Game is broke again. Marines losing NON STOP
MrChoke
Join Date: 2012-12-13 Member: 174990Members, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-12-13 Member: 174990Members, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Shadow
Yup, its me again. Its been a while. NS2 has been good for a while too which is why I had shut up. I broke out my trust stats pad again. Marines have gotten WIPED OUT 25 out of the last 27 games since I decided I had had enough. They lose both short games and long ones. They game is quite simply broke. This seems to happen after a period of time. I cannot pinpoint to any recent update that broke the game. I think over time people learn how to play aliens and that is it. When will UWE realize this and fix this game in a way that when you do not have a noob alien team, its not an automatic win? I may have shelf the game again.
Comments
Which tech point did each team start in each game?
How many greens/new players on each team, keeping in mind that the game has been 75% off for over a week now?
What were the quality of the commanders? Were there commanders at all when each game started?
Straight win/loss statistics means nothing without context.
- Coms have no clue what they are doing (wrong buildorder, no med and ammo support,..)
- Marines have no aim (if you can have 40-5 as a skulk then these marines have ZERO aim)
- Zero gamesense (Lemming packs of 6 or more running dumb in one direction,..)
Why we have this at the moment?
Humble bundle and steamsale.
Servers are full off rookies.
"When will UWE realize this and fix this game"
So you want all rookies banned? Thats harsh
All good questions. For the times that clearly the marine commander is to blame, almost always because he is new, I don't count that game. There is no easy to see pattern. Its a complicated problem. I will say that Eclipse has been played a lot and I haven't seen marines win even once on that map. That may be part of the problem here. The map seems very alien OP and the map is being played a ton because its new.
I never said ban anybody. I said fix the game. Tell me this. A new player to this game should have a much easier time playing marine than alien, right? Most people have played FPS games before. Aliens are clearly the harder side to learn. So if we have a bunch of noobs from XMAS or whatever, shouldn't the ratio be the opposite of what it is?
I've made this argument a TON of times before. Ok, marines can't shoot... Fine. UWE should KNOW marines can't shoot and balance the game to accommodate that. I am not saying to make aiming easier or anything like that. I don't have any good ideas. That is UWE to figure out WHAT to do. But something needs to be done.
Just give it time to settle down and let the newbs learn the ropes. It is a terrible idea to balance the game around people who might be used to shooters such as BF and COD that have different mechanics (aim down the sights, kick-back etc.) and require a lot less skill when it comes to positioning and team play.
You'll see, in a few weeks you'll be fine.
Of course team play is everything in this game, that is a great plus for the game IMO. But the question remains. Why is the "marine team" getting rocked so much now? And what can be done about it?
There has to be just as many alien noobs. All the time I see new players walk on the ground as a skulk straight at the marine. It doesn't take a lot of skills to kill him. Look at Fades. That class is very hard to play. You overcommit you are done and you lose all that res. The examples of how hard aliens are as a new player can go on and on. Yet, aliens are winning, noobs or not. Marines basically need to point and shoot. As a team, yes, but still point and shoot.
Having the game imbalanced like this is not going help it or anybody that likes it. You may love the underdog win but you are WAY in the minority. People see lose after lose of one side will question whether this game is worth playing.
What would happen, if these theoretical balance changes were made, when marines who CAN aim play the game?
It's more than just about aim when it comes to playing a good marine anyway. Should we be making balance changes around marines who don't know how to position themselves, or marines who don't have map knowledge yet?
There's also the matter of having commanders who know how to properly scan and use medpacks. Should there be balance changes because of less experienced commanders who don't know how to do that, either?
A percentage of marines WILL NEVER be able to shoot. For whatever reasons. I think another thing is happening that is more important than marines not being able to shoot. People are getting better at aliens. The learning curve is steep. But once its learned, it doesn't matter that marines learn to shoot or not.
Bottom line is this. Balance the game. Consider the behavior and skillset of the majority of players and change it accordingly.
A percentage of marines WILL NEVER be able to shoot. For whatever reasons. I think another thing is happening that is more important than marines not being able to shoot. People are getting better at aliens. The learning curve is steep. But once its learned, it doesn't matter that marines learn to shoot or not.
