So the devs should do what the Marines can't? Marines working together can take down Fades no problem. If Fades start stacking up, it is because the Marines aren't working together to take them down. And Marines have a variety of tools available to do so, such as turrets, mines, grenades etc. The only times Fades wreck entire teams is when the entire team is awful (which is often the case on Rookie servers).
With that being said, it should be up to the server admins to impose limits (for Alien lifeforms and Marine weapons), especially on larger servers such as the 24 player ones. I believe some of the Combat servers impose limits.
If you're going to be obsessed with over powering the aliens, at least limit how many a team can have depending on the amount of players.
I've seen marine teams absolutely slaughtered by a team of fades in previous patches.
Fades have been nerfed a bit too hard with reinforced, and need some more love. The beta test changes are hardly gonna make the fadeball OP again. Their damage vs structures is still poor, and their higher energy consumption is still restricting their combat effectiveness. Not to mention they remain easier to track (since the blink "shroud" was removed) and slower in general. And don't forget fade eggs are only available on 3 hives. So losing one is still a bigger blow than it used to be.
Liking the new changes, seem to be addressing the correct problems that are related to both pub and competitive. However, I know I'm probably in the minority but one ability that seems to be breaking pub meta game right now is Xenocide.
As soon as aliens hit 3 hives for even just a few minutes, every skulk starts spamming Xeno and marines can't make an efficient push to the point where they have to suicide all of their marines/exos just to kill a hive which most likely won't work because...well Xeno.
I get that 3 hives should be bad for marines but what if marines lose a base because of a late beacon or not enough phase gate response? Aliens drop hive and gorges get it up within a minute. That minor mistake within a quick time = GG. What makes it more insulting is that it isn't the Onos or Fade or Lerk that stops these pushes - jetpack shotgun, GL, dual mini exos, etc to reclaim their 3rd tech point, it's simply the basic lifeform that prevents effective teamwork and coordinated attacks.
Xenocide is too good:
- No Pres or Tres cost past 2 hive
- Only requires 7 bio
- Very difficult to kill skulk before exploding
- Completely denies pushes to kill 3rd hive off
- Basic lifeform counters all tech of marines
- Requires zero skill to pull off big multi-kills
- Absolutely infuriating to play against
- Feel powerless to prevent it
My individual solutions:
- Make Xeno activation timer make skulk take 50 or 100% more damage for duration
- Slow down skulk to half speed during Xenocide charge
- Reduce splash radius
- Reduce splash damage
- Move up to biomass 9
- Costs 1 or 2 Pres to use
I'm convinced there's a bug with Zeno right now - There's nothing in the changelog but I've noticed it seems way, WAY more powerful now. Like, -kills you from A3 full hp/ap at a distance of 3 meters- powerful.
Seems like it's applying the point-blank damage value at any range where xeno hits?
Liking the new changes, seem to be addressing the correct problems that are related to both pub and competitive. However, I know I'm probably in the minority but one ability that seems to be breaking pub meta game right now is Xenocide.
As soon as aliens hit 3 hives for even just a few minutes, every skulk starts spamming Xeno and marines can't make an efficient push to the point where they have to suicide all of their marines/exos just to kill a hive which most likely won't work because...well Xeno.
I get that 3 hives should be bad for marines but what if marines lose a base because of a late beacon or not enough phase gate response? Aliens drop hive and gorges get it up within a minute. That minor mistake within a quick time = GG. What makes it more insulting is that it isn't the Onos or Fade or Lerk that stops these pushes - jetpack shotgun, GL, dual mini exos, etc to reclaim their 3rd tech point, it's simply the basic lifeform that prevents effective teamwork and coordinated attacks.
Xenocide is too good:
- No Pres or Tres cost past 2 hive
- Only requires 7 bio
- Very difficult to kill skulk before exploding
- Completely denies pushes to kill 3rd hive off
- Basic lifeform counters all tech of marines
- Requires zero skill to pull off big multi-kills
- Absolutely infuriating to play against
- Feel powerless to prevent it
My individual solutions:
- Make Xeno activation timer make skulk take 50 or 100% more damage for duration
- Slow down skulk to half speed during Xenocide charge
- Reduce splash radius
- Reduce splash damage
- Move up to biomass 9
- Costs 1 or 2 Pres to use
I agree.
