game FT hive rush is pretty unstoppable. GL reload rates and damage output mean a pair of GL marines can suppress all lower lifeform transit through room-connecting passageways. GL barrages on connecting passageways are especially effective at keeping gorges out of bile bomb range of ARCs. I don't know what aliens can do. It seems disproportionate risk to send in Lerks or Fades against that kind of spam. I would prefer to see GL be less effective against lifeforms either directly in terms of damage or indirectly in terms of a longer reload window, as in vanilla. And as for the FT, I would prefer for it to do more and lasting damage to energy and less direct damage/DOT.
Marine mobility, Infestation & Drifters
This is a complex interplay of some of the changes which results in too much disadvantage for the aliens. It's particularly noticeable in the early game and I'll use Summit as an example. Marines in sub, aliens in atrium. With pretty even team skills I've seen marines bottle aliens in to their hive by rushing to reactor and crevice for the express purpose of attacking the cyst adjacent to the res node and any drifters used to build nodes there. Getting those cysts or drifters is a small but immediate economic win for marines. The bigger benefit comes from stifled expansion, lost harvesters and forcing aliens to engage marines there. The marines can comfortably camp those rooms and aim at chokepoints. Meanwhile the extractors die and the Kham can't do anything in terms of expansion. I don't want to suggest solutions here but I think one or more of these factors needs to be reconsidered:
I vote movement speed up, sprint out, walk in
I think that current system is pretty daggy. Pros make a big deal out of newbies fully building power nodes and it makes me cringe for the community. But replacing the current system with what you recommend would clearly be doing a favour to the aliens. I don't think the marines need that kind of penalty to be introduced untried/untested just as BT is about to become the official build.
I wasn't saying you guys were doing it more than anyone else or trying to comment on how you guys play, just trying to show that it hasn't been limited to the teams that we've been scrimming against and you were the first team that came to mind. But it's gotten to the point where the bilebomb and sentries are ubiquitous, much more so than they ever were before, and it's getting really boring.
And i'm not talking about sentries set up to help defend mezanine or whatever, I'm talking about teams completely ignoring upgrades in favor of putting sentries in every techpoint on the map.
what about teammates refusing to weld you so that they can steal your weapon? if all you play is comp, obviously this isnt an issue, but in my short time playing BT public, it has happened on several occassions.
*not attacking you btw, just tagging my comment onto the relevant 'thread'.
Also, just because you are quoting me does not mean I'm taking it as an attack. :]
This could happen in vanilla also if there is no armory nearby.
qft.
On many maps marines currently manage to establish a hold right at the primary alien RTs before those are even dropped and can easily expand to the rest of the map, just holding enough RTs to get fast upgrades and starving the aliens on 2-3 RTs. The infinite sprinting adds a lot to that problem.
While the sprinting might be necessary (which I actually doubt) to allow marines to react to ambushes on far away RTs in time, it gives them too much map control compared to aliens. Aliens need their speed advantage for hit and run tactics, but the current marine equivalent is too strong.
Alternatively, the new Drifter system simply doesn't work out. It does not add any real time delay to good alien micromanagement, just additional economical costs from losing to marines that you could not scout for. Marines can scout without danger at the cost of a scan at any point of the map. Aliens don't get that immediate scouting from Drifters, their actual effective range is limited by the territory that marines control and they are almost certain to die when used for scouting.
What remains on the alien side are Skulks, but they don't work that well either because at some point your Skulks evolve to higher lifeforms. Plus it's tedious to parasite marines and the effect is pretty low if they have an armory nearby (and it became pretty pointless to use it on buildings as well since buildings can be repaired again to remove the effect). And the "scouting" isn't really one because it doesn't give you any information for your ground units before the ground units actually encounter that information on their own. There is no early warning benefit from the new scouting gameplay for aliens.
The cloaked but still slightly visible Drifter approach worked out fine and wasn't tested long enough, imho. Good marines would still easily spot Drifters in a close proximity if they paid attention, so you still had to keep an eye out for micromanaging them. I'd rather see the Drifter building requirement gone again and instead only have a 10-20% longer default build time on alien structures to encourage the use of Gorges without actually requiring it.
dePARA, naturally, but its much less of an issue there and you can actually do something about it if you want. in BT you are powerless against it other than to look for random things to weld.
Placing a scouting role on the skulk is a great move on paper, but its not really intuitive or fun, and has it's consequences.
If i go somewhere on the map without any action, sure i'll parasite (because i parasite everything that moves intentionally, unlike 99% of new players) but i'm also going to engage because i don't want the enemy to have the foothold, and anything i can do to hold them back, i will do it. When i die, thats 1 less player on the field for my team at the cost of my scouting, that an invisible drifter would have otherwise accomplished.
