FrozenNew York, NYJoin Date: 2010-07-02Member: 72228Members, Constellation
Maybe I'm a unicorn, but I'm better with the Reinforced fade simply because I have to use all the decision making I've learned through NS1 and NS2. With the 250 fade I felt it was all thrown out the window for a fade ball which just, I don't like.
My death being so paramount now helps too, knowing that I cant get an egg unless weve already won to some degree of certainty
Imo, fade WAS over nerfed, it needed one, but it was way too much.
Proposed solutions,
1. Restore maintaining speed from jumping (maybe only for the first 6 jumps or something instead of indefinitely, I don't care), this is the most preferable for me, this means you might actually have energy when you show up at an engagement.
2. Halve the initial cost of blink, it seriously rapes your small energy pool and leaves you with either no energy to swipe or no energy to escape (mostly because you showed up with no energy since you spammed blink to arrive on time because you no longer maintain speed jumping).
3. Some small hp buff, don't really like this one, but at least you might live long enough to get energy back to survive.
4. Damage buff, maybe try 81 damage again to get the 2 swipe a0, 3 swipe a2 again, instead of a2 being a 4 swipe kill block.
5. Increase the speed of blink again (don't change the animation back), it's so easy to see fades coming at you now and to line up your shot.
6. Should do this in addition to one of the above but, increase damage to structures again, maybe not the same as before, but a hell of a lot more than 37...
Why can we not just change one thing at a time? Why overhaul the fade? Why not change the tres drop fade (As they did) but keep everything else the same, in order to see which change is best?
In terms of doing things scientifically, this is atrocious.
Why can we not just change one thing at a time? Why overhaul the fade? Why not change the tres drop fade (As they did) but keep everything else the same, in order to see which change is best?
In terms of doing things scientifically, this is atrocious.
Nerfing the fade but making lerks totally OP against everything due to 3000% speed increase for bites... a bit weird.
Why can we not just change one thing at a time? Why overhaul the fade? Why not change the tres drop fade (As they did) but keep everything else the same, in order to see which change is best?
In terms of doing things scientifically, this is atrocious.
Nerfing the fade but making lerks totally OP against everything due to 3000% speed increase for bites... a bit weird.
It's quite a logical decision actually. Everyone knew these big fade balls were the cause of most balance issues. Everyone knew it was too easy to get around the map with zero energy management. So, they decided to nerf the fade to some extent, but buff the other higher lifeforms, to make them more viable choices. You can argue against the specifics of the nerfs and buffs, but it's not a weird decision at all.
And it's still incredibly risky for a lerk to go into melee combat against a decent marine. The only thing that's different is that it's not as easy for a commander to keep a marine alive with medpack spam now. So I'd say the lerk got buffed against lone LMG marines and structures, but against shotguns or a group of marines, you still need to keep your distance.
Why can we not just change one thing at a time? Why overhaul the fade? Why not change the tres drop fade (As they did) but keep everything else the same, in order to see which change is best?
In terms of doing things scientifically, this is atrocious.
Nerfing the fade but making lerks totally OP against everything due to 3000% speed increase for bites... a bit weird.
It's quite a logical decision actually. Everyone knew these big fade balls were the cause of most balance issues. Everyone knew it was too easy to get around the map with zero energy management. So, they decided to nerf the fade to some extent, but buff the other higher lifeforms, to make them more viable choices. You can argue against the specifics of the nerfs and buffs, but it's not a weird decision at all.
And it's still incredibly risky for a lerk to go into melee combat against a decent marine. The only thing that's different is that it's not as easy for a commander to keep a marine alive with medpack spam now. So I'd say the lerk got buffed against lone LMG marines and structures, but against shotguns or a group of marines, you still need to keep your distance.
I dont disagree that fade needed a nerf but the current lerk bitespeed is ridicoulus, its simply too quick.
Imo, fade WAS over nerfed, it needed one, but it was way too much.
Proposed solutions,
1. Restore maintaining speed from jumping (maybe only for the first 6 jumps or something instead of indefinitely, I don't care), this is the most preferable for me, this means you might actually have energy when you show up at an engagement.
