One Reason Why Aliens Could Be Winning So Much...
Hunty
Join Date: 2003-08-09 Member: 19244Members
Join Date: 2003-08-09 Member: 19244Members
<div class="IPBDescription">The infamous 12 minute mark.</div> Now i cannot say this is the case for all servers.Ive just noticed this for my local servers.In most cases,the marines take a downturn around the 12 minute mark where the most pro skulk will go onos and pick redempt.This renders the onos pratically invulnerable.
I just played a scrim game,3 rounds on veil,1 round on origin with a 13 regulars.These people are not newbies.In all 4 rounds,aliens won.The first round on veil saw the mariines coming within minutes of HA/shotty squads but at the 11:30 mark the onos came in and wiped out all our rts and kept goring the marines and redemping.We ended up not having res to do the ha rush.The 2nd round had marines getting owned by cara skulks till onos at about 11-12 minute mark,GG.3rd round had celerity skulks totally demolish the marines,game over in 4 minutes.The round on origin was the most interesting though.It got me thinking about the onos.Ive seen this happen all the time on the pubs.Marines would start to own aliens with high tech,then at the 11-12 minute mark they would get owned in 3-4s by the singular onos with redempt.On that round the marines were able to hold their own against the skulks.Their RTs werent attacked very often by the skulks,helping them some.They took vent hive down with level 3 weapons about the 10-11 minute mark.Shortly after that,someone went onos with redempt.At this point i was in laser drill securing the rt.The marines discovered it and rushed what seemed to be their entire team over.6 marines with level 3 weaps vs 2 ocs?Then the onos came along.From that point on it didnt matter what the marines did.They would take a hive down with seiges...and the onos just went along and wiped it out.We had enough res flowing in to do whatever we wanted.They jet our hive down,we got it back up as soon as the gorg went there and 8 ocs in our 2 hives rendered jets useless.
Has anyone else noticed this on their servers?The "marines are winning then the onos comes along and they cant do anything" scenarios?
I just played a scrim game,3 rounds on veil,1 round on origin with a 13 regulars.These people are not newbies.In all 4 rounds,aliens won.The first round on veil saw the mariines coming within minutes of HA/shotty squads but at the 11:30 mark the onos came in and wiped out all our rts and kept goring the marines and redemping.We ended up not having res to do the ha rush.The 2nd round had marines getting owned by cara skulks till onos at about 11-12 minute mark,GG.3rd round had celerity skulks totally demolish the marines,game over in 4 minutes.The round on origin was the most interesting though.It got me thinking about the onos.Ive seen this happen all the time on the pubs.Marines would start to own aliens with high tech,then at the 11-12 minute mark they would get owned in 3-4s by the singular onos with redempt.On that round the marines were able to hold their own against the skulks.Their RTs werent attacked very often by the skulks,helping them some.They took vent hive down with level 3 weapons about the 10-11 minute mark.Shortly after that,someone went onos with redempt.At this point i was in laser drill securing the rt.The marines discovered it and rushed what seemed to be their entire team over.6 marines with level 3 weaps vs 2 ocs?Then the onos came along.From that point on it didnt matter what the marines did.They would take a hive down with seiges...and the onos just went along and wiped it out.We had enough res flowing in to do whatever we wanted.They jet our hive down,we got it back up as soon as the gorg went there and 8 ocs in our 2 hives rendered jets useless.
Has anyone else noticed this on their servers?The "marines are winning then the onos comes along and they cant do anything" scenarios?
Comments
After rebuilding all essential upgrades we took a look around to see if we lost anything while we were relocating. Guess what. ALL our res nodes but the ones in cargo were GONE. Gored to death. ALL your hives had been taken back and they had 3 again. needless to say, we were ****. We were not nubs, we had used lots of teamplay. We had enough res to do anything we wanted for as long as we wanted. Heck we had blocked off the doors of cargo with elec TF walls!!
So it went on for about half an hour of GL/Turrets/HA keeping an entire team of onos at bay. I snuck into ventilation with a GL/HA and took it out while a HA/HMG kept the skulks that spawned at bay (this was our third attempt to get ventilation down BTW, we tried a HA train and seiging before, both got run over by charging onos). We were about to seige furnace when the server finally crashed form the 2 1/2 hour game. It just seemed like no matter what we did, we couldn't do anything to stop those redemption onos. Unless of course they devoured us, becuase this was 2.01b. It was just stomp, gore, dead.
I believe we were on Mineshaft, I went for an early RT gathering. Captured around 2 additional RTs, including a hive. Then setting up a TF at base with some turrets for basic defenses. Kept researching stuff and fighting aliens back, was going pretty good.
We pushed the aliens back from the double resnode, I didnt want to go there straight away when the game started because aliens almost EXPECT you to go there so its generally not worth it. However we pushed them out by full force and took the 2 resnodes making it a 5 - 3 resnodes in marines favor. Most of the RTs were pretty well defended as well.
