Something That's Aggravated Me For A Long Time
Rapier7
Join Date: 2004-02-05 Member: 26108Members
Join Date: 2004-02-05 Member: 26108Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Skulks</div>Okay, there's no use ######yfooting around this issue: Skulks are weak.
They are godawful weak. 10 bullets from a L0 marine kills a skulk out of a 50 clip LMG that fires at 15 rounds per second. 9 with a L1 LMG. 8 with a L2 LMG. 7 with a L3 LMG.
Does anybody else find this freaking ridiculous? The skulk isn't even 50% faster than a marine. For something that relies so much on speed and ambush, that is ridiculous. It takes forever to close distances, and 4 competent marines in a room ensures complete domination.
This is why experienced veterans can go on servers, rambo, and rack up 5+:1 kill death ratios, simply because skulks are so weak compared even to the base weapon of the marine. The problem is further exacerbated when the server size is scaled up.
For all you purists, yes, I realize NS is meant to be played 6v6. But you guys need to get real. The majority of the NS community plays on servers that are 16 players or more. The most popular servers have 24 slots or more. Anything less and the servers don't get filled.
For newcomers, I think this is extremely off putting for the alien side. The aliens can be so much fun to play, but when you die almost instantly as a skulk, it's very frustrating. This is the reason why marine stacks are so common but alien stacks aren't.
I realize skulks aren't meant to confront marines symmetrically, and they need to ambush and cooperate with higher life forms such as lerks and fades to strike against marines, but it's not enough for most servers. The teamwork usually isn't there, and if it is, the marines still have a great chance of prevailing.
Any commander with half a brain (ie: does not do 2 hive lockdowns) can win a 20+ server simply because marines scale so much better than the aliens.
NS competitive scene be damned, here is what I propose:
Skulk base speed increased to 350/s.
Skulk base armor increased to 25, full carapace gives 50.
In exchange, marine AA can cost 25 res and time to upgrade is further shaved by 20 seconds.
For the sake of public play, please buff the skulks and actually encourage marines to work together to pressure.
They are godawful weak. 10 bullets from a L0 marine kills a skulk out of a 50 clip LMG that fires at 15 rounds per second. 9 with a L1 LMG. 8 with a L2 LMG. 7 with a L3 LMG.
Does anybody else find this freaking ridiculous? The skulk isn't even 50% faster than a marine. For something that relies so much on speed and ambush, that is ridiculous. It takes forever to close distances, and 4 competent marines in a room ensures complete domination.
This is why experienced veterans can go on servers, rambo, and rack up 5+:1 kill death ratios, simply because skulks are so weak compared even to the base weapon of the marine. The problem is further exacerbated when the server size is scaled up.
For all you purists, yes, I realize NS is meant to be played 6v6. But you guys need to get real. The majority of the NS community plays on servers that are 16 players or more. The most popular servers have 24 slots or more. Anything less and the servers don't get filled.
For newcomers, I think this is extremely off putting for the alien side. The aliens can be so much fun to play, but when you die almost instantly as a skulk, it's very frustrating. This is the reason why marine stacks are so common but alien stacks aren't.
I realize skulks aren't meant to confront marines symmetrically, and they need to ambush and cooperate with higher life forms such as lerks and fades to strike against marines, but it's not enough for most servers. The teamwork usually isn't there, and if it is, the marines still have a great chance of prevailing.
Any commander with half a brain (ie: does not do 2 hive lockdowns) can win a 20+ server simply because marines scale so much better than the aliens.
NS competitive scene be damned, here is what I propose:
Skulk base speed increased to 350/s.
Skulk base armor increased to 25, full carapace gives 50.
In exchange, marine AA can cost 25 res and time to upgrade is further shaved by 20 seconds.
For the sake of public play, please buff the skulks and actually encourage marines to work together to pressure.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Use your brain and don't attack marines in situations when you are certain to die (if you're not going in with your teammates, then just die for the good of your team). Wait for them in tight corners, or better yet - attack from behind.
Silence is also an extremly powerful upgrade.