Xeoncide has always been way too over kill (1 skulk can kill a group of marines) and is just the most annoying move in the game by far,
In recent builds a group of exos can be taken out by 3 skulks xeonciding where's in previous builds they hardly did any damage.
I don't now how anyone could argue that Sewlek is focused on over-powering the aliens, since he took over balance marines have become significantly stronger than they were before.
I don't now how anyone could argue that Sewlek is focused on over-powering the aliens, since he took over balance marines have become significantly stronger than they were before.
Marines were a lot stronger pre build 250.
One skulk very rarely took down 1 exo and the exo guns didn't over heat as fast as they do now.
Still need team of marines to take down an Onus which is how it should be, but should also require a small team of Aliens to take down an exo.
Marine Commander ability to drop exo's was removed in Reinforced as well so i would say Marines got nerfed quite a bit over the last couple of patches.
Only things that were improved was jetpack time, grenades for the most part crap and thus get spammed and just cause needless server stress.
I don't think that Xeno suddenly does more damage but the result of the last couple of patches is that the ability has been recognised by the playerbase as being INSANELY good and just ends marine pressure squads. Like a pseudo placebo effect, it just gives off illusion that it does more base damage. Could be wrong but therefore, you see it a lot more than before. It's like a new meta game strat used by a recognised pro in a game like SC2, it becomes viral and everybody starts using it and it's running rampant in pub servers now.
If others and preferably Sewlek realise it's effect on pub games right now and actually can see it for how OP it is for it's cost then we could see some nerfs to it. Luckily, this ability is never used in competitive play so the nerf is significantly more safe to pull off.
I wholeheartedly disagree that aliens should automatically win as soon as they reach 3 hives. If the marines let the 3rd hive up for awhile in the same way RTs are preserved then I can agree that aliens should have a significant advantage but that's not how Xeno works. The moment that 3rd hive is done, GG. Next game in most cases. It's just so incredibly frustrating to play against.
I don't now how anyone could argue that Sewlek is focused on over-powering the aliens, since he took over balance marines have become significantly stronger than they were before.
Marines were a lot stronger pre build 250.
One skulk very rarely took down 1 exo and the exo guns didn't over heat as fast as they do now.
Still need team of marines to take down an Onus which is how it should be, but should also require a small team of Aliens to take down an exo.
Marine Commander ability to drop exo's was removed in Reinforced as well so i would say Marines got nerfed quite a bit over the last couple of patches.
Only things that were improved was jetpack time, grenades for the most part crap and thus get spammed and just cause needless server stress.
What about the strafe jump, which has given marines a huge advantage over aliens in the early game?
How about the fact that Fades received a nerf to their damage, energy consumption, speed, and health?
I play mostly aliens side and I agree that xeno is too powerful as it is. If skulks would take more damage (maybe much more) when activating xeno, it would be balanced. There would be the urgency to focus fire skulks down, drawing fire away from higher lifeforms.
Lerk is strong early game but hardly scales towards the lategame.
Really? Spores make every PG rush an insta win when you manage to get in before marines arrive.
The Lerk is the best JP killer.
The support with umbra is huge.
And you can crowd control the marines by spiking important buildings.
A good Lerk is the bane of the marines. Even in the late game.
To the Xenocide-Discussion:
I'm not sure if it really is a problem yet. It can't insta-kill A3 marines. But if it turns out to be to powerful, it should be enough to put it 1 biomass higher.
Another way to make it less binary would be to calculate the damage by how much health the skulk has left. A full health Skulk exploding should be devastating. But if you nearly kill it before, it shouldn't do max damage.
Isn't Xenocide meant to be a Marine turtle breaker? If so it should be moved higher up I guess. I still rarely see it in pub games.
See dummy targets bit later in video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmBRGJd0xxs&t=6m40s
Xeno, is OP in 18-24 player servers, as it's power increases with server size. But then it's not balanced around the more popular game sizes so I guess this doesn't matter
But then I rarely see xeno on smaller servers since it is less potent...
Lerk is strong early game but hardly scales towards the lategame.
Really? Spores make every PG rush an insta win when you manage to get in before marines arrive.
The Lerk is the best JP killer.
The support with umbra is huge.
And you can crowd control the marines by spiking important buildings.
A good Lerk is the bane of the marines. Even in the late game.