2. Halve the initial cost of blink, it seriously rapes your small energy pool and leaves you with either no energy to swipe or no energy to escape (mostly because you showed up with no energy since you spammed blink to arrive on time because you no longer maintain speed jumping).
3. Some small hp buff, don't really like this one, but at least you might live long enough to get energy back to survive.
4. Damage buff, maybe try 81 damage again to get the 2 swipe a0, 3 swipe a2 again, instead of a2 being a 4 swipe kill block.
5. Increase the speed of blink again (don't change the animation back), it's so easy to see fades coming at you now and to line up your shot.
6. Should do this in addition to one of the above but, increase damage to structures again, maybe not the same as before, but a hell of a lot more than 37...
I like #1 only and already told you the reasons why for each.
Fixing #1 not only fixes others on the list, and is easy, but also provides a lower skill floor. Double win.
Edit: Alternatively you can do #2 and it would preserve the energy management levels in combat somewhat, due to the # of times you use blink in combat, while allowing a lower skill floor for traveling.. which may be preferable.
Especially since newer players hold down blink for too long while traveling and the current model/values basically leads to the same energy consumption for travel, regardless of tapping blink or holding it, due to said initial energy cost.
Want be back the fade of vanilla and maybe don't want to earn pres when you are die :d to limit fade explosion in same time. (they need penalty for death and don't make kamikaze gorge all time)
I play Fade a lot, and I think the changes are pretty good. The nerfs to Blink momentum and energy could be reduced a bit, but reducing structure damage is good thing. As others have pointed out already, a lifeform should not be able to fill all niches at once. Taking down extractors is performed very well by the Lerk now. The reduced damage *is* a bit annoying when you have 1-2 Fades in the enemy base and want to take down the obs, though...
My only gripe with the new Fade is that Vortex is pretty much useless unless you get Stab as well. Using it to warp around in the combat location in combination with Swipe is too energy-intensive IMO, and "Vortex outside, go in for a single attack" is horribly inefficient with Swipe. My preferred solution would be Stab at Biomass 5-6, and Vortex at 8-9. This way, you could use Stab in mid-game already if you're sneaky, but not kamikaze style as with Vortex.
-add rfk to get rid of fade ball
-make fade like ns1 with faster blink and constant drain on energy instead of high initial cost so good fades need to manage their energy by tapping blink
-make bhop slow fade down more like ns1 so they have to spend more energy on blink to get around fast
problem solved
-add rfk to get rid of fade ball -make fade like ns1 with faster blink and constant drain on energy instead of high initial cost so good fades need to manage their energy by tapping blink
-make bhop slow fade down more like ns1 so they have to spend more energy on blink to get around fast
problem solved
Not sure if serious, you are describing what already happened to the fade.
-add rfk to get rid of fade ball -make fade like ns1 with faster blink and constant drain on energy instead of high initial cost so good fades need to manage their energy by tapping blink
-make bhop slow fade down more like ns1 so they have to spend more energy on blink to get around fast
problem solved
Not sure if serious, you are describing what already happened to the fade.
I'm not that familiar with some older versions, but perfect bhop let fades have too much energy so making bhop gradually slow fades more should help. The addition of rfk and maybe upping the res cost should help stop the fade ball from being OP. Keeping the high energy cost of swipe might discourage multiple fades because of the lack of structure damage or making gorges more mobile and other incentives to make teams have perm gorges instead of 3-4 fades would help too. We already know what makes fades fun and skilled to play, they shouldn't be made shittier and less fun just to balance it. The values should be tweaked for that play style more instead of dismissing it.
New tweaks should be looked at too. The fade currently jumps ridiculously high to the point where it is a detriment to hit marines if you're not crouching. By making bhop slow the fades more and lowering jump height to make them jump more often would cause increased blink energy use and make fades less clumsy in combat while introducing more energy management skill.
-add rfk to get rid of fade ball -make fade like ns1 with faster blink and constant drain on energy instead of high initial cost so good fades need to manage their energy by tapping blink
-make bhop slow fade down more like ns1 so they have to spend more energy on blink to get around fast
problem solved
Not sure if serious, you are describing what already happened to the fade.
