Clues if aliens are in the area, which is basically asking half the team to be goofing off around their own bases at all times, aliens have a LOT of ground to cover. They also don't have a whole lot of time, and with things being buildable on infestation now they can't even cover their ass that way either.
Remember drifter vision is relatively short range and line of sight only. Observatories have a much greater radius and see through all walls, plus aliens have nothing they can do in a marine base except attack.
No all it takes is one skulk. No need to have the whole team doing it unless he/she finds something. Marines also build 25% slower on infestation and infestation damages the armor of structures. Phase gate health was also nerfed in 250 for just this reason.
By the time a skulk gets from base 1 through base 2 to base 3 a marine could walk into base 1 and set up a phase without ever being noticed. Takes less than 30 seconds. 2 marines if you actually plan for it.
If you are looking on your minimap, your team is using voice comm to give enemy positions and numbers, you are using uncloaked drifters and you notice that there are marines unaccounted for that get a phase up on infestation... then that alien team deserves to lose. Cloaked drifters made aliens easy mode.
Let's look at it another way. In 249 one drifter costs 3 TRes. One observatory costs 15 TRes. For the same cost as an obs the alien commander could build 5 drifters. Those drifters can then be placed in 5 rooms (or inbetween rooms depending on how you want to watch marine movement). They can also move and retreat. They don't show the marine in any way they are being watched like an obs. So for equal res costs the alien team can see a rush coming from an obscenely long distance unbeknownst to a marine comm who wasn't actively scanning to find them (another huge disadvantage for the marines). Even if the marines scan for the drifter, you STILL know they are there. Meanwhile, the obs sits stationary only able to observe a single rooms worth of area. Even with beacon, drifters are still superior. Beacon costs additional TRes and moves your entire team and only to the location of a CC. With 15 Tres worth of drifters you can easily respond with only as many players as you need with plenty of time to spare to any location.
Cloaked drifters were ridiculous. Even if you bumped up their TRes cost in the old 249 system, they still would be far superior to an observatory and scans.
Marines can thrive off of 3 res towers, this game is about Endurance for Marines not early decisive strategy.
Aliens need a minimum of 4-5 res towers to survive, while keeping the Marines Res towers down.
This is simply not true, marines COULD tech up off 3 res towers, it'd be slow as hell and they'd have to never lose any, but yes they could, but they can't thrive off less than 5.
Aliens do NOT need 4-5 res nodes, they can still sit on 3 quite happily and get all their tech without issues.
Do you just make shit up as you go? Aliens need more res, not less, it's a proven fact if you look at the costs across the board. Marines not only use less res to build everything they need, but they also can skip 2/3rds of their tech tree if they are stuck in a base and have a particular strategy in mind. Aliens do NOT get that luxury.
Yeah, and marines don't NEED that 3rd hive either, also if you have 2 hives you'll probably take 4RTs anyway. I'll say it again, aliens only need 3 res nodes to get the tech they need. There's a lot of stuff you flat out don't need.
EDIT: I want to be more clear and say, the alien comm doesn't actually have to spend res on anything BUT tech, that's really easy and doesn't take many RTs to do. The marine comm needs to tech but also needs to support his soldiers on the field (unless he wants to lose or has AMAZING players that are crushing the enemy team without meds). The only reason aliens really need more than 3 RTs is for the pres flow, NOT the tres.
I played a particular game which was truly representative of what's going on amongst all the game i did as alien.
TRAM : Marine starts at Warehouse / alien at Shipping (8+ vs 8+)
Marines loose all but 1 or two "1on1 fight". So they can't get a grip on the map. They get Server and barely feed on 3.x extractors. One of the fourth was always damaged and getting down. Alien get hives in Repair and Elevator;
The whole middle game was getting the extractors down or up depending on the side you were.
At that moment i noticed by looking at the score chart that only two marines had positive score. Positive by far. 3/1 ratio minimum. Basically they carried the game on their own. The other marines were just walking meat to my opinion.
As alien we couldn't kill a base as the two "desperados" were taking care of things. So we leveled up and kept killing the extractors. At some point the marine team was able to "deliver" (after a 10 minutes labor) an Exo train. 3 exos and some marines got down to Elevator.
