matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
<!--QuoteBegin--PseudoKnight+Nov 24 2003, 10:12 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (PseudoKnight @ Nov 24 2003, 10:12 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Aside from the hit-box fix and the res, can you summarize the nerfs to the Fade? I can't seem to remember them. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Fade hitbox is so huge, it's basically impossible to miss (the hitbox is actually slightly larger than the graphics now). Same thing with the Onos - squared. Both died so fast in early 2.1 testing it wasn't even funny. It's better now (2.1s+) though, but it's really hard to get a payoff on those 60 res ...
If the marine tech was changed, lower, made weaker, whatever....then the Aliens would win even more in pub games, prehaps it would be much more even at competition level..but competition level accounts for what? like 1% of all NS games played? Aliens would win more public games than they already are (which is about 60%+ of them)
Once a game becomes badly unbalanced for a regular joesoap, well then the joesoaps will probably stop playing. If CounterTerrorists were just about winning every round on every map in CS, then people stop playing. They have a pretty good balance in Starcraft/Broodwar now, not just between races at high level play, but also for intermediate players. I played 8 or 9 games last night on a pub server with players switching back and forth, Marines won one game...most servers are like this (I do know some servers have a core of experienced players who I have seen all join the Marines and still loose to bad Alien teams, I've never seen this viceversa)
I think right now the game is ok, but if the Marines were weakened, new players and just the regular non nerdy joes who don't know how many LMG bullets its takes to kill a fade will most probably loose interest. These are just my opinions. I have no idea what is happening in 2.1, I am just talking about this version.
If it's so "broken", don't play it. Keep checking www.n-s.org, and hope 2.1 comes out soon.
I wouldn't be suprised if they up the version history to 2.2 or something, THAT much has changed.
And 6v6? Unless the marine team has EVERYTHING done PERFECTLY, they will lose. And HARD. All you need is one guy going onos in the first five minutes. gg.
Okay, guys, this isn't a huge 'nerf marine' thread.
It's half-way a 'marine tech blows and is so overpowered in many regards it needs to have more counters for the aliens' thread, and half-way a 'let's make marines easier by giving them more options instead of having to follow the <b>exact</b> same tech order every game'.
Unfortunately I don't know exactly why that is. I don't think anyone could name a specific reason why. The closest I can come... is Resources for Kills. And Flayra has stated that R4K will never be leaving.
Hopefully, IF these changes went through, it'd nerf enough of the overpowered aspects of marines and give a comfortable balance to the rest of them to make them fun to play again.
Remember what I stated in my first post: It's a creedo I kept in my head while I wrote the whole thing:
Paraphrased because I can't be bothered to go copy-paste it <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> <b>There are 5 steps to the alien tech. If the top of the tech tree mathmatically equalled the number 1, then every step of the alien tech tree (For example, 3 Movement Chambers) should be equal to 0.2 power. There are 7 steps to the marine tech. Again, with 1 being the top of the tech tree, every step should equal 0.14. Meaning that an alien team with one tech upgrade should be superior to a marine team with one tech upgrade, regardless of what it is.</b>
It's half-way a 'marine tech blows and is so overpowered in many regards it needs to have more counters for the aliens' thread, and half-way a 'let's make marines easier by giving them more options instead of having to follow the <b>exact</b> same tech order every game'.
Unfortunately I don't know exactly why that is. I don't think anyone could name a specific reason why. The closest I can come... is Resources for Kills. And Flayra has stated that R4K will never be leaving.
Hopefully, IF these changes went through, it'd nerf enough of the overpowered aspects of marines and give a comfortable balance to the rest of them to make them fun to play again.
Remember what I stated in my first post: It's a creedo I kept in my head while I wrote the whole thing:
Paraphrased because I can't be bothered to go copy-paste it <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> <b>There are 5 steps to the alien tech. If the top of the tech tree mathmatically equalled the number 1, then every step of the alien tech tree (For example, 3 Movement Chambers) should be equal to 0.2 power. There are 7 steps to the marine tech. Again, with 1 being the top of the tech tree, every step should equal 0.14. Meaning that an alien team with one tech upgrade should be superior to a marine team with one tech upgrade, regardless of what it is.</b> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> The marines require less error because they are slower. To make up for this, marines must be able to kill a good 2-5 skulks before they die. That is how an ideal marine should be played. This is why upgrades are important for marines, and marine tech must be fast, to help marines who must play flawlessly. This is for 6v6, by the way.
If you lose too many marines, you will start to lose the slack on the aliens...
I feel this is the time to plug eR vs dn` 10 days ppl w00t!! lollerskate <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo-->
Good matchs prove Rines can be just as effective as aliens.
first of all i think that the side who has the best teamwork wins. Aliens who work more as an team then individuals have imho more chance to win the game then the fully upgraded marines. for instance look at an gorge rush which can really be an pain in the **** for the marines(of course it has his counters).
most of the post in this tread r saying that the alien upgrades are not as effictive as the marine upgrades. i totally disagree with that. this game isnt all about numbers, the human factor plays a greater role imho. Im more afraid to an skulk with cloak then that im to an marine with lvl 3 lmg. but thats me.
and whats that thing i have been reading lately about making the HA turn slower so an skulk can be more effective at it. its like nerf the onos so an vanilla marine can take it down.
i also dont agree with the whole onos thing. ok maybe its true that 2 lvl 0 lmg clips can kill an onos but what r the chances that thats gonna happen in "real combat". call me an noob but I never look to an onos and think that thats an creature that i can easly take with only 2 lmg clips. Its pretty hard to kill an exp onos with lvl 3 lmg let alone with lvl 0. second of all did u tried to fight an onos that has lvl3 regen with an lvl 0 lmg. It regains his health faster then that u can do much damage.
conclusion: i think that the game is pretty balanced as the way it is. changing the game as it is posted in this tread wil imho favor the aliens.
and whats that thing i have been reading lately about making the HA turn slower so an skulk can be more effective at it. its like nerf the onos so an vanilla marine can take it down.
i also dont agree with the whole onos thing. ok maybe its true that 2 lvl 0 lmg clips can kill an onos but what r the chances that thats gonna happen in "real combat". call me an noob but I never look to an onos and think that thats an creature that i can easly take with only 2 lmg clips. Its pretty hard to kill an exp onos with lvl 3 lmg let alone with lvl 0. second of all did u tried to fight an onos that has lvl3 regen with an lvl 0 lmg. It regains his health faster then that u can do much damage. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Had to whack out most of your post there. Because bitching about skill has no foundation to base it upon. I could tell you an 'ABSOLUTELY TRUE STORY that happend to a FRIEND OF A FRIEND' about how one skulk, alone, in one life, with no upgrades and in a fully-lit corridor, attacked and killed 8 level 3 HA marines in less then 30 seconds. OMG SKULKS ARE OVERPOWARD THEN, RIGHT?!?! You can't refute that. You can't prove it's true, nor false. As Nemesis Zero said: "You can't balance the players."
<!--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-->and whats that thing i have been reading lately about making the HA turn slower so an skulk can be more effective at it. its like nerf the onos so an vanilla marine can take it down. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hmmm... I won't directly flame you because you're not the first to say that: Instead I'll flame every 8th grade **** dropout who seems to have read somewhere in my post that I said a skulk should have an easier time taking down an HA. I said that a skulk should have an easier time taking out an <b>HMG</b>. Obviously you people either have the reading comprehension of a giraffe, or dont' actaully READ the first post, and just read all the other replies and infer a conclusion from it.
Furthermore, while I didn't say anything specific for HA, you're wrong: Vanilla marines can EASILLY take out Onos. How, you ask? Well, you see, marines have these things called BULLETS. Bullets have RANGE. Onos is SLOW. A fully upgraded onos running at 3 vanilla marines will, in almost all certainty, be dead by the time he gets within stomp range. The slow speed of HA is hardly as crippling to marines as it is for Onos, simply because no matter how fast or slow you're going, every alien needs to get within 2 feet to hurt you, and your gun has range. Most HAs that I see dying to skulks are stupid, dumbshit marines. They never look around. They get into HA and think 'I'm invincible!' and run around with their welder out trying to kill (unsuccesfully I might add) an onos in the most humiliating way ever. An HA team that plays like a vanilla LA marine will survive MUCH longer, even indefinately.
Oh, for those of you who said such stupid things like: <b>OMG U R GUNNA NERF TEH MOREENS TEH MOREENS ALMOST NEVAR WIN AS IT IS</b>
The reason I've not acknowledged you people with a reply is because I <b>BLATANTLY STATE</b> in my first post that early-game marines would get a significant boost, and the only REAL nerfs happen to... quiz time! Who can actaully tell me what was nerfed?
The only things that were nerfed:
1) The sheer unstoppability of HA as soon as it gets toted out.
2) The fact that nearly every gun outperforms in every situation, which it SHOULDN'T.
3) The lack of any counters whatsoever to marine tech that doesn't require a super-skilled player and an assload of luck.
If you had read my first post, you'd realize... SURPRISE SURPRISE that half the suggestions are about dropping the costs and research times for marine tech. Imagine having an HMG at 3 minutes to take down that early-game reswhore. OMG SO NERFED, RIGHT?!
<!--QuoteBegin--uranium - 235+Dec 4 2003, 01:50 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (uranium - 235 @ Dec 4 2003, 01:50 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Furthermore, while I didn't say anything specific for HA, you're wrong: Vanilla marines can EASILLY take out Onos. How, you ask? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> ns_hera. Entrance and reception. Using one pistol clip and one LMG clip, I took down a regen Onos without him ever getting within gore range. I just jumped over the 'desk' there, and the Oni never landed a blow.
