Skulk late game usage/uselessness
Vic
Join Date: 2010-11-20 Member: 75106Members
Join Date: 2010-11-20 Member: 75106Members
I'm pretty sure this was already brought up, but why are skulks nerfed so hard in the late game?
4 bites to kill a marine with armor 3 means the skulk has a very slim chance of winning a fight. Not the mention how useless Xeno is right now, with the huge delay to activation (cancelled by attacking) and low damage.
Nerfing the base unit like that is a really uninspired idea. Devs, please take a moment to dissect the units in SC2 and their utility (neither marines, nor zerglings are ever completely obsolete, with passive weapon/armor upgrades for both, plus stim/combat shields, respectively speed/cracklings upgrade to keep them relevant in late game).
4 bites to kill a marine with armor 3 means the skulk has a very slim chance of winning a fight. Not the mention how useless Xeno is right now, with the huge delay to activation (cancelled by attacking) and low damage.
Nerfing the base unit like that is a really uninspired idea. Devs, please take a moment to dissect the units in SC2 and their utility (neither marines, nor zerglings are ever completely obsolete, with passive weapon/armor upgrades for both, plus stim/combat shields, respectively speed/cracklings upgrade to keep them relevant in late game).
Comments
I'm mean come on, I was standing right next to a rine and blew myself up and for what? Absolutely nothing except to kill myself and make the marine say; "huh, what was that?" as he walks away...
boost to end game skulk and an incentive to not have a jetpack or exosuit on a marine would be just dandy.
Not having an upgrade like Focus or Adrenaline hurts too, landing 4 consecutive bites on JPs without dying is very difficult considering you only get ~3 leaps before you're out of energy. I would say the Fade has similar problems late game, his only saving grace is the grief machine that is Vortex.
..but yes, when in doubt try to pick off what you can structure-wise as a skulk. If all areas are being defended decently then have fun staring at the spawn queue until you can get enough resources for higher lifeforms. I think 4/5 of my deaths late game as skulk are from GL spam :/ and on that note I can say I really hate the "no p-res on death" thing they have going because it accomplishes absolutely nothing tech-explosion-wise which is why it was originally put in and it is somewhat unintuitive.
Not having an upgrade like Focus or Adrenaline hurts too, landing 4 consecutive bites on JPs without dying is very difficult considering you only get ~3 leaps before you're out of energy. I would say the Fade has similar problems late game, his only saving grace is the grief machine that is Vortex.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think making them do partial dmg to teammates would go a long way to discouraging GL spam (which I find is at its worst when a skulk is trying to kill someone and is thus confined to a small area and becomes an easy target for a supporting GL marine). Also yes to focus and adren, I have no idea why they removed those (I think I heard that they thought adren was too boring, which seems silly to me considering how useful it was).
<!--quoteo(post=1947441:date=Jun 28 2012, 06:02 PM:name=Joracy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Joracy @ Jun 28 2012, 06:02 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1947441"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Am I the only person who just isn't a fan of xenocide as a mechanic? One of the main problems I see with the skulk late game is that they are super duper squishy and die quite easily, which can be frustrating as being dead is generally less fun than it seems. The fact that the best a skulk has to offer is a way to get dead even faster doesn't really make me jump for joy, even if it was perfectly balanced in terms of damage, radius etc.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If it was sufficiently deadly I would not mind so much, but they certainly should have other viable ways to contribute late game than suicide bombing the enemy.
I do feel like leap should have more upward thrust. Can't reach 'em damn jetpackers. Also it feels kinda numb when you aim high and press leap and you just go forward not up. Brrrh.
EDIT: One combat way to feel useful as Skulk: Follow an Onos around, when he gets into trouble and starts backing out and the marines chase him, LEAP ALL OVER AND BITE LOTSA AIR n stuff, some of 'em get scared and forget about the Onos.
<ul><li>The damage against Armor 3 marines is to low.</li><li>They die to easily, lot of sentries and of course the GL.</li><li>The skulk has very low hp/armor in late game, which is problematic when you respawn and there are marines in the hive. Marines spawn with increased armor.</li><li>Xenocide does not enough damage.</li><li>When you're dead you don't get any resources. So it is kinda stupid to attack and/or use xenocide since you will lose time where you can gain res which you obviously need to evolve into a higher lifeform.</li><li>If you miss one leap against a jetpacker you're already nearly out of energy, if i remember correctly you can do about 2 leaps then you have to recover for the third. So its hard to fight jetpackers as a skulk, they have much more "energy" to use to escape than the skulk has to get in melee range to the jetpacker. (could just be me sucking with leap against jetpackers)</li><li>Since the gorge is currently no combat lifeform and to many gorges at once don't make much sense and it's pretty much the same with lerk you have to save up 50res to be able to fight again effectively.</li><li>The standard LMG marine is doing far better in comparison since he is ranged and can pickup dropped weapons.</li></ul>
Absolutely. When I want a quick game, I create a LAN game, enable cheats and fill the map with structures, then change to alien and run around biting those down. It's a very close experience to late game play, except without the random grenade deaths.
4 bites to kill a marine with armor 3 means the skulk has a very slim chance of winning a fight. Not the mention how useless Xeno is right now, with the huge delay to activation (cancelled by attacking) and low damage.
