Should a marine be able to win engagements without commander support ie medpacks?
I would like to see the introduction of heal over time medpacks OR 2-3 res medpacks. It would allow you to leave in a mobile marine, but would not be as medpack spammable.
Yes, absolutely. Medpacks are there to swing the odds in your favor but marines should come out on top in early game engagements (ignoring obvious ambushes, skill differences, etc.)
Let's say this wasn't the case and marines are supposed to lose. 3 marines go East Wing, 2 go Cafeteria and all the skulks and marines die. Marines are now behind because no marines are building RTs and any 1/2 finished buildings will die due to slow marine movement speed and fast skulk speed. Marines are supposed to have an advantage in straight equal fights. How big an advantage is the question.
What if marines couldn't reload while jumping? Makes skulk skill a matter of dodging the initial shooting then biting. The marine would have to choose between running and relaoading or trying to dodge. Would also make aim more important.
That's a good idea, but I don't see them doing anything like that. The strafe jump nonsense should've never happened, and was simply a bad decision to try and balance 'op skulks' which WERE NEVER OP IN THE RECENT PATCHES ANYWAY. They took skill to play well, just like marines, but when you did it paid off.
Now they've jacked around so much with basic mechanics that, mark my words, people are going to bail. It's not fun, and it's not getting even mentioned, much less addressed.
Sure, Aliens still win >60% of games, just go play on some pub servers for a few days and you'll see that even when all of the early game skulks die, as long as you have 1 competent gorge or otherwise hold on to at least a little of the map, Aliens will come back and win on a regular basis.
So the strafe jump has exposed a problem in the way of balance, but it's definitely not any kind of fix and it's sad to see such crap accepted in this fantastic game.
Just give us revolving rocket launchers, sniper rifles, and regenerating shields, and let's have arena play! Or maybe just change the game to marine vs. marine, no more alien balance problems!
Skulk is worthless against a bunny hopping marine that can aim. Even if the skulk gets the first strike and the marine is alone, the chances that the marine kills the skulk is very good. Meanwhile the hoppity hop that marines do looks like a ridiculouse kind of combat. It looks really bad! Fugly
I think maybe taking off the speed boost while leaving the jump itself wouldn't be too bad; go a ways to making the speed more equal so that tracking is again what matters, just like playing marine. As it is now, you have to get lucky with your tracking, because if you guess the wrong place to jump while chasing, the marine is long gone. Any average marine can kill you while you re-orient and try to regain speed.
The skulks job is either to ambush, or be able to evade fire while closing at high speed towards a marine. Once he closes the distance, it's tracking-vs-tracking, and the more even speed usually results in an ability to take less fire while landing bites. This speed disparity literally makes you feel like you're going in slow motion as the marines jump backwards farther than you jump forwards.
The best option in some cases is to bite and run away, hit and run, but the environment doesn't always work for this. Most decent marines can track a skulk simply jumping from the floor, even if going high speed with celerity. I'm talking lateral tracking, not incoming directly at them.
If the wall and ceiling run wasn't so slippery, where you fall off if you go over certain angles or uneven surfaces, I think more people would try and use it, but the speed loss can be critical at times when the only advantage the aliens have is their mobility.
Lots of butt hurt skulks in this thread ;P Marines finally have a way to win engagements without med spam and everyone cries OP/foul. Lucky they didn't play NS1, marines would of run circles around them
Lots of butt hurt skulks in this thread ;P Marines finally have a way to win engagements without med spam and everyone cries OP/foul. Lucky they didn't play NS1, marines would of run circles around them
You might be a dick, but for once, I agree.
We get it, you're pretending that everyone that disagree with you is worse than the game at you. Unfortunately that's not a valid argument and gets the conversation nowhere.
Lots of butt hurt skulks in this thread ;P Marines finally have a way to win engagements without med spam and everyone cries OP/foul. Lucky they didn't play NS1, marines would of run circles around them
Marines already had a way to win engagements without med spam... It was called aiming and having some skill.
