I think this topic is trying to bandaid a different problem *cough* strafe jump. *cough*
Possibly but then id rather add a mechanic which enhances only certain aspects to balance than nerf something. I find the slower speed walking backwards as bad. If they were to do the same thing to jumping I feel it would hurt gameplay more than just balancing this way.
I actually dont have trouble biting a jumping marine generally, its at least a 50-50 fight in that case. im jumping too... but when you get the drop on someone standing there like a muppet and bite him fast as you can and he managed to jetpack up and shoot you with one shot of a shotgun .. sorry but that takes the piss.
It means that skulks lose more engagements mid game than they should.
1 hit kills are easy mode and remove the carefully crafted close combat of ns and the pretty interesting early game.
1v1 situations are supposed to be unbalanced. The side with better upgrades wins on even skill.
armor 0 marine vs skulk, skulk will win if he gets the free 1st para/bite.
armor 1 marine mostly wins vanilla skulk.
armor 1 vs 1 upgrade skulk is quite 50/50 depending on skulk upgrade.
When commander medpacks the situation is 2v1 for marine and they should have the advantage. The 1 hit kills would lessen great medpack/awareness play from commanders and make 1v1 situations more boring.
I actually dont have trouble biting a jumping marine generally, its at least a 50-50 fight in that case. im jumping too... but when you get the drop on someone standing there like a muppet and bite him fast as you can and he managed to jetpack up and shoot you with one shot of a shotgun .. sorry but that takes the piss.
It means that skulks lose more engagements mid game than they should.
Operative words here being "jetpack" and "shotgun". Any Commander worth his salt that has these already has some armor upgrades as well. I get where you are coming from with ambushes, but this screams of superior tech working as intended...
I actually dont have trouble biting a jumping marine generally, its at least a 50-50 fight in that case. im jumping too... but when you get the drop on someone standing there like a muppet and bite him fast as you can and he managed to jetpack up and shoot you with one shot of a shotgun .. sorry but that takes the piss.
It means that skulks lose more engagements mid game than they should.
Operative words here being "jetpack" and "shotgun". Any Commander worth his salt that has these already has some armor upgrades as well. I get where you are coming from with ambushes, but this screams of superior tech working as intended...
But then surely you need a damage boost to make encounters from an alien perspective fair. The bonus you get is speed, a carapace or sneaking as phantom / leap.
Speed helps close the gap between you and the marine, but doesnt help with the fact that he just one shot you.
Carapace does help with dmg but .. oh you can still get one shot.
Phantom helps you close the gap but .. oh he still floated off and 1 shot you ..
So what you should do is resort to sneaking ambushing etc but there is in my opinion not enough bonus to this to make it fair mid to end game .. hence this entire discussion.
I actually dont have trouble biting a jumping marine generally, its at least a 50-50 fight in that case. im jumping too... but when you get the drop on someone standing there like a muppet and bite him fast as you can and he managed to jetpack up and shoot you with one shot of a shotgun .. sorry but that takes the piss.
It means that skulks lose more engagements mid game than they should.
Operative words here being "jetpack" and "shotgun". Any Commander worth his salt that has these already has some armor upgrades as well. I get where you are coming from with ambushes, but this screams of superior tech working as intended...
But then surely you need a damage boost to make encounters from an alien perspective fair. The bonus you get is speed, a carapace or sneaking as phantom / leap.
Speed helps close the gap between you and the marine, but doesnt help with the fact that he just one shot you.
Carapace does help with dmg but .. oh you can still get one shot.
Phantom helps you close the gap but .. oh he still floated off and 1 shot you ..
So what you should do is resort to sneaking ambushing etc but there is in my opinion not enough bonus to this to make it fair mid to end game .. hence this entire discussion.
lol which is true. But if you lose your fade or lerk what you playing then ... skulk .. and can you then get any kills .. once they are all suited up with their 15res jetpacks.
Well, the skulk isn't supposed to be on par with mid-late game marine tech. Their value mid-late game is mostly in res harassment and assisting higher lifeforms in combat (cannon fodder). Anyway, the reward you get for a proper ambush is that you close distance and get the first bite in before the marine can react, as opposed to charging in head on. I don't think you should get to do extra damage as well.