Nerfing the base unit like that is a really uninspired idea. Devs, please take a moment to dissect the units in SC2 and their utility (neither marines, nor zerglings are ever completely obsolete, with passive weapon/armor upgrades for both, plus stim/combat shields, respectively speed/cracklings upgrade to keep them relevant in late game).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
because skulks are the base alien and by late game youre supposed to be attacking mainly with your big guns. if skulks remained offensively relevant all game why would alien need any higher lifeform
I see xeno's role in NS2 as something that's a good idea to use when you see 2 or 3 marines clustered together. It should be strong enough to make marines a little worried about clustering together too tightly.
Also constantly dying to nade spam as skulk late game is not much fun. I'd be glad to see any change that let me spend a bit less time respawning late game.
Because design principles:
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=NS2 High-level Design)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NS2 High-level Design)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Purity of purpose/Non-obsolescence
No unit, weapon, ability, evolution, etc. should make another obsolete. Ie, every capability in the game should have a pure purpose. So as the game progresses, there should never be a time where something in the game will no longer be viable for the rest of the game. Examples:
Fades are not better Skulks
Bombard should be different than Bile Bomb
There is no heavy machine gun - which you would essentially always choose over a marine gun (however, miniguns are planned for the Exo, but they aren’t simply machine guns that do more damage)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
youre speaking in the broader sense of viable, hes talkin about attacking. sure you can run around and hit rts as a late game skulk or xeno but you can better help the team playing another class if you have the res (USE YOUR RES)
When one side's "free" unit gets better as the game goes on and the other side's doesn't, you're gonna have problems.
When one side's "free" unit gets better as the game goes on and the other side's doesn't, you're gonna have problems.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Aliens need an arms labs equivalent that allows them to upgrade weapon speed, or damage, and armor. Remove carapace from Crag hive and replace it with something else. This will balance aliens out at the beginning of the game and keep most alien life forms relevant during the late game.
Inb4 someone cries about asymmetry.
Wall jumping is ok in the first 2 minutes of the game when the corridors aren't littered with structures. once you get Leap and celerity it almost useless. You never get time to run around to find walls to rebound off in combat, lets be real, you'll be killed.
Then celerity, how are you supposed to kill anything with 20fps and moving 200km/h Its pretty much only good for the first bite then running away and getting to battle.
I believe these features need to be looked at as it feels off to me.
I also have issues with FPV of the skulks, it makes you feel smaller then you actually are.
I would say they should.
I would say they should.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In theory yes. But the Problem is that the lifeforms of the aliens are expensiver than a fully equiped marine. It is unbalanced if the marines can survive being wiped out and loosing all their equipment but the aliens can not.
All that mostly comes down to too much resources available as always/too cheap equipment. If the aliens can play the game well enough to even deserve to win a match, they shouldnt have much problems wiping unequipped marines. Especially when you get onos going they cant really do anything about the stomp.
One reason why the vanilla lmg rine has to remain effective later on with free equipment is the lack of hmg, which imo is a big flaw.
Slight armor scaling for aliens later might be needed, with upgrade of the shell or just amount of hives like in ns1. Armslab equivalent is not a good idea imo. Maybe allow the shell to mature over a long period of time and then you can upgrade the armor slightly. For damage, just add focus in already. Celerity still should be reworked to not be useless for the mid-late game kharaa force backbone aka. the fade.
The skulk still even now remains very usefull through the round. Be it eating res/other structures or simply rushing in with the other aliens to provide distraction and to still deal massive damage with the bite. Alone its not effective against marines later on, and that is the way it should be.
One reason why the vanilla lmg rine has to remain effective later on with free equipment is the lack of hmg, which imo is a big flaw.
Slight armor scaling for aliens later might be needed, with upgrade of the shell or just amount of hives like in ns1. Armslab equivalent is not a good idea imo. Maybe allow the shell to mature over a long period of time and then you can upgrade the armor slightly. For damage, just add focus in already. Celerity still should be reworked to not be useless for the mid-late game kharaa force backbone aka. the fade.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I dont agree with you.
The HMG won't be missing anymore soon, the exosuit will have a HMG like weapon. And the Onos has the problem that he still has to get in melee range to do damage. With a lot of long corridors and the now decreased movement speed with carapace. It's size is sometimes also counter effective especially in corridors or when you have to retreeat also its impossible to miss a Onos because of its size.
The HMG won't be missing anymore soon, the exosuit will have a HMG like weapon. And the Onos has the problem that he still has to get in melee range to do damage. With a lot of long corridors and the now decreased movement speed with carapace. It's size is sometimes also counter effective especially in corridors or when you have to retreeat also its impossible to miss a Onos because of its size.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The hmg will still be missing. You have to buy a very expensive piece of equipment to be able to use the minigun. So you cant just get an hmg for the price of the gun itself only, and thus the lmg still has to be effective later on to provide competent weapon for jps/vanilla rines. 1 vs 1 onos will always win vs unequipped marine. When youre facing a group of marines alone and playing on the melee side which requires more teamwork to be effective, or going through areas that give huge natural advantage to ranged units, why should you stand a chance?
As far as i know the exosuit will start with a minigun which is basically the hmg. And for the price we have to see. In my eyes it should cost at least 50pres.
The 50 pres were just some number i said. As far as i know the exo will have trade offs like that it cant use the phasegate and i guess that it will be slow. We'll have to wait for it.
then youll see how stupid some of the nerfs in this patch were, when they get reverted.
Skulks are failures late game because there is no scaling.
Tone down Onos and Fade carapace based on assumption that there will be at least 2 hives up when they appear.