Thats also the point where it went downhill, even though I had been handing shotties and GLs with their additional weapon & armor upgrades, onos kept popping in and killing buildings on different areas of the map. Usually they were defeated fast but not without doing some damage.... they just used redemption and started to attack/devour/kill buildings over & over.
We were pushed back into the marine base and well... I just sold the IPs since I didnt feel like a big 40 turret /GLs spam endgame.
- D
you goin to win,and theres 1 onos comming (after the magical timespan) raping your whole team,base,res,because you cant kill this **** hes comming again..and again..what about a longer redemption timespan? long enough to kill this lameasses ,so he have to run away..or something..and then this damn stomp.. it just needs to less adrenaline.. a onos should be limited to 1 or 2 stomps... and then the damn devour... ever realized that you cant stand high enough so he cant get you? a onos can suck you in his belly from more than 5 meters.. or more.. i would love it to knive a onos from the inside of his stomach..... arhh.. using a grenade to blast the sucker with me into 1000 pieces
- - -
must ... stant ... still.... and ... say.....
Welcome to the NS Forums.
must... smile ...
<!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
res for redeem might worth a try. But 90% "invulnerable" is one group of marines or some marines welding in a turret farm.
Onos are the only lifeform that redemption works reliably on. The others die too fast for it to kick in. On top of that, redemption is a very inefficient upgrade. It may drastically extend the Onos life, but 90% of that is spent healing at the hive and running back to battle only to be redeemed five seconds after they get there.
If you think that redemption Oni are bad, just wait until people figure out that regeneration and carapace are far superior upgrades. Very few good Onos players use redemption as their standard DC ability. Most take regeneration, since the 45 hp/tick means they can be ready to fight again in 30 seconds, as opposed to the 1-2 minutes a redemption Onos takes. Redemption is good if you're low on resources and need to keep your Onos alive, but 80% of the time, regen is better.
Yes, redemption oni do die, but the number of times they don't die far far far outweights this. Essentially it's invunerability. Redemption oni really hurt the marine team: "Ah crap an onos fire boys fire! Oh, he dissapeared. Well, we just accomplished jack. He'll be back in a few seconds and the trouble is, he's probably gonna hit us where we arn't." Redemption is a "get out of jail free card" that has a 95% success rate. Most redemption oni when they do die already have 100 res anyway thanks to RFK, so they're coming straight back at you!
Either disable redemption on the onos, or rework the skill entirely. A brilliant suggestion over in S&I that was unfortunatly buried in the 12 new posts an hour proposed that redemption instead would give you a portion of the resources you spent on evolving back to you when you died. It struck me, and many other members of the community, as an excellent and equable solution to our problem.
pwerhaps we have to think about a new way it works, not only about numbers...
what about an onus not beeing able to move when redem starts to pull him back after a notification (might be a sound) tells hm 3 seconds before redem activates
-the function would be the same , but
-marines have a bigger chance of killing the onos, he cant run around, making it easier to shoot him
-onos will have to search for cover when redem warns him, he has a chance to run around the next corner to wait for beeing sucked to the next hive
might need a bit testing perhaps...
On the other hand, immortal Oni are rather problematic. There are lots of nasty nerfs proposed that would absolutely ruin the class and cripple the alien team. I'd prefer to see a brief period of "Redemption wounding", wherein Oni would be at less than full power in several ways after they redeem. They might have a slower running speed, or their energy meter could start out quite low (such that they couldn't even afford to use some of their more advanced moves, and they couldn't gore for very long). This effect would heal over a brief period, maybe 30 seconds, but it would also be cumulative. If an Ono was half healed of his redemption wounds when he redeemed, the remaining 15 seconds would be added on for a total of 45 seconds until he's fully recovered.
This would either slow down the pace of Ono assaults or make them less lethal, depending on the approach one took. An Ono could either avoid hitting large Marine bases until he was fully recovered from his last redemption, or he could keep rushing in and only using his Gore (and becoming quickly exhausted, even with adrenaline). In either case, the marines wouldn't have the sort of constant onslaught of Oni, but they would still be something to fear.
Other aliens probably wouldn't need redemption wounding.
etc. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you had res coming out your ears you should have built more turrets, mined the entrances and built backup tfs and arms labs etc. Then there are a few options for your redemption onos: he's blown into a million pieces by 10 stacked mines, he's redeemed by the turrets before he gets close or he gets in your base and manages to tickle a structure before being redeemed. With loads of res you can either weld this structure or build 5 more to replace it.
*Shrug*
It pisses me off that ONE onos that only has 1 hive to back him up can take down a deceintly defended marine start and cause so much confusion among the marines that we go from about to win to getting ultra nubed and lose. I know that onos is a fundamental part of the alien team, but I would of liked to see the marines win a game by taking down all 3 hives for once, something that we were so close to accomplishing but I have also yet to see as of right now.
