I'm Sorry, Offensive Chambers *still* Suck.
Bridger
Join Date: 2002-10-30 Member: 1761Members
Join Date: 2002-10-30 Member: 1761Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Especially compared to turrets.</div> IMHO, Offense chambers and turrets are suposed to have one and the same purpose - area denial. Right now lets just compare the two
<ul>
<li>Turrets fire fast, and track fast, able to hit even the fastest skulk if he's in the room long enough, and even a celaritied skulk would be killed by 3+ turrets if he ever stopped to attack anything for .5 seconds.
<li>On the other hand, OCs are slow to fire, and slow to target. Marines can dance around them firing LMG and then retreat behind a corner to reload. This tactic can defeat even 4 OCs in a large room, because the OCs can't track and fire fast enough.
</ul>
There is one time, and one time only, that OCs really work well, and that is small coradors. If you can put 4-6 OCs (on top of each other and blocking the hallway) along with 1-2 def chambers behind it, the marines are simply NOT getting through there at all. Oh, but wait, since this only works if it's just around a corner, GL will beat it easily :\
OCs need something that allows them to kill *moving* things, and not just stationary things. I setup a whole room with 4 spread out OCs and they were decintagrated by 3 LMG light marines in a matter of seconds. I play mostly on OSS server, and they don't kid around, lots of good players there and good regulars. I VERY rarely see OCs being used, and even then, it's only 1-2 of them to delay the marines, nothing to really stop them.
A *single* determined marine player can take out an undefended OC farm with a GL in some 30 seconds
A single determined alien could never do the same to a turret farm if it was setup correctly (I.E. not next to any corners where bile bomb would get it).
Does anyone else see this as a balance issue? Granted the spike is better than spit, but it's still not enough IMHO.
<ul>
<li>Turrets fire fast, and track fast, able to hit even the fastest skulk if he's in the room long enough, and even a celaritied skulk would be killed by 3+ turrets if he ever stopped to attack anything for .5 seconds.
<li>On the other hand, OCs are slow to fire, and slow to target. Marines can dance around them firing LMG and then retreat behind a corner to reload. This tactic can defeat even 4 OCs in a large room, because the OCs can't track and fire fast enough.
</ul>
There is one time, and one time only, that OCs really work well, and that is small coradors. If you can put 4-6 OCs (on top of each other and blocking the hallway) along with 1-2 def chambers behind it, the marines are simply NOT getting through there at all. Oh, but wait, since this only works if it's just around a corner, GL will beat it easily :\
OCs need something that allows them to kill *moving* things, and not just stationary things. I setup a whole room with 4 spread out OCs and they were decintagrated by 3 LMG light marines in a matter of seconds. I play mostly on OSS server, and they don't kid around, lots of good players there and good regulars. I VERY rarely see OCs being used, and even then, it's only 1-2 of them to delay the marines, nothing to really stop them.
A *single* determined marine player can take out an undefended OC farm with a GL in some 30 seconds
A single determined alien could never do the same to a turret farm if it was setup correctly (I.E. not next to any corners where bile bomb would get it).
Does anyone else see this as a balance issue? Granted the spike is better than spit, but it's still not enough IMHO.
Comments
I assume that they can't fire through each other though? Clumps would degrade their ability to hit things.
Also, it's very hard to get 3+ OCs up quick when res come in as slow as they do for aliens. Only after playing skulk for 15 minutes maybe i can then get in and setup a real defence.
Turrets are certainly *not* worthless by themselves, they can stop 3 out of the 5 alien classes. Only the most powerful can take out a turret farm without multiple suicide raids. Turrets will block off a room to skulks/gorges, but OCs just don't seem to do the same for light marines.
I'll try placing them in clumps, but just seems like it would lower their efficiency to me. Building a base as aliens is extremely slow with the individual res. It would be nice if you could offer up your resources to the rest of the aliens (or to just gorges?) to facilitate in base building quickly.
That's another thing, turrets go up so fast! IMHO, 5 marines building should *not* = 5x faster build. Every other RTS i know of tends to decrease the effectiveness of adding multiple builders because they don't like the exploitability of buildings that are suposed to take a long time to go up, but wind up going up in 5 seconds. Something like the 2nd marine adds 35% speed to the build, 3rd will add another 30%, 4th will add another 20%, 5th will add another 10%. So 5 marines would only really build twice as fast, not 5x as fast..
Maybe aliens and marines both fighting over the double res node, marines win the battle. 30 seconds later by the time the aliens get back, 1 TF plus 3 turrets up. You'd never even come close to that kind of situation with OCs. For one only gorges can build them, so assuming that you even have 2 gorges building these, how much res do they have between them? Assuming the've been good gorges placing res nodes every spot they can, they probably pretty dry, but maybe they have 30 between them both. That's only 2 OCs and a def, or 3 OCs and as i've said before, that doesn't stop ****.
I will attempt more gorging work to try and find a better way of placing them, but so far i havn't seen them be real effective.
Anybody else have thoughts?
Also, if you're going for turret farms as a lesser lifeform, have several Skulks gang up and go in at once, then start on the turret factory. If you want, send a Gorge in with them to healspray and/or bilebomb. Once you have the TF down, turrets stop working, so they're nothing more than easy lunch. Make sure you have at least 3 Skulks. A Gorge or even TWO is a plus. Aliens are more independant than Marines, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't work together!
