Onos And Fade At One Hive: Cons
Savag3
Join Date: 2003-03-05 Member: 14336Members
Join Date: 2003-03-05 Member: 14336Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Pure speculation</div> Ever since it was announced that lifeforms are not linked to a certain amount of hives anymore, I've wondered if this wouldn't give the Aliens an unfair advantage. Especially an Onos at one hive bothered me.
Though I'm not a playtester or anything, I've given this some thought.
I'm guessing this is what will happen.
Once the Aliens get an Onos, in the start of the game at one hive, the Marines will be forced to play a defensive, tight squad style of gameplay. I know this is how its ment to be, but in this case every Marine wandering off will have a chance of getting discovered. Every scout building a res tower can get slaughtered, without being able to do anything. The Marines will not be able to leave an outpost without lots of turrets, since one LMG defender simply will not suffice anymore.
There is also no warning, suddenly after 10 (5?) minutes from the start, an Onos can rush in and ravage marine base. Bringing some of his Bob friends, and perhaps a Gorge, he cannot be countered, unless the base is all farmed up. Right now a commander usually notices when the second hive goes up, so he can take precautions and the Marines are well equiped and upgraded when the first Fades appear. The only control the Marines have are killing as many resource towers as possible. Still, after some time an Alien will have saved up enough for a higher lifeform.
Now theres three ways to counter this that I can think off.
A: Link the Onos to the third hive.
B: Make it ridiculously expensive, so the Aliens won't be able to get it until end midgame.
C: Nerf the Onos and Fade
Obviously B will not work, because it will require the Onos (and ofcourse the Fade) to cost over 100 resources. This will unbalance the game for a variety of reasons.
When the Marines get HA and upgrades later on in the game, the Onos should still be powerful. Making them weak enough to handle for LMG Marines is therefore not a solution either.
So, when I use my common sense, I think that an Onos at one hive (read: start of the game) will totally own the map, and decrease the fun of playing NS as a Marine.
Just my two cents.
Though I'm not a playtester or anything, I've given this some thought.
I'm guessing this is what will happen.
Once the Aliens get an Onos, in the start of the game at one hive, the Marines will be forced to play a defensive, tight squad style of gameplay. I know this is how its ment to be, but in this case every Marine wandering off will have a chance of getting discovered. Every scout building a res tower can get slaughtered, without being able to do anything. The Marines will not be able to leave an outpost without lots of turrets, since one LMG defender simply will not suffice anymore.
There is also no warning, suddenly after 10 (5?) minutes from the start, an Onos can rush in and ravage marine base. Bringing some of his Bob friends, and perhaps a Gorge, he cannot be countered, unless the base is all farmed up. Right now a commander usually notices when the second hive goes up, so he can take precautions and the Marines are well equiped and upgraded when the first Fades appear. The only control the Marines have are killing as many resource towers as possible. Still, after some time an Alien will have saved up enough for a higher lifeform.
Now theres three ways to counter this that I can think off.
A: Link the Onos to the third hive.
B: Make it ridiculously expensive, so the Aliens won't be able to get it until end midgame.
C: Nerf the Onos and Fade
Obviously B will not work, because it will require the Onos (and ofcourse the Fade) to cost over 100 resources. This will unbalance the game for a variety of reasons.
When the Marines get HA and upgrades later on in the game, the Onos should still be powerful. Making them weak enough to handle for LMG Marines is therefore not a solution either.
So, when I use my common sense, I think that an Onos at one hive (read: start of the game) will totally own the map, and decrease the fun of playing NS as a Marine.
Just my two cents.
Comments
I'd be interested in seeing what the playtesters' feelings are about the situation with higher evolutions available at 1 hive. I haven't seen too many complaints in this respect from the official beta forum, so that might be a good sign in favor of continuing the all-evolutions-available change.
But onos are solid, sometimes (if they are laggy enough) you cant actually EVER kill him, which is annoying.
Marines teching up fast enough to counter Onos after 10 minutes? That would make for very short games.
