Beta 2
Iced_Eagle
Borg Engineer Join Date: 2003-03-02 Member: 14218Members
Borg Engineer Join Date: 2003-03-02 Member: 14218Members
<div class="IPBDescription">early feedback</div> whoa beta 2 almost feels like a huge step backwards in terms of balance.
okay i can understand why you added the gorge due to rines having welders... but combat should NOT be played with 5 gorges webbing the whole place up!!! It totally ruins the pacing of the game... I suggest adding 1-3 defense chambers near the hive that would be like an armory (doesnt move or attack)
I like HA being 2 points though <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> stops mass HA trains early in game
The fades feel almost a bit too high of health.... i saw more onos deaths than fades
onos gore needs to be taken down a bit
RoF changes need to be made for lerk spore... also the damage of the spores goes outside the visual area which gets confusing
yea the gorge basically upsets the game... get DCs instead
i like the bug-less-ness tho <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
*edit* these are notes on Combat gameplay
okay i can understand why you added the gorge due to rines having welders... but combat should NOT be played with 5 gorges webbing the whole place up!!! It totally ruins the pacing of the game... I suggest adding 1-3 defense chambers near the hive that would be like an armory (doesnt move or attack)
I like HA being 2 points though <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> stops mass HA trains early in game
The fades feel almost a bit too high of health.... i saw more onos deaths than fades
onos gore needs to be taken down a bit
RoF changes need to be made for lerk spore... also the damage of the spores goes outside the visual area which gets confusing
yea the gorge basically upsets the game... get DCs instead
i like the bug-less-ness tho <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
*edit* these are notes on Combat gameplay
Comments
I'll be playing heavily all weekend and then I'll post something very detailed.
beta 1 was really nice balance wise almost <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> soo close Flay
+ Fades and Onos life expectancy has dramatically gone up. Great!
+ The new chuckle sound is brilliant. I love it.
- Acid rocket nerfed, again. It's little better than gorge spit, spamming it is fun but it doesn't really kill anything.
- Onos charge still not fixed. It's not a viable skill to upgrade to, either in Classic or Combat. It is barely capable of taking down one marine. If that. As it is now, Devour is much better than Charge, due to the fact that you can digest a marine a lot faster than you can Charge him!
Marines are still a *little* overpowered in combat, but Classic is MUCH MUCH MUCH better.
If my marine team wouldn't follow orders and went off on their own being asshats, the aliens had us for lunch, every time. If we stayed together and played well, we won a little more than half the games.
Onos still drop real quick, but fades are *perfect* now. Acid rocket is still almost useless though. This is an excellent step in the right direction.
And gorges in combat = teh pwn
What makes the games last so long? <b>WELDERS</b> plain and simple. During beta testing, you were lucky to get 1 or 2 people to grab a welder so it didn't seem like much of a problem, untill gaining exp points for welding was added (no clue why that was put back in, it was taken out for a good reason). But now that it has been released, your lucky to get 1 or 2 people <u>without</u> welders. Too many times have I seen aliens get the CC to 2 red bars, and on the next assault have 3 to 6 people welding the chair and its green when you get there.
Now what solution was added? Gorges to heal the hive?<!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif' /><!--endemo-->?? That just makes the games <b><u>LONGER</u></b>. Gorges were <u>ALSO</u> removed for a good reason, and now added back in for a wrong solution to the real problem.
The only way to solve the long boring game issue would be while leaving welders in the game (my opinons):
1)Lower the CC health or add a new structure to attack (something like an obs) with an equal amount of HP as the hive and remove the CC altogether.
2)Have the CC self heal as the hive does, something like an automated welder that heals it in proportion to the hive per amount of set HP and have marine bought welders not heal the CC. (hive heals at what, 20HP a sec? Let the self welding CC heal at 5-10HP a sec with its HP at 10000)
3)<b>REMOVE</b> the CC and give the marines a timelimit, something like 10-15mins, like as long as the game was meant to last and give MS a one way door (you can go out but not in to prevent spawn camping, weapon fire outwards should be enabled).
The longest game I have played has been over an hour. Marines camped thier spawn the whole time, and whenever the chair was even scratched, 4 people jumped on it with welders. I don't think that adding the gorge into combat, which shouldn't be in combat to begin with, is a good solution to CC welding.
grenade spam was less in all the combat maps i played, although i can't for the life of me think why. if they'd only known how often the gorges blocked in our onus it would have meant heavy exp gain for the marines. webbing was spamable and annoying when applied as such, but on the upside was almost useful for helping keeping jetpackers out of the big-room hives. i learned, also, to be careful and not go gorge too early as often i'd be the slow target and get left out of fade/skulk groups. gaining the exp to move past gorge could be difficult at times, even <i>with</i> an onos to follow.