For you to suggest that Marines needed med spam honestly makes you look like a "butt hurt Marine" who was tired of always losing to Skulks due to bad aim.
Oh but wait, according to you this isn't a balance issue, it's a L2P issue right? So the fact that Marines can jump away FASTER than a celerity Skulk can move just means everyone playing Skulk must suddenly suck at the game right?
So, according to your logic, when I play Skulk and have trouble killing Marines it's because I am "butt hurt" and suck at the game... Yet when I play Marine and decimate Skulks all day by strafe jumping and spraying, that means I'm "skilled" right?
I've always been horrible against strafejumping marines since NS1, but I don't have a problem with them in this build. Go figure. Yes I get killed by good marines quite regularly but that's not what a problem means. Do people not realize walljumping exists?
I guess if you just shift-walk or drop down behind a marine and bite them in the ankle they will be able to jump away. Yeah, don't do that.
Unless people fight against players that are near comp-level, it is not so obvious how broken this is. Good thing it is getting removed in the BT mod and it is a matter of time when it goes to normal balance.
What if marines couldn't reload while jumping? Makes skulk skill a matter of dodging the initial shooting then biting. The marine would have to choose between running and relaoading or trying to dodge. Would also make aim more important.
I don't think this is a good idea and have to disagree. Reason being, if you prevent marines from reloading during jump, you will have a lot of useless jetpackers....
Also it will add frustration to the game, this is delaying peoples effectiveness. I would rather see Skulk ground speed increased.
Strafe jumping may not need to go if the following tweak is added for aliens.
-Increase ground movement speed
-Why? This will allow an Alien to circle strafe the jumping target a little easier.
But with BH they'll get to top speed the easy way. That will change many things. It's 7 by default and ~10.5 with BH/WJ. Simply you get a boost from the basic speed. If you cross 11 you start to get to max speed (the leap sound).
For what you suggest let's say 8; i would be able to "glide" on the map. You also could "launch" a Skulk missile on the marine base and the game is over. Don't even talk about lag.
There are some different points of view on that topic...
... Coding / Developer:
You have something called "GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar()" within your code, that will return 0.4 on "Marine", this is not applied on strafe jumping backwards. This should be considered a bug in any case. And yes I know detecting this is a bit tricky, but doesn't change the fact that: if you code something that makes you move slower backwards, this should not be skipped by another part of your code without a real reason. This is more or less like: You ask for a password to join a server if you press "Button 1" but if you press "Button 2" you can join without.
By the way same is also true for JetPackers backward movement speed being equal to their forward movement speed. This is simply not working as expected.
And while looking this up, there is a coding error within "JetpackMarine.lua"
function JetpackMarine:GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar()
if not self:GetIsOnGround() then
return 1
end
return Player.GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar(self)
end
It has to be "Marine.GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar" and not "Player.GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar", or is it my lack of lua class handle understanding? :P
... Logic / Design:
Having the skulk movement and the movement of the other alien lifeforms, this feels "correct" from what you expect from "movies" and other games and stuff. Only little issue I see here is that some alien lifeforms have a backward movement of "1.0". People expect every lifeform no mater if from earth or alien planet to move slower backward then forward. So a factor of at least "0.9" would make the game more like what you expect it to be.
But the movement on marines is total broken from what you expect it in the real world or many other games and movies. A marine bunny hopping a floor downway is getting faster?!? Strafe Jumping at light speed? Jumping forward not being largest jump possible? (may give that hint to people doing the long jump sport in the real world ^^). Jetpacks forward and backward speed being equal? Endless sprint, and jumping without endurance? Shooting and reloading while jumping with good aim? With other words you total failed to provide a movement for marines that is "correct" to what you would expect.
... Gameplay / Balance:
I think the alien movement system is okay as it is and should not get big changes at all. Whats broken is the marine movement and this has to be altered. In no case it should be the case that a melee class as the skulk has slower movement then a ranged class like the marine. This is more or less a fundamental rule for not only NS2. This just shows that something is broken here.