Bottom line is this. Balance the game. Consider the behavior and skillset of the majority of players and change it accordingly.
Lastly, regarding commander FAIL games, I try not count those and let that lose make me feel like the game is broke. The marine commander has always been the tougher comm to play and his failure is much more of a game killer than a new Alien comm.
You don't need good aim to do that.
It's not even about fail commanders, either. There are plenty of commanders who are perfectly fine when it comes to expansion or teching up, but their combat support needs work. The difference between a good commander and a great one is often decided on how they scan or time/aim medpacks.
In response to your "adjust the game for people who can't aim" argument, let's pretend UWE balanced the game to noobie Marines who lack the hand-eye coordination to put a dot on an enemy. They would have buffed the rifle and shotgun, likely effective range as well, increased armor capacity, and increased the speed of marines' movement. So now we have a VERY balanced game with respect to new players or players just lacking overall skill.
Enter Titus, Legendary Snails, Godar, and Saunamen, the top 4 teams in the world as of NSL Season 3. With buffed weapons and mechanics as mentioned above, these teams would have undoubtedly dominated as marines no matter the map or the strategy, leading to an uneventful finals game and likely a lack of interest in the NS2WC because, after all, we already know what's going to happen.
Nothing MAJOR needs to be done with this game. Some small tweaks could be implemented but I feel the game is balanced very well.
yes balancing around rookies is always the best way to go
/sarcasm
I, as a mentor, spend a lot of time around rookies. Sometimes more then I should. (If I play with rookies a lot I get rusty)
The biggest reasons for marine losses are:
* eclipse. Its a good map, but it needs a somewhat capable marine team. Rookies aren't.
/ many of these new rookies do not listen. I have seen rookie waves with many willing to learn and ive seen rookie waves where they slam their head against the wall and think themselves awesome after 5 games. Seems to be the latter this rookie wave. (yes this is a not so neutral reason)
* comms dont know anything. This included bad upgrade paths, no upgrades, turret spam, horrid insane stupid base layout.
* rookies cant seen to track a single alien and have most problems with skulk. They group up within melee range (dont do that.)
* skulks see from the few experienced players around that they must get of the bloody floor. (marines can watch experienced players on movement and still dont grasp to stay close but not in melee range)
* everyone saves res for the awesome exo.. because awesome yes? What do you mean mines for base defense? (sarcasm)
* noone shoots or axes RTs.
* apparently the concept to bite rts is a lot easier to rookies.
All in all it boils down to rookies dont have a clue and need to L2P. If you want to rejoin the ns2 player ranks, rookie waves are not a good way to do it unless you are a rookie yourself.
So if your team is full of greens (typically casual fps'ers) and they're not being properly organized OR not listening (I know this happens a lot too), not securing resources and working in groups, you're likely to succumb!
This will change as they become familiar with the game and map layouts.
@DC_Darkling, the game (unfortunately) isn't exactly balanced around veterans and skilled players either. Skill ceiling is too low imo.
noobs are attracted to the marine team because they expect its predictable and will be able to get more kills and "win". <--that's the crazy i was talking about
i'm not crazY.
are you crazy?
i'm not in a tunnel
are you in a tunnel?
BRING BACK ONOS' DEVOUR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In other words : the issue is not map dependent whatsoever. It's game wide
I agree with Mrchoke 's overall claim, but not his reasoning or suggestion.
Despite marine team being more appealing to rookies, stats have shown time and time again from launch to free weekends, that alien win rate suffers because rookies do worse on aliens than marines, so much so it can negate the ratio of greens per team.
What does this mean? That the imbalance we see currently is actually worse than it is.
I don't want to open the can of worms that is suggesting how to resolve the imbalance and *it is* imbalanced - even though it doesn't feel like it is to me. (I'll leave the sharing of that figure up to an official community manager or PR cat)
But i suggest starting with the low risk, high reward mechanic that is the freely available gorge tunnels from the start of the round.
Then again.. my shiny axe! /panic
I gave one contributing "reason" to the marines losing, and that is Eclipse. I am not sure where you get your map win percentages. If they are accurate, fine, its not the map.