[EDIT]
Oh, and sorry for coming off as harsh in my first reply. No offense, but it's another balance post and I'm really getting sick of them.
[/EDIT]
and make sure you do not put them in plain sight,place them where marines will least expect it.
Cloaking will help as well since the marines might just think it is an empty hall
Also having 6+ OCs clumped together can take out an HA extremely easily,even if there are others welding him.Having a full load of DCs healing nearby helps a whole lot as well
And last of all turrets aren't supposed to kill your opponents,only to deny them or force them to move away.They fall extremely easily to the GL and shotgun so I wouldn't be surprised if all the marines were holding shotguns.
EDIT : CForrester beat me to it :/
Place them in clumps, don't spread them around. To hide them a bit, put a sensory down. To make them fire faster, use a movement chamber.
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Just a note -- movement chambers no longer accelerate firing rate, this was taken out a while ago. Perhaps we'll see it again someday <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
M
A turret does not have self-repair defense machine chamber beside it.. And it cannot cloak. Only repair method they have are marines. They also need turret factories to run.
An offence chamber, can be healed by other buildings, can cloak, and does well when 4 other offence are around. Repair Method: Gorge, defense chamber, or hive. And it can be alone to function.
Dont forget the webs too.
Seems really fair to me..
Only thing that I don't like is that marines can turret farm, I wanna have my own offence farm too, <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Lets say you have 5 aliens on a team. How long does it take to get 3 res at just one node?
Since you have 5 aliens and res goes to one alien every 5 seconds, or a tick, this means it takes 5 ticks to get just one res on a five alien team. This is actually 25 seconds. This means it takes 75 seconds to get 3 res as just one alien at one node.
How much does the marine team get in 75 seconds in on just one node? Remember, it's 1 res every 5 seconds... so that means 15 res for the marines. On a five alien team, 3 res = 15 res for the marines.
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See? 10 alien res is worth much more than 10 marine res.
Perhaps OC's should be 5 creds again?
No. OCs serve their purpose as a delay like any static defense is supposed to in a game where you have FPS players. The changed resource model has minimized alien static defense compared to 1.04 forcing more player vs. player interaction which is exactly what was needed. There are already long (sometimes neverending) stalemates when marines fortify to their base with sentries and GLs. This I see as a classic effect caused by overpowered static defense. I would like to see a sentry placement limit created to weaken marine static defense instead of boosting aliens OCs so they could compete with sentry bases... That would be the right way to balance static defenses without sacrificing FPS fun.
However, turrets are far better support weapons that OCs, and the aliens lack any good building clearing weaponry. Which is why alien victories quite often drag out at the end, which you don't see much with marine victories (at least in pub play. I have heard clanners say that the cheap hive cost means that aliens can keep on rebuilding hives, prolonging the end game. Although considering the amount of time it takes for a hive to build, I don't really see how this is a problem).
They are possibly worse than turrets but thats because kharaa can throw them up ANYWHERE single handedly. Something marines do NOT have the luxury of.
The marines have BETTER tech, the aliens MAKE it faster.
No. OCs serve their purpose as a delay like any static defense is supposed to in a game where you have FPS players. The changed resource model has minimized alien static defense compared to 1.04 forcing more player vs. player interaction which is exactly what was needed. There are already long (sometimes neverending) stalemates when marines fortify to their base with sentries and GLs. This I see as a classic effect caused by overpowered static defense. I would like to see a sentry placement limit created to weaken marine static defense instead of boosting aliens OCs so they could compete with sentry bases... That would be the right way to balance static defenses without sacrificing FPS fun. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
yeah why does people tell that OC is too weak, i would say that if marines would have area limit how much turrets they can build next to others would MAYBE do the work
Turrets are *not* good alone. Have you ever had a turret factory with one turret covering each blind spot live very long? I havnt.
Turrets are *not* good alone. Have you ever had a turret factory with one turret covering each blind spot live very long? I havnt. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
that could also help OC... but if aliens want to have good OC at start they are forced to take MC... marines got good turrets rigth at start
The OCs have been lowered in life which makes them much weaker now, they can go down in 2 clips instead of 3.
OCs cost 10 res and if you are a gorge, that 10 res can take 5 mins of wiating to get, not alot of fun. To be able to put up 2 OCs (which is the bare miniumum you should put) will cost you 20 res and about 10 mins early on game. A group of LMGs (3 or 4) will make short work of your OCs in seconds, also now that the Gorge heal spray is nerfed you can't heal the OCs enough to keep them alive till back up comes, meaning you will lose all your hard work and res really quickly.
On the plus side.
They are strong, they can kill a marine in 5 hits and they have reall nice range now, even hiding mostly behind a corner and shooting, they can kill you, which is good! with umbra cover they are like a acid rocket fade hitting and never going down!
But a Shot Gun can smoke them in 5 shots, so its a mixed bag.
Do they need to be more beefy, Yes!
I think if the life went back to 1150 they would be better, also the SG needs to do less DMG vs structures, not just OCs but hives and everything!
The current OC is good but not effective enough and they cost alot for a gorge to put up! (becasue a Gorge doesn't get alot of RFK)