<!--QuoteBegin--uranium - 235+Dec 4 2003, 02:58 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (uranium - 235 @ Dec 4 2003, 02:58 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> The only things that were nerfed:
1) The sheer unstoppability of HA as soon as it gets toted out.
2) The fact that nearly every gun outperforms in every situation, which it SHOULDN'T.
3) The lack of any counters whatsoever to marine tech that doesn't require a super-skilled player and an assload of luck.
If you had read my first post, you'd realize... SURPRISE SURPRISE that half the suggestions are about dropping the costs and research times for marine tech. Imagine having an HMG at 3 minutes to take down that early-game reswhore. OMG SO NERFED, RIGHT?!
Read my post again you brick heads. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> 1.) HA is far from unstoppable. Trust me. Just bite them, and they die. With good fades, or better yet, a 2 hive onos, HA trains are extreamlly easy to massacre. You pretty much need two hives to beat any sort of HA train though. And, fades, good as they can be, are not a guarentee to stop an HA train. However, an onos with stomp and adren is a guarenteed win.
2.) Marine guns do indeed outpreform... but for a reason and it makes sense that they do. Marine guns out preform in the <b>short run</b>. An LMG can kill much faster than a skulk can, because it's long ranged and takes roughly 1 second of concentrated fire from one marine to slaughter a skulk. In one second, you take about 4-5 steps as a skulk. In other words, it kills REALLY fast. If you look at how aliens must play to kill marines effectively; ambushes, wear and tear tatics, hit and run, delaying or somehow stopping the fire; you can appreciate the balance of this game.
Lets take a quick look at how most alien classes kill their oppionents, and we notice a trend. This trend is always putting the marines at a disadvantage; or somehow hindering them. I wont look at hive 3 abilities as they are specifically designed to eat 100 marines for breakfest and be hungry by lunch time.
Skulks work by ambushes. They aim to kill the marines faster than the marines can kill them. To make up for the fact that skulks are extreamlly soft creatures, they have a staple ability of parasite, which will is a wallhack that puts the marines at a great disadvantage. Skulks can fit into every nook and cranny of the map, making it so they have many combinations in which to ambush and slaughter you with. Later leap allows skulks to move faster and also not have to require ambushes in order to attack (leap is one of the few attacks which operates on the fact you try to kill them right away; you do not try and out last them more often than not..).
Gorges are designed so that in the early game, they can make skulks live slightly longer with heal spray; but it won't save them completely. Also, gorges can spit; a seemly useless attack it actually is good in the fact that gorges can stay in a skulk ambushes cover spitting at the marines and at the same time luring the marines.
Lerks have spores (and soon bite), and the use of spores is obvious: Wear them down! Also, the lerk's bite is great for hit and runs; fly in, bite them, fly right on by. Umbra later on makes it so marine's effectiveness of killing aliens by delaying fire, again, making it so the aliens will outlast the marines in the sense they can't kill them fast enough.
Fades are the hit and run masters; run in, hit them or kill them, and run out if you become close to death. By simply blinking out before they can kill you, not only will they be weaker in the next fight for you to kill them, but you will be just as strong due to the aliens ability to heal fairly quickly. (This is why D chambers first are so important) Fades eventually get metabolize, which allow them to make faster hit and runs with a self heal. Again, the idea of outlasting the marines.
Onos are the top class for a reason; rather than outlast your clip with special tricks or try to kill you first, onos outlast marines in the simplest form around: They will take your clip, and keep on coming. In other words, unless you have upgrades the onos will outlast your clip. There are no counters to this, except for playing a good marine round and getting the tech nessesary to deal enough damage to this beast and kill him outright. However, if you are teched up chances are that the aliens may be teched up as well, thus leading to a 2 hive onos, which has the ultimate outlasting ability in the game for aliens: Stomp! It stops marine fire completely, further adding to the utimate power of outlasting marines in the most direct way possible.
So there you have it; aliens are designed to win by simply by keeping the marines from killing them fast enough, marines win by killing them before the aliens have a chance to kill the marines.
Remember, this game works to make sure each side works to cover up each race's own weaknesses.
For instance, the fact that marines alone cannot surrive along against competetant aliens is simply due to the fact that marines cannot heal, have limited amount of attack, has only such a big clip... etc. Marine game isn't designed to simply work and tear against the alien menace. However, the marines do indeed have one way of making their lasting power stay around, as you have no doubt realized by now: the commander! While people have given it a lame name, medspam, it does indeed serve a vital purpose; it's the main way for a large part of the game for marines to outlast the aliens. The same goes for ammo packs. The comm is the marines sole way to make sure his marines stay in there against the enemy. Meanwhile, while aliens are trying to make sure that they outlast the marines or are able to kill them first, aliens make up for the fact that they start off weak with higher evolutions down their tech tree which are purposely designed to outlast, and simply to overpower the marines.
Both sides have ways of making up for their weaknesses.
3.) There are counters are indeed there, as above listed.
<!--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--> ns_hera. Entrance and reception. Using one pistol clip and one LMG clip, I took down a regen Onos without him ever getting within gore range. I just jumped over the 'desk' there, and the Oni never landed a blow.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin--Forlorn+Dec 4 2003, 04:18 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Dec 4 2003, 04:18 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> 1.) HA is far from unstoppable. Trust me. Just bite them, and they die. With good fades, or better yet, a 2 hive onos, HA trains are extreamlly easy to massacre. You pretty much need two hives to beat any sort of HA train though. And, fades, good as they can be, are not a guarentee to stop an HA train. However, an onos with stomp and adren is a guarenteed win. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Guarenteed win? Have you <i>PLAYED</i> NS, forlorn? A bunch of idiots in HA with welders are damn near unstoppable. If they are decently skilled, it takes an ammount of teamwork unobtainable on pubs to bring them down.
<!--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--> Lerks have spores (and soon bite), and the use of spores is obvious: Wear them down! Also, the lerk's bite is great for hit and runs; fly in, bite them, fly right on by. Umbra later on makes it so marine's effectiveness of killing aliens by delaying fire, again, making it so the aliens will outlast the marines in the sense they can't kill them fast enough. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> A marine with halfway decent aim would swat a lerk out of the sky. Throw in MT, and such attacks would be possible on n00bs only.
<!--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-->Onos are the top class for a reason; rather than outlast your clip with special tricks or try to kill you first, onos outlast marines in the simplest form around: They will take your clip, and keep on coming. In other words, unless you have upgrades the onos will outlast your clip. There are no counters to this, except for playing a good marine round and getting the tech nessesary to deal enough damage to this beast and kill him outright. However, if you are teched up chances are that the aliens may be teched up as well, thus leading to a 2 hive onos, which has the ultimate outlasting ability in the game for aliens: Stomp! It stops marine fire completely, further adding to the utimate power of outlasting marines in the most direct way possible. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Forlorn, one single LA marine, with starting equipment and lvl 3 weapons, can kill an onos without being SCRATCHED. All you have to know is where the hitbox is. In 3.0, the hitbox IS the onos. Ask any playtester, and they go down like flys. The Onos sucked? Let me see. He was at the top of the Kharra ranking. He was a clanner (-PGc- I believe, but am not sure) He had previously WALKED through two of my fellow marines, and had hardly needed the time he took to regen. Sucked? Hardly. I just know where the hitbox was, and I rule with a pistol.
I think a lot of the issues cited in the first post are in many ways intentional solutions to 1.04's endgame problem. The fundamental question is, at what point has a team won? The answer to this question determines when the Marines and Aliens should be in balance, and when the other should clearly dominate.
In 1.04, hive ownership was the clear indicator of victory. Once Aliens hit 2 hives, they had the tools to pretty much own the map. Similarly, a two-hive lockdown was a deathblow from Marines.
In 2.0, hive ownership is necessary but not sufficient. The true trump card is the production of well-armed HA trains. Once the Marines have passed a certain threshold of technology, no alien attack can surmount it.
Aliens have no such threshold, though. While giving Marines mostly hard-counters is understandable from a gameplay perspective (a singular Commander has to make granular decisions, unlike the ebb and flow of the alien team), it can't be applied too liberally.
And then it is perhaps out of place that so many Marine abilities are generalist, while Alien abilities tend to be more specialized. Upgrading damage and defense helps Marines in all situations, while Kharaa upgrades tend to enforce a narrowly-defined role (sometimes at the loss of overall effectiveness, like with focus lowering one's DPS).
If there's a better definition for "overpowered" than "generalist hard-counters", I don't know what it is.
I don't know if this has bin done, it very well may have bin
I think the devs should try playing a couple of haves where boths teams start with 4 res node and full tech. That way it will be very easy to see if marines have it better off
you guy could try it too if you get some clan buddys together
And I don't think the balance is too bad at the moment, but when I see all of the alien effectiveness-reductions and Marine price-reductions in 3.0, I can't help but cringe.
And I've always felt that acid rockets are the key to this whole problem. In 1.04, AR were the ultimate general Kharaa weapon. And by "general", I refer to the notion that the weapon is useful enough that, given reasonable of them, anything can be overcome. Bases, HA trains, anything could be dealt with by a clever group of 1.04 fades. GLs make for a pretty effective counter, but would typically be considered on a higher tech tier in 1.04.