In the process we were able with a onos to kill Warehouse power node while stopping the rush on elevator.
->1 Hive went down , no more exos, hive rebuilt as soon as the scene was clean, Warehouse is ours. So the extractors near it too.
Alien won. But still i can't help thinking that 2 marines can carry the game for the rest of the team.
Short notes:
Khamander:
-If he's new or don't know what to do in the first 2 mins => game over.
-Having an early upgrade can do it but it's not cheap and Kham have to do it as a whole plan. Meaning using other structure later or use it in the field (like shade). Which is always dangerous.
*Rokkies should be forbidden to get in the chair. I'm even thinking UWE should create a khammander test.
limitation that slow down things on the late game. Making a crag station is useful for killing the last base. Sometimes you can't (biomass). So you move structures... it takes ages whatever the method (with shift or by itself)
Field :
-If 1 on 1 are lost in early game. You gonna have a hard time trying to recover from that. Because it still take time to destroy extractors. So the lost time is clearly to the marine advantage.
-Glad to see when you shoot at a skulk it "regs" better. But playing marine is just insulting myself right now. Too easy. Even if armor and fire damage is not that cheap. It's clearly too easy. Proper marines wins, period.
*Early advanced armory is not that bad but the weapons are just too powerful. The flame thrower is just a joke right now. I never was up for it. I have my proof now.
Game generally speaking.
-JP is better but still not that great. more juice. or faster (even with damage when hitting a wall).
*Balance it better for alien would be giving more speed to the skulk. At least you don't have to re-balance everything.
*This one is personal but is think this is true for a lot of player. The key binding i use for marine is different from the alien side now. As we have to use an easy to access key to jump for pseudo bunny hopping. For marine i shoot with space (better than using a mouse button, no interference with aim). As alien i jump with space.
Just make mousewheel-jump a reality. It starts to be annoying to see developer talk about having the game you want with mods and stuff; and not being able to have the game you want concerning key bindings. And i won't use some hacks found here and there, as i want all people to have, somehow the same game. I still can ruin them without it. But it's just annoying to redefine keys as i change side.
*Alien should be practicing pseudo BH as it is a necessity.
From what I can make of NS2 Stats, so far it's 45.5% Alien victories v 54.5% Marine victories.
Compared with build 249: 57.5% Alien v 42.5% Marine
This is going to be heavily skewed by new players, though. Aliens need a decent comm and at least one good fade to win any game that isn't a skulk rush. Marines need a mediocre comm and the ability to aim a bit (though once you get GL/flamer, not so much)
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
Most alien losses are made atm due to complete inexperience and utter lack of how the new build works.
* Even with crag heals, drifter support and bonewalls etc.. marines bleed far far far more res in medspam and nano shield then aliens bleed.
* you generally start to upgrade your main hive and usually grow your influence in both sides from your main. if marines kill your main hive so you lose max resource upgrades.. what the hell has your team be doing? You do not need drifters everywhere, only at the accesspoints into your territory.
* aliens should be scouting. A skulk on walljump, a flying lerk and a notsuck blink fade are very very fast. You can cover all the ground with utter ease.
* killing a GL means rushing the marine on the reload while staying as high as you possibly can to reduce splash damage, as most nades impact at ground level.
* flame? Nail him from behind, you are a alien.. Skulk already.
So many options not yet used. Ow a flamer is in the hive flaming stuff and skulk cant kill him. So uhm.. let the kham obstruct his view with a explosion of goo?
Spike them as a lerk? Do chip damage?
I have only seen 2 types of losses yet:
* massively stacked where one side has not a inkling what they were doing.
* super well balanced where one side, after a long long long time finally made it.
Nowhere in that list is 'op'. And yes, Ive seen a lot of rookie and non rookies in the last days.
Please, major of the publics cant even do the basics with all the greens running around. Also the comp teams are testing things out aswell.
Way too early for any balance stuff.j
Just make mousewheel-jump a reality. It starts to be annoying to see developer talk about having the game you want with mods and stuff; and not being able to have the game you want concerning key bindings. And i won't use some hacks found here and there, as i want all people to have, somehow the same game. I still can ruin them without it. But it's just annoying to redefine keys as i change side.