A bunch of Lerks can just wreck rifle marines early game in direct combat. Shotguns don't help a lot either if the distance to the enemies is large enough and you can just spike them down so easily. They are ridiculously effective, as we got to experience during the last playtests with a bunch of very skilled players.
What I was saying in my post above is that Lerks profit the least of all lifeforms from Biomass and Carapace in terms of HP, while marines get more and more weapon upgrades in the lategame that the aliens need to keep up with.
It doesn't matter that the game is not balanced for larger playercounts and therefore should not be considered for balance because of the following:
- 18-24 playercounts are the most popular
- I assume barely anybody uses Xeno in lower count servers, the nerf only affects higher pop servers significantly
- The ability does not affect competitive balance
- A skulk vs the entire marine tech tree and the skulk wins. That's how it rolls atm...
- Xenocide is just seriously frustrating to play against, regardless if it's OP or not
- Slightly larger server cap is not an adequate excuse to completely disregard balance
- 24 player is not the complete clusterfuck that people make it out to be
Even something as technically complex as WoW arena there isn't a single ability that completely breaks the game. The same can be said for SC2, no one unit or strategy dominates in every league.
Xenocide is too strong, it's needs changing albeit not a radical change. Something as minor as biomass 9 would be nice, it would at least give time for marines to snipe a 3rd hive while it's upgrading biomass. That's what Xeno should be, the longer you let that hive live then you deserve to lose but as it is right now as soon as 3hive is up, xeno xeno xeno xeno xeno xeno and your push fails repeatedly. It's embarrassing to see such brainless play destroy marines that much.
I've never considered xeno to be OP, as I rarely see it used when the game isn't already "decided". Most of the time you can put your skulks to better use than suicide bombing anyway. Although, I never play on +20 player servers, I assume it's different there as most things are. In any case, I've always preferred xenocide to be more of an additional anti-structure/armor turtle-busting ability, like by having it do bile damage only, but doing more damage and having a wider range than bilebomb. But that's just me, some people prefer blowing up groups of marines on those rare occasions, for the lolz.
I'd like to be able to hold 'shift' to use strafe jump. This way I can use a normal horizontal jump with maximum height. Gives more variance in terms of marine movement patterns. I really don't think this will make things 'too complex'. It's similar to having to hold shift to sprint as a marine. Hold shift to walk as a skulk, etc...
I think it's great the game is updated constantly but something that seriously needs a nerf is the amount per ability that is changed every patch. You can't up and down something between 25% to 75% (generic example) and expect to find a good balance.
I think it's great the game is updated constantly but something that seriously needs a nerf is the amount per ability that is changed every patch. You can't up and down something between 25% to 75% (generic example) and expect to find a good balance.
Take it slower and make good, not drastic changes
Couldn't agree more. Fades were too powerful, and then, in a single patch, they received nerfs to their speed, energy consumption, structure damage, and health. Now they're too weak. There probably is a good balance out there with just a couple of those nerfs, there was no need to do them all at once
Xeno was always good, especially after balance patch, when spawning time decreased (that we the only change). But it never got researched.
Now that you have it in every match you get 3 hives, people finally realized how fun and powerful it is.
I'm usually on 'giving' end of xenocide, and I do feel it's kinda OP, but dammit it's fun! It does in fact drain eggs from your hives so quickly, if more than two skulks go xeno, you will run out of eggs in a minute.
I get that 3 hives should be bad for marines but what if marines lose a base because of a late beacon or not enough phase gate response? Aliens drop hive and gorges get it up within a minute.
Xenocide itself is not the problem, it should be very powerful since it requires 3 hives. Problem that i see is it is way too fast to get hive up with gorges, should take at least 2 min imo(almost twice the time it takes to grow now).
(A thought: Maybe make it so that it would take 3 minutes for hive to grow with drifter building it, 2 minutes with 2 gorges, with one gorge 2,5minutes. And with more than 2 gorges there would be no increase in growing speed( It would still take 2 minutes))
A thought: Maybe make it so that it would take 3 minutes for hive to grow with drifter building it, 2 minutes with 2 gorges, with one gorge 2,5minutes. And with more than 2 gorges there would be no increase in growing speed( It would still take 2 minutes)
Yep but the more gorges grow the hive the faster the hp limit should be reached, making the hive less vulnerable
(A thought: Maybe make it so that it would take 3 minutes for hive to grow with drifter building it, 2 minutes with 2 gorges, with one gorge 2,5minutes. And with more than 2 gorges there would be no increase in growing speed( It would still take 2 minutes))
If I recall correctly, sewlek stated that he don't want a players to hold mouse for x minutes straight doing absolutely nothing else. He tried to get rid of boring things.