Skulk crouching (going sneak mode i.e. shift) for atleast 10 seconds (icon appears next to the silent mode one) and his 1st bite (while still crouching) will do double damage..
Seems like a workable and possibly nice change.
Would make:
- shade hive a good start tech again for aliens
-all the people missing focus happy (happier)
lol which is true. But if you lose your fade or lerk what you playing then ... skulk .. and can you then get any kills .. once they are all suited up with their 15res jetpacks.
And if the jetpacker marine dies, he loses his jetpack and Shotgun, which are 35 res!
And: why should a single 0 res skulk stand a chance against a 35 res jetpack marine? (And, at least with leap, a decent skulk has a real chance killing the marine! (If you can't: use a different battle ground! don't fight jetpackers in high rooms, lure them in low corridors!)
Silly aliens, after you die as a fade you go gorge! Your right skulk late game is underpowered, but gorge becomes more and more powerful as the game progresses (late game rines have more structures and more armor so bile splash becomes more effective). Fades kill people gorges kill bases...
That would be a big buff for the alien team that is already on an advantage.
Not to mention how frustrating it is for the marine to get insta-gibbed.
Ambushing marines gives you already the reward that you don't need to get into melee distance under fire.
You also get one bite free. That's more than enough reward just for hanging on a ceiling at the right time.
If you really want that kill, than you have to show some skill while battling with the marine.
I think this is fair for both teams and also a fun game mechanic.
At least more fun than: "Oh you didn't check that corner? Too bad. Free kill!"
Aliens definitely don't have the advantage... the marines are more OP right now than the aliens ever were.
Boost the Damage by 5 and you will still need 3 Bites for a W0 Marine, so you gain nothing. Increase it by 10 and you kill a Marine with 2 Bites. From 3 to 2 Bites, while the first bite is more or less free (as you ambush). This would be an extreme buff for the Skulk.
Umm 2 bites + parasite on a0 marines... para does 10 damage (it's not piercing, is it?) so isn't 5 extra damage per bite actually 2 bites anyway?
It's moot, you should always be making sure marines are parasited, so early game all marines are 2 bites + 0.67 bites per medpack.
Boost the Damage by 5 and you will still need 3 Bites for a W0 Marine, so you gain nothing. Increase it by 10 and you kill a Marine with 2 Bites. From 3 to 2 Bites, while the first bite is more or less free (as you ambush). This would be an extreme buff for the Skulk.
Umm 2 bites + parasite on a0 marines... para does 10 damage (it's not piercing, is it?) so isn't 5 extra damage per bite actually 2 bites anyway?
yep, you are right. +5 dmg/bite is enough to kill with 2 bites. doesn't change anything, tough
If you ambush someone from behind, you already have a huge bonus in compare to a attack from the front arc. There is simply no more bonus needed for doing so.
Besides that, late game is also a lot of having higher life forms. If you die as one of them you can support the higher life forms.
And your still very good for extractor damage. I think most people still play to much alone.
Yes skulk can be hard in later game but not impossible.
lol which is true. But if you lose your fade or lerk what you playing then ... skulk .. and can you then get any kills .. once they are all suited up with their 15res jetpacks.
And if the jetpacker marine dies, he loses his jetpack and Shotgun, which are 35 res!
And: why should a single 0 res skulk stand a chance against a 35 res jetpack marine? (And, at least with leap, a decent skulk has a real chance killing the marine! (If you can't: use a different battle ground! don't fight jetpackers in high rooms, lure them in low corridors!)
so marine base unit scales but aliens doesnt?
And pppl wonder why balance blows.
marines get damage upgrades for base unit and aliens dont? Its not asymmetry is bad game design.
this is not a new complaint but UWE seem to be ignoring it.
its also bs that aliens get instagibbed but marines NEVER do unless they fall into lave or out of bounds.
again its not asymmetry but bad design.....either remove from both sides or provide aliens atleast 1 instagib (devour would be good option),
late game skulk should not be forced to engage only with extractors....base marines are not relegated to only hitting harvesters.
both sides should be fun to play for whole game duration regardless of class....marines set up ths way....snd so should aliens
@hakenspit alien base unit (skulk) gets free cara/celerity/aura, leep, xeno and bio mass HP... so yes they scale.