In 2.0, though, the best generalized Kharaa tools (AR, xeno, and web) are all at 3 hives. 2 hives is notoriously impoverished, with stomp (a specialized support ability) the only major improvement.
Hence, the one-hive lock down. If Marines can nail down one hive and a few nodes, and ride out that first Ono rush (which is rarely as scary as most people seem to think it is, due to the miracle of the force/space ratio), then there's little recourse for 2-hive aliens, even if they control almost all of the map. No worthwhile 2-hive alien ability lacks an explicit counter.
While Marine tech could certainly use a revision to keep it from being so top-heavy, I think 3.0 could better address the plight of the mid-game Kharaa. Generalizing a few of their abilities (make bile bomb damage Marine armor, maybe, or actually make Leap worthwhile somehow) would perhaps make the hive-conflict as valuable as the resource-conflict. As of now, who cares if they get the second hive up?
<!--QuoteBegin--Dragon_Mech+Dec 4 2003, 05:37 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dragon_Mech @ Dec 4 2003, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--Forlorn+Dec 4 2003, 04:18 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Dec 4 2003, 04:18 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> 1.) HA is far from unstoppable. Trust me. Just bite them, and they die. With good fades, or better yet, a 2 hive onos, HA trains are extreamlly easy to massacre. You pretty much need two hives to beat any sort of HA train though. And, fades, good as they can be, are not a guarentee to stop an HA train. However, an onos with stomp and adren is a guarenteed win. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Guarenteed win? Have you <i>PLAYED</i> NS, forlorn? A bunch of idiots in HA with welders are damn near unstoppable. If they are decently skilled, it takes an ammount of teamwork unobtainable on pubs to bring them down.
<!--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--> Lerks have spores (and soon bite), and the use of spores is obvious: Wear them down! Also, the lerk's bite is great for hit and runs; fly in, bite them, fly right on by. Umbra later on makes it so marine's effectiveness of killing aliens by delaying fire, again, making it so the aliens will outlast the marines in the sense they can't kill them fast enough. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> A marine with halfway decent aim would swat a lerk out of the sky. Throw in MT, and such attacks would be possible on n00bs only.
<!--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-->Onos are the top class for a reason; rather than outlast your clip with special tricks or try to kill you first, onos outlast marines in the simplest form around: They will take your clip, and keep on coming. In other words, unless you have upgrades the onos will outlast your clip. There are no counters to this, except for playing a good marine round and getting the tech nessesary to deal enough damage to this beast and kill him outright. However, if you are teched up chances are that the aliens may be teched up as well, thus leading to a 2 hive onos, which has the ultimate outlasting ability in the game for aliens: Stomp! It stops marine fire completely, further adding to the utimate power of outlasting marines in the most direct way possible. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Forlorn, one single LA marine, with starting equipment and lvl 3 weapons, can kill an onos without being SCRATCHED. All you have to know is where the hitbox is. In 3.0, the hitbox IS the onos. Ask any playtester, and they go down like flys. The Onos sucked? Let me see. He was at the top of the Kharra ranking. He was a clanner (-PGc- I believe, but am not sure) He had previously WALKED through two of my fellow marines, and had hardly needed the time he took to regen. Sucked? Hardly. I just know where the hitbox was, and I rule with a pistol. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> 1.) I would not make comments on whether or not who's played more NS dragon_mech. For starters I have played NS since it was released, but it's wrong to make assumptions since we've never seen each other play anyways. What servers do you frequent, I'll hit them up sometime.
2.) A 2-Hive onos is nigh unstoppable. It's fairly obvious to me you've never seen the true power of stomp spam. Stomp spam against HA marines is a proven tatic that WORKS. In fact, it OWNS. It completely dominates anything short of a jetpacker.
3.) How the hell would MT make it easier to kill a lerk? ROFL Not to mention, you don't 'swat' lerks out of the sky... not unless they try to tango with you 1v1 and they have spikes, the fact is a lerk just uses a lot of hit and running with spores, and maybe a little 1v1 with spikes if the lerk feels lucky.
4.) It takes 55 LMG shots to kill an onos. If an onos lost to one lv. 3 LMG marine, either he was hive one or the onos sucked hardcore. Stomp spam pretty much guarentees that you can't fire all 55 of those bullets unless I'm stupid and I charge you at the end of an insanely long hallway or you are on top of some high alclove. <!--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-->And then it is perhaps out of place that so many Marine abilities are generalist, while Alien abilities tend to be more specialized. Upgrading damage and defense helps Marines in all situations, while Kharaa upgrades tend to enforce a narrowly-defined role (sometimes at the loss of overall effectiveness, like with focus lowering one's DPS). <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Alien upgrades aren't really that specilized... they just put an emphasis on finesse rather than brute force. Focus is great because you hit them, run, regen if needed, then hit them again and kill them. You can't counter 2 focus hits with medspam, so you need to have your armor repaired, and if you are fast then you will outlast them and kill them.
Also, hive 3 is insanely overpowered, things like webs, xenocide, primal scream, and acid rocket make life a living hell.
I have to agree with forlorn, everytime a onos uses stomp, to keep stunning the HA'S, i can't see the HA's really winning that one. unless if it's just an onos by himself, then i'd say he's a goner, but if it's an onos skulks+fade (maybe even add a lerk) then i dont see how the aliens could lose, unless if the onos stops stomping, or got celertity instead and doesn't have enough energy left.
<!--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-->Alien upgrades aren't really that specilized... they just put an emphasis on finesse rather than brute force. Focus is great because you hit them, run, regen if needed, then hit them again and kill them. You can't counter 2 focus hits with medspam, so you need to have your armor repaired, and if you are fast then you will outlast them and kill them.
Also, hive 3 is insanely overpowered, things like webs, xenocide, primal scream, and acid rocket make life a living hell.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
With what species do you see focus hit-and-run as a viable tactic? Doesn't seem that worthwhile to me with anything except fades, and then a fade shouldn't have to use hit-and-run against anything other than HA. And with HA, they'll be welding while you regen, and bloody fools if they're alone and unable to get welded.
Focus is a by definition specialized. It lowers your damage per second, but frontloads more damage. This is specialized because only in certain situations (based on armor level and Kharaa species) will it actually result in a faster kill. And hit-and-run tactics don't work that well against a target that is shooting at you, both coming and going. Rushing a Marine once is enough of a trick, but now one is supposed to make that trip three times (rush-run-rush)?
I agree that third hive abilities add a lot of versatility, but "insanely overpowered"? Webs can be welded and keep getting their limit reduced, xeno is a suicide ability that can't kill a Marine with armor upgrades, primal scream is awesome but rarely wins battles that wouldn't have been won anyways. And acid rockets are, as I've said, great general weapons, but when an upgraded LMG marine can kill a fade faster than his acid rockets can kill the marine in a straight fight, it is hard to call them that overpowered. GLs and welders can generally protect a HA train from AR-ing fades, but it is admittedly a fairly soft counter.
The only thing that's so devastating about acid rockets is that they finally give aliens an all-purpose ranged attack, which lets them exploit the same mathematics of force/space that Marines enjoy from the very beginning.
<!--QuoteBegin--Forlorn+Dec 5 2003, 08:21 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Dec 5 2003, 08:21 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> 1.) I would not make comments on whether or not who's played more NS dragon_mech. For starters I have played NS since it was released, but it's wrong to make assumptions since we've never seen each other play anyways. What servers do you frequent, I'll hit them up sometime.
2.) A 2-Hive onos is nigh unstoppable. It's fairly obvious to me you've never seen the true power of stomp spam. Stomp spam against HA marines is a proven tatic that WORKS. In fact, it OWNS. It completely dominates anything short of a jetpacker.
3.) How the hell would MT make it easier to kill a lerk? ROFL Not to mention, you don't 'swat' lerks out of the sky... not unless they try to tango with you 1v1 and they have spikes, the fact is a lerk just uses a lot of hit and running with spores, and maybe a little 1v1 with spikes if the lerk feels lucky.
4.) It takes 55 LMG shots to kill an onos. If an onos lost to one lv. 3 LMG marine, either he was hive one or the onos sucked hardcore. Stomp spam pretty much guarentees that you can't fire all 55 of those bullets unless I'm stupid and I charge you at the end of an insanely long hallway or you are on top of some high alclove. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> 1) You're right, and I apologise. I made that comment in anger, and I'm sorry. I joined the NS comminuty only after 2.0 - so I don't doubt that you have more experience in the matter.
2) Works? Yes. Proven? Sorta. If even one marine is not affected by the stomp, then he can still kill or dirve off the onos (Especially redemption oni - *snicker*) with high enough level weapons. If the onos has to reposition himself to get that other marine, the whole squad standa a good chance of recovering from stuning, and when that happens you can start planning Mr. Onos's funeral; mostly because you can still aim and reload while stunned. Hence, when any marine recovers, he wll probably have mouse1 ready & set to unleash heck on the Onos. If you can keep an entire squad (4+ guys) stunned, I am impressed - I have managed to do so only once or twice.
3) It would help in that you know where they are coming from. Just keep looking around at all times. As for the swatting-out-of-the-sky bit, I refer to the fact that lerks loose spikes in favor of bite - they will have no long range attack against HA. Two to four well-placed shotgun shells, or a few seconds of close range HMG fire shred even carapaced lerks.