I'm not that familiar with some older versions, but perfect bhop let fades have too much energy so making bhop gradually slow fades more should help. The addition of rfk and maybe upping the res cost should help stop the fade ball from being OP. Keeping the high energy cost of swipe might discourage multiple fades because of the lack of structure damage or making gorges more mobile and other incentives to make teams have perm gorges instead of 3-4 fades would help too. We already know what makes fades fun and skilled to play, they shouldn't be made shittier and less fun just to balance it. The values should be tweaked for that play style more instead of dismissing it.
New tweaks should be looked at too. The fade currently jumps ridiculously high to the point where it is a detriment to hit marines if you're not crouching. By making bhop slow the fades more and lowering jump height to make them jump more often would cause increased blink energy use and make fades less clumsy in combat while introducing more energy management skill.
But your speed will drop off quite fast now compared to b250, forcing you to tap blink more often and thus use more energy. You want to slow it down even more?
-add rfk to get rid of fade ball -make fade like ns1 with faster blink and constant drain on energy instead of high initial cost so good fades need to manage their energy by tapping blink
-make bhop slow fade down more like ns1 so they have to spend more energy on blink to get around fast
problem solved
Not sure if serious, you are describing what already happened to the fade.
I'm not that familiar with some older versions, but perfect bhop let fades have too much energy so making bhop gradually slow fades more should help. The addition of rfk and maybe upping the res cost should help stop the fade ball from being OP. Keeping the high energy cost of swipe might discourage multiple fades because of the lack of structure damage or making gorges more mobile and other incentives to make teams have perm gorges instead of 3-4 fades would help too. We already know what makes fades fun and skilled to play, they shouldn't be made shittier and less fun just to balance it. The values should be tweaked for that play style more instead of dismissing it.
New tweaks should be looked at too. The fade currently jumps ridiculously high to the point where it is a detriment to hit marines if you're not crouching. By making bhop slow the fades more and lowering jump height to make them jump more often would cause increased blink energy use and make fades less clumsy in combat while introducing more energy management skill.
But your speed will drop off quite fast now compared to b250, forcing you to tap blink more often and thus use more energy. You want to slow it down even more?
Yes, as it stands the fade loses almost no speed while bunnyhopping if you compare it to ns1, which was a lot faster if the player could manage their energy. The speed of the fade is free in ns2 because it takes no effort to maintain its momentum. Instead, let air speed be fast from a quicker, expensive blink at a constant cost that needs to keep being used after a jump or two to maintain that speed. What this will do is make skilled fades faster if they have good energy management at the risk of easily running out of adrenaline if you push youself, but remove the problems of excess energy.
What I'm getting at is the changes outlined in the OP really just make the fade bad overall instead of making it harder to do well. Let players be faster fades at a risk and the bhop, energy, and structure damage nerfs can remain in a modified form as long as they're implemented right.
Yes, as it stands the fade loses almost no speed while bunnyhopping if you compare it to ns1, which was a lot faster if the player could manage their energy. The speed of the fade is free in ns2 because it takes no effort to maintain its momentum.
You can't even maintain the normal "while-blinking" speed. You lose a significant part of your momentum for sure over 2-3 jumps. But keeping that slow speed effectively does not require effort...
And of course NS1 movement was faster for fades...
You can't even maintain the normal "while-blinking" speed. You lose a significant part of your momentum for sure over 2-3 jumps. But keeping that slow speed effectively does not require effort...
And of course NS1 movement was faster for fades...
If you tap blink it takes 10 jumps to gradually return to walking speed, not 2-3. I don't see what you're getting at. My comment about NS1 fades being faster was to point to the fact that they actually did lose all of their speed after hitting the floor a couple of times, but still managed with an expensive blink because there wasn't a huge initial cost for it and it accelerated fast.
Another huge problem with the fade is there is no max blink speed. Repeatedly tapping blink or holding it down gives you an additive increase in speed. This lets adrenaline fades spam blink to get the same speeds as celerity fades and still have increased energy regen to maintain celerity speed, use vortex, and attack structures. The designated speed upgrade with less of a safety net really doesn't offer much of a benefit compared to the upgrade that just lets players brute force the gimped blink cost.