I think that most people find skulking hard because they lose track of the marine in close combat / jump in close combat and lose momentum.
Skulks are cannon fodder when charging straight at a marine, which is exactly the way they're supposed to be. Wait and play smart, and if the marine team gets 4-5 marines into an area they deserve to hold it (since they have 5 marines less to control other parts of the map). Hit their rts and/or base.
Lerks can do wonders when creating a diversion allowing skulks to go in for easy kills when the marines are distracted by the pancaking hovar skulk.
Skulk base speed increased to 350/s.
Skulk base armor increased to 25, full carapace gives 50..
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hey, competitive players can just as easily play aliens. do you have any idea how soon you would be seeing good players go fade?
most new players can't even kill vanilla walker skulks with a full lmg clip. how do you expect them to be able to kill a cara skulk that can take almost as many hits as a lerk?
Why the hell do people never comprehend my first post? I've already addressed everything you've said.
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So if you agree with what I'm saying then what's the problem?
I can do just as fine as a skulk on a pub as I can do as a LA marine. Sometimes, however, skulks tend to get vaporized on pubs because the marine team techs up and starts pumping out sgs to their 1/1 marines before the aliens have gotten their chambers up, but hey, that's the alien team's fault and not the game.
Yes, I feel skulks should be faster only because of their scouting ability, but no to the rest. Yes skulks are weak in strength... but I think the problem is the MT and SoF being so easily accessible, ESPECIALLY in combat.
I would like to know if there is someway to disable MT and SoF in combat. I think that would make a huge change.
Skulks are meant to be cannon fodder if they play like they're a marine with a knife. And, even if they play smart, they're still somewhat of cannon fodder.
But you know three (at least) things change all that?
ONE - Upgrades. There are 9 different upgrades, and get your choice of three for every round. You want more armor? Go for it. You want more speed? Go for it. You want to have every marine already parasited so you can simply wait for him to come right up to your corner? Go for it. But unupgraded skulks? Screw em, they're meant to be as they are.
TWO - Lerks. Not just for area damage, not just for the ability to close the gap far more quickly, not just for their supreme scouting ability. Lerks are great for distractions. If the lerk flies into a room with 5 rines and flies well, he has a damn good chance of surviving... while the many skulks run into the room, towards the 5 rines emptying their clips, looking away and muting the sound of incoming skulks with their fire.
THREE - Teamwork. Heres a random teamwork idea... have a gorge run in on the attack with you, healspraying! Many rines will shoot at him first, and if not, heck, you get a good healspray or two before you die. Meaning you had that much more time alive to make the kill.
Skulks are fine.
Well considering skulks used to be 30 armor if you dont forget. His suggestion is not to far fetched. For all of you that are inadequate in responding with a good pro/con answer. I recommend a tall glass of SUYF. I agree skulks should be increased, but not so dramatic.
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No it isn't. And a slight armor upgrade would definitely be a boon more than people think. But I'd rather emphasize the agility of the skulk (which is described consistently as a scout class) rather than it's hit points and armor. Again I feel motion tracking is the bigger problem. I mean heck it's like aimbot and a good alien player in combat mode is usually going to get silence, leap (for going towards xeno), save for focus, or save for lerk. Where as marines can get resupply or motion tracking right off the bat in combat. And in NS? You just need a built armory, a built obs, and then research motion tracking. If you don't spend on shotguns or quick arms lab upgrades and just get a few RT's it's not that hard to have MT up fairly soon. Aliens can easily match that with a 10, 20, 30 res combo for a SC but at the cost of locking a hive so to speak. And assuming marines lock a hive down... you only get to choose from DC or MC which either means your easy to kill or your primary boost for closing the distance (motion upgrades) is missing.
<!--quoteo(post=1611647:date=Mar 5 2007, 09:02 PM:name=gumhat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gumhat @ Mar 5 2007, 09:02 PM) [snapback]1611647[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
I agree with you Rapier7, but I think the devs don't want to help aliens out anymore as evidenced by the nerfs all the time and the ignoring of large server communities, it's slowly become the hit <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->f1<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> game since version 2.0
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You mean F4? Btw I joined Natural-Selection in 2.01, and there have always been stability and generally good new improvements with each new version.