4) I was above where he was stomping. More namely, I was on the desk in hera entrance. When he ran at me, I jumped down behind the desk. When he tried to run around the desk, I jumped back over. He then decided I wasn't worth the trouble (or soemthing) because he went for the PG behind me.
and whats that thing i have been reading lately about making the HA turn slower so an skulk can be more effective at it. its like nerf the onos so an vanilla marine can take it down.
i also dont agree with the whole onos thing. ok maybe its true that 2 lvl 0 lmg clips can kill an onos but what r the chances that thats gonna happen in "real combat". call me an noob but I never look to an onos and think that thats an creature that i can easly take with only 2 lmg clips. Its pretty hard to kill an exp onos with lvl 3 lmg let alone with lvl 0. second of all did u tried to fight an onos that has lvl3 regen with an lvl 0 lmg. It regains his health faster then that u can do much damage. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Had to whack out most of your post there. Because bitching about skill has no foundation to base it upon. I could tell you an 'ABSOLUTELY TRUE STORY that happend to a FRIEND OF A FRIEND' about how one skulk, alone, in one life, with no upgrades and in a fully-lit corridor, attacked and killed 8 level 3 HA marines in less then 30 seconds. OMG SKULKS ARE OVERPOWARD THEN, RIGHT?!?! You can't refute that. You can't prove it's true, nor false. As Nemesis Zero said: "You can't balance the players."
<!--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-->and whats that thing i have been reading lately about making the HA turn slower so an skulk can be more effective at it. its like nerf the onos so an vanilla marine can take it down. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hmmm... I won't directly flame you because you're not the first to say that: Instead I'll flame every 8th grade **** dropout who seems to have read somewhere in my post that I said a skulk should have an easier time taking down an HA. I said that a skulk should have an easier time taking out an <b>HMG</b>. Obviously you people either have the reading comprehension of a giraffe, or dont' actaully READ the first post, and just read all the other replies and infer a conclusion from it.
Furthermore, while I didn't say anything specific for HA, you're wrong: Vanilla marines can EASILLY take out Onos. How, you ask? Well, you see, marines have these things called BULLETS. Bullets have RANGE. Onos is SLOW. A fully upgraded onos running at 3 vanilla marines will, in almost all certainty, be dead by the time he gets within stomp range. The slow speed of HA is hardly as crippling to marines as it is for Onos, simply because no matter how fast or slow you're going, every alien needs to get within 2 feet to hurt you, and your gun has range. Most HAs that I see dying to skulks are stupid, dumbshit marines. They never look around. They get into HA and think 'I'm invincible!' and run around with their welder out trying to kill (unsuccesfully I might add) an onos in the most humiliating way ever. An HA team that plays like a vanilla LA marine will survive MUCH longer, even indefinately.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Maybe i didnt put it right but i certainly wasnt bitching about skill. What i wanted to say that every player has enough "BRAINS" to evaluate which upgrade they should get for certain conditions. And players with enough "BRAINS" should know that when they charge long distances head on with marines, that their chances of survival is very slim.
Whats the point of flaming other persons who may just misred your post or doesnt agree with u.
i also want to say that i agree with Forlong. A well organised team of aliens can preveil over an HA train. Ive seen it before and i certainly will see it again.
<!--QuoteBegin--Dragon_Mech+Dec 5 2003, 04:06 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dragon_Mech @ Dec 5 2003, 04:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--Forlorn+Dec 5 2003, 08:21 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Dec 5 2003, 08:21 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> 1.) I would not make comments on whether or not who's played more NS dragon_mech. For starters I have played NS since it was released, but it's wrong to make assumptions since we've never seen each other play anyways. What servers do you frequent, I'll hit them up sometime.
2.) A 2-Hive onos is nigh unstoppable. It's fairly obvious to me you've never seen the true power of stomp spam. Stomp spam against HA marines is a proven tatic that WORKS. In fact, it OWNS. It completely dominates anything short of a jetpacker.
3.) How the hell would MT make it easier to kill a lerk? ROFL Not to mention, you don't 'swat' lerks out of the sky... not unless they try to tango with you 1v1 and they have spikes, the fact is a lerk just uses a lot of hit and running with spores, and maybe a little 1v1 with spikes if the lerk feels lucky.
4.) It takes 55 LMG shots to kill an onos. If an onos lost to one lv. 3 LMG marine, either he was hive one or the onos sucked hardcore. Stomp spam pretty much guarentees that you can't fire all 55 of those bullets unless I'm stupid and I charge you at the end of an insanely long hallway or you are on top of some high alclove. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> 1) You're right, and I apologise. I made that comment in anger, and I'm sorry. I joined the NS comminuty only after 2.0 - so I don't doubt that you have more experience in the matter.
2) Works? Yes. Proven? Sorta. If even one marine is not affected by the stomp, then he can still kill or dirve off the onos (Especially redemption oni - *snicker*) with high enough level weapons. If the onos has to reposition himself to get that other marine, the whole squad standa a good chance of recovering from stuning, and when that happens you can start planning Mr. Onos's funeral; mostly because you can still aim and reload while stunned. Hence, when any marine recovers, he wll probably have mouse1 ready & set to unleash heck on the Onos. If you can keep an entire squad (4+ guys) stunned, I am impressed - I have managed to do so only once or twice.
3) It would help in that you know where they are coming from. Just keep looking around at all times. As for the swatting-out-of-the-sky bit, I refer to the fact that lerks loose spikes in favor of bite - they will have no long range attack against HA. Two to four well-placed shotgun shells, or a few seconds of close range HMG fire shred even carapaced lerks.
4) I was above where he was stomping. More namely, I was on the desk in hera entrance. When he ran at me, I jumped down behind the desk. When he tried to run around the desk, I jumped back over. He then decided I wasn't worth the trouble (or soemthing) because he went for the PG behind me. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> 2.) You don't stomp spam them untill they hit a hallway (which every single NS map has, I swear it's the unwritten rule of god that all NS maps must have a lot of narrow hallways in them. You then stomp spam that. You don't even have to aim, and the HA marines are <b>helpless</b> as they are stuck to the ground while one skulk kills them all.
4.) That definatly sounds like a craptacular onos to me, I don't care what clan he's in, chances are if he's that bad so is his clan. I would have never died in such a situation, unless I was asking for suicide.
Also, your little tatic of jumping over the desk is cute and all... but a good onos will jump right over after you. I've learned to bhop with the onos, jumping over a little desk is no sweat.
nah , the game is balanced enough between marines and aliens. now i agree that after 10 min. in a game skulks become tottaly useless but still,with cloacking and silence they own(remember they can climb on walls and seelings+do parasite) what do i beleive? I BELEIVE THAT THEY SHOULD ADD THE <u>ORGANIC WALL </u>TO ALIENS AND <u>NUCLEAR BOMB</u> TO MARINES.
i posted a forum once about these 2 element duno if they took it off.i made a preview of the organic wall 2 chek a forum called organic wall.
<!--QuoteBegin--Forlorn+Dec 5 2003, 11:22 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Forlorn @ Dec 5 2003, 11:22 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> 4.) That definatly sounds like a craptacular onos to me, I don't care what clan he's in, chances are if he's that bad so is his clan. I would have never died in such a situation, unless I was asking for suicide. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Whether or not that Onos was a poor player doesn't truly matter in the instance of this thread. If a vanilla marine can take down the highest level kharra form, with two evolutions (MC & DC no less) so easily, it signals that something needs to be done to A) weaken what can destroy so easily or B) strengthen what is so easily destroyed. This will be getting even worse with the hitbox fixes that are planned for 3.0, so personally I go for option B.
Im tired of people arguing that stomp spam cant win everything.
Certain situations?Yes.Most?No.
I cant count the number of times i wiped out 7-8 HAs in a corridor....thanks to stomp and a few skulks.If an onos has stomp,simply forget about seiging places like power silo on nothing.Onos strafes out,stomps,skulks goes in,onos stomps,skulks start biting,you cant do jack because you are getting stomped to hell.And no,you cant avoid it,since its a bloody CORRIDOR.
<!--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-->Also, your little tatic of jumping over the desk is cute and all... but a good onos will jump right over after you. I've learned to bhop with the onos, jumping over a little desk is no sweat. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Forlorn: Marines have a hard time crouch jumping over that desk in Hera Reception. It's impossible to do it with an onos. Try it out. Hera Reception is a deathtrap for an onos. The stairs are narrow, and there's that desk protecting the marines. It's almost like a bunker.
But I still agree with you Forlorn, just thought I'd point this out. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Any of you that think NS 2.0 is balanced must have some screews loose. NS 2.0 is so uneven at given times it's just not funny.
At the start of the round, the alien team far more powerfull then the marine team in every aspect. The aliens do not need to build a means of which to re-enforce once killed, the marines do. The aliens do not need to call for ammo or health once depleted or damaged but the marines do. The aliens can evolve to any life form once thier resource has built up enough to aford it. The marines simply can not counter this in the early minutes of the game.
At mid point, the balance starts to swing to the marines (if they lasted that long) and can now start pushing for upgrades. It's at this point where NS 2.0 is at it's most "balanced" point (if you can possablely call that a fair balance) but the marines still can not counter the mighty onos (which is sure to be found by now) when in smaller groups. The marines still have it harder in one aspect where there tech costs nearly 5 times that of the alien tech.
Now, the late game point, the balance has seriously moved to the marine team because the marine tech is 3 times more powerfull then the aliens and if the aliens do not have all three hives then there is not much they can do at this point to stop the marine expantion. Even the once all mighty onos is not much of a threat now because just one clip from a level 3 HMG is enough to stop an onos dead in it's tracks even with level 3 regen.