I've been having problems with onii for ages. Not least because AS an onii I can win a match...
The fact is as soon as onii come around every RT that doesn't have 7+ turrets and PG with willing marines will go down...
Thats the beauty of 2.0. It isn´t over till its over. Some balancing is needed but binding hives to evolutions leads to horrible slow endgames as shown in 1.04.
So say if your HP drops below X (probably would be different for stuff like skulk/lerk, and higher for ono, gorge) then you would have a chance to redeem. So if your ono drops to below say, 20HP, you'd have a chance to redeem.
Or perhaps once you hit a certain threshold a timer starts and if you stay alive for x seconds, the hive will have time to download your memory/whatever and THEN you redeem. So you get an onos below a certain level, and then you have 5 seconds to kill him, or he's gonna redeem?
The solution is simple: aggressive marine action. I was playing on [CoFR] and the game was going as expected: most aliens dropped res nodes leading to an early 2-6ish res count. Within minutes, most of us were around the 50 res mark and were gearing up for onos and a fast endgame. The marines however did not follow the pattern listed above and <i>actually went on a continued offensive</i>. Multiple groups of 2-3 marines consistantly harrassed our res nodes and slowely whittled them away (this was generally a 10 on 10 game). Eventually, the marines took over our nodes (with electrify) and by the time we fielded 1-2 onos they had a heavy train up and running. Needless to say ha train > 2 onos and while we could take out all their res nodes, we couldn't touch the train and it simply overran our hives (our second hive and stomp was lost within 2-3 minutes of the ha train running). GG.
What the marines have to realize is that they too must continue attacking. The aliens NEVER let up the offensive and its seems stupid that the marines should. ALL marine teams that lost that I have played on have at some point decided that they had all the territory/res nodes they needed and just sat back waiting for enough res for a ha train.
ps. For the most part, most 2.0 games I've seen are decided by which team can field their elite troops first (ha train or onos/2-3 hive aliens).
pps. The people who are whining that redemption onos/onos in general are too powerful should realize that each onos is 106 res. Thats approximately 3 heavy armor/shotty marines. If you aren't fielding that many marines PER ONOS then of course youre going to get slaughtered.
I've played a few time on the CoFR server and as a comm I also try to use continous assualt, but on the CoFR server - attack a res node you will get 1/2 the alien on your position in seconds. As aliens can react so quickly then essentially once you are 45secs from marine start aliens have a numerical advantage (they can reinforce a position faster than you).
Also on CoFR most alien teams know the attack<defence<expansion... etc. Then if you attack they go for your bases and res you already hold.
Aliens really can do all three (or at least two) at the same time. By the 5min mark I see most choke points lamed up on CoFR AND they have 6 rt's. So they have done defence <b>and</b> expansion...
yeah, cause res for redeeming an Onos makes it USELESS. I mean WHY BOTHER spending 2 res to never die? They get 1-3 res just for killing you! Man, so useless.
I think i know why aliens win so much, Its because the aliens dont need 3 hives to go onos, in 1.04 if u had 1 hive secured as marines then you had a good start but now in ns 2.0 even if you have 2 hives you can still loose... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thats the beauty of 2.0. It isn´t over till its over. Some balancing is needed but binding hives to evolutions leads to horrible slow endgames as shown in 1.04. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is clearly a lie... endgames in 2.0 have very often ended in gruelling stalemates, as marines grenade spam + turret farm, and onos taking out every push the marines might try to make. Basically, marines defending against onos early lose since they're spending their res on turrets, and marines not defending against onos... well, surprise! You just lost!
I don't see redemption onos as being THAT much of a problem... I've seen them get taken down reliably (after 3-4 redeems, usually a shottie will manage to kill it at the right time). Especially now that onos can't redeem with devour, we'll see less lameness from the onos than at the dawn of 2.0.
This seems to be an issue of speed and tactics... aliens will most likely get an onos faster than marines can counter with a lame farm/gl spam and HA/shottie. Marines are also reluctant to go overboard with turrets unless forced to by the onos. Especially with RFK, you're seeing a faster alien game than marine game.
It's really hard to see where the balance lies. You see redemption onos (and other onos too) get totally owned before they can do any damage, and you also see them killing outpost after outpost. You see marines coming back from a 3-hives AND a forced relocate, and you see them completely unable to respond to a single early onos. It seems the balance lies more along skill (and a bit of luck).
Er... yeah. <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::onos::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tiny.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::sentry::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/turret.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='turret.gif'><!--endemo-->
makes sense?
Onos get one immediate redemption after they evolve the upgrade.
Therafter, redemption has to charge each time, with some high timelimit (say 3-5mins).
This means that during that time, the onos cant galavant around the map with godmode on. I think this is a better solution.
Wrt the turret farming, i think 8 turrets max per tf is reasonable.