The main problem here is that "aim / tracking" and "movement" scale on different levels. It seams that movement is much more easy to learn then hitting stuff with your gun that is moving good. So there will be always a balance issue between good vs good and bad vs bad players. You will always end up with good vs good players and marines will win more then 50% because aim > movement and on bad vs bad players aliens will win more then 50% because marines have no aim to kill. There is no other way!
A problem in the current system is that you evade a alien attack while moving backwards (on both jumping and jetpack). There is no penalty for evading, no real negative effect to your shooting and reloading. But I think there should be one. If you would evade with something like a "dive roll forward" you could not shoot at the same time at your target. If you would move slower when jumping backwards away from a skulk, you would be catch able to the skulk but you can remain firing at him at this time.
Don't get me wrong, it's okay if the marine has a way to escape / evade a skulk attack. It just has to be limited and has a negative effect on him as well. As a skulk I also have a limited amount of energy for leap, I can not spam it. I have to use it in the right moment. Same should be for sprint, jump and evade (strafe) jumps (or something like a dive roll forward) on marines. Limit them and let them stop shooting / reloading at the moment they evade. At that point where the marine stops tracking the skulk when the marine evades, the skulk has the option to switch target or keep on going, without the marine that evaded the skulk attack in first place is going to kill the skulk right in that moment.
But no matter what you do, please don't keep the movement system on marines any longer as it is now, it just feels so damn wrong, for both sides.
Just watching the Virtual Selection vs. Pathogen match, and obviously, the jumping madness grew to ridiculous proportions.
Skulks, fades, oni, wheeeee, I don't care, medpaks will keep me alive, and my budies will save me, screw your perfect ambush, screw your higher lifeforms, this is the universe of random crappy jumpiness.
It was okay before, why did they need to do this? Oh, why...
What exaggerates this ridiculous hopping is the overall marine movement speed. Most Skulks, when chasing a marine, can be completely ditched by said marine just turning around either mid-jump or even mid-run. The turnaround can be so tight and fast that there's no way most players can track it.
I spend more time spinning in a circle as a skulk trying to land bites on Jedi marines than I do anything else, and this is usually after a successful ambush with 1 or 2 bites landed before even receiving a shot. Just run and turn 180 degrees while sprinting, and that's sufficient to shake almost any skulk. Gameplay doesn't reward ambushes anymore, though, so it doesn't really matter, and hit-and-run isn't viable either. Most aliens get shot in the ass trying to retreat thanks to the stupid slow movement speed.
I personally can't stand the strafe-jump ancient game convention from older technology that refuses to die. In a game like NS where they try and make such an immersive, realistic environment, it does nothing but add an unnecessary arcade feel.
JetPackers backward movement speed being equal to their forward movement speed. This is simply not working as expected.
Why? I would imagine that they could move in any direction with equal speed. Try to run backwards, and you will be slow, sure - but if you're sitting on a bus, to give you a stupid example, there is no logical reason why you should be moving slower only because you're facing the wrong way. If you ask me, same goes with a jetpack.
And while looking this up, there is a coding error within "JetpackMarine.lua"
function JetpackMarine:GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar()
if not self:GetIsOnGround() then
return 1
end
return Player.GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar(self)
end
It has to be "Marine.GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar" and not "Player.GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar", or is it my lack of lua class handle understanding? :P
Well spotted, you're absolutely right. That said, it's a "stylistic" bug, as both classes will return 0.4 for that method.
What I would have done is route Marine:GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar() to the corresponding method in class Player (instead of hardcoding a value), and leave it at that.
... Logic / Design:
Having the skulk movement and the movement of the other alien lifeforms, this feels "correct" from what you expect from "movies" and other games and stuff. Only little issue I see here is that some alien lifeforms have a backward movement of "1.0". People expect every lifeform no mater if from earth or alien planet to move slower backward then forward. So a factor of at least "0.9" would make the game more like what you expect it to be.