I guess I could summarize that NS has become too offensive in some was and need more defense. Or in a compact bitter pill-sized capsule:
WE NEED A BIGGER TECH TREE FOR BOTH TEAMS
That's what makes NS so fun after all isn't it? You don't only fight each other but instead of a shooter vs shooter teamplay you have things you can build and upgrade and some of these upgrades have requirements to upgrade further with resources which gives rise to strategy and a focus on building and destroying bases rather than just who has the most kills. That's also why I didn't like combat at first. Even if we had 5 lvl chamber abilities and 5 lvl weapon and armor upgrades and 6 different kinds of attack chamber and 4 hive locations where you could still have 3 max but now you have one open so it's no longer a simple rush to the second hive, would that not be better? Of course it would! You have all this new cool stuff you can do. And on the other hand, who in their free time is going to code all of that? Sure I would love to but it takes forever unless that work is work you are getting paid to do. I guess that's my hope for NS2, a game with as many different creatures and upgrades as there would be in a MMORPG like WoW. I guess I'm getting off topic now but hopefully some of you are able to understand what I'm trying to say here.
To quote ultranewb from a previous thread because its 1000000% true
<!--QuoteBegin-"ultranewb"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("ultranewb")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->It's quite evident that the skulk design is inherently flawed. So few players actually play them well and only because they know all the "trap door" workarounds. The "just aim your bites" joke is always good for a laugh because the representation of skulk bite and the implementation aren't the same and bites are designed to be hard to aim on purpose (rather retardedly). Even worse is the fact that you'll miss bites if you get too close to the marine or aim slightly below parallel with the ground. If your monitor refresh rate and FPS isn't fast, you're going to get blinded even moreso by the bite animation and if you think skulk is only good if you learn to bunnyhop, then you've already proven the design flaw. Press the "walk" key and the skulk will still make noise, decloak, and show up on MT depending on your FPS. Your claws will stick out of ambush points unless you know the skulks real point of view. The whole "skulks should chew on RTs" arguement is also laughable because someone has to defend RTs, stop phase pushes, and stop marine expansion in general - which means that early game skulks have to be able to kill marine cappers, defend RTs, defend at least 2 hive positions from capture and spawn camping, and chew on RTs all at the same time. Once marines make an initial push, ambushing is not an option - unless you want to watch your RTs and territories get claimed by marines while you sit in a corner counting your change. Alien attack and movement should be almost as second nature as the point and click marine, but instead you've been given a crappy non-intuitive obscuring animation, an incorrect viewpoint, and a "just learn to bunnyhop" locomotion which requires a combination or unatural jump repititions that can't be done on BS 1 servers without a mousewheel or macros (the prefered choice these days) and a system so overpowered that it can compensate for the poor inconsistant FPS's generated by ns+half-life's engine (something a geforce6800 and an 2Gz AMD 64 can't do) and a config where strafe, duck, and jump are easily accesable and pressable all at the same time so you can get 180% normal speed because it's obvious that normal skulks suck without an unnatural speed boost.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Skulks need:
1) 1) Quake-style jump queuing for skulks only. There is 0 reason for this not to be in the game.
2) Fixed bite hitbox so it actually represents your biting. Major reason why skulks are retarded to play tbh.
3) Fix the skulk model so its more intuitive when it comes to hiding. I've lollerpistoled skulks because most don't know how the model really works and theres nothing to be lost by fixing the model properly.
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" /> Can you explain that one to me?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->2) Fixed bite hitbox so it actually represents your biting. Major reason why skulks are retarded to play tbh.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Or remove/greatly reduce knockback? How exactly would this improve skulks by a wide magin? Give them 100 range? ><
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->3) Fix the skulk model so its more intuitive when it comes to hiding. I've lollerpistoled skulks because most don't know how the model really works and theres nothing to be lost by fixing the model properly.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah but there isn't a good solution with the HL1 engine, is there?
You know what skulks are good at? Dealing damage.
