aliens still suck (224)
unkind
Join Date: 2012-02-04 Member: 143563Members
Join Date: 2012-02-04 Member: 143563Members
Disclaimer: Now i'm not even particularly good at alien anymore (I was in earlier beta builds when upgrades stacked and you could actually have fun on alien and knew the maps) but they still just suck late game, it's really obvious.
The b224 changes are good and a step in the right direction. But aliens still need to scale, badly.
Here is your problem: The skulk is a base life form that you HAVE TO PLAY the MAJORITY of the game UNLESS you NEVER die as a fade/lerk (which is ###### impossible for 95% of players)
Why is it so bad that you have to play a skulk so much?
1. The skulk dies in less than 1 second to like 1/3 of the base marine gun (which it hitscan)
2. Skulk needs melee range and 3 (accurate) bites at marine a0, 4 at higher armors
3. Upgrades barely seem noticeable on it, celerity is cool but really? Let me pay 5 res and make my alien good somehow instead please.
spawn skulk late game after you lose your fade or lerk, marines have jetpacks/lvl 3 shotguns, exos, grenade launchers.
^THIS is a gigantic problem, skulks are TOO crappy to do _anything_ against people that have this stuff.
Base marine a3 w3 (odds are he has a glauncher or shotty though, cuz marines can recycle weapons and such) vs skulk with 2 upgrades (lets say celerity and cara), skulk is at an astronomical disadvantage and the marine has to sneeze on him to take him out. It's not balanced, it's not fair, it's not fun at all.
Lerk:
Lerk is 30 res, shotgun is 20, shotgun kills lerk instantly, lmgs kill lerk super fast too, lerk is huge, lerk isn't that fast, spores require you to die to shotguns to use, bite requires you to hope they don't have shotguns.
Fade:
fade is 50 res iirc, it should do more damage, and should be faster, it was nerfed early beta because people had 20 fps and couldn't hit it.
Onos:
Don't know, seems good though.
My issue w/this game is a marine late game is viable, powerful (w3 a3), helps his team etc. Late game this marine can also use phasegates, get medkits dropped on him, and pick up guns for free. And run to the armory and be healed super fast whenever.
And late game skulk is grenade/exo/flamethrower/shotgun fodder. New alien players will spend 1/2 the game holding "C" to look at the map to see where the marines are at. Wall-jumping makes little sense, it's out of place in this kind of game, and it's difficult to tell if it's even working (i wonder if im going faster?) Not even Xenocide is that effective.
Tons of ways to fix all of this, but what changed in 224 isn't going to magically increase alien win rate to 50% at all.
The b224 changes are good and a step in the right direction. But aliens still need to scale, badly.
Here is your problem: The skulk is a base life form that you HAVE TO PLAY the MAJORITY of the game UNLESS you NEVER die as a fade/lerk (which is ###### impossible for 95% of players)
Why is it so bad that you have to play a skulk so much?
1. The skulk dies in less than 1 second to like 1/3 of the base marine gun (which it hitscan)
2. Skulk needs melee range and 3 (accurate) bites at marine a0, 4 at higher armors
3. Upgrades barely seem noticeable on it, celerity is cool but really? Let me pay 5 res and make my alien good somehow instead please.
spawn skulk late game after you lose your fade or lerk, marines have jetpacks/lvl 3 shotguns, exos, grenade launchers.
^THIS is a gigantic problem, skulks are TOO crappy to do _anything_ against people that have this stuff.
Base marine a3 w3 (odds are he has a glauncher or shotty though, cuz marines can recycle weapons and such) vs skulk with 2 upgrades (lets say celerity and cara), skulk is at an astronomical disadvantage and the marine has to sneeze on him to take him out. It's not balanced, it's not fair, it's not fun at all.
Lerk:
Lerk is 30 res, shotgun is 20, shotgun kills lerk instantly, lmgs kill lerk super fast too, lerk is huