JP's and Adv. Armory On 1 Tech?
StriderNS2
Join Date: 2012-12-22 Member: 175867Members
Join Date: 2012-12-22 Member: 175867Members
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Even if they don't (I'm like, 70% sure they do), all marines needed in the past for protolab was a 2nd CC, aka a small sum of 15 res and a techpoint, any com worth their sauce would have one anyway, just for a backup IP.
Lastly, look into the nature of the upgrades themselves:
-On 2 hives, skulks (A free unit) can get leap free, forever until the biomass drops down too far and they die.
-Marines buy jetpacks for 15 res each until they die. And they will usually because they are a big (if harder to hit) target.
While there certainly is valid debate on marines getting all stuff at 1 techpoint (should W3&A3 need a techpoint, etc) I don't really think its on the level of accusing the balance committee of partaking in the smoking of, depending on location, illegal drugs when reaching their decision.
NB: personally I think it could go on 2 techpoints, but if marines want a chance, they would have that anyway. This currently allows for comebacks. Exciting!
Pub commanders will start dropping the 2nd cc as a priority again instead of getting upgrades.
Remind me, just how well did that end last time?
The end result was that because aliens turtle way better than marines, the marines would eventually lose after a long and tediously drawn out 50 minute game. Recently I've seen such a game where the com thought it necessary to have a pg and turret setup at every TP and I think I wanted to kill myself.
When I hear scrubs asking for turrets, 4th/5th PG, exo, I just mute straight away. I don't even bother explaining.
No because the game is asymetric and that's its interest.
Also, Not having a 2nd cc requirement helps to prevent the insta-concede after losing that 2nd base. Marine still have a (small) chance to come back.
But still, IMO teching on 1 CC is a good thing for marine.
Ok, It also allows the infamous turtle but that's another topic
- Aliens: Resources flow into higher lifeforms, you got to keep them as long as possible. The khamander supports you with upgrades and supportive structures. In return you secure him techpoints and more rt's. You can loose those rt's, but as long as you keep your higher lifeform the chance of comeback is real. So pres > tres (to some amount)
- Marines: Emphasis on upgrading tech. Resouces flow into upgrades, research, etc. You support the commander by securing extractors, defend bases and advance your position. In return you get weapons / armory that helps you doing better. tres > pres (to some amount)
At this point I forgot what my point was. Lets put spoiler-tags around it. :-\"
Sentries are actually fairly effective in the right situations. 4th phase maybe... probably only because you hold the entire map and want one to push with. Exo should definitely come eventually, if you are trying to rely on JPs alone in pub you really need to get your head out of your ass.
I'm a bit divided whether W3/A3 should require two CCs, though. On the one hand, it's silly that falling back to one hive means GG for aliens, but marines have virtually no tech difference from falling back to one CC. Once aliens get 3+ hives, it's GG for marines anyway (if it isn't, aliens have themselves to blame). So having a dual CC requirement for W3/A3 is only interesting in the situation when marines have lost or not secured that second CC, and aliens are still at two hives.
My favourite idea would be having two *arms labs* as a prerequisite for W3/A3. Marines would fall back to W2/A2 if one is destroyed, and back to W0/A0 if both are down. Which makes taking a second CC more attractive as a fallback, but not strictly required. If marines turtle on one CC, with two arms labs in the same base, that works fine, but it becomes a bit more vulnerable to bile bomb rushes.
The same could be done with the prototype lab as well, making the prerequisite for dual exo two protos instead of two CCs. Obviously, the res pricing would need to be adjusted, probably by making W3/A3 and dual exo research cheaper to compensate.
If the marines are able to research W3A3, AA or a proto... you are letting them control too much res anyway. It has nothing to do with a second chair being built or not. NS2 is a res game. It always has been.
Losing a hive and falling back to one does not mean gg for aliens. You are not dependent on the second hive once you've had it. You are however dependent on your life forms, upgrade structures and res towers.
That is because you don't lose your life form abilities / upgrades when the hive dies.
A dead hive could be a minor setback in most cases. The problem is that the aliens often just waste their life forms in the attempt to save it, even though the hive loss is inevitable.
OT: The second base requirement for upgrades / tech is stupid, because you are already punished enough for losing it.
- You lose map control
- hence, you lose res income and pressure
- and even worse you have an indirect loss, due to the aliens claiming it, advancing their tech.
When you add losing tech / upgrades to that, you have no chance of coming back from this, which is why it is how it is right now. The snow ball effect would just be too much. It is already very hard to come back from losing the pgs on most maps, if the aliens have higher life forms and know what they are doing.