*Alien should be practicing pseudo BH as it is a necessity.
Is changing it in the system_options.XML file considered hacking for you? Because everyone can do that easily. Just swap next weapon and jump to Mouse.z
I liked what twiliteblue said about requiring 2 CC for weapons 2 and 3
and
I liked what SamusDroid said about bringing back cloaked drifters.
Marines have obs to see in that area and a scan to read any area on the map. Aliens need to create a shade and a drifter to watch the base, and marines will know that shade is near, plus its 20 res spent.
Gorges need to be able to ride on lerk's back...most problems will be fixed then.
Just make mousewheel-jump a reality. It starts to be annoying to see developer talk about having the game you want with mods and stuff; and not being able to have the game you want concerning key bindings. And i won't use some hacks found here and there, as i want all people to have, somehow the same game. I still can ruin them without it. But it's just annoying to redefine keys as i change side.
*Alien should be practicing pseudo BH as it is a necessity.
Is changing it in the system_options.XML file considered hacking for you? Because everyone can do that easily. Just swap next weapon and jump to Mouse.z
Mmm, except that you can only bind one key to jump, so you'd have to jump with mouse scroll with every other class, too.
Make no mistake, the binding system and keybinds are in a rather dire state. I think all the problems stated here still exist.
It requires a very large amount of coordination for aliens to finish the game.Even in 6v6 pug, aliens seem to hold 3-4 RT's largely uncontested, smash the midgame then marines hold out for end game and win.
I feel marines can turtle on 3 rt's for 30 minutes, eventually reaching 3/3 with exo/jp then sweep out and retake the game.
Either a nerf to FL / GL is required (or let whips fling back grenades again), or 3rd hive tech for aliens needs to be basically OP to allow aliens to break the marine turtle.
In NS1, third hive tech was basically game over for marines. In NS2, there is not even a reason to try and achieve a 3rd hive, it splits your team even more defending multiple marines and you don'tget any effective benefit from it.
I would describe the 30 minute mark of marines vs aliens similar to zerg vs Protoss deathball in SC2. Aliens basically have to attack everywhere marines are not, they cannot compete head on due to GL / EXO. I'm yet to see aliens beat a marine team 3/3 exo & gl head on, its always a win by base rushing when marines are out of position.
Let's look at it another way. In 249 one drifter costs 3 TRes. One observatory costs 15 TRes. For the same cost as an obs the alien commander could build 5 drifters. Those drifters can then be placed in 5 rooms (or inbetween rooms depending on how you want to watch marine movement). They can also move and retreat. They don't show the marine in any way they are being watched like an obs. to for equal res costs the alien team can see a rush coming from an obscenely long distance unbeknownst to a marine comm who wasn't actively scanning to find them (another huge disadvantage for the marines). Even if the marines scan for the drifter, you STILL know they are there. Meanwhile, the obs sits stationary only able to observe a single rooms worth of area. Even with beacon, drifters are still superior. Beacon costs additional TRes and moves your entire team and only to the location of a CC. With 15 Tres worth of drifters you can easily respond with only as many players as you need with plenty of time to spare to any location.
Cloaked drifters were ridiculous. Even if you bumped up their TRes cost in the old 249 system, they still would be far superior to an observatory and scans.
Yes drifters were cheaper, but they were limited to line of sight. Observatories allowed constant passive scans through walls in a set location, allowed scans for 3 TRes (same cost of the drifter and during the scan they also drew circle around the advancing Alien assisting with targeting.
The idea was Asymetrical Warfare, not everyone gets the same tools, Aliens have to rely on stealth and cunning, Marines get to attack using heavy firepower and an ability to heal on the fly. Right now Marines get to see\attack through walls, recall all Infantry to bases, ignore power outages and travel instantly.
I'm all for changes in the game, but somethings are sacred and need to be preserved or atleast replaced with equivalent alternatives. Cloaked drifters are 1 of those things.
It's also sad to see some things that have been known for being broken in the BT mod to have made it into vanilla right away.