And I'm just trying to point some things out, clear them up for everyone (and Flayra). He himself knows very well that 1.1 will be immensely popular.
Now, assume aliens could get Onos at one hive. They could have just their one hive, and marines could have the rest of the map, jsut like I said in the marines example. Then, while it's rather unlikely, the aliens COULD still, in theory, come back (it'd require a lot of skill on the alien side and a distinct lack of it on the marine side, but it's possible). And a few onos, missing only their 3rd hive abilities and one chambers upgrades, could break that one hive ultimate lockdown, where even 8 fades would have trouble. Personally, I don't think this should happen either, it says the Onos are still too strong. However, the Onos SHOULD have a better chance of doing it than a fade, it costs more (last I knew it was 75, although for some reaosn I remember someone saying it went down to 55. Maybe I'm just imagining stuff. Or maybe it's a typo). And if a team of 8 fades cant, a team of 8 onos should be (a team of 8 2 hive two lvl 3 upgrade onos should be able to break pretty much anything the marines can put up, assuming equal skill levels.)
Since neither of these scenarios seem likely, it can be said that Flayra has most DEFINITELY cooked up some counter to this. I couldn't even give you a wild guess on what it could be, but we just have to trust in God. i mean Flayra.
Marines teching up fast enough to counter Onos after 10 minutes? That would make for very short games.
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i agree with this
teching up to counter onos seems like it will require a level strong enough to take out hives very quickly, so if it takes a shortened amount of time (and not hive dependant) to evolve to onos, it should take just as long to get enough tech to take them out, whcih will then result in the hive being taken out.
maybe if the onos/fade health and armour attributes were capped in relation to the number of hives?? this might make it easier to combat an onos with lvl1 lmg earlier in the game
I'd be interested in seeing what the playtesters' feelings are about the situation with higher evolutions available at 1 hive. I haven't seen too many complaints in this respect from the official beta forum, so that might be a good sign in favor of continuing the all-evolutions-available change. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
actually, you can.
It's just that no one has decided to come up with a mathematical model of Natural Selection.
I'm sure that somewhere out there exists an appropriate mathematical framework to simulate in game events.
in 1.1, the game flow will move away from hive ownership and more to resource collecting. an alien team with 1 hive and 4 rt's will be a lot better off than a team with 2 hives and 2 rt's. this will be good for two reasons:
1. itll keep games fresh. currently, every game of NS boils down to battling over the hives. RT's pretty much get ingnored. a gorge or comm will drop the collector, then leave it alone in favor of fortifying the hives. with the new RT centric system, games'll be a much more "back and forth" affair, with teams controlling areas of the maps, rather than merely the hives.
2. the high level alien evolutions, particularly the onos, will be more crucial. like i said earlier, onos usually dont appear unless theyre clearing out the last remnant of marine resistance. thats because, in the current resource model, onos cant appear until all 3 hives are under kharaa control, and by that point the games almost over.
in the old model, the way to keep the aliens from having onos is to sit on a hive or two. this led to the omnipresent strategy in every NS game, capturing hives. now, in order to deny aliens onos, youll have to deny them resources. this should make more exciting games, since both sides will constantly be battling it out over the various resource nodes.
i think the biggest change well see in 1.1 is greater teamwork on the alien side. barring an actual comm, the aliens will basically need to accept one person as the leader, who can organize strikes by the offensive aliens and strategically plan the building from the gorges. particularly, its going to be critical to have aliens evolving at the proper times. given the new resource model, youre likely to only see 1 onos relatively early in the game (say, the first 10 minutes) and youre not going to want to lose him. so youll have to organize careful assaults with cannon fodder skulks, a support fade and of course the onos smashing as much as he can get his horn on.
its going to be a lot more important to create a "line" and hold it against the opposing forces advances.