Most people don't realize how good skulks are for dealing damage. Your free, starting cannon fodder unit turns out to have a more powerful attack than anything short of Onos. Lerks do less damage and run out of energy faster. Fades do about the same damage but attack noticeably slower. Gorges don't really do damage at all. So if you want something killed...ask a skulk!
On the other hand, if you want something to just absorb marine bullets, don't ask a skulk. Thats not what they're for. They're terrible at that job. Get something else, like a Fade at the high end all the way down to a Gorge or OC at the low end, to absorb bullets for you, then have the skulk bite those pesky marines in the back! They'll drop like flies!
If you don't have anything except skulks, at the very least have some skulks draw attention and dodge behind obstacles while other skulks take advantage of the time to do the biting. Just remember, skulks aren't for tanking, they're for biting!
skulk is a very good lifeform already against the majority of marines who cant aim.
so no.
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" /> Can you explain that one to me?
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Basically pressing your jump key again while midair will que another jump so when you hit the ground it automatically jumps again. The major advantage of this is allowing people with terrible computers to bunnyhop without macros, allows people in general to bunnyhop on bs1 servers without mousewheel/macros, and allows new players to pick up bunnyhopping easier. It's why
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Or remove/greatly reduce knockback? How exactly would this improve skulks by a wide magin? Give them 100 range? ><<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Knockback is already fixed and not a problem. The problem is half the time your bites don't actually even hit when you have a perfect crosshair on them. You have to aim using some weird quadrant of your screen. Not only that but your bites actually go through them if your point blank. It's really more dumbluck if your bites hit which frustrates a lot of players. I guarantee if the way skulks bite worked that you'd see them getting more kills.
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Yeah but there isn't a good solution with the HL1 engine, is there?
I'm sure it can be done. Its mainly just a problem with the model.
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<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yes that's very true Cxwf but now what happens if they have Motion Tracking and shotguns. (ie: most combat games)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Combat isn't balanced nor is it ever going to be as long as they use the same settings for both classic and combat. Not to mention retardo plugins on every server throwing it off even more.
If they have MT its probably pretty late into the game and you should have at least leap, leap rocks. If they have a ton of shotguns out then they have too much res and I doubt most people on pubs can even aim with shotguns anyways.
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Combat isn't balanced nor is it ever going to be as long as they use the same settings for both classic and combat. Not to mention retardo plugins on every server throwing it off even more.
If they have MT its probably pretty late into the game and you should have at least leap, leap rocks. If they have a ton of shotguns out then they have too much res and I doubt most people on pubs can even aim with shotguns anyways.
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I've been saying to split up the code for NS and CO for a loooong time on this board. Almost 2 years now I think!
WhitePanther's Extralevels 3 plugin (aka. xmenu) isn't bad in of itself. It's a great idea really. The <i>problem</i> with it is that most admins <i>suck</i> at playtesting and balancing. Heck they usually just guess.
I've been playetesting this somewhat and running extended models of the test with RCBots. There is also a balancer calc made by Blizzard I got as a beta tester which allows me to input numbers for exactly that kind of stuff to compute averages with time, damage, and probability of encounter settings to basically run hundreds of simple tests to see if the wins are balanced or quite off. (no I can't share the executable but the code for it is supposedly not too hard if you know what a binary tree data structure in C++ is) Of course real world testing is the ultimate but I've found that the default values are horribly off for thickened skin as a gestation egg against uranium ammo and acidic vengeance should be balanced against re-enforced armor and nano armor. Marines should NOT have cybernetics.
It's a chore playing as skulk and the only reason people do it is because it's the alien base class. Gorge isn't meant for combat. Lerks are fragile and only good for gas unless the marine only has an LMG. Fades can't take that much damage, they aren't tanks until hive 2. Onos...well, they are worthless without a second hive.
The base unit that is the skulk is too weak. I don't care how you buff it as long as it gets buffed.