I understand what you mean, and I agree - so long as we're talking about good ole "mechanical" movement: walking, running etc. If we're talking about shadowstepping, blinking or bellysliding, for example, it seems logical to me to allow equal speed of movement in all direction, like for jetpacks (besides, in one case you're sliding and in the other two you're basically teleporting).
Again, I agree with pretty much everything else you suggested, let me know what you think
@Canny_Messapian
A bus will drive slower if it is moving backwards then if it is moving forward or? Same is true for almost all vehicles and lifeforms on our planet. As this is more or less a part of the definition forward and backward. There are some vehicles close to jetpacks out there today and i think none is moving backwards in the same way its moving forward. I just don't think that escaping and fireing at the same time while moving backwards on skulks, lerk or what ever without a speed decrease is "correct". Not saying that this has to be a huge penalty, 10% or 20% should do it already.
No better don't do chain function calling, already have the feeling that they call far to many function each round, which is lowering overall performance. Which I have already noticed on another topic.
I still think moving backwards, no mater how you do it, should be at least a bit slower, even as a alien. That the trade of you pay for keeping your enemy within your view. However I don't see it as a big problem on jetpacks and alien movement, just wanted to note that because it is some how connected to the movement system.
@Vanesyra Helicopters, pitch the craft and you go.... Backwards forwards sideways... Tail rotor doesn't propel it turns, so aside from shape heli can go any direction(though going backwards would have you looking at the sky and might make it difficult)
My little idea: Reduce effectiveness of rine jump ability after taking bite/swipe damage (reduce acceleration and height of jumps). It would be fair balance. Ambushed rine would be tasty target, in other way skilled rine can still do pogo jumps untill take some damage. Sounds fair enough ? (sry for my bad english)
Just watching the Virtual Selection vs. Pathogen match, and obviously, the jumping madness grew to ridiculous proportions.
Skulks, fades, oni, wheeeee, I don't care, medpaks will keep me alive, and my budies will save me, screw your perfect ambush, screw your higher lifeforms, this is the universe of random crappy jumpiness.
It was okay before, why did they need to do this? Oh, why...
Pathogen still won all 4 games though (including their two alien games)...
P.S Why is this thread still open, everything that can be said has been said. Theres nothing left to add here.
@Nazo squeekie wheel gets the grease! So we keep complaining about bad mechanics until they get fixed. Don't wantthem to move on and think everything is good...
*cough* AV*cough*
This new strafe jumping is out of control. When you get a good player that knows how to do it well, they can jump circles around a skulk, which is absurd. It should be the other way around, considering the aliens have to dodge HITSCAN weapons! It's completely unrealistic and unbalanced. Now that more and more people are learning how to do it properly, it's really noticeable how badly balanced it is.
Comments
Alien res and marine res isnt worth the same.
Now they've jacked around so much with basic mechanics that, mark my words, people are going to bail. It's not fun, and it's not getting even mentioned, much less addressed.
Sure, Aliens still win >60% of games, just go play on some pub servers for a few days and you'll see that even when all of the early game skulks die, as long as you have 1 competent gorge or otherwise hold on to at least a little of the map, Aliens will come back and win on a regular basis.
So the strafe jump has exposed a problem in the way of balance, but it's definitely not any kind of fix and it's sad to see such crap accepted in this fantastic game.
Just give us revolving rocket launchers, sniper rifles, and regenerating shields, and let's have arena play! Or maybe just change the game to marine vs. marine, no more alien balance problems!
"- disabled extra speed from strafe jumps for marines"
There you have it, just hang on for b256 whenever the next balance patch is released.
The skulks job is either to ambush, or be able to evade fire while closing at high speed towards a marine. Once he closes the distance, it's tracking-vs-tracking, and the more even speed usually results in an ability to take less fire while landing bites. This speed disparity literally makes you feel like you're going in slow motion as the marines jump backwards farther than you jump forwards.