Go back two weeks ago. The fade could hop laps around the map and still maintain max speed. The new fade revision was a much needed change. Deceleration per jump is very evident right now. Blink cost was also increased. I am still adapting to the new fade and have a little bit to go. I died once or twice due to energy :P Never the less, I feel it is in a much better place than the skill-less 250 fade.
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited September 2013
Also still adapting, but I still think strafing between blinks should help you maintain speed slightly better.
Not sure about the structure damage, on one side its pretty much the worst to actually try and take down structures - but I really enjoy skulks and lerks (+ onos later on) being required to keep the marine res down. The fades really need to be singling out those recappers now, going for group fights is so risky without support from other life forms.
FrozenNew York, NYJoin Date: 2010-07-02Member: 72228Members, Constellation
I think the fade movement is in a much better spot ^^
I do think it constitutes a light health or armor buff, or a decrease in swipes energy cost. It doesn't make sense to use your last energy to blink and be unable to swipe, you're already going to brick after that swipe, but you shouldn't be unable to risk that
We've found that not fading till umbra is out is the only way to fight & clear phase gates. Till that point... you are better off just staying skulk and keeping their RT's down to a minimum.
It takes time to adapt to a new gameplay. Just try a bit more before making your mind.
There's no doubt it's easier to take down a fade as marine now. I hope you guys are aware that these changes have been made because of threads in this forum talking about "zomg fadeplosion is way too much powning the ass of da marines" ?
I'm not 100% agreeing with the changes, I still need to see how my teammates in LegendarySnails are adapting to this new gameplay.
To my mind, the speed decrease is a good thing. When i saw this blink cost increased, I was like "hell ye bro, i love you uwe". Didn't you guys notice that a blinking fade's hitbox is erm.... weird to aim and hit ? I was so frustrated for not being able to kill noob adrenaline fades spamming blink everywhere.
Lowering its structure damage makes teams, in competition, think more about an alternative of a fadeplosion. You guys said it earlier in this thread : you can't take down a phase gate with only fades. Why not adding a bile bomb gorge pololol ?
So maybe, let's try to adapt, see a better configuration with our own strategies, lifeforms, tech tree use, etc... Instead of just whining and critisizing for nothing.
For example, didn't you guys see that lerk is back on track ? Why not having 2 fast lerks, 1 gorge at start, only 1 fade and the other one onosing ? Keep some skulks with the fade, to be sure you can kill shotgun marines. The others go bite resource towers. Now we are getting rid of the fadeplosion, there are tons of configurations that can be made, and are viable @ 100% ! Be creative, think with your brain, for once.
There was other ways to avoid the fadeplosion... UWE decided to try this way. Let's give a shot. In two weeks, when you really adapted, just give your opinion again.
I still didn't have time to watch competitive games, nor did I play any (since my team dropped a few days before Season 3 started, and I have real life stuff to deal with). From what I've heard, Fades are no longer overused now. No fadeballs, yay!
However, the Fade feels like a waste of p.res now. Yes, yes, adapt, learn, give it some time, all that. I said that a lot back when 250 was released. The fact is, I'm having a lot more fun as a Skulk or Lerk than a Fade, no matter how much I practice/learn/adapt/whatever. I feel useful to the team as a Skulk or Lerk. I feel useless as a Fade. If I have 40 p.res now, I'm usually divided between the three lifeforms and more often than not I go Lerk or stay Skulk, but not because the team doesn't need a Fade; I simply don't like playing Fade anymore because of how worthless I become to the team. I would expect more of a 40 p.res lifeform.
The fact that you have to be a phenomenal Fade to be somewhat useful to the team tells me there's something wrong with it now, especially if you compare that to any other lifeform. I want to be convinced otherwise. But if it really requires that much skill to become useful, then obviously it needs work.
The only thing that leads to success as a fade is HP management.
It's the same with every lifeforms, in my opinion. Fades movements are slow, indeed, but you just have to take it into account. You don't blink straight into marines anymore. This is how a fade should be played.
Moreover, do you think you don't need to play phenomenal Lerk to be useful ?! What the hell dude, I think Lerk is the hardest lifeform in the game. If you can't make incredible movements, you are doomed. Of course, it seems like you have the habit of playing againt new players, on public games... Fade = bigger than lerk = easier to hit.