- Being unable to select Umbra with the mouse wheel until Spores are researched.
- Infinitely looping Hive death music.
- Incorrect tool tips.
Some of these have been around for weeks or months already. Seeing them (and last-minute changes like ultra-spammy GLs and FTs) now just reinforces the impression that build 250 had to be pushed quickly to meet the Steam Sale and the flood of new players, rather than polishing it first until it was ready.
Cannon_FodderAUSBrisbane, AUJoin Date: 2013-06-23Member: 185664Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
Played a few games recently, and have found 250 to be generally more fun than 249 (more epic wins - may be its just taking longer to tech for aliens). I do agree with most of the posters about marine OP by turtleing hard. It is hard to break without coordination from aliens, even then, it is not a push over. I agree with twiliteblue on the 2 cc needed for W3/A3 (I thought that was in BT at one stage). And the idea of taking down the arms lab means you lose a level of research is good too. Cos right now, arms lab is not a priority to take down, just because it is so easy to put it back and get all your upgrades.
Also the 1 cc means almost all tech can be researched isn't really making the game more interesting (it does give a fighting chance for a come back), but there should be a way to balance the current situation of all tech off 1cc. There is almost no incentive to expand for marines as the only thing you don't get is dualie exo. Make marines hold territory if they want to win and get the ultimate tech, so they have to learn to defend multiple locations. I think there are ways to balancing this:
1. 2 cc needed for W3/A3 research (as per twilteblue)
2. cost for single minigun exo off 1 cc more expensive (could still get it and do a come back, but there are opportunity costs).
3. taking down an arms lab means you lose some research either 1 level of A / W or the last researched upgrade - so there are ways for the aliens to slowly pick the marines apart in the res wars.
4. tweaking the FL / GL damage or make only one of these available when researched advance arms lab - I would favour the GL being free as it is a specialised weapon for breaking sieges. So you have to research FL at AA.
I realise it is rare for a 1 base turtle marine to do a big come back (it means the aliens are being lazy and didn't finish it off sooner). But having commed both alien and marine in build 250, I notice it feels the alien teching is very very slow, and feels like the marines tech very very fast. I find myself micromanaging my drifters more than concentrating on the troops.
Just make mousewheel-jump a reality. It starts to be annoying to see developer talk about having the game you want with mods and stuff; and not being able to have the game you want concerning key bindings. And i won't use some hacks found here and there, as i want all people to have, somehow the same game. I still can ruin them without it. But it's just annoying to redefine keys as i change side.
*Alien should be practicing pseudo BH as it is a necessity.
Is changing it in the system_options.XML file considered hacking for you? Because everyone can do that easily. Just swap next weapon and jump to Mouse.z
Mmm, except that you can only bind one key to jump, so you'd have to jump with mouse scroll with every other class, too.
Make no mistake, the binding system and keybinds are in a rather dire state. I think all the problems stated here still exist.
Some of these have been around for weeks or months already. Seeing them (and last-minute changes like ultra-spammy GLs and FTs) now just reinforces the impression that build 250 had to be pushed quickly to meet the Steam Sale and the flood of new players, rather than polishing it first until it was ready.
If those bugs get polished out in the next one or two updates, I'd consider the rush to meet the sale date worth it.
If it really is the case that in b250 marine one-base turtles are:
a) Almost certainly broken by a skilled and coordinated alien team but still somewhat challenging to do quickly and efficiently, and
b) Possibly broken by a mediocre alien team, but maybe not, and
c) Probably not broken by a poor alien team, and
d) If not broken soon enough, then eventually the marines will build up to full tech exo and arc trains and then break free and win,
... then I'd say that the marine turtle endgame is in a GREAT place. Good aliens will win quickly, mediocre aliens will put up a long fight and eventually win, and bad aliens will put up a long fight and eventually lose. Turtling used to be awful because it was a forgone conclusion - the marines were going to lose, it was only a matter of how long it took. But now, if there's actually a possibility for the marines to win if they can just hold out long enough.... well, golly, now there's a REASON to keep fighting!
That's the BEST POSSIBLE solution to the turtling problem! Lose quickly when it's pointless, but keep fighting when there's a chance to win. Hooray!