The best option in some cases is to bite and run away, hit and run, but the environment doesn't always work for this. Most decent marines can track a skulk simply jumping from the floor, even if going high speed with celerity. I'm talking lateral tracking, not incoming directly at them.
If the wall and ceiling run wasn't so slippery, where you fall off if you go over certain angles or uneven surfaces, I think more people would try and use it, but the speed loss can be critical at times when the only advantage the aliens have is their mobility.
You might be a dick, but for once, I agree.
We get it, you're pretending that everyone that disagree with you is worse than the game at you. Unfortunately that's not a valid argument and gets the conversation nowhere.
Marines already had a way to win engagements without med spam... It was called aiming and having some skill.
For you to suggest that Marines needed med spam honestly makes you look like a "butt hurt Marine" who was tired of always losing to Skulks due to bad aim.
Oh but wait, according to you this isn't a balance issue, it's a L2P issue right? So the fact that Marines can jump away FASTER than a celerity Skulk can move just means everyone playing Skulk must suddenly suck at the game right?
So, according to your logic, when I play Skulk and have trouble killing Marines it's because I am "butt hurt" and suck at the game... Yet when I play Marine and decimate Skulks all day by strafe jumping and spraying, that means I'm "skilled" right?
I guess if you just shift-walk or drop down behind a marine and bite them in the ankle they will be able to jump away. Yeah, don't do that.
-Increase ground movement speed
-Why? This will allow an Alien to circle strafe the jumping target a little easier.
I don't think this is a good idea and have to disagree. Reason being, if you prevent marines from reloading during jump, you will have a lot of useless jetpackers....
Also it will add frustration to the game, this is delaying peoples effectiveness. I would rather see Skulk ground speed increased.
But with BH they'll get to top speed the easy way. That will change many things. It's 7 by default and ~10.5 with BH/WJ. Simply you get a boost from the basic speed. If you cross 11 you start to get to max speed (the leap sound).
For what you suggest let's say 8; i would be able to "glide" on the map. You also could "launch" a Skulk missile on the marine base and the game is over. Don't even talk about lag.
Sorry.
Also.. my horse is faster than your ... man..
... Coding / Developer:
You have something called "GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar()" within your code, that will return 0.4 on "Marine", this is not applied on strafe jumping backwards. This should be considered a bug in any case. And yes I know detecting this is a bit tricky, but doesn't change the fact that: if you code something that makes you move slower backwards, this should not be skipped by another part of your code without a real reason. This is more or less like: You ask for a password to join a server if you press "Button 1" but if you press "Button 2" you can join without.
By the way same is also true for JetPackers backward movement speed being equal to their forward movement speed. This is simply not working as expected.
And while looking this up, there is a coding error within "JetpackMarine.lua"
function JetpackMarine:GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar() if not self:GetIsOnGround() then return 1 end return Player.GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar(self) endIt has to be "Marine.GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar" and not "Player.GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar", or is it my lack of lua class handle understanding? :P
... Logic / Design:
Having the skulk movement and the movement of the other alien lifeforms, this feels "correct" from what you expect from "movies" and other games and stuff. Only little issue I see here is that some alien lifeforms have a backward movement of "1.0". People expect every lifeform no mater if from earth or alien planet to move slower backward then forward. So a factor of at least "0.9" would make the game more like what you expect it to be.
But the movement on marines is total broken from what you expect it in the real world or many other games and movies. A marine bunny hopping a floor downway is getting faster?!? Strafe Jumping at light speed? Jumping forward not being largest jump possible? (may give that hint to people doing the long jump sport in the real world ^^). Jetpacks forward and backward speed being equal? Endless sprint, and jumping without endurance? Shooting and reloading while jumping with good aim? With other words you total failed to provide a movement for marines that is "correct" to what you would expect.
... Gameplay / Balance:
I think the alien movement system is okay as it is and should not get big changes at all. Whats broken is the marine movement and this has to be altered. In no case it should be the case that a melee class as the skulk has slower movement then a ranged class like the marine. This is more or less a fundamental rule for not only NS2. This just shows that something is broken here.