I get that 3 hives should be bad for marines but what if marines lose a base because of a late beacon or not enough phase gate response? Aliens drop hive and gorges get it up within a minute.
Xenocide itself is not the problem, it should be very powerful since it requires 3 hives. Problem that i see is it is way too fast to get hive up with gorges, should take at least 2 min imo(almost twice the time it takes to grow now).
(A thought: Maybe make it so that it would take 3 minutes for hive to grow with drifter building it, 2 minutes with 2 gorges, with one gorge 2,5minutes. And with more than 2 gorges there would be no increase in growing speed( It would still take 2 minutes))
Yeah this is my point. It's not the ability itself, it should be a game ender but it comes too fast after the 3rd hive is done that it becomes extremely potent extremely fast. Biomass to 9 would be preferable tbh as it gives marines a little bit more time to get a push coordinated to snipe that hive. The game simply ends once that 3rd hive is done and if the alien team is any good, you have a drifter and a gorge or multiple gorges power building it because they know how brutal it is once it's done.
Xenocide is fun and it should be an ability that forces a concede but not in it's current implementation. Stomp and Contaminate come at biomass 9, why not Xeno? Considering how much more powerful it gets on 18+ servers.
An analogy to relate to Xeno, not perfect but to clarify. In Starcraft, you don't instantly lose the game once your opponent is up 1 base when Nexus/Hatch/CC is done, it takes time to develop an economy/army that setting up an additional base loses you a lot of resources at that for the next few minutes but it pays off eventually and makes closing out the game easier later on but not right now. This isn't the case with Xenocide, as soon as that 3rd base is up, GG since most teams will have skulk+6biomass at that point. Maybe it's my RTS mindset but I see this sort of gameplay design and think, wtf?
I swear xenocide has some bug if you do fatal dmg in the last 0.5 seconds it doesn't matter and they just blow up, I'd like to see xenocide halve skulks HP or slowly reduce skulk HP as a % so people actually had to time/position the xeno a little bit better.
Fades are also fucking terrible right now for pub play, great if you like staring at walls for 1:30 mins for :30 of combat, horrible for anything else. I can only imagine what most Halloween sales players are like:
So you have this thing that flies right, and it costs energy to fly, and it can kinda teleport to a small distance, that costs energy too, it attacks at melee range, which uses energy ofc, so you use energy to move and attack at the same time oh golly lets attack something swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe...CANT FLY SON CANT ATTACK FADES STUCK OMG OMG BANG BANG BURLGGGRHGHG
All Chat (Pro MLG4u#DIOL):LOL walker fade
That or you literally camp corners on hallways and spend 3/4 of your time waiting for the energy bar to re-max before engaging a lone marine x 50, I'm not an expert on game design but nerfing movement in any game I've played has always felt shit so nerfing an entire alien life form around some drop and teleport ability that's unlocked at biomass "never seen in public when you need it" sounds even worse.
In fact playing anything that requires X for all its abilities including attacks, but attacking 4-6 times will cause you to run out of X is just dildos.
Comments
I've seen marine teams absolutely slaughtered by a team of fades in previous patches.
With that being said, it should be up to the server admins to impose limits (for Alien lifeforms and Marine weapons), especially on larger servers such as the 24 player ones. I believe some of the Combat servers impose limits.
Fades have been nerfed a bit too hard with reinforced, and need some more love. The beta test changes are hardly gonna make the fadeball OP again. Their damage vs structures is still poor, and their higher energy consumption is still restricting their combat effectiveness. Not to mention they remain easier to track (since the blink "shroud" was removed) and slower in general. And don't forget fade eggs are only available on 3 hives. So losing one is still a bigger blow than it used to be.
Nobody is obsessed with overpowering aliens.
As soon as aliens hit 3 hives for even just a few minutes, every skulk starts spamming Xeno and marines can't make an efficient push to the point where they have to suicide all of their marines/exos just to kill a hive which most likely won't work because...well Xeno.