But now, if there's actually a possibility for the marines to win if they can just hold out long enough.... well, golly, now there's a REASON to keep fighting!
It shouldn't be because they can get 99% of their tech on one CC.
That's a terrible reason why Marines can manage a comeback.
There is a reason why even the best of alien players can't hold off the onslaught of marines, even terrible ones, on 1 hive. It should be the same for marines.
I kindly ask the marine team to F4 or concede when the game is obviously over and the only way for marines to win is turtle til 30 minutes where they can push out with superior end-game tech. If it doesn't happen, I F4 myself and just wait for the next round. I don't mind in SCRIMS/PUGS, but attempting to organise PUBBERS to attack in a coordinated mode to break marine turtle is just frustrating and not worth the effort.
But now, if there's actually a possibility for the marines to win if they can just hold out long enough.... well, golly, now there's a REASON to keep fighting!
It shouldn't be because they can get 99% of their tech on one CC.
That's a terrible reason why Marines can manage a comeback.
There is a reason why even the best of alien players can't hold off the onslaught of marines, even terrible ones, on 1 hive. It should be the same for marines.
You're not accounting for being able to recycle and reuse Marine purchased equipment vs not being able to recycle and reuse your dead fade.
I know its a favorite and nostalgic, but i think there's some benefits to not having your equipment able to be reused.
I think many weapons are already cheap enough (hello 15 pres GL) that their costs no longer assist in justifying recycling of certain weapons. (you dont get to recycle a 15 tres jetpack, but a 20 pres shotgun will?)
Also, considering the encouraged gameplay of marines sticking together in groups constantly, compared to aliens' more lenient and spread out, hit and run tactics... there already exists a slight bias as far as risk vs cost that many other values have been accommodating for.
But i still agree that W3/A3 should be tied to 2 CCs.. i just want you to know that won't solve the problem completely.
your forgetting the arms lab for the marines, its quite expensive to get up to w3a3. also marines need more than 3 rts to survive vs the aliens. the aliens will get onos if they have 6 rts before that mass exo push.
your forgetting the arms lab for the marines, its quite expensive to get up to w3a3. also marines need more than 3 rts to survive vs the aliens. the aliens will get onos if they have 6 rts before that mass exo push.
Marines don't have it that bad.
Marines to tech up costs them 180 res for W/A upgrades, 130 res for all advanced weaponry. Total of 310 res for Marines to tech up completely, 290 if you're not including a second com chair so no Duel-Exos.
For Aliens to tech up it costs 120 res, 3 hives. 180, for each hive upgrades + 60 res to upgrade the hive first. Before unit upgrades you're looking at 360 Res, thats already more than what Marines need to fully tech up. So no gorge tunnels, bile, SS, stomp. NADDA. Aliens need ALOT more res than Marines clearly.
Add to that the weaker onos, and aliens really don't have it that easy at all. The only alien wins I've seen in pubs have been
A) early/mid game rushes where the com made a mistake marines concede
C) marines all move out of their final base (maybe in a base rush) and aliens focus the com chair
And D) a variant of C where last night turtling marines on mineshaft kindly moved out of base and told our players via mumble that they were bored and trying to persuade their teammates to hit a hive so we could rush in behind them and focus the cc.
The balance is not quite there yet. It's probably not far, but it needs a few tweaks. I've lost count of the number of oni I've seen snuff it in ways that not even rookie oni should die.
Comments
By the time a skulk gets from base 1 through base 2 to base 3 a marine could walk into base 1 and set up a phase without ever being noticed. Takes less than 30 seconds. 2 marines if you actually plan for it.
All servers flooded with new players and they have no clue what todo on both sides.
One descent fade can domitate a whole rookie team for example.
Is the Fade OP? Hell no.
Just calm down about balance atm and lets talk about again in around 3-4 weeks.