Look at it this way, all the people saying skulks are fine aren't playing skulks. I remember Tomekki from NSarmslab, he always went marines and with his 300-400 ping still got a 4:1 ratio simply because skulks are too easy to kill as is. What happens when a vet goes to a public server? He goes marines and kills a bunch of skulks. Then he gets a shotgun and kills even more skulks. Then an HMG and he'll never die to skulks. The base marine can get upgraded much more than the base skulk. Over half a public server will have skulks roaming around, constantly dying because it's not hard to kill them. A few marines in a room means a complete lockdown unless the entire alien team can attack from all sides with lerk support.
And, x5, he meant F1 button mashing. Nobody wants to hit F2 to join aliens because they'll just die as skulk until they can fade or lerk. NSArmslab classic suffered from a constant marine stack for a reason, and people just stopped playing there because a smart commander and good marines means dead skulks. And dead skulks means lost territory in the early game. And that's it for aliens. NSA had plenty of smart commanders and good marines. I think we all know what happened. People stopped going there (there are other reasons too, but this is a big one), NSA fell. End of story.
I don't care how it happens. I want skulks to be more powerful or I want marines to get a severe nerf on the LMG.
I don't care how it happens. I want skulks to be more powerful or I want marines to get a severe nerf on the LMG.
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Except it does matter how it happens. HP/Armor/Speed aren't the issue. There are other ways to fix skulks without changing hp/armor/speed.
LMG is terrible against anything other than a skulk and gorge so nerfing the LMG will just ###### them over when a fade or onos appears. HMG needs a nerf however, at least at lvl3.
I play marines every game on pubs and I still agree that skulks are underpowered, just not due to hp/armor/speed.
Ok so what needs to be fixed with skulk bite to make it work correctly. Or more accurately, how exactly does NS handle the bitegun function? (you can throw source code at me, I'll actually understand the majority if not all of it clearly) Is it vector based? Why a particular quadrant, shouldn't it be centered like a normal gun or the crowbar? If that's the case then are marines having the same problems with their knife? What about the other three classes other than gorge?
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Its not really as complicated as he's making it sound.
The bitegun hit area is basically a cone attached to your nose. Imagine you're shooting a shotgun, with really wide spread. Right next to your own model, the shot hasnt had time to spread out yet, so it only damages a very small portion of the screen, but as it gets farther away from you it spreads out more and hits a larger area. The range is kinda short, but its a lot longer than you <i>think</i> it is, and the closer you get to max range, the more it spreads out.
This leads to situations where if you bite a marine who is literally right next to you, you have to aim much more precisely than for a marine who is farther away. You can still hit him, but you have to hit him with the exact center of your screen. By comparison, for a marine just at your maximum range, you can pretty much hit him with any part of the screen. This makes it <i>feel</i> like your bites are going "through" marines who are closer, especially once you consider lag.
I always prefer aliens to have far more speed than marines. I've always tried to follow the model that the marines are armored ranged units and aliens are agile melee units. Being agile means they must be quick and have high dexterity abilities (if controled correctly).
Please do not nerf the shotgun or HMG. Those are the ultimate anti-infantry weapons of the marines for a reason.
The bottem line is that most of us seem to agree that the skulks need some kind of improment because the base/vanilla marine is a bit stronger as default? Yes?
<!--QuoteBegin-"Rapier7"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE("Rapier7")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->all the people saying skulks are fine aren't playing skulks<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What an assumption. I'm one of the most vocal 'SKULKS ARE FINE S.TFU AND LEARN TO SKULK' players, especially on the g4b2s forums, as they are just SWAMPED with people going on about how 'blatantly' marine biased 3.2 is and how aliens apparently never win on that server.
But guess what? I love aliens. Since i've gotten used to 3.2, I actually prefer playing aliens over marines. I just played all night, playing two rounds as alien for every round as marine. And I was still owning it up (like the other good skulks), and aliens still won all the time.
Guess what? People whose opinions are different than yours <u>CAN BE RIGHT</u>, and you should stop making up random facts to put down their arguments.
No <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> Skulk are fine..... at least as a Skulk you should play as a team...
I'm one of those that agree with Rapier.
Ambushing is a joke in this game. You try and cloak and your sound gives you away. Or they scan, nade or randomly shoot you.