I get that 3 hives should be bad for marines but what if marines lose a base because of a late beacon or not enough phase gate response? Aliens drop hive and gorges get it up within a minute. That minor mistake within a quick time = GG. What makes it more insulting is that it isn't the Onos or Fade or Lerk that stops these pushes - jetpack shotgun, GL, dual mini exos, etc to reclaim their 3rd tech point, it's simply the basic lifeform that prevents effective teamwork and coordinated attacks.
Xenocide is too good:
- No Pres or Tres cost past 2 hive
- Only requires 7 bio
- Very difficult to kill skulk before exploding
- Completely denies pushes to kill 3rd hive off
- Basic lifeform counters all tech of marines
- Requires zero skill to pull off big multi-kills
- Absolutely infuriating to play against
- Feel powerless to prevent it
My individual solutions:
- Make Xeno activation timer make skulk take 50 or 100% more damage for duration
- Slow down skulk to half speed during Xenocide charge
- Reduce splash radius
- Reduce splash damage
- Move up to biomass 9
- Costs 1 or 2 Pres to use
Seems like it's applying the point-blank damage value at any range where xeno hits?
Agreed, they perfected the fade in Reinforced, don't know why they are back tracking now.
I agree.
Xeoncide has always been way too over kill (1 skulk can kill a group of marines) and is just the most annoying move in the game by far,
In recent builds a group of exos can be taken out by 3 skulks xeonciding where's in previous builds they hardly did any damage.
Marines were a lot stronger pre build 250.
One skulk very rarely took down 1 exo and the exo guns didn't over heat as fast as they do now.
Still need team of marines to take down an Onus which is how it should be, but should also require a small team of Aliens to take down an exo.
Marine Commander ability to drop exo's was removed in Reinforced as well so i would say Marines got nerfed quite a bit over the last couple of patches.
Only things that were improved was jetpack time, grenades for the most part crap and thus get spammed and just cause needless server stress.
If others and preferably Sewlek realise it's effect on pub games right now and actually can see it for how OP it is for it's cost then we could see some nerfs to it. Luckily, this ability is never used in competitive play so the nerf is significantly more safe to pull off.
I wholeheartedly disagree that aliens should automatically win as soon as they reach 3 hives. If the marines let the 3rd hive up for awhile in the same way RTs are preserved then I can agree that aliens should have a significant advantage but that's not how Xeno works. The moment that 3rd hive is done, GG. Next game in most cases. It's just so incredibly frustrating to play against.
Please evaluate it.
What about the strafe jump, which has given marines a huge advantage over aliens in the early game?
How about the fact that Fades received a nerf to their damage, energy consumption, speed, and health?
Really? Spores make every PG rush an insta win when you manage to get in before marines arrive.
The Lerk is the best JP killer.
The support with umbra is huge.
And you can crowd control the marines by spiking important buildings.
A good Lerk is the bane of the marines. Even in the late game.
To the Xenocide-Discussion:
I'm not sure if it really is a problem yet. It can't insta-kill A3 marines. But if it turns out to be to powerful, it should be enough to put it 1 biomass higher.
Another way to make it less binary would be to calculate the damage by how much health the skulk has left. A full health Skulk exploding should be devastating. But if you nearly kill it before, it shouldn't do max damage.
See dummy targets bit later in video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmBRGJd0xxs&t=6m40s
But then I rarely see xeno on smaller servers since it is less potent...
A bunch of Lerks can just wreck rifle marines early game in direct combat. Shotguns don't help a lot either if the distance to the enemies is large enough and you can just spike them down so easily. They are ridiculously effective, as we got to experience during the last playtests with a bunch of very skilled players.
What I was saying in my post above is that Lerks profit the least of all lifeforms from Biomass and Carapace in terms of HP, while marines get more and more weapon upgrades in the lategame that the aliens need to keep up with.
It doesn't matter that the game is not balanced for larger playercounts and therefore should not be considered for balance because of the following:
- 18-24 playercounts are the most popular
- I assume barely anybody uses Xeno in lower count servers, the nerf only affects higher pop servers significantly
- The ability does not affect competitive balance
- A skulk vs the entire marine tech tree and the skulk wins. That's how it rolls atm...