Let's look at it another way. In 249 one drifter costs 3 TRes. One observatory costs 15 TRes. For the same cost as an obs the alien commander could build 5 drifters. Those drifters can then be placed in 5 rooms (or inbetween rooms depending on how you want to watch marine movement). They can also move and retreat. They don't show the marine in any way they are being watched like an obs. So for equal res costs the alien team can see a rush coming from an obscenely long distance unbeknownst to a marine comm who wasn't actively scanning to find them (another huge disadvantage for the marines). Even if the marines scan for the drifter, you STILL know they are there. Meanwhile, the obs sits stationary only able to observe a single rooms worth of area. Even with beacon, drifters are still superior. Beacon costs additional TRes and moves your entire team and only to the location of a CC. With 15 Tres worth of drifters you can easily respond with only as many players as you need with plenty of time to spare to any location.
Cloaked drifters were ridiculous. Even if you bumped up their TRes cost in the old 249 system, they still would be far superior to an observatory and scans.
Yeah, and marines don't NEED that 3rd hive either, also if you have 2 hives you'll probably take 4RTs anyway. I'll say it again, aliens only need 3 res nodes to get the tech they need. There's a lot of stuff you flat out don't need.
EDIT: I want to be more clear and say, the alien comm doesn't actually have to spend res on anything BUT tech, that's really easy and doesn't take many RTs to do. The marine comm needs to tech but also needs to support his soldiers on the field (unless he wants to lose or has AMAZING players that are crushing the enemy team without meds). The only reason aliens really need more than 3 RTs is for the pres flow, NOT the tres.
TRAM : Marine starts at Warehouse / alien at Shipping (8+ vs 8+)
Marines loose all but 1 or two "1on1 fight". So they can't get a grip on the map. They get Server and barely feed on 3.x extractors. One of the fourth was always damaged and getting down. Alien get hives in Repair and Elevator;
The whole middle game was getting the extractors down or up depending on the side you were.
At that moment i noticed by looking at the score chart that only two marines had positive score. Positive by far. 3/1 ratio minimum. Basically they carried the game on their own. The other marines were just walking meat to my opinion.
As alien we couldn't kill a base as the two "desperados" were taking care of things. So we leveled up and kept killing the extractors. At some point the marine team was able to "deliver" (after a 10 minutes labor) an Exo train. 3 exos and some marines got down to Elevator.
In the process we were able with a onos to kill Warehouse power node while stopping the rush on elevator.
->1 Hive went down , no more exos, hive rebuilt as soon as the scene was clean, Warehouse is ours. So the extractors near it too.
Alien won. But still i can't help thinking that 2 marines can carry the game for the rest of the team.
Short notes:
Khamander:
-If he's new or don't know what to do in the first 2 mins => game over.
-Having an early upgrade can do it but it's not cheap and Kham have to do it as a whole plan. Meaning using other structure later or use it in the field (like shade). Which is always dangerous.
*Rokkies should be forbidden to get in the chair. I'm even thinking UWE should create a khammander test.
limitation that slow down things on the late game. Making a crag station is useful for killing the last base. Sometimes you can't (biomass). So you move structures... it takes ages whatever the method (with shift or by itself)
Field :
-If 1 on 1 are lost in early game. You gonna have a hard time trying to recover from that. Because it still take time to destroy extractors. So the lost time is clearly to the marine advantage.
-Glad to see when you shoot at a skulk it "regs" better. But playing marine is just insulting myself right now. Too easy. Even if armor and fire damage is not that cheap. It's clearly too easy. Proper marines wins, period.
*Early advanced armory is not that bad but the weapons are just too powerful. The flame thrower is just a joke right now. I never was up for it. I have my proof now.
Game generally speaking.
-JP is better but still not that great. more juice. or faster (even with damage when hitting a wall).
*Balance it better for alien would be giving more speed to the skulk. At least you don't have to re-balance everything.
*This one is personal but is think this is true for a lot of player. The key binding i use for marine is different from the alien side now. As we have to use an easy to access key to jump for pseudo bunny hopping. For marine i shoot with space (better than using a mouse button, no interference with aim). As alien i jump with space.
Just make mousewheel-jump a reality. It starts to be annoying to see developer talk about having the game you want with mods and stuff; and not being able to have the game you want concerning key bindings. And i won't use some hacks found here and there, as i want all people to have, somehow the same game. I still can ruin them without it. But it's just annoying to redefine keys as i change side.