You're nuts.
Anyway, onos still drop like flies.
Devour: Horribly overpowered in combat. Increase the 'devour time', nothing like seeing a charging, celerity onos run in, devour your HA level 10 HMG, gore someone, then devour the guy welding, stomp and gore some more, then devour the HA HMG when he respawns again.
Anyways, I tried gorge, and it isn't boring at all. Fully upgraded, you can, with caution, tag along on the front lines. Webbing marine start up is always a riot, and so is killing a lone HA with spit after you web him repeatedly. Gorges are quite effective at mine removal. They can do more damage in one hit to a structure than any other life form.
Web is very nice for stopping JP'ers, but that can be easily countered by an active welder. At least it makes JP'ers think twice before making a suicidal hive run.
Put back in the spawn invulnerability in co. Games have turned into nothing but spawn camping for extra points. That's no fun. Maybe some servers had it turned off, but not where I play. It makes combat unenjoyable.
New welder sound is repetitive and rather annoying. What was wrong with the old one?
The new chuckle is nice and evil.
Gorges in combat are fun. Gorge rushes are hilarious all around. Being the only gorge and sitting on top of the hive healing is not so fun...
The new regen at hive is nicer for onos/fades, but really rather cruddy for skulks. They heal 4hp a tick... ugh.
Still hoping for that reverse flying, strafing lerk. And onos devour still seems to be totally random in when it works and when it fails. If a marine is filling the middle of my screen and I fire devour, I shouldn't have to wonder if it will work or not.
Getting better, but still rough around the edges.
I suggest a simple solution: <b>decrease hive and CC hitpoints</b>. That would really get rid of this problem. In classic, the change to the CC is negligable (who attacks the CC?), but something needs to compensate the change in hive hitpoints.
Other problems:
- Bilebomb sucks in combat.
- Some marine upgrades are rarely chosen: catalyst and armor lvl 3 namely. Also, damage lvl 2 and 3 could use improvements since they pale in comparison to getting a shotgun.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Devour: Horribly overpowered in combat. Increase the 'devour time', nothing like seeing a charging, celerity onos run in, devour your HA level 10 HMG, gore someone, then devour the guy welding, stomp and gore some more, then devour the HA HMG when he respawns again. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
TBH, I think the onos in NS classic needs to have a faster digestion time for 2 reasons:
1) being digested is not fun and boring, and a long boring period is definitely not fun
2) makes the onos a better HA counter, which would eliminate the problem of overpowered HA trains
I problem as I saw with the level-based reinforce times is that it is possible to have a team that is rather fragmented in when they died and their levels, so it was quite possible to spawn camp and pick off an entire team one by one as they respawend at different times. Only when you get a coincidental timing you get the possibility to break the spawn camping. Right now you just get everyone respawning is roughly the same spawn cycle, and thus more or less immediately stopping the attack on the objective almost instantly. That, in my opinion, is what's causing the CO games to drag on a fair bit. The limited window where you can attack without being wailed upon by an entire team. The possible saide door to this is when both teams just happen to pass each other and start attacking each other's bases, then it's just a battle to whom deals the most damage in the shortest time to win.
Personally, I still find the GL a bit overpowering in CO, but I'll happily put it down to large server size.
I like the idea for having a timer for marines to 'end' things, but that could possibly encourage a 'turtle' mentality for the kharaa, which I feel would be bad to encourage in a mode that is inteded to be an 'entry portal' for new players.
Spawn rate is insanely high. If it goes to a four on four, even if the aliens kill off every marine, they'll barely start to bite the chair, before two or three respawn, by the time they are dispatched, another, and another, and another, etc. Before it's over, you're level 10, the comm chair has taken about four bites (focus), and you're back in the hive getting your upgrades. You go back and repeat. Despite the fact that you are ten kills to a death in the lead, you are overwhelmed by 'zerg forces'. The game went on for about 35 minutes before the server went to 11/11 where it finally ended in an alien victory (late joining marines were massacred by one level 10 onos, while they waited in an elongated spawn queue, the comm chair was destroyed.) We're talking about a full hour for a game that should go no longer than 10-15 minutes. That could have went on for about 3 hours had the server not filled up.
My limited observation balance problems are:
Hive healing does seem to propose a problem, but if the marines did in fact destroy the gorges, before they focus on the hive, it wouldn't be as much a problem. Try killing off the gorges first, lay down some cover fire while the GLs spam the hive.
Webs are virtually non-existant due to the grenade launchers, grenades, and welders the marines will almost always have late in the game.
It would seem the recent changes have caused the game to stalemate until the game extends to a 10v10, which is well over the accepted combat map playing limit.
Personally, I'd prefer equipment based spawn times.