Really, this new fade is calling for teamplay and not for pub stomp killing machines.
Unfortunately I haven't been able to play competitively recently, so yeah, most of my opinions here are based on pub games. Take them with a grain of salt.
Comments
My death being so paramount now helps too, knowing that I cant get an egg unless weve already won to some degree of certainty
Proposed solutions,
1. Restore maintaining speed from jumping (maybe only for the first 6 jumps or something instead of indefinitely, I don't care), this is the most preferable for me, this means you might actually have energy when you show up at an engagement.
2. Halve the initial cost of blink, it seriously rapes your small energy pool and leaves you with either no energy to swipe or no energy to escape (mostly because you showed up with no energy since you spammed blink to arrive on time because you no longer maintain speed jumping).
3. Some small hp buff, don't really like this one, but at least you might live long enough to get energy back to survive.
4. Damage buff, maybe try 81 damage again to get the 2 swipe a0, 3 swipe a2 again, instead of a2 being a 4 swipe kill block.
5. Increase the speed of blink again (don't change the animation back), it's so easy to see fades coming at you now and to line up your shot.
6. Should do this in addition to one of the above but, increase damage to structures again, maybe not the same as before, but a hell of a lot more than 37...
In terms of doing things scientifically, this is atrocious.
Nerfing the fade but making lerks totally OP against everything due to 3000% speed increase for bites... a bit weird.
It's quite a logical decision actually. Everyone knew these big fade balls were the cause of most balance issues. Everyone knew it was too easy to get around the map with zero energy management. So, they decided to nerf the fade to some extent, but buff the other higher lifeforms, to make them more viable choices. You can argue against the specifics of the nerfs and buffs, but it's not a weird decision at all.
And it's still incredibly risky for a lerk to go into melee combat against a decent marine. The only thing that's different is that it's not as easy for a commander to keep a marine alive with medpack spam now. So I'd say the lerk got buffed against lone LMG marines and structures, but against shotguns or a group of marines, you still need to keep your distance.
I would have had no issues with blink just requiring more energy, but it wasn't just that
I dont disagree that fade needed a nerf but the current lerk bitespeed is ridicoulus, its simply too quick.
Fixing #1 not only fixes others on the list, and is easy, but also provides a lower skill floor. Double win.
Edit: Alternatively you can do #2 and it would preserve the energy management levels in combat somewhat, due to the # of times you use blink in combat, while allowing a lower skill floor for traveling.. which may be preferable.
Especially since newer players hold down blink for too long while traveling and the current model/values basically leads to the same energy consumption for travel, regardless of tapping blink or holding it, due to said initial energy cost.
Make A2 3 swipes, and rebalance or change nanoshield to structures only. Horrific atm for the Fade v Marine gameplay.
My only gripe with the new Fade is that Vortex is pretty much useless unless you get Stab as well. Using it to warp around in the combat location in combination with Swipe is too energy-intensive IMO, and "Vortex outside, go in for a single attack" is horribly inefficient with Swipe. My preferred solution would be Stab at Biomass 5-6, and Vortex at 8-9. This way, you could use Stab in mid-game already if you're sneaky, but not kamikaze style as with Vortex.
I really like Shadow Step on Biomass 2, btw
-make fade like ns1 with faster blink and constant drain on energy instead of high initial cost so good fades need to manage their energy by tapping blink
-make bhop slow fade down more like ns1 so they have to spend more energy on blink to get around fast
problem solved
Not sure if serious, you are describing what already happened to the fade.
New tweaks should be looked at too. The fade currently jumps ridiculously high to the point where it is a detriment to hit marines if you're not crouching. By making bhop slow the fades more and lowering jump height to make them jump more often would cause increased blink energy use and make fades less clumsy in combat while introducing more energy management skill.
But your speed will drop off quite fast now compared to b250, forcing you to tap blink more often and thus use more energy. You want to slow it down even more?
What I'm getting at is the changes outlined in the OP really just make the fade bad overall instead of making it harder to do well. Let players be faster fades at a risk and the bhop, energy, and structure damage nerfs can remain in a modified form as long as they're implemented right.