*Alien should be practicing pseudo BH as it is a necessity.
This is going to be heavily skewed by new players, though. Aliens need a decent comm and at least one good fade to win any game that isn't a skulk rush. Marines need a mediocre comm and the ability to aim a bit (though once you get GL/flamer, not so much)
Combat regen + Three skulks in an umbra cloud = <:-P
Sounds deadly as hell. Just not happening right now though, teamwork isn't on the level.
* Even with crag heals, drifter support and bonewalls etc.. marines bleed far far far more res in medspam and nano shield then aliens bleed.
* you generally start to upgrade your main hive and usually grow your influence in both sides from your main. if marines kill your main hive so you lose max resource upgrades.. what the hell has your team be doing? You do not need drifters everywhere, only at the accesspoints into your territory.
* aliens should be scouting. A skulk on walljump, a flying lerk and a notsuck blink fade are very very fast. You can cover all the ground with utter ease.
* killing a GL means rushing the marine on the reload while staying as high as you possibly can to reduce splash damage, as most nades impact at ground level.
* flame? Nail him from behind, you are a alien.. Skulk already.
So many options not yet used. Ow a flamer is in the hive flaming stuff and skulk cant kill him. So uhm.. let the kham obstruct his view with a explosion of goo?
Spike them as a lerk? Do chip damage?
I have only seen 2 types of losses yet:
* massively stacked where one side has not a inkling what they were doing.
* super well balanced where one side, after a long long long time finally made it.
Nowhere in that list is 'op'. And yes, Ive seen a lot of rookie and non rookies in the last days.
Way too early for any balance stuff.j
If it's too good you could limit it to one scouting stalk per gorge or have them be more expensive than usual on top of a the fixed population cost
I liked what twiliteblue said about requiring 2 CC for weapons 2 and 3
and
I liked what SamusDroid said about bringing back cloaked drifters.
Marines have obs to see in that area and a scan to read any area on the map. Aliens need to create a shade and a drifter to watch the base, and marines will know that shade is near, plus its 20 res spent.
Gorges need to be able to ride on lerk's back...most problems will be fixed then.
Mmm, except that you can only bind one key to jump, so you'd have to jump with mouse scroll with every other class, too.
Make no mistake, the binding system and keybinds are in a rather dire state. I think all the problems stated here still exist.
I feel marines can turtle on 3 rt's for 30 minutes, eventually reaching 3/3 with exo/jp then sweep out and retake the game.
Either a nerf to FL / GL is required (or let whips fling back grenades again), or 3rd hive tech for aliens needs to be basically OP to allow aliens to break the marine turtle.
In NS1, third hive tech was basically game over for marines. In NS2, there is not even a reason to try and achieve a 3rd hive, it splits your team even more defending multiple marines and you don'tget any effective benefit from it.
I would describe the 30 minute mark of marines vs aliens similar to zerg vs Protoss deathball in SC2. Aliens basically have to attack everywhere marines are not, they cannot compete head on due to GL / EXO. I'm yet to see aliens beat a marine team 3/3 exo & gl head on, its always a win by base rushing when marines are out of position.
Yes drifters were cheaper, but they were limited to line of sight. Observatories allowed constant passive scans through walls in a set location, allowed scans for 3 TRes (same cost of the drifter and during the scan they also drew circle around the advancing Alien assisting with targeting.
The idea was Asymetrical Warfare, not everyone gets the same tools, Aliens have to rely on stealth and cunning, Marines get to attack using heavy firepower and an ability to heal on the fly. Right now Marines get to see\attack through walls, recall all Infantry to bases, ignore power outages and travel instantly.
I'm all for changes in the game, but somethings are sacred and need to be preserved or atleast replaced with equivalent alternatives. Cloaked drifters are 1 of those things.
- Being unable to select Umbra with the mouse wheel until Spores are researched.
- Infinitely looping Hive death music.
- Incorrect tool tips.
Some of these have been around for weeks or months already. Seeing them (and last-minute changes like ultra-spammy GLs and FTs) now just reinforces the impression that build 250 had to be pushed quickly to meet the Steam Sale and the flood of new players, rather than polishing it first until it was ready.