Marines dont get insta-gibbed?? ever grinded a PG/IP... or ran around in a pack of angry dogs... Add in stomp where you completely immobilize the rine and you just turned insta-gib into torture-gibbing...
Late games skulks should not engage SG/JP or Exo (38-60res vs 0res)... but a base marine sure why not... If nothing else your fodder and as the rines are shooting you the fade is killing them or vise versa...
As fare as extractors... you should attack them. gorges are to slow and vulnerable to attack Forward RT's, fades do limited damage, Lerks do limited damage and end up perching waiting to get snipped, and onos get cornered... this leaves skulks, fast enough to get behind enemy lines with the most structure DPS of anything aside from bile, This is huge! taking 1+ marine out of the game to save/replace an RT and they lose res...
@hakenspit alien base unit (skulk) gets free cara/celerity/aura, leep, xeno and bio mass HP... so yes they scale.
Marines dont get insta-gibbed?? ever grinded a PG/IP... or ran around in a pack of angry dogs... Add in stomp where you completely immobilize the rine and you just turned insta-gib into torture-gibbing...
Late games skulks should not engage SG/JP or Exo (38-60res vs 0res)... but a base marine sure why not... If nothing else your fodder and as the rines are shooting you the fade is killing them or vise versa...
not comparable, leap is hive dependant...marine upgrades are not.
marines take more bites to kill as a skulk as game goes on...same is not true the other way.
scaling is not just hp...but damage delivered...aliens have nothing to increase damage done per attack as marines do.
what op is suggesting is an elegant solution that plays into the intended gameplay for skulks and rewards them accordingly.
marines get damage scalers without any skill/strat other than point and shoot.
@hakenspit alien base unit (skulk) gets free cara/celerity/aura, leep, xeno and bio mass HP... so yes they scale.
Marines dont get insta-gibbed?? ever grinded a PG/IP... or ran around in a pack of angry dogs... Add in stomp where you completely immobilize the rine and you just turned insta-gib into torture-gibbing...
Late games skulks should not engage SG/JP or Exo (38-60res vs 0res)... but a base marine sure why not... If nothing else your fodder and as the rines are shooting you the fade is killing them or vise versa...
not comparable, leap is hive dependant...marine upgrades are not.
marines take more bites to kill as a skulk as game goes on...same is not true the other way.
scaling is not just hp...but damage delivered...aliens have nothing to increase damage done per attack as marines do.
what op is suggesting is an elegant solution that plays into the intended gameplay for skulks and rewards them accordingly.
marines get damage scalers without any skill/strat other than point and shoot.
It doesn't make any sense to compare marines to skulks. The marine team plays as marines the entire game, unless they choose exos. The alien team is allowed to upgrade from skulks to significantly more powerful lifeforms that have more health and are capable of dealing higher amounts of damage. Marines scale through weapon and armor upgrades, aliens scale through higher lifeforms.
It doesn't make any sense to compare marines to skulks. The marine team plays as marines the entire game, unless they choose exos. The alien team is allowed to upgrade from skulks to significantly more powerful lifeforms that have more health and are capable of dealing higher amounts of damage. Marines scale through weapon and armor upgrades, aliens scale through higher lifeforms.
Ambushing is already a smart tactic, there's no need for magic multipliers. Putting an actual game mechanic emphasis on ambushes means that Skulks have to be balanced to be even weaker head-on.
@hakenspit alien base unit (skulk) gets free cara/celerity/aura, leep, xeno and bio mass HP... so yes they scale.
Marines dont get insta-gibbed?? ever grinded a PG/IP... or ran around in a pack of angry dogs... Add in stomp where you completely immobilize the rine and you just turned insta-gib into torture-gibbing...
Late games skulks should not engage SG/JP or Exo (38-60res vs 0res)... but a base marine sure why not... If nothing else your fodder and as the rines are shooting you the fade is killing them or vise versa...
jp's, sg, gl, ft are all alternatives to base marine without going exo.
not comparable, leap is hive dependant...marine upgrades are not.
marines take more bites to kill as a skulk as game goes on...same is not true the other way.
scaling is not just hp...but damage delivered...aliens have nothing to increase damage done per attack as marines do.
what op is suggesting is an elegant solution that plays into the intended gameplay for skulks and rewards them accordingly.
marines get damage scalers without any skill/strat other than point and shoot.