So tell me, how could NS 2.0 be more balanced then NS 1.0, or for that matter, even fair? I personally think that NS 1.04 was at it's most balanced for both teams and at all points of time in the game. Sure, NS 1.0 had a few bugs but both teams had a means for countering the other teams upgrades like jetpack vs lerk, shotgun or hmg with jetpack vs fade or ha and hmg vs onos.
Just a bump. I'd love for a dev to comment on this and call me a dreamer, at least, that'd mean something...
Anyway, imagine the marine team without their hard counters.
No more siege. No more HA immunities. No more sensor scans and observatories. Say bye-bye to level 3 upgrades.
The marine team would be impossibly hard to play, then wouldn't it?
Not really. Notice how all the hard counters magically appear around the end of the Midgame phase, and through all of the Endgame? That's what I want to fix. Either nerf their hard counters and expand their early-game, or give the aliens some hard counters as well. I'm tired of running for my precious 50-res (and soon 60) life because some <b>vanilla marine who just spawned</b> is a <b>THREAT TO ME</b>. Let's have an alien weapon to strike the fear of god into a marine, eh? Not even onos does that, hell, no one is scared of those stupid, slow things.
Expand the marine early-tech by making weapons cheaper and actually COUNTERABLE. Make end games balanced, at least!
Dude, I doubt if a dev would ever comment on this, and even if he did, you'd probably get something like this:
- Marine hard counters are there so the game will end - Aliens are not weak, stop using pubs for your examples - The fact that aliens have a hard time if marines get full upgrades isn't anything to complain about, it's no different than aliens getting 3 hives (3 hives > all marine tech, btw)
<!--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-->Whether or not that Onos was a poor player doesn't truly matter in the instance of this thread. If a vanilla marine can take down the highest level kharra form, with two evolutions (MC & DC no less) so easily, it signals that something needs to be done to A) weaken what can destroy so easily or B) strengthen what is so easily destroyed. This will be getting even worse with the hitbox fixes that are planned for 3.0, so personally I go for option B. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is easily the most ignorant statement I've ever read. A vanilla marine can kill a high level lifeform, therefore it's too weak...?
No, more like the two players didn't use their classes properly. A 2 hive onos is plenty strong as it is... trust me. It's not the game's fault he sucked arse.
I mean, by your examples, an entire HA train could fall to one skulk because the HA train sits there and dies, and therefore the skulks is unbalanced.
Please, using pubs for your examples isn't going to win you any arguments any time soon.
Comments
The Fade hitbox is so huge, it's basically impossible to miss (the hitbox is actually slightly larger than the graphics now). Same thing with the Onos - squared. Both died so fast in early 2.1 testing it wasn't even funny. It's better now (2.1s+) though, but it's really hard to get a payoff on those 60 res ...
The skulk is harder to hit from the front though.
Once a game becomes badly unbalanced for a regular joesoap, well then the joesoaps will probably stop playing. If CounterTerrorists were just about winning every round on every map in CS, then people stop playing. They have a pretty good balance in Starcraft/Broodwar now, not just between races at high level play, but also for intermediate players. I played 8 or 9 games last night on a pub server with players switching back and forth, Marines won one game...most servers are like this (I do know some servers have a core of experienced players who I have seen all join the Marines and still loose to bad Alien teams, I've never seen this viceversa)
I think right now the game is ok, but if the Marines were weakened, new players and just the regular non nerdy joes who don't know how many LMG bullets its takes to kill a fade will most probably loose interest. These are just my opinions. I have no idea what is happening in 2.1, I am just talking about this version.
I wouldn't be suprised if they up the version history to 2.2 or something, THAT much has changed.
And 6v6? Unless the marine team has EVERYTHING done PERFECTLY, they will lose. And HARD. All you need is one guy going onos in the first five minutes. gg.
It's half-way a 'marine tech blows and is so overpowered in many regards it needs to have more counters for the aliens' thread, and half-way a 'let's make marines easier by giving them more options instead of having to follow the <b>exact</b> same tech order every game'.
Forlorn hit it on the head:
<!--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-->Marines require less error<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Unfortunately I don't know exactly why that is. I don't think anyone could name a specific reason why. The closest I can come... is Resources for Kills. And Flayra has stated that R4K will never be leaving.
Hopefully, IF these changes went through, it'd nerf enough of the overpowered aspects of marines and give a comfortable balance to the rest of them to make them fun to play again.
Remember what I stated in my first post: It's a creedo I kept in my head while I wrote the whole thing:
Paraphrased because I can't be bothered to go copy-paste it <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> <b>There are 5 steps to the alien tech. If the top of the tech tree mathmatically equalled the number 1, then every step of the alien tech tree (For example, 3 Movement Chambers) should be equal to 0.2 power. There are 7 steps to the marine tech. Again, with 1 being the top of the tech tree, every step should equal 0.14. Meaning that an alien team with one tech upgrade should be superior to a marine team with one tech upgrade, regardless of what it is.</b>
It's half-way a 'marine tech blows and is so overpowered in many regards it needs to have more counters for the aliens' thread, and half-way a 'let's make marines easier by giving them more options instead of having to follow the <b>exact</b> same tech order every game'.
Forlorn hit it on the head:
<!--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-->Marines require less error<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Unfortunately I don't know exactly why that is. I don't think anyone could name a specific reason why. The closest I can come... is Resources for Kills. And Flayra has stated that R4K will never be leaving.
Hopefully, IF these changes went through, it'd nerf enough of the overpowered aspects of marines and give a comfortable balance to the rest of them to make them fun to play again.
Remember what I stated in my first post: It's a creedo I kept in my head while I wrote the whole thing:
Paraphrased because I can't be bothered to go copy-paste it <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> <b>There are 5 steps to the alien tech. If the top of the tech tree mathmatically equalled the number 1, then every step of the alien tech tree (For example, 3 Movement Chambers) should be equal to 0.2 power. There are 7 steps to the marine tech. Again, with 1 being the top of the tech tree, every step should equal 0.14. Meaning that an alien team with one tech upgrade should be superior to a marine team with one tech upgrade, regardless of what it is.</b> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
The marines require less error because they are slower. To make up for this, marines must be able to kill a good 2-5 skulks before they die. That is how an ideal marine should be played. This is why upgrades are important for marines, and marine tech must be fast, to help marines who must play flawlessly. This is for 6v6, by the way.
If you lose too many marines, you will start to lose the slack on the aliens...
Good matchs prove Rines can be just as effective as aliens.
most of the post in this tread r saying that the alien upgrades are not as effictive as the marine upgrades. i totally disagree with that. this game isnt all about numbers, the human factor plays a greater role imho. Im more afraid to an skulk with cloak then that im to an marine with lvl 3 lmg. but thats me.
and whats that thing i have been reading lately about making the HA turn slower so an skulk can be more effective at it. its like nerf the onos so an vanilla marine can take it down.
i also dont agree with the whole onos thing. ok maybe its true that 2 lvl 0 lmg clips can kill an onos but what r the chances that thats gonna happen in "real combat". call me an noob but I never look to an onos and think that thats an creature that i can easly take with only 2 lmg clips. Its pretty hard to kill an exp onos with lvl 3 lmg let alone with lvl 0. second of all did u tried to fight an onos that has lvl3 regen with an lvl 0 lmg. It regains his health faster then that u can do much damage.
conclusion: i think that the game is pretty balanced as the way it is. changing the game as it is posted in this tread wil imho favor the aliens.
<span style='color:red'><b>SWISH - CHOP</span></b>
and whats that thing i have been reading lately about making the HA turn slower so an skulk can be more effective at it. its like nerf the onos so an vanilla marine can take it down.
i also dont agree with the whole onos thing. ok maybe its true that 2 lvl 0 lmg clips can kill an onos but what r the chances that thats gonna happen in "real combat". call me an noob but I never look to an onos and think that thats an creature that i can easly take with only 2 lmg clips. Its pretty hard to kill an exp onos with lvl 3 lmg let alone with lvl 0. second of all did u tried to fight an onos that has lvl3 regen with an lvl 0 lmg. It regains his health faster then that u can do much damage.
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Had to whack out most of your post there. Because bitching about skill has no foundation to base it upon. I could tell you an 'ABSOLUTELY TRUE STORY that happend to a FRIEND OF A FRIEND' about how one skulk, alone, in one life, with no upgrades and in a fully-lit corridor, attacked and killed 8 level 3 HA marines in less then 30 seconds. OMG SKULKS ARE OVERPOWARD THEN, RIGHT?!?! You can't refute that. You can't prove it's true, nor false. As Nemesis Zero said: "You can't balance the players."
<!--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-->and whats that thing i have been reading lately about making the HA turn slower so an skulk can be more effective at it. its like nerf the onos so an vanilla marine can take it down. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hmmm... I won't directly flame you because you're not the first to say that: Instead I'll flame every 8th grade **** dropout who seems to have read somewhere in my post that I said a skulk should have an easier time taking down an HA. I said that a skulk should have an easier time taking out an <b>HMG</b>. Obviously you people either have the reading comprehension of a giraffe, or dont' actaully READ the first post, and just read all the other replies and infer a conclusion from it.