If you try to move out of your base to get a new phase gate in mid / late game, the aliens will go for the base, forcing you to beacon.
If you split your team, the aliens will overpower the group trying to get the pg.
The current system is fine, don't touch it!
1) You don't "hope that your higher lifeforms live until another hive"... you keep doing what you are supposed to be doing: gaining map control, which means destroying a pg or their base to get a new tech point. In the meantime (non leap) skulks bite rts.
2) Why wouldn't it be dropped? You just need your life forms to protect your gorges to powerbuild that thing. 2 gorges with an enzyming drifter and a shift will build a hive in half a minute.
Because you can't echo them out before the hive goes down, right?
Like I said: losing your second hive is not the important factor. Losing life forms is.
I have lost so many games, just because people think the game is over upon losing the second hive... Instead of using their heads and keep playing, they just concede / leave after wasting their life forms in those sieges for no reason. Like a fade without a gorge will accomplish anything against 3 arcs protected by 4 shotguns.
You don't lose the game because of the lack of the second hive, but because the players are stupid.
everything you suggest costs aliens tres pres, they'd need enough res to echo upgrades and have the red to drop a hive. if the marines are attacking a hive, should the higher lifeforms assist the hive? its the marine side of snowballing. and calling people stupid for disagreeing with you and realized the game was over (even if you don't think it is) is a little.. degrading. rather than calling them stupid you can inform them of your strategy to pull off the win... most wont listen but its better than nothing...
This is more a question out of curiosity, than trying to argue your point:
Does the loss of 3 Bio-Mass not have a huge impact on the Aliens ability to keep maintaining/gaining map dominance? I understand, and agree that life forms should not be wasted on an inevitable Hive siege. Aside from hitting their RT's and possibly triggering a beacon during the Siege, I feel that the loss of abilities, spefically Lerk upgrades, would mean defending your Hive and attempting to disrupt the attack would be important.
Biscum hit it right on the money.
Aliens do not lose when a hive dies. Aliens lose when they lose their higher lifeforms. Good players can still lerk/fade even without a second hive or upgrades. As long as they stay alive, aliens can take back their tech point. Does a hive kill hurt an alien team? Most certainly. Does it mean they will lose? No. Your whole post seems to be under the assumption that all the other players on your team are bad... which means you probably lost anyway.
Sorry, I wasn't calling you stupid. What I meant was how "those" players play is stupid.
And yes, it costs resources, but even if you are stuck on 2 rts, it would only take 2 minues to get 40 TRES. Echoing costs 1 measly TRES. TRES is not the problem for aliens at all.
The way you deal with a hive attack is completely situational, but that is not even important. It's not about how you can deal with it, but how you can definitely not deal with it, which is blinking into 4 shotguns all alone.
All I'm saying is that losing your second hive does not mean 'gg', as long as you keep a cool head and don't panic or give up. Once you've had your second hive and got the abilities and upgrades out of it, you actually just lose the healing station and egg spawn.
However, If 90% of your team are skulks in mid / late game, well yeah, then it is gg, but that has nothing to do with having a second hive.
You don't lose the abilities once you've had them. Only new evolving life forms won't have them.
The most severe ability to lose (in my opinion) is bile bomb, because of strong it is and how likely it is to lose a gorge than any other life form, but that is still obtainable on 1 hive.
So even if you lose your gorges after dropping below biomass 3, you can still get back into the game with 1 hive.
That doesn't change anything I wrote lol. It works the same way in both.
Yes, sentries can be great in the right situations. I have barely ever witnessed them used sensibly in pubs though, they are usually put in base in minute 1 of the game and then put at any extractor the Marines can get to. They usually are then ignored and have massive blind spots.
4 phase gates is *almost always* 1 too many. The fact that there are often 4+ in pubs does not mean that it is best, just that it is commonly done by pub commanders.
Exos can have a use sometimes, but if pub marines improved their aim and game sense, they too would find out that jetpacks offer 10x more effectiveness at a fraction of the cost.
I'm really not trying to be elitist here, but I do want to point out that the vast majority of comp players are able to carry pub teams to victory: they are capable, they understand the game, and most importantly they know how to clinch the victory as early as possible.
The number of pub games we've all seen where the game was over 20 minutes ago is a testament to the fact that most pub teams don't know how to finish the game when they've already won it.
It's not a matter of having one's head up one's ass, it's a matter of playing the game a lot against, and with, good players and having a deeper understanding of the mechanics than the average joe.
When comp players say it's a l2p issue, we're not trying to be condescending, even if that is sometimes an unfortunate side effect.
Sorry for the essay, I just wanted to explain why I disagreed with your post...