It doesn't make any sense to compare marines to skulks. The marine team plays as marines the entire game, unless they choose exos. The alien team is allowed to upgrade from skulks to significantly more powerful lifeforms that have more health and are capable of dealing higher amounts of damage. Marines scale through weapon and armor upgrades, aliens scale through higher lifeforms.
@hakenspit alien base unit (skulk) gets free cara/celerity/aura, leep, xeno and bio mass HP... so yes they scale.
Marines dont get insta-gibbed?? ever grinded a PG/IP... or ran around in a pack of angry dogs... Add in stomp where you completely immobilize the rine and you just turned insta-gib into torture-gibbing...
Late games skulks should not engage SG/JP or Exo (38-60res vs 0res)... but a base marine sure why not... If nothing else your fodder and as the rines are shooting you the fade is killing them or vise versa...
As fare as extractors... you should attack them. gorges are to slow and vulnerable to attack Forward RT's, fades do limited damage, Lerks do limited damage and end up perching waiting to get snipped, and onos get cornered... this leaves skulks, fast enough to get behind enemy lines with the most structure DPS of anything aside from bile, This is huge! taking 1+ marine out of the game to save/replace an RT and they lose res...
If thats the case then you should be able to get more res from doing support role as a skulk. The whole point is that once your a skulk with the whole marine team as jetpack/exo etc. You cant get res.
My opinion is that a skulk should still be able to ambush the walking jetpacker without him escaping. he shouldnt be on his own, he should be looking around not walking in safe in the knowledge he can just float away, 15 res as a marine is so easy to get. 15 res as a skulk at that point in the game is difficult sometimes
You end up not able to get any res which is rediculous, it means that mid-end game if you lose an onus or fade that you cant replace it. Where as marines can replace exos or jetpackers therefore getting an advantage.
Comments
Possibly but then id rather add a mechanic which enhances only certain aspects to balance than nerf something. I find the slower speed walking backwards as bad. If they were to do the same thing to jumping I feel it would hurt gameplay more than just balancing this way.
I actually dont have trouble biting a jumping marine generally, its at least a 50-50 fight in that case. im jumping too... but when you get the drop on someone standing there like a muppet and bite him fast as you can and he managed to jetpack up and shoot you with one shot of a shotgun .. sorry but that takes the piss.
It means that skulks lose more engagements mid game than they should.
1v1 situations are supposed to be unbalanced. The side with better upgrades wins on even skill.
armor 0 marine vs skulk, skulk will win if he gets the free 1st para/bite.
armor 1 marine mostly wins vanilla skulk.
armor 1 vs 1 upgrade skulk is quite 50/50 depending on skulk upgrade.
When commander medpacks the situation is 2v1 for marine and they should have the advantage. The 1 hit kills would lessen great medpack/awareness play from commanders and make 1v1 situations more boring.
Operative words here being "jetpack" and "shotgun". Any Commander worth his salt that has these already has some armor upgrades as well. I get where you are coming from with ambushes, but this screams of superior tech working as intended...
But then surely you need a damage boost to make encounters from an alien perspective fair. The bonus you get is speed, a carapace or sneaking as phantom / leap.
Speed helps close the gap between you and the marine, but doesnt help with the fact that he just one shot you.
Carapace does help with dmg but .. oh you can still get one shot.
Phantom helps you close the gap but .. oh he still floated off and 1 shot you ..
So what you should do is resort to sneaking ambushing etc but there is in my opinion not enough bonus to this to make it fair mid to end game .. hence this entire discussion.
That's why Darwin made Fades and Lerks...
This is what is wrong with jumping, it shouldn't be 50-50 in meele range. It certainly isn't 50-50 outside meele range.
But to be fair, before reinforced, it was something like 70-30 when ambushing and 45-55 when engaging over distance.
Marine strafejumping is another matter...
Seems like a workable and possibly nice change.