Silence becomes obsolete thanks to MT, yet only the skulk use it. And what's better is people whine about how great silence is. USE IT ON YOUR ONOS THEN.
While I'd like to say the skulk is too weak, it comes down again to the player skills on one team versus another. So in certain situations, skulks can be okay or even unbelievably strong. In most cases, the skulk is fodder.
But I do believe that 1 skulk can not stand a chance against 1 marine. This goes against the marines need teamwork motto, which is about as much teamwork as two people on the same team in CS...
And another point that has been made: Get this 6v6 NS out of your faces people. Look on your server list and count how many of those servers there are.
Don't balance this game on a dying competitive community. Find a way to make the game playable with people of all skill ranges. So it's not as simply as saying a skulk is balanced or not, it's the player skills that need to be taken into consideration.
Oh and to everyone else, keep these threads up. It's what keeps us alive and brings everyone together. Don't be discouraged by what others say or what the majority thinks. I find these threads interesting from different perspectives.
Look at it this way, all the people saying skulks are fine aren't playing skulks. I remember Tomekki from NSarmslab, he always went marines and with his 300-400 ping still got a 4:1 ratio simply because skulks are too easy to kill as is.
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he goes marines because you can't alien with 300-400 ping
<!--quoteo(post=1611697:date=Mar 5 2007, 11:53 PM:name=Rapier7)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rapier7 @ Mar 5 2007, 11:53 PM) [snapback]1611697[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Nobody wants to hit F2 to join aliens because they'll just die as skulk until they can fade or lerk.
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i agree with you on this- it's incredibly frustrating to play aliens on pubs. the majority of the time vocal server regs push the team to do something stupid or the alien team doesn't get any hive/rts/chambers dropped. most pubbers havn't a clue as to how to play aliens. they prioritize ocs over all else, don't defend nodes, don't kill marine nodes, or parasite. granted, these are boring and menial tasks, but they are vital to the game. don't give me any of this "it's not fun so they don't do it" bull####. players don't do it because they don't know how to play the game, not because they refuse to do boring tasks.
You guys really, really have to stop pulling facts out of your a**.
What an assumption. I'm one of the most vocal 'SKULKS ARE FINE S.TFU AND LEARN TO SKULK' players, especially on the g4b2s forums, as they are just SWAMPED with people going on about how 'blatantly' marine biased 3.2 is and how aliens apparently never win on that server.
Guess what? People whose opinions are different than yours <u>CAN BE RIGHT</u>, and you should stop making up random facts to put down their arguments.
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you know, you are funny, not ha ha funny, or laught out loud - but rather crying funny. I've read the g4b2s forums, in fact I normally always play on that server. I've been to the forums and almost every single member disaagrees with you, like seriously everyone. But no wait, I could be a liar? please people visit <a href="http://forums.guns4back2school.com" target="_blank">http://forums.guns4back2school.com</a> and click on natura-selection section, go through the posts made about 3.2 and you will understand everyone on that server not only disagrees with him, but have good debates about 3.2. But whats really more funny, nobody likes it. Keep in mind that server is full 24/7 and people who do comment, play the game not just post what seems logical to reply with, so the comments somewhat hold ground.
I really can't stand people saying its balanced. maybe on small servers, but if you want the game to be played by many, you can't limit servers to such low numbers. the devs aren't thinking about the community at all, in fact they weren't thinking about them throughout the beta testing.
NS doesn't need NS2. They just need to fix some small problems and make the game enjoyable for 18+ players from all skill ranges. When the pub games live, then you can then jump into the comp scene. If the pub games die, you've lost future competitiors.
I'll bring up an example. RFK. Sure it helps larger games, but the factor they missed out on is player skill. I just played a game where marines should have dominated, but 1 extremely good fade with a 50-8 score halted advancement from their base. In this case, RFK becomes abused. It does not evenly distribute res, but puts it into the one skilled player. But it can also swing the other way for the marines.
We have people arguing about certain things, but the fact is that player skill is the variable that changes everything. Should an average skilled player beat and another? What about a skilled player? Should a skilled rock beat an average paper?