You can't even maintain the normal "while-blinking" speed. You lose a significant part of your momentum for sure over 2-3 jumps. But keeping that slow speed effectively does not require effort...
And of course NS1 movement was faster for fades...
Another huge problem with the fade is there is no max blink speed. Repeatedly tapping blink or holding it down gives you an additive increase in speed. This lets adrenaline fades spam blink to get the same speeds as celerity fades and still have increased energy regen to maintain celerity speed, use vortex, and attack structures. The designated speed upgrade with less of a safety net really doesn't offer much of a benefit compared to the upgrade that just lets players brute force the gimped blink cost.
w2 shotguns owned every alien lifeform even if onos. sentry turret definitely OP in mid game.
Not sure about the structure damage, on one side its pretty much the worst to actually try and take down structures - but I really enjoy skulks and lerks (+ onos later on) being required to keep the marine res down. The fades really need to be singling out those recappers now, going for group fights is so risky without support from other life forms.
And yeah, nano is just wtf.
I do think it constitutes a light health or armor buff, or a decrease in swipes energy cost. It doesn't make sense to use your last energy to blink and be unable to swipe, you're already going to brick after that swipe, but you shouldn't be unable to risk that
It takes time to adapt to a new gameplay. Just try a bit more before making your mind.
There's no doubt it's easier to take down a fade as marine now. I hope you guys are aware that these changes have been made because of threads in this forum talking about "zomg fadeplosion is way too much powning the ass of da marines" ?
I'm not 100% agreeing with the changes, I still need to see how my teammates in LegendarySnails are adapting to this new gameplay.
To my mind, the speed decrease is a good thing. When i saw this blink cost increased, I was like "hell ye bro, i love you uwe". Didn't you guys notice that a blinking fade's hitbox is erm.... weird to aim and hit ? I was so frustrated for not being able to kill noob adrenaline fades spamming blink everywhere.
Lowering its structure damage makes teams, in competition, think more about an alternative of a fadeplosion. You guys said it earlier in this thread : you can't take down a phase gate with only fades. Why not adding a bile bomb gorge pololol ?
So maybe, let's try to adapt, see a better configuration with our own strategies, lifeforms, tech tree use, etc... Instead of just whining and critisizing for nothing.
For example, didn't you guys see that lerk is back on track ? Why not having 2 fast lerks, 1 gorge at start, only 1 fade and the other one onosing ? Keep some skulks with the fade, to be sure you can kill shotgun marines. The others go bite resource towers. Now we are getting rid of the fadeplosion, there are tons of configurations that can be made, and are viable @ 100% ! Be creative, think with your brain, for once.
There was other ways to avoid the fadeplosion... UWE decided to try this way. Let's give a shot. In two weeks, when you really adapted, just give your opinion again.
However, the Fade feels like a waste of p.res now. Yes, yes, adapt, learn, give it some time, all that. I said that a lot back when 250 was released. The fact is, I'm having a lot more fun as a Skulk or Lerk than a Fade, no matter how much I practice/learn/adapt/whatever. I feel useful to the team as a Skulk or Lerk. I feel useless as a Fade. If I have 40 p.res now, I'm usually divided between the three lifeforms and more often than not I go Lerk or stay Skulk, but not because the team doesn't need a Fade; I simply don't like playing Fade anymore because of how worthless I become to the team. I would expect more of a 40 p.res lifeform.
The fact that you have to be a phenomenal Fade to be somewhat useful to the team tells me there's something wrong with it now, especially if you compare that to any other lifeform. I want to be convinced otherwise. But if it really requires that much skill to become useful, then obviously it needs work.
It's the same with every lifeforms, in my opinion. Fades movements are slow, indeed, but you just have to take it into account. You don't blink straight into marines anymore. This is how a fade should be played.
Moreover, do you think you don't need to play phenomenal Lerk to be useful ?! What the hell dude, I think Lerk is the hardest lifeform in the game. If you can't make incredible movements, you are doomed. Of course, it seems like you have the habit of playing againt new players, on public games... Fade = bigger than lerk = easier to hit.
Really, this new fade is calling for teamplay and not for pub stomp killing machines.