I made NO suggestions whatsoever on how to fix it. No matter what I suggest or say will get flamed endlessly. I've been there before. I don't have any ideas anyway.
You worded what I was trying to very well in that on a free weekend, the marine wins actually increase for a while. That makes sense. Aliens are harder to learn. So what we are seeing now is what I am seeing, aliens are winning more and more. Thus uncovering the imbalance that at times is somewhat hidden.
To all you L2P idiots, you miss the point as usual. The aliens need to L2P as well right? And its a harder L2P. Yet aliens are winning more? Stop being afraid your precious marine winning streaks are going be spoiled and agree, we need to fix the game again.
No, I was in fact serious. Skulk play scales up strongly with the words 'get of the floor, rookies'.
Marines naturally group to close together even if you say something like 'dont stand in each others melee range'.
Yes advanced lifeforms will die LOADS for aliens, when rookies play them. Rookie team is almost nonstop skulk. But the basic of getting of the floor will get drilled through. They will remember that. They see the experienced players do it.
Getting marines to not hug each other nonstop while grouping is a lot harder. They either stop grouping, or misjudge the distances and overextend. (or still hug.) Meanwhile they have a far bigger problem to hit the rookie skulks who realised that getting of the floor is in fact the way to go.
I dont know where you see your marine winning streaks, but on all the uwe servers ive been at I mainly see crushing marine defeats.
But perhaps thats different from timezone to timezone.
In fact, I think this ain't true. If you refer to aliens as playing a certain lifeform then I won't disagree. Playing a skulk or fade is obviously first of all a very unusual experience as most people with any experience in FPS will find themselves more likely in the comfort-area when playing a lerk or marines, that means: with a ranged attack. Then again, this argument is only true when you speak of a single player playing a single lifeform. After all, we're talking about teams winning - and playing aliens as a team is much more easy and intuitive than playing marines.
Reasons are, I think:
If you play on the alien side you intuitively perceive yourself as the aggressor. You think you're faster, more mobile and have to push and that is what alien players usually do. They just charge the marines and once the game started turning to mid-game, they automatically harras the RTs. Unless they're completly new to the game, you usually don't have to tell the alien team to be aggressive: they simply are.
Marines however, are not. Marines have ranged weapons and might conclude from Alien movies and such, that they are in a defensive position and have to push to aggressor back. That is however not true in NS2, where marines have to be aggressive right from the beginning and start harrassing the alien - especially their harvesters - as well. Thing is, marines usually don't do that. If you die as a skulk you take it as what it is and if you've inflicted some damage, it was worth it. But if you die as a marine, you might feel like you've failed.
From this perspective, playing marines is much harder to learn. Playing the single marines is obviously easier for players as they used to the general gameplay, movement and such due to other FPS they've played. But playing marines as a team in NS2 is not what you might it expect to be. This is were aliens are much easier to grasp, as you intuitively identify aliens with aggressive gameplay whereas marines are often considered as the defenders. Therefore I think, that playing marines - as a team! - is in fact harder to learn.
Gameplaywise, that isn't very intuitive at all. I won't call it bad balance as once you've grasped it you can do fine. Still, NS2 somehow doesn't meet the expectations that players have of a game that features aliens and marines. It somehow feels unnatural. I might go as far to call it a problem originating from cultural stereotypes - it is more a cultural than a balance issue.
The key is pressure and area denied in combination with medsupport.
If these two marines going straight for the first dropped harvesters and killing the first skulkwave the game is over after 3 min.
A game over after 3 min?
"When will UWE realize this and fix this game"
Dear god i think we have another amb.
Anyway, let's just assume you're correct.. what's broken and what needs to be 'fixed'?
otherwise this is just a hurrdurr lalienstoogoodforme thread.
Yes, precisely! The first thing a new player is usually confronted with when playing marines is to build stuff. This further reinforces the impression that marine play is mostly about defence and not so much aggression. When playin aliens there is pretty much nothing you can do as a new player except scouting the map and kill marines and extractors (or going Gorge, placing two tunnels in main base and rambo the marine base with spit