Furthermore, while I didn't say anything specific for HA, you're wrong: Vanilla marines can EASILLY take out Onos. How, you ask? Well, you see, marines have these things called BULLETS. Bullets have RANGE. Onos is SLOW. A fully upgraded onos running at 3 vanilla marines will, in almost all certainty, be dead by the time he gets within stomp range. The slow speed of HA is hardly as crippling to marines as it is for Onos, simply because no matter how fast or slow you're going, every alien needs to get within 2 feet to hurt you, and your gun has range. Most HAs that I see dying to skulks are stupid, dumbshit marines. They never look around. They get into HA and think 'I'm invincible!' and run around with their welder out trying to kill (unsuccesfully I might add) an onos in the most humiliating way ever. An HA team that plays like a vanilla LA marine will survive MUCH longer, even indefinately.
The reason I've not acknowledged you people with a reply is because I <b>BLATANTLY STATE</b> in my first post that early-game marines would get a significant boost, and the only REAL nerfs happen to... quiz time! Who can actaully tell me what was nerfed?
The only things that were nerfed:
1) The sheer unstoppability of HA as soon as it gets toted out.
2) The fact that nearly every gun outperforms in every situation, which it SHOULDN'T.
3) The lack of any counters whatsoever to marine tech that doesn't require a super-skilled player and an assload of luck.
If you had read my first post, you'd realize... SURPRISE SURPRISE that half the suggestions are about dropping the costs and research times for marine tech. Imagine having an HMG at 3 minutes to take down that early-game reswhore. OMG SO NERFED, RIGHT?!
Read my post again you brick heads.
ns_hera. Entrance and reception. Using one pistol clip and one LMG clip, I took down a regen Onos without him ever getting within gore range. I just jumped over the 'desk' there, and the Oni never landed a blow.
ponder that
1) The sheer unstoppability of HA as soon as it gets toted out.
2) The fact that nearly every gun outperforms in every situation, which it SHOULDN'T.
3) The lack of any counters whatsoever to marine tech that doesn't require a super-skilled player and an assload of luck.
If you had read my first post, you'd realize... SURPRISE SURPRISE that half the suggestions are about dropping the costs and research times for marine tech. Imagine having an HMG at 3 minutes to take down that early-game reswhore. OMG SO NERFED, RIGHT?!
Read my post again you brick heads. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
1.) HA is far from unstoppable. Trust me. Just bite them, and they die. With good fades, or better yet, a 2 hive onos, HA trains are extreamlly easy to massacre. You pretty much need two hives to beat any sort of HA train though. And, fades, good as they can be, are not a guarentee to stop an HA train. However, an onos with stomp and adren is a guarenteed win.
2.) Marine guns do indeed outpreform... but for a reason and it makes sense that they do. Marine guns out preform in the <b>short run</b>. An LMG can kill much faster than a skulk can, because it's long ranged and takes roughly 1 second of concentrated fire from one marine to slaughter a skulk. In one second, you take about 4-5 steps as a skulk. In other words, it kills REALLY fast. If you look at how aliens must play to kill marines effectively; ambushes, wear and tear tatics, hit and run, delaying or somehow stopping the fire; you can appreciate the balance of this game.
Lets take a quick look at how most alien classes kill their oppionents, and we notice a trend. This trend is always putting the marines at a disadvantage; or somehow hindering them. I wont look at hive 3 abilities as they are specifically designed to eat 100 marines for breakfest and be hungry by lunch time.
Skulks work by ambushes. They aim to kill the marines faster than the marines can kill them. To make up for the fact that skulks are extreamlly soft creatures, they have a staple ability of parasite, which will is a wallhack that puts the marines at a great disadvantage. Skulks can fit into every nook and cranny of the map, making it so they have many combinations in which to ambush and slaughter you with. Later leap allows skulks to move faster and also not have to require ambushes in order to attack (leap is one of the few attacks which operates on the fact you try to kill them right away; you do not try and out last them more often than not..).
Gorges are designed so that in the early game, they can make skulks live slightly longer with heal spray; but it won't save them completely. Also, gorges can spit; a seemly useless attack it actually is good in the fact that gorges can stay in a skulk ambushes cover spitting at the marines and at the same time luring the marines.
Lerks have spores (and soon bite), and the use of spores is obvious: Wear them down! Also, the lerk's bite is great for hit and runs; fly in, bite them, fly right on by. Umbra later on makes it so marine's effectiveness of killing aliens by delaying fire, again, making it so the aliens will outlast the marines in the sense they can't kill them fast enough.
Fades are the hit and run masters; run in, hit them or kill them, and run out if you become close to death. By simply blinking out before they can kill you, not only will they be weaker in the next fight for you to kill them, but you will be just as strong due to the aliens ability to heal fairly quickly. (This is why D chambers first are so important) Fades eventually get metabolize, which allow them to make faster hit and runs with a self heal. Again, the idea of outlasting the marines.
Onos are the top class for a reason; rather than outlast your clip with special tricks or try to kill you first, onos outlast marines in the simplest form around: They will take your clip, and keep on coming. In other words, unless you have upgrades the onos will outlast your clip. There are no counters to this, except for playing a good marine round and getting the tech nessesary to deal enough damage to this beast and kill him outright. However, if you are teched up chances are that the aliens may be teched up as well, thus leading to a 2 hive onos, which has the ultimate outlasting ability in the game for aliens: Stomp! It stops marine fire completely, further adding to the utimate power of outlasting marines in the most direct way possible.
So there you have it; aliens are designed to win by simply by keeping the marines from killing them fast enough, marines win by killing them before the aliens have a chance to kill the marines.
Remember, this game works to make sure each side works to cover up each race's own weaknesses.
For instance, the fact that marines alone cannot surrive along against competetant aliens is simply due to the fact that marines cannot heal, have limited amount of attack, has only such a big clip... etc. Marine game isn't designed to simply work and tear against the alien menace. However, the marines do indeed have one way of making their lasting power stay around, as you have no doubt realized by now: the commander! While people have given it a lame name, medspam, it does indeed serve a vital purpose; it's the main way for a large part of the game for marines to outlast the aliens. The same goes for ammo packs. The comm is the marines sole way to make sure his marines stay in there against the enemy. Meanwhile, while aliens are trying to make sure that they outlast the marines or are able to kill them first, aliens make up for the fact that they start off weak with higher evolutions down their tech tree which are purposely designed to outlast, and simply to overpower the marines.
Both sides have ways of making up for their weaknesses.
3.) There are counters are indeed there, as above listed.
<!--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--> ns_hera. Entrance and reception. Using one pistol clip and one LMG clip, I took down a regen Onos without him ever getting within gore range. I just jumped over the 'desk' there, and the Oni never landed a blow.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm sorry, but this onos sucked...
<!--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--> Lerks have spores (and soon bite), and the use of spores is obvious: Wear them down! Also, the lerk's bite is great for hit and runs; fly in, bite them, fly right on by. Umbra later on makes it so marine's effectiveness of killing aliens by delaying fire, again, making it so the aliens will outlast the marines in the sense they can't kill them fast enough. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> A marine with halfway decent aim would swat a lerk out of the sky. Throw in MT, and such attacks would be possible on n00bs only.
<!--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-->Onos are the top class for a reason; rather than outlast your clip with special tricks or try to kill you first, onos outlast marines in the simplest form around: They will take your clip, and keep on coming. In other words, unless you have upgrades the onos will outlast your clip. There are no counters to this, except for playing a good marine round and getting the tech nessesary to deal enough damage to this beast and kill him outright. However, if you are teched up chances are that the aliens may be teched up as well, thus leading to a 2 hive onos, which has the ultimate outlasting ability in the game for aliens: Stomp! It stops marine fire completely, further adding to the utimate power of outlasting marines in the most direct way possible. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Forlorn, one single LA marine, with starting equipment and lvl 3 weapons, can kill an onos without being SCRATCHED. All you have to know is where the hitbox is. In 3.0, the hitbox IS the onos. Ask any playtester, and they go down like flys. The Onos sucked? Let me see. He was at the top of the Kharra ranking. He was a clanner (-PGc- I believe, but am not sure) He had previously WALKED through two of my fellow marines, and had hardly needed the time he took to regen. Sucked? Hardly. I just know where the hitbox was, and I rule with a pistol.
In 1.04, hive ownership was the clear indicator of victory. Once Aliens hit 2 hives, they had the tools to pretty much own the map. Similarly, a two-hive lockdown was a deathblow from Marines.
In 2.0, hive ownership is necessary but not sufficient. The true trump card is the production of well-armed HA trains. Once the Marines have passed a certain threshold of technology, no alien attack can surmount it.
Aliens have no such threshold, though. While giving Marines mostly hard-counters is understandable from a gameplay perspective (a singular Commander has to make granular decisions, unlike the ebb and flow of the alien team), it can't be applied too liberally.
And then it is perhaps out of place that so many Marine abilities are generalist, while Alien abilities tend to be more specialized. Upgrading damage and defense helps Marines in all situations, while Kharaa upgrades tend to enforce a narrowly-defined role (sometimes at the loss of overall effectiveness, like with focus lowering one's DPS).
If there's a better definition for "overpowered" than "generalist hard-counters", I don't know what it is.
<img src='http://members.aol.com/eyel65/images/gold%20star%20p3.gif' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
I think the devs should try playing a couple of haves where boths teams start with 4 res node and full tech.
That way it will be very easy to see if marines have it better off
you guy could try it too if you get some clan buddys together
And I don't think the balance is too bad at the moment, but when I see all of the alien effectiveness-reductions and Marine price-reductions in 3.0, I can't help but cringe.