The problem here is not communicating to a new player said role, and worse, in that it somewhat assumes veterans are playing.. vets who are constantly checking the map for areas where there is no team presence, to parasiting everything, to knowing your roles and limitations.
The player who hasn't spent 20+ hours playing this game won't check the map, and even if he does will go where his teamates are. And even if he doesnt do that, when he gets to his location he will attack, not scout. Of course said new player going to this unoccupied portion of the map will die, going alone.
TL;DR : Drifters provided a scouting mechanic that was useful, taking on a boring yet necessary role, in equal opposition to marine scan.
Now that they're used to build /expand instead of scouting, it not only discourages gorge /commander coordination, but also puts it's previous role on a lifeform that has no clue of this responsibility nor would enjoy it.
Is it balanced? Maybe..idk.. but I do see it as a nerf to the alien team, overall.
I've been solo burning a Hive yesterday when all the action was at other hive, lerk came by and I BURNED IT, then 2 skulks went after me and they got barbecued as well, when hive was about 5%, 3 more skulk attacked me, hive went down and then all 3 skulks turned to ashes within seconds.
One might say that those were noobs, but they weren't, they are (were?) my NS friends which I know well for some time.
One might say I'm just hardcore pro, but my usual K/D is 0.25.
The problem with saying it's OP is that it really isn't. There's no reason that 2 skulks and a lerk shouldn't have been able to kill 1 flamethrower unless they went at you 1 by 1.
The problem with the flamethrower is it's a low skill high reward weapon, which is probably what it was intended to be, but when used en masse in an all-in flamethrower rush it has the potential to be absolutely devastating to alien structures. However, a pack of flamethrower marines can be taken out pretty quickly with a few fades.
If they nerf the flamethrower TOO much, it'll go back to being never used. If they leave it as is, it's not really OP but it's detrimental to the game imo. Any low skill/high reward mechanic is bad imo.
I think the correct way to balance the flamethrower would be to reduce the fuel capacity per magazine by half, give it more magazines, and increase the reload speed slightly. That way it would take a little bit longer to burn down a hive and provide more opportunity for aliens to move in for the kill.
We did a few of those rushes, I couldn't see possibility for aliens to counter it, despite early bile bomb counter rush. Then again, those were all in rushes, if we left 2 FTs at base, they'd counter any counter rush possible at 5 mintues into the game.
I have played a few games of BT mod and what I see, as a seasoned public player (low k/ds, old PC, and all that) is a totally different game to what I've been playing since release day last October. That is how the vast majority of the player base will see it, and quite frankly, I won't be surprised if most of the player population says enough is enough and just quits the game altogether.
Much of the scientific discussion about whether or not flamethrowers should only damage energy, whether self-welding a power-node to 99% allows armor welding, etc., are just irrelevant. Ultimately, the game is being changed in fundamental ways, and the pro- and non-pro players alike are responding to the evolutionary pressure. In short, people are adapting to the game.
This is to be expected, but why does it seem like most of the commentators here are criticizing these adaptations and new behaviors? Why are they complaining that: "Oh now that marines can run fast they are blocking alien expansion" and similar stuff? When you create any set of rules for a *game* (and let us not forget that this is just a game), it is human nature to use the rules and conditions to the maximum advantage of their team. There is absolutely no point in making new changes or new rules to counteract the response to the first set of changes -- even contemplating such self-defeating circular actions borders on dictatorial tendencies that I would hope have no place in a computer game.
It's this never-ending over-analysis and fanatical tinkering by both the proplayer commentators on the forum and the developers alike, and the resultant zealous and unrelenting enactment of gameplay changes by the developers, that is one of the biggest -- if not the biggest -- weakness of this game.
I personally have enjoyed a lot of the games I have played on NS2, and sometimes I have been bored stiff by the game itself. But I never saw the need for this gigantic change in gameplay. What we needed was a pro mod so the tinkerers could have been happy, leaving the rest of us at peace to enjoy vanilla. What the game needed in order to thrive, retain its current casual players, rejuvenate the game, and enthrall new customers, was more weapons/abilities and a real fleshing out of the tech tree, and some new maps.
NS2 had so much potential, but I greatly fear that 250 will be the last patch we are ever going to see because the game dies after it, except for the handful of pros that will continue to play it. Another factor was probably the long development process during which the game kept changing from build to build. This has set a particular, peculiar, mindset within UWE, in which changes like this are OK. The problem is that after release, updates should have been called "patches," or "updates," and though the playing population were "players" during development, after release they became "customers." And you should not do this sort of thing to customers.
Hope everything turns out well nonetheless.
That said, I know lots of people, pub and comp players alike, who have implied they might quit once BT goes live.