Are Exos viable?
IronHorse
Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
Developer, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributor Join Date: 2010-05-08 Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
This isn't a nuanced poll because it isn't a nuanced question.
I'm not asking if exos are viable in your hands, or with your particular team, or just in large player counts, or in a hallway on veil, or only if you can successfully rush them by 8 minutes etc - nor am I asking if they only did X or were paired with Y would they be viable. I am not asking if they are fun.
I am asking if they are currently a viable strategy and tool you can rely on, for any game?
For competitive and public. Are they a viable tech path? If you were commanding would you prioritize them?
(Forgetting about that player who won't stop asking for em) Would you rely or depend on them being a viable tier 3 strategy on par with jet packs??
Thanks for your input.
I'm not asking if exos are viable in your hands, or with your particular team, or just in large player counts, or in a hallway on veil, or only if you can successfully rush them by 8 minutes etc - nor am I asking if they only did X or were paired with Y would they be viable. I am not asking if they are fun.
I am asking if they are currently a viable strategy and tool you can rely on, for any game?
For competitive and public. Are they a viable tech path? If you were commanding would you prioritize them?
(Forgetting about that player who won't stop asking for em) Would you rely or depend on them being a viable tier 3 strategy on par with jet packs??
Thanks for your input.
Comments
In comp: No, too expensive, very slow, cant be beaconed.
If it's viable in one and not the other how can you say it's viable?
It's like saying rat poison can't kill you because you can have a medical team and machine on standby to flush your blood with charcoal for 24 hours.. despite rat poison being inherently lethal and the label saying as much.
For an ns2 analogy: If I asked you if fade stab was viable would you say "yes if the Marine is afk" .. or would you accept that conditions don't change the inherent properties of a mechanic, they can only change the probable outcome when active (Rat poison analogy works here again) and therefore say no, stab is not viable?
The question is for across the board, generally speaking, is it viable? If it's 80% viable in pubs and %60 viable in comp then it might be viable. But if that split is 80 / 10 .. then maybe not.
This is a subjective perspective question.. but I just want to make sure everyone is weighing it properly.
But in general, going exo is to lose, especially in comp.
Railgun in particular helps kills all non onos lifeforms in so many situations not least including res defence.
Mini gun trading an onos is preferable because the rate of marine pres accumulation is compared to aliens simply because of ease of expansion
Railgun isn't that useful - Sure it takes down structures fast, but not that fast - The minigun can do just about as well as the railgun. The railgun is not even seemingly more effective than the minigun against life forms either, not even a fade imo.
If you can get railguns out before onos... it wrecks everything if you've got good aim. I remember a few times we'd rush exos, I'd get rail gun, and completely dominate... right up until onos come out... then it's like "welp gg, time to go get a minigun instead".
You should see Wob playing Railgun-Exo.
That's you. What if you were the commander on a pub team?
And we're back to the old problem of Onos just overrunning everything.
Remember Fadesplosions? We delayed that to Onosplosions.
Lerks are even easier to instagib. Especially with the new hitboxes, it's so easy to land the shots.
It's not just the railgun though. The biggest problem for me is what exo gameplay promotes. In my opinion, you want marines moving for gameplay to be at it's best. Marines should be dancing around the map, taking down rt's and hives at the right moments. Not sitting in hallways as an unbreakable force. The reason you don't want this is because it's a ranged team vs a non ranged team. The gameplay is not fun when the ranged team is sitting there in an advantageous state for long periods of time. This wasn't as big of an issue before because exo's weren't as good. I think exo's have always been not ideal, but at least the frequency of the issue was less in the past. Before you didn't have dual exo's on one tech point, and I never saw the railgun used much. Now you have dual exo's on one tech point and I see rail gun's used more because they are effective. I think exo's should be removed and changed to heavy armor similar to ns1 because the gameplay would be better (or just remove exo's from the game, not sure if heavy armor is needed). Exo's when they are out on the field make ns2 feel completely different, and takes the life out of the game in my opinion.
Alot of "IF's" come into play to make EXOS Viable.
Personally i love them, Rail-gun and mini-gun. I can do alot of damage and even carry a team at times, IF we work as a team. But that's just me.
*WARNING turn down volume*
But how well does the average pubber use them? Does every player use them effectively like you just did? Can you do the same with miniguns? Can others?
This poll isn't to discuss situational instances where they may effective or not, it's whether they are a viable path to choose in all environments and for all players.
For instance, if I had you on my team, @Wob I'd probably research exos.. but if I had the average nightly pub team I probably wouldn't even remotely consider it, lol.
They typically wouldn't position themselves properly and just waste their pres and more than likely make losing that much more likely.
Does requiring specific conditions like that impact the perceived and actual viability of exos to the community? I believe it does. That's why I'd like to know people's opinions.
What is possible is often going to be different from what practically occurs 90% of the time.
And when there's a large disconnect like that, that's where I feel like L2P arguments fall flat, because there's obviously a design issue present unless your intention was for only 10% of costumers to properly utilize a mechanic.
What is interesting is that while you may be great with them as a skilled player, why aren't we seeing skilled competitive teams utilizing them consistently??
So is this perception difference in the community coming from skilled players in pub games who can wreck (but not in comp oddly?) - versus low-medium skilled players never attaining that efficiency with them in the same pubs?
Idk..
for comp, some thing i see:
not mobile enough compared to jp
can be wrecked or pushed back with a well timed rush
comp / low player count / good coordination makes it easier for the aliens to base rush / outmaneuver marines when marines use exos
exos need dedicated welders or require jumping out to weld
huge waste of res (when loss) / loss of maneuverability when compared to jp
can always get 2 comp teams to try and run exo strats in scrims and see results?
This proves nothing.
You would have killed every single alien with a sg/hmg+jp just as well and you wouldn't even have died in the process. And even if you did die, the other marine, who wouldn't have been occupied welding, could've preserved your weapon / pres.
If we are just talking about viability, flamethrowers are worse than exos. I'd spend extra res to research AA that doesn't come with flamethrowers even. Burning stuff isn't worth it when its so situational, especially now when there are few lerks, even fewer comms who research gas and cysts that have reduced max hp. The only viable use now is to burn structures or bilebomb, especially when covering your arcs. While you can now kill with it, most players will probably still do better with another weapon.
GLs are slightly better, although that is only because half the team in pubs can't aim and its their only chance of ever taking out an advanced lifeform that is not the onos.
It just doesn't make sense, each round is shaped by a multitude of decisions, each of which can increase or decrease the usefulness of exos...
I know this isn't the answer you want to hear, but i'm an honest man: it depends :P
Public: Yes it's viable, because most of the time teams are in disarray and cannot mount any tactical opposition (like protecting biling gorges, or a simple rush to force beacon).
Comp: No, it's too slow and cannot be beaconed.
Btw, my personal preference if getting a suit is railgun, because it makes aliens panic when all of a sudden poof, >50% of their health disappears in a sec
Just not true. Getting to that lerk would have been a bitch and having to reload would have made pushing in like that impossible. Killing those tunnels from range, forcing aliens out from the heal radius of the hive, walking on eggs, it all adds up.
Regardless, the fact that it is possible to do either PROVES exos are viable. The question wasn't "What is more effective?" but "Are EXOs viable?". Yes they are. They have fantastic hive pushing abilities, great damage output, good enough mobility, and appropriate weaknesses. Spikes, Bile, Whips, Onos, a few skulks, all can kill / defend from exos.
But that isn't the question posed. Its not if they could be viable. Look at all the qualifiers the pony included. Its if they could be viable under all circumstances. Again, if you were stuck in the chair with unreliable teammates, would you trust that they will be effective with it? I think you will lose control of the map pretty quickly if you weren't already dominating.
Pros and cons.
Viable. Balanced. Fun.
Remove all previous personal anecdotes. Have I answered your question yet? Sincere question because it feels like I'm seriously misunderstanding what's being asked here
This is why I attempted to keep the poll simple, and tried my best to explain what it was asking for by providing multiple examples of what I wasn't asking, in the OP.
Yes, like almost any mechanic in this game its effectiveness can be determined by circumstance.
Just like how fade stab would suddenly be viable if all marines were AFK every round, you cannot use specific circumstances alone to define the viability. (like a good shooter railgunning in a pub)
What you can do, however, is consider and weigh ALL circumstances involved in order to answer the question.
This means those times where you command and research exos and your team just utterly fails, to those times where you go 40-0 in a railgun yourself. Are they viable in comp AND pubs as a reliable tech path?
Weigh it all.. and then it's up to your opinion whether it's mostly viable or mostly not etc.
Personally, if a mechanic is only or mostly viable under specific circumstances that are infrequent (wob on your team), then I have a hard time considering it viable.