And I've always felt that acid rockets are the key to this whole problem. In 1.04, AR were the ultimate general Kharaa weapon. And by "general", I refer to the notion that the weapon is useful enough that, given reasonable of them, anything can be overcome. Bases, HA trains, anything could be dealt with by a clever group of 1.04 fades. GLs make for a pretty effective counter, but would typically be considered on a higher tech tier in 1.04.
In 2.0, though, the best generalized Kharaa tools (AR, xeno, and web) are all at 3 hives. 2 hives is notoriously impoverished, with stomp (a specialized support ability) the only major improvement.
Hence, the one-hive lock down. If Marines can nail down one hive and a few nodes, and ride out that first Ono rush (which is rarely as scary as most people seem to think it is, due to the miracle of the force/space ratio), then there's little recourse for 2-hive aliens, even if they control almost all of the map. No worthwhile 2-hive alien ability lacks an explicit counter.
While Marine tech could certainly use a revision to keep it from being so top-heavy, I think 3.0 could better address the plight of the mid-game Kharaa. Generalizing a few of their abilities (make bile bomb damage Marine armor, maybe, or actually make Leap worthwhile somehow) would perhaps make the hive-conflict as valuable as the resource-conflict. As of now, who cares if they get the second hive up?
<!--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--> Lerks have spores (and soon bite), and the use of spores is obvious: Wear them down! Also, the lerk's bite is great for hit and runs; fly in, bite them, fly right on by. Umbra later on makes it so marine's effectiveness of killing aliens by delaying fire, again, making it so the aliens will outlast the marines in the sense they can't kill them fast enough. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> A marine with halfway decent aim would swat a lerk out of the sky. Throw in MT, and such attacks would be possible on n00bs only.
<!--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-->Onos are the top class for a reason; rather than outlast your clip with special tricks or try to kill you first, onos outlast marines in the simplest form around: They will take your clip, and keep on coming. In other words, unless you have upgrades the onos will outlast your clip. There are no counters to this, except for playing a good marine round and getting the tech nessesary to deal enough damage to this beast and kill him outright. However, if you are teched up chances are that the aliens may be teched up as well, thus leading to a 2 hive onos, which has the ultimate outlasting ability in the game for aliens: Stomp! It stops marine fire completely, further adding to the utimate power of outlasting marines in the most direct way possible. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Forlorn, one single LA marine, with starting equipment and lvl 3 weapons, can kill an onos without being SCRATCHED. All you have to know is where the hitbox is. In 3.0, the hitbox IS the onos. Ask any playtester, and they go down like flys. The Onos sucked? Let me see. He was at the top of the Kharra ranking. He was a clanner (-PGc- I believe, but am not sure) He had previously WALKED through two of my fellow marines, and had hardly needed the time he took to regen. Sucked? Hardly. I just know where the hitbox was, and I rule with a pistol. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
1.) I would not make comments on whether or not who's played more NS dragon_mech. For starters I have played NS since it was released, but it's wrong to make assumptions since we've never seen each other play anyways. What servers do you frequent, I'll hit them up sometime.
2.) A 2-Hive onos is nigh unstoppable. It's fairly obvious to me you've never seen the true power of stomp spam. Stomp spam against HA marines is a proven tatic that WORKS. In fact, it OWNS. It completely dominates anything short of a jetpacker.
3.) How the hell would MT make it easier to kill a lerk? ROFL Not to mention, you don't 'swat' lerks out of the sky... not unless they try to tango with you 1v1 and they have spikes, the fact is a lerk just uses a lot of hit and running with spores, and maybe a little 1v1 with spikes if the lerk feels lucky.
4.) It takes 55 LMG shots to kill an onos. If an onos lost to one lv. 3 LMG marine, either he was hive one or the onos sucked hardcore. Stomp spam pretty much guarentees that you can't fire all 55 of those bullets unless I'm stupid and I charge you at the end of an insanely long hallway or you are on top of some high alclove.
<!--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-->And then it is perhaps out of place that so many Marine abilities are generalist, while Alien abilities tend to be more specialized. Upgrading damage and defense helps Marines in all situations, while Kharaa upgrades tend to enforce a narrowly-defined role (sometimes at the loss of overall effectiveness, like with focus lowering one's DPS). <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Alien upgrades aren't really that specilized... they just put an emphasis on finesse rather than brute force. Focus is great because you hit them, run, regen if needed, then hit them again and kill them. You can't counter 2 focus hits with medspam, so you need to have your armor repaired, and if you are fast then you will outlast them and kill them.
Also, hive 3 is insanely overpowered, things like webs, xenocide, primal scream, and acid rocket make life a living hell.
Also, hive 3 is insanely overpowered, things like webs, xenocide, primal scream, and acid rocket make life a living hell.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
With what species do you see focus hit-and-run as a viable tactic? Doesn't seem that worthwhile to me with anything except fades, and then a fade shouldn't have to use hit-and-run against anything other than HA. And with HA, they'll be welding while you regen, and bloody fools if they're alone and unable to get welded.
Focus is a by definition specialized. It lowers your damage per second, but frontloads more damage. This is specialized because only in certain situations (based on armor level and Kharaa species) will it actually result in a faster kill. And hit-and-run tactics don't work that well against a target that is shooting at you, both coming and going. Rushing a Marine once is enough of a trick, but now one is supposed to make that trip three times (rush-run-rush)?
I agree that third hive abilities add a lot of versatility, but "insanely overpowered"? Webs can be welded and keep getting their limit reduced, xeno is a suicide ability that can't kill a Marine with armor upgrades, primal scream is awesome but rarely wins battles that wouldn't have been won anyways. And acid rockets are, as I've said, great general weapons, but when an upgraded LMG marine can kill a fade faster than his acid rockets can kill the marine in a straight fight, it is hard to call them that overpowered. GLs and welders can generally protect a HA train from AR-ing fades, but it is admittedly a fairly soft counter.
The only thing that's so devastating about acid rockets is that they finally give aliens an all-purpose ranged attack, which lets them exploit the same mathematics of force/space that Marines enjoy from the very beginning.
2.) A 2-Hive onos is nigh unstoppable. It's fairly obvious to me you've never seen the true power of stomp spam. Stomp spam against HA marines is a proven tatic that WORKS. In fact, it OWNS. It completely dominates anything short of a jetpacker.
3.) How the hell would MT make it easier to kill a lerk? ROFL Not to mention, you don't 'swat' lerks out of the sky... not unless they try to tango with you 1v1 and they have spikes, the fact is a lerk just uses a lot of hit and running with spores, and maybe a little 1v1 with spikes if the lerk feels lucky.
4.) It takes 55 LMG shots to kill an onos. If an onos lost to one lv. 3 LMG marine, either he was hive one or the onos sucked hardcore. Stomp spam pretty much guarentees that you can't fire all 55 of those bullets unless I'm stupid and I charge you at the end of an insanely long hallway or you are on top of some high alclove. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
1) You're right, and I apologise. I made that comment in anger, and I'm sorry. I joined the NS comminuty only after 2.0 - so I don't doubt that you have more experience in the matter.
2) Works? Yes. Proven? Sorta. If even one marine is not affected by the stomp, then he can still kill or dirve off the onos (Especially redemption oni - *snicker*) with high enough level weapons. If the onos has to reposition himself to get that other marine, the whole squad standa a good chance of recovering from stuning, and when that happens you can start planning Mr. Onos's funeral; mostly because you can still aim and reload while stunned. Hence, when any marine recovers, he wll probably have mouse1 ready & set to unleash heck on the Onos. If you can keep an entire squad (4+ guys) stunned, I am impressed - I have managed to do so only once or twice.
3) It would help in that you know where they are coming from. Just keep looking around at all times. As for the swatting-out-of-the-sky bit, I refer to the fact that lerks loose spikes in favor of bite - they will have no long range attack against HA. Two to four well-placed shotgun shells, or a few seconds of close range HMG fire shred even carapaced lerks.
4) I was above where he was stomping. More namely, I was on the desk in hera entrance. When he ran at me, I jumped down behind the desk. When he tried to run around the desk, I jumped back over. He then decided I wasn't worth the trouble (or soemthing) because he went for the PG behind me.
<span style='color:red'><b>SWISH - CHOP</span></b>
and whats that thing i have been reading lately about making the HA turn slower so an skulk can be more effective at it. its like nerf the onos so an vanilla marine can take it down.
i also dont agree with the whole onos thing. ok maybe its true that 2 lvl 0 lmg clips can kill an onos but what r the chances that thats gonna happen in "real combat". call me an noob but I never look to an onos and think that thats an creature that i can easly take with only 2 lmg clips. Its pretty hard to kill an exp onos with lvl 3 lmg let alone with lvl 0. second of all did u tried to fight an onos that has lvl3 regen with an lvl 0 lmg. It regains his health faster then that u can do much damage.
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Had to whack out most of your post there. Because bitching about skill has no foundation to base it upon. I could tell you an 'ABSOLUTELY TRUE STORY that happend to a FRIEND OF A FRIEND' about how one skulk, alone, in one life, with no upgrades and in a fully-lit corridor, attacked and killed 8 level 3 HA marines in less then 30 seconds. OMG SKULKS ARE OVERPOWARD THEN, RIGHT?!?! You can't refute that. You can't prove it's true, nor false. As Nemesis Zero said: "You can't balance the players."