Uhh... not really. In most 1.04 games, unless I go lerk or go gorge to cap an RT for the team, I'm usually up to 33 before the second hive is even placed, much less before it's actually up. And this is without res for kills. Plus, in 1.1, if your really lucky, you'll start with, I think 20 res (If your the only alien. I'm not sure on this number thouhg,but I know it's no higher than this). Most likely, you will start with closer to the 14 needed to go gorge at most. I usually start with 11 (if I am in the server and join before the game starts) or 0 (if I'm not). In 1.1, you start with 25, regardless.
Now, don't get me wrong, getting Onos is not easy. In 1.1 it's 100, so it'll take even longer. if your rewally desperate to go onos, you can sit there and save for that long. That's why it's good for stopping lockdowns, in 10 minutes, a lockdown COULD happen (I doubt 2 hive, but a one hive one could), and/or the marines could get up enough tech that while an Onos would still be a problem, it's not a truely devestating one unless it's a pack of Onos or a really bad marine team. And if it's a pack of onos... well, Onos DO have a fairly long gestate time (or they did). So unless they are defended pretty well, assuming the marines are always attacking like they should be, two or three marines barging into the alien hive could possily take out all the defenseless eggs and cost the aliens all that pretty res. Now, some defenses could counter that, but 3 marines with shottys could ignore the OCs and wipe the floor with the eggs, assuming there's no skulks. Or if the marines went straight HMG/GL route, a few nades fired in there at the right time could really whip those eggs, and the marines wouldn't even be in trouble (or they could take down the OCs and then people could slaughter the eggs). And all it would take is a bit of minor scouting or a sensory sweep to find out this was happening and have a god chance of ending it.
And what do you mean, allow the Onos to dominate in ten minutes? Assuming someone got one that fast (which isn't too illogical sounding), it wouldn't automatically be a dominator. Marines could still stop one, fairly easily. And obviously, it'd have to be tweaked and balanced so it wasn't so strong.
Gettign back to the post topic, the major reason I'm against hive linked to evolutions is that it, once again, makes the Onos a pretty much worthless unit that's just not worth being there. It's like a reward for winning. "You Won! Now you get to go Onos and kill them without any worrys." It's just pointless, I barely, if ever, bother to go onos, it's just not as fun as some others and at that point, it's not like you have to to win, like you sometimes do with fades. Only time I have in recent history was when we were just dominating the marines team, they couldn't get out of their base, we had every RT but theirs, and they didn't know it when we got hives up. We just suddenly all vanished and all they had to fight against was OCs and DCs to get out. The entire team of 9 aliens got enough overflow to Onos, and we did, then rushed their base. They didn't even know we had the second two hives.
Almost have the team accused us of hacking and left.
1. because Aliens can chamber spam ...
2. because melee with only slightly upgraded marines is alien win.
3. because 2 skulks take down res faster then they are build.
4. because Skulk rushs are deadly.
Marine strategy in the early game is hiding and beeing fast, taking strategic places on the map like a hive, double res or a good base relocation and secure them from skulk rushes. So Marines only own a few little fortifications. All the rest of the map belongs to aliens ... cause of the points mentioned above.
All this ends up in that 1.04 Marines are not able to keep Aliens away from res at an early stage of the game. ( we always think of comparable skills ). Marines can not fight at 8 to 10 resnodes so early, ... while Alien can.
If you want to give more strategic meaning, to res nodes ... and a lower meaning to hives ... it means, that marines will have to hold much more points on the map then they had to hold before. Marines have to be able to fight at more places at the same time and get more control of the map. Maybe faster buildtimes and electricity are the right way ... but 1 onos (just with 1 or 2 hive abilitys) ... will be a huge porblem ... cause marine forces are splittered all over the map, guarding restower ...
I always felt rewarded to be able to become a fade ... after freeing a hive. It was a kind of subgoal.
In 1.04 Aliens develop in stages ... while Marines develop permanent. To free Aliens from hive requirements would be a step to a marine like development. I always liked the difference between marine and alien growth ...
PS: And I will miss the damn hard battles for the hive locations ^^