- Xenocide is just seriously frustrating to play against, regardless if it's OP or not
- Slightly larger server cap is not an adequate excuse to completely disregard balance
- 24 player is not the complete clusterfuck that people make it out to be
Even something as technically complex as WoW arena there isn't a single ability that completely breaks the game. The same can be said for SC2, no one unit or strategy dominates in every league.
Xenocide is too strong, it's needs changing albeit not a radical change. Something as minor as biomass 9 would be nice, it would at least give time for marines to snipe a 3rd hive while it's upgrading biomass. That's what Xeno should be, the longer you let that hive live then you deserve to lose but as it is right now as soon as 3hive is up, xeno xeno xeno xeno xeno xeno and your push fails repeatedly. It's embarrassing to see such brainless play destroy marines that much.
Take it slower and make good, not drastic changes
Couldn't agree more. Fades were too powerful, and then, in a single patch, they received nerfs to their speed, energy consumption, structure damage, and health. Now they're too weak. There probably is a good balance out there with just a couple of those nerfs, there was no need to do them all at once
Now that you have it in every match you get 3 hives, people finally realized how fun and powerful it is.
I'm usually on 'giving' end of xenocide, and I do feel it's kinda OP, but dammit it's fun! It does in fact drain eggs from your hives so quickly, if more than two skulks go xeno, you will run out of eggs in a minute.
But damn, I miss focus.
Xenocide itself is not the problem, it should be very powerful since it requires 3 hives. Problem that i see is it is way too fast to get hive up with gorges, should take at least 2 min imo(almost twice the time it takes to grow now).
(A thought: Maybe make it so that it would take 3 minutes for hive to grow with drifter building it, 2 minutes with 2 gorges, with one gorge 2,5minutes. And with more than 2 gorges there would be no increase in growing speed( It would still take 2 minutes))
Yep but the more gorges grow the hive the faster the hp limit should be reached, making the hive less vulnerable
If I recall correctly, sewlek stated that he don't want a players to hold mouse for x minutes straight doing absolutely nothing else. He tried to get rid of boring things.
Yeah this is my point. It's not the ability itself, it should be a game ender but it comes too fast after the 3rd hive is done that it becomes extremely potent extremely fast. Biomass to 9 would be preferable tbh as it gives marines a little bit more time to get a push coordinated to snipe that hive. The game simply ends once that 3rd hive is done and if the alien team is any good, you have a drifter and a gorge or multiple gorges power building it because they know how brutal it is once it's done.
Xenocide is fun and it should be an ability that forces a concede but not in it's current implementation. Stomp and Contaminate come at biomass 9, why not Xeno? Considering how much more powerful it gets on 18+ servers.
An analogy to relate to Xeno, not perfect but to clarify. In Starcraft, you don't instantly lose the game once your opponent is up 1 base when Nexus/Hatch/CC is done, it takes time to develop an economy/army that setting up an additional base loses you a lot of resources at that for the next few minutes but it pays off eventually and makes closing out the game easier later on but not right now. This isn't the case with Xenocide, as soon as that 3rd base is up, GG since most teams will have skulk+6biomass at that point. Maybe it's my RTS mindset but I see this sort of gameplay design and think, wtf?
Fades are also fucking terrible right now for pub play, great if you like staring at walls for 1:30 mins for :30 of combat, horrible for anything else. I can only imagine what most Halloween sales players are like:
So you have this thing that flies right, and it costs energy to fly, and it can kinda teleport to a small distance, that costs energy too, it attacks at melee range, which uses energy ofc, so you use energy to move and attack at the same time oh golly lets attack something swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe...CANT FLY SON CANT ATTACK FADES STUCK OMG OMG BANG BANG BURLGGGRHGHG
All Chat (Pro MLG4u#DIOL):LOL walker fade
That or you literally camp corners on hallways and spend 3/4 of your time waiting for the energy bar to re-max before engaging a lone marine x 50, I'm not an expert on game design but nerfing movement in any game I've played has always felt shit so nerfing an entire alien life form around some drop and teleport ability that's unlocked at biomass "never seen in public when you need it" sounds even worse.
In fact playing anything that requires X for all its abilities including attacks, but attacking 4-6 times will cause you to run out of X is just dildos.
tl:dr: this is how I feel about fading in public games.