<!--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-->and whats that thing i have been reading lately about making the HA turn slower so an skulk can be more effective at it. its like nerf the onos so an vanilla marine can take it down. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hmmm... I won't directly flame you because you're not the first to say that: Instead I'll flame every 8th grade **** dropout who seems to have read somewhere in my post that I said a skulk should have an easier time taking down an HA. I said that a skulk should have an easier time taking out an <b>HMG</b>. Obviously you people either have the reading comprehension of a giraffe, or dont' actaully READ the first post, and just read all the other replies and infer a conclusion from it.
Furthermore, while I didn't say anything specific for HA, you're wrong: Vanilla marines can EASILLY take out Onos. How, you ask? Well, you see, marines have these things called BULLETS. Bullets have RANGE. Onos is SLOW. A fully upgraded onos running at 3 vanilla marines will, in almost all certainty, be dead by the time he gets within stomp range. The slow speed of HA is hardly as crippling to marines as it is for Onos, simply because no matter how fast or slow you're going, every alien needs to get within 2 feet to hurt you, and your gun has range. Most HAs that I see dying to skulks are stupid, dumbshit marines. They never look around. They get into HA and think 'I'm invincible!' and run around with their welder out trying to kill (unsuccesfully I might add) an onos in the most humiliating way ever. An HA team that plays like a vanilla LA marine will survive MUCH longer, even indefinately.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe i didnt put it right but i certainly wasnt bitching about skill. What i wanted to say that every player has enough "BRAINS" to evaluate which upgrade they should get for certain conditions. And players with enough "BRAINS" should know that when they charge long distances head on with marines, that their chances of survival is very slim.
Whats the point of flaming other persons who may just misred your post or doesnt agree with u.
i also want to say that i agree with Forlong. A well organised team of aliens can preveil over an HA train. Ive seen it before and i certainly will see it again.
2.) A 2-Hive onos is nigh unstoppable. It's fairly obvious to me you've never seen the true power of stomp spam. Stomp spam against HA marines is a proven tatic that WORKS. In fact, it OWNS. It completely dominates anything short of a jetpacker.
3.) How the hell would MT make it easier to kill a lerk? ROFL Not to mention, you don't 'swat' lerks out of the sky... not unless they try to tango with you 1v1 and they have spikes, the fact is a lerk just uses a lot of hit and running with spores, and maybe a little 1v1 with spikes if the lerk feels lucky.
4.) It takes 55 LMG shots to kill an onos. If an onos lost to one lv. 3 LMG marine, either he was hive one or the onos sucked hardcore. Stomp spam pretty much guarentees that you can't fire all 55 of those bullets unless I'm stupid and I charge you at the end of an insanely long hallway or you are on top of some high alclove. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
1) You're right, and I apologise. I made that comment in anger, and I'm sorry. I joined the NS comminuty only after 2.0 - so I don't doubt that you have more experience in the matter.
2) Works? Yes. Proven? Sorta. If even one marine is not affected by the stomp, then he can still kill or dirve off the onos (Especially redemption oni - *snicker*) with high enough level weapons. If the onos has to reposition himself to get that other marine, the whole squad standa a good chance of recovering from stuning, and when that happens you can start planning Mr. Onos's funeral; mostly because you can still aim and reload while stunned. Hence, when any marine recovers, he wll probably have mouse1 ready & set to unleash heck on the Onos. If you can keep an entire squad (4+ guys) stunned, I am impressed - I have managed to do so only once or twice.
3) It would help in that you know where they are coming from. Just keep looking around at all times. As for the swatting-out-of-the-sky bit, I refer to the fact that lerks loose spikes in favor of bite - they will have no long range attack against HA. Two to four well-placed shotgun shells, or a few seconds of close range HMG fire shred even carapaced lerks.
4) I was above where he was stomping. More namely, I was on the desk in hera entrance. When he ran at me, I jumped down behind the desk. When he tried to run around the desk, I jumped back over. He then decided I wasn't worth the trouble (or soemthing) because he went for the PG behind me. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
2.) You don't stomp spam them untill they hit a hallway (which every single NS map has, I swear it's the unwritten rule of god that all NS maps must have a lot of narrow hallways in them. You then stomp spam that. You don't even have to aim, and the HA marines are <b>helpless</b> as they are stuck to the ground while one skulk kills them all.
4.) That definatly sounds like a craptacular onos to me, I don't care what clan he's in, chances are if he's that bad so is his clan. I would have never died in such a situation, unless I was asking for suicide.
Also, your little tatic of jumping over the desk is cute and all... but a good onos will jump right over after you. I've learned to bhop with the onos, jumping over a little desk is no sweat.
now i agree that after 10 min. in a game skulks become tottaly useless but still,with cloacking and silence they own(remember they can climb on walls and seelings+do parasite)
what do i beleive? I BELEIVE THAT THEY SHOULD ADD THE <u>ORGANIC WALL </u>TO ALIENS AND <u>NUCLEAR BOMB</u> TO MARINES.
i posted a forum once about these 2 element duno if they took it off.i made a preview of the organic wall 2 chek a forum called organic wall.
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=5&t=54852&hl=organic+wall' target='_blank'>Organic Wall</a>
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=5&t=53299&hl=nuclear+bomb' target='_blank'>Nuclear Bomb</a>
Whether or not that Onos was a poor player doesn't truly matter in the instance of this thread. If a vanilla marine can take down the highest level kharra form, with two evolutions (MC & DC no less) so easily, it signals that something needs to be done to A) weaken what can destroy so easily or B) strengthen what is so easily destroyed. This will be getting even worse with the hitbox fixes that are planned for 3.0, so personally I go for option B.
Certain situations?Yes.Most?No.
I cant count the number of times i wiped out 7-8 HAs in a corridor....thanks to stomp and a few skulks.If an onos has stomp,simply forget about seiging places like power silo on nothing.Onos strafes out,stomps,skulks goes in,onos stomps,skulks start biting,you cant do jack because you are getting stomped to hell.And no,you cant avoid it,since its a bloody CORRIDOR.
Forlorn: Marines have a hard time crouch jumping over that desk in Hera Reception. It's impossible to do it with an onos. Try it out. Hera Reception is a deathtrap for an onos. The stairs are narrow, and there's that desk protecting the marines. It's almost like a bunker.
But I still agree with you Forlorn, just thought I'd point this out. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
At the start of the round, the alien team far more powerfull then the marine team in every aspect. The aliens do not need to build a means of which to re-enforce once killed, the marines do. The aliens do not need to call for ammo or health once depleted or damaged but the marines do. The aliens can evolve to any life form once thier resource has built up enough to aford it. The marines simply can not counter this in the early minutes of the game.
At mid point, the balance starts to swing to the marines (if they lasted that long) and can now start pushing for upgrades. It's at this point where NS 2.0 is at it's most "balanced" point (if you can possablely call that a fair balance) but the marines still can not counter the mighty onos (which is sure to be found by now) when in smaller groups. The marines still have it harder in one aspect where there tech costs nearly 5 times that of the alien tech.
Now, the late game point, the balance has seriously moved to the marine team because the marine tech is 3 times more powerfull then the aliens and if the aliens do not have all three hives then there is not much they can do at this point to stop the marine expantion. Even the once all mighty onos is not much of a threat now because just one clip from a level 3 HMG is enough to stop an onos dead in it's tracks even with level 3 regen.
So tell me, how could NS 2.0 be more balanced then NS 1.0, or for that matter, even fair? I personally think that NS 1.04 was at it's most balanced for both teams and at all points of time in the game. Sure, NS 1.0 had a few bugs but both teams had a means for countering the other teams upgrades like jetpack vs lerk, shotgun or hmg with jetpack vs fade or ha and hmg vs onos.
Anyway, imagine the marine team without their hard counters.
No more siege. No more HA immunities. No more sensor scans and observatories. Say bye-bye to level 3 upgrades.
The marine team would be impossibly hard to play, then wouldn't it?
Not really. Notice how all the hard counters magically appear around the end of the Midgame phase, and through all of the Endgame? That's what I want to fix. Either nerf their hard counters and expand their early-game, or give the aliens some hard counters as well. I'm tired of running for my precious 50-res (and soon 60) life because some <b>vanilla marine who just spawned</b> is a <b>THREAT TO ME</b>. Let's have an alien weapon to strike the fear of god into a marine, eh? Not even onos does that, hell, no one is scared of those stupid, slow things.
Expand the marine early-tech by making weapons cheaper and actually COUNTERABLE. Make end games balanced, at least!
- Marine hard counters are there so the game will end
- Aliens are not weak, stop using pubs for your examples
- The fact that aliens have a hard time if marines get full upgrades isn't anything to complain about, it's no different than aliens getting 3 hives (3 hives > all marine tech, btw)
<!--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-->Whether or not that Onos was a poor player doesn't truly matter in the instance of this thread. If a vanilla marine can take down the highest level kharra form, with two evolutions (MC & DC no less) so easily, it signals that something needs to be done to A) weaken what can destroy so easily or B) strengthen what is so easily destroyed. This will be getting even worse with the hitbox fixes that are planned for 3.0, so personally I go for option B. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is easily the most ignorant statement I've ever read. A vanilla marine can kill a high level lifeform, therefore it's too weak...?
No, more like the two players didn't use their classes properly. A 2 hive onos is plenty strong as it is... trust me. It's not the game's fault he sucked arse.
I mean, by your examples, an entire HA train could fall to one skulk because the HA train sits there and dies, and therefore the skulks is unbalanced.
Please, using pubs for your examples isn't going to win you any arguments any time soon.
Much <3, Forlorn