Would make:
- shade hive a good start tech again for aliens
-all the people missing focus happy (happier)
And if the jetpacker marine dies, he loses his jetpack and Shotgun, which are 35 res!
And: why should a single 0 res skulk stand a chance against a 35 res jetpack marine? (And, at least with leap, a decent skulk has a real chance killing the marine! (If you can't: use a different battle ground! don't fight jetpackers in high rooms, lure them in low corridors!)
Aliens definitely don't have the advantage... the marines are more OP right now than the aliens ever were.
Umm 2 bites + parasite on a0 marines... para does 10 damage (it's not piercing, is it?) so isn't 5 extra damage per bite actually 2 bites anyway?
It's moot, you should always be making sure marines are parasited, so early game all marines are 2 bites + 0.67 bites per medpack.
But no, I disagree with the OP, I'm afraid.
yep, you are right. +5 dmg/bite is enough to kill with 2 bites. doesn't change anything, tough
Besides that, late game is also a lot of having higher life forms. If you die as one of them you can support the higher life forms.
And your still very good for extractor damage. I think most people still play to much alone.
Yes skulk can be hard in later game but not impossible.
And pppl wonder why balance blows.
marines get damage upgrades for base unit and aliens dont? Its not asymmetry is bad game design.
this is not a new complaint but UWE seem to be ignoring it.
its also bs that aliens get instagibbed but marines NEVER do unless they fall into lave or out of bounds.
again its not asymmetry but bad design.....either remove from both sides or provide aliens atleast 1 instagib (devour would be good option),
late game skulk should not be forced to engage only with extractors....base marines are not relegated to only hitting harvesters.
both sides should be fun to play for whole game duration regardless of class....marines set up ths way....snd so should aliens
Marines dont get insta-gibbed?? ever grinded a PG/IP... or ran around in a pack of angry dogs... Add in stomp where you completely immobilize the rine and you just turned insta-gib into torture-gibbing...
Late games skulks should not engage SG/JP or Exo (38-60res vs 0res)... but a base marine sure why not... If nothing else your fodder and as the rines are shooting you the fade is killing them or vise versa...
As fare as extractors... you should attack them. gorges are to slow and vulnerable to attack Forward RT's, fades do limited damage, Lerks do limited damage and end up perching waiting to get snipped, and onos get cornered... this leaves skulks, fast enough to get behind enemy lines with the most structure DPS of anything aside from bile, This is huge! taking 1+ marine out of the game to save/replace an RT and they lose res...
not comparable, leap is hive dependant...marine upgrades are not.
marines take more bites to kill as a skulk as game goes on...same is not true the other way.
scaling is not just hp...but damage delivered...aliens have nothing to increase damage done per attack as marines do.
what op is suggesting is an elegant solution that plays into the intended gameplay for skulks and rewards them accordingly.
marines get damage scalers without any skill/strat other than point and shoot.
It doesn't make any sense to compare marines to skulks. The marine team plays as marines the entire game, unless they choose exos. The alien team is allowed to upgrade from skulks to significantly more powerful lifeforms that have more health and are capable of dealing higher amounts of damage. Marines scale through weapon and armor upgrades, aliens scale through higher lifeforms.
It doesn't make any sense to compare marines to skulks. The marine team plays as marines the entire game, unless they choose exos. The alien team is allowed to upgrade from skulks to significantly more powerful lifeforms that have more health and are capable of dealing higher amounts of damage. Marines scale through weapon and armor upgrades, aliens scale through higher lifeforms.
They don't even work in TF2, and that's a slow-assed game with excellent source engine net code.
?
If thats the case then you should be able to get more res from doing support role as a skulk. The whole point is that once your a skulk with the whole marine team as jetpack/exo etc. You cant get res.
My opinion is that a skulk should still be able to ambush the walking jetpacker without him escaping. he shouldnt be on his own, he should be looking around not walking in safe in the knowledge he can just float away, 15 res as a marine is so easy to get. 15 res as a skulk at that point in the game is difficult sometimes
You end up not able to get any res which is rediculous, it means that mid-end game if you lose an onus or fade that you cant replace it. Where as marines can replace exos or jetpackers therefore getting an advantage.
What?