Also the 1 cc means almost all tech can be researched isn't really making the game more interesting (it does give a fighting chance for a come back), but there should be a way to balance the current situation of all tech off 1cc. There is almost no incentive to expand for marines as the only thing you don't get is dualie exo. Make marines hold territory if they want to win and get the ultimate tech, so they have to learn to defend multiple locations. I think there are ways to balancing this:
1. 2 cc needed for W3/A3 research (as per twilteblue)
2. cost for single minigun exo off 1 cc more expensive (could still get it and do a come back, but there are opportunity costs).
3. taking down an arms lab means you lose some research either 1 level of A / W or the last researched upgrade - so there are ways for the aliens to slowly pick the marines apart in the res wars.
4. tweaking the FL / GL damage or make only one of these available when researched advance arms lab - I would favour the GL being free as it is a specialised weapon for breaking sieges. So you have to research FL at AA.
I realise it is rare for a 1 base turtle marine to do a big come back (it means the aliens are being lazy and didn't finish it off sooner). But having commed both alien and marine in build 250, I notice it feels the alien teching is very very slow, and feels like the marines tech very very fast. I find myself micromanaging my drifters more than concentrating on the troops.
Still, I love this game.
Bind space to mousewheel or mousewheel to space.
a) Almost certainly broken by a skilled and coordinated alien team but still somewhat challenging to do quickly and efficiently, and
b) Possibly broken by a mediocre alien team, but maybe not, and
c) Probably not broken by a poor alien team, and
d) If not broken soon enough, then eventually the marines will build up to full tech exo and arc trains and then break free and win,
... then I'd say that the marine turtle endgame is in a GREAT place. Good aliens will win quickly, mediocre aliens will put up a long fight and eventually win, and bad aliens will put up a long fight and eventually lose. Turtling used to be awful because it was a forgone conclusion - the marines were going to lose, it was only a matter of how long it took. But now, if there's actually a possibility for the marines to win if they can just hold out long enough.... well, golly, now there's a REASON to keep fighting!
That's the BEST POSSIBLE solution to the turtling problem! Lose quickly when it's pointless, but keep fighting when there's a chance to win. Hooray!
It shouldn't be because they can get 99% of their tech on one CC.
That's a terrible reason why Marines can manage a comeback.
There is a reason why even the best of alien players can't hold off the onslaught of marines, even terrible ones, on 1 hive. It should be the same for marines.
I know its a favorite and nostalgic, but i think there's some benefits to not having your equipment able to be reused.
I think many weapons are already cheap enough (hello 15 pres GL) that their costs no longer assist in justifying recycling of certain weapons. (you dont get to recycle a 15 tres jetpack, but a 20 pres shotgun will?)
Also, considering the encouraged gameplay of marines sticking together in groups constantly, compared to aliens' more lenient and spread out, hit and run tactics... there already exists a slight bias as far as risk vs cost that many other values have been accommodating for.
But i still agree that W3/A3 should be tied to 2 CCs.. i just want you to know that won't solve the problem completely.
Marines don't have it that bad.
Marines to tech up costs them 180 res for W/A upgrades, 130 res for all advanced weaponry. Total of 310 res for Marines to tech up completely, 290 if you're not including a second com chair so no Duel-Exos.
For Aliens to tech up it costs 120 res, 3 hives. 180, for each hive upgrades + 60 res to upgrade the hive first. Before unit upgrades you're looking at 360 Res, thats already more than what Marines need to fully tech up. So no gorge tunnels, bile, SS, stomp. NADDA. Aliens need ALOT more res than Marines clearly.
A) early/mid game rushes where the com made a mistake
C) marines all move out of their final base (maybe in a base rush) and aliens focus the com chair
And D) a variant of C where last night turtling marines on mineshaft kindly moved out of base and told our players via mumble that they were bored and trying to persuade their teammates to hit a hive so we could rush in behind them and focus the cc.
The balance is not quite there yet. It's probably not far, but it needs a few tweaks. I've lost count of the number of oni I've seen snuff it in ways that not even rookie oni should die.