The main problem here is that "aim / tracking" and "movement" scale on different levels. It seams that movement is much more easy to learn then hitting stuff with your gun that is moving good. So there will be always a balance issue between good vs good and bad vs bad players. You will always end up with good vs good players and marines will win more then 50% because aim > movement and on bad vs bad players aliens will win more then 50% because marines have no aim to kill. There is no other way!
A problem in the current system is that you evade a alien attack while moving backwards (on both jumping and jetpack). There is no penalty for evading, no real negative effect to your shooting and reloading. But I think there should be one. If you would evade with something like a "dive roll forward" you could not shoot at the same time at your target. If you would move slower when jumping backwards away from a skulk, you would be catch able to the skulk but you can remain firing at him at this time.
Don't get me wrong, it's okay if the marine has a way to escape / evade a skulk attack. It just has to be limited and has a negative effect on him as well. As a skulk I also have a limited amount of energy for leap, I can not spam it. I have to use it in the right moment. Same should be for sprint, jump and evade (strafe) jumps (or something like a dive roll forward) on marines. Limit them and let them stop shooting / reloading at the moment they evade. At that point where the marine stops tracking the skulk when the marine evades, the skulk has the option to switch target or keep on going, without the marine that evaded the skulk attack in first place is going to kill the skulk right in that moment.
But no matter what you do, please don't keep the movement system on marines any longer as it is now, it just feels so damn wrong, for both sides.
Skulks, fades, oni, wheeeee, I don't care, medpaks will keep me alive, and my budies will save me, screw your perfect ambush, screw your higher lifeforms, this is the universe of random crappy jumpiness.
It was okay before, why did they need to do this? Oh, why...
I spend more time spinning in a circle as a skulk trying to land bites on Jedi marines than I do anything else, and this is usually after a successful ambush with 1 or 2 bites landed before even receiving a shot. Just run and turn 180 degrees while sprinting, and that's sufficient to shake almost any skulk. Gameplay doesn't reward ambushes anymore, though, so it doesn't really matter, and hit-and-run isn't viable either. Most aliens get shot in the ass trying to retreat thanks to the stupid slow movement speed.
I personally can't stand the strafe-jump ancient game convention from older technology that refuses to die. In a game like NS where they try and make such an immersive, realistic environment, it does nothing but add an unnecessary arcade feel.
Why? I would imagine that they could move in any direction with equal speed. Try to run backwards, and you will be slow, sure - but if you're sitting on a bus, to give you a stupid example, there is no logical reason why you should be moving slower only because you're facing the wrong way. If you ask me, same goes with a jetpack.
Well spotted, you're absolutely right. That said, it's a "stylistic" bug, as both classes will return 0.4 for that method.
What I would have done is route Marine:GetMaxBackwardSpeedScalar() to the corresponding method in class Player (instead of hardcoding a value), and leave it at that.
I understand what you mean, and I agree - so long as we're talking about good ole "mechanical" movement: walking, running etc. If we're talking about shadowstepping, blinking or bellysliding, for example, it seems logical to me to allow equal speed of movement in all direction, like for jetpacks (besides, in one case you're sliding and in the other two you're basically teleporting).
Again, I agree with pretty much everything else you suggested, let me know what you think
A bus will drive slower if it is moving backwards then if it is moving forward or?
No better don't do chain function calling, already have the feeling that they call far to many function each round, which is lowering overall performance. Which I have already noticed on another topic.
I still think moving backwards, no mater how you do it, should be at least a bit slower, even as a alien. That the trade of you pay for keeping your enemy within your view. However I don't see it as a big problem on jetpacks and alien movement, just wanted to note that because it is some how connected to the movement system.
Pathogen still won all 4 games though (including their two alien games)...
P.S Why is this thread still open, everything that can be said has been said. Theres nothing left to add here.
*cough* AV*cough*
And if you dont like it, there are plenty of good mods on the workshop
doesn't help that some servers disable vision mods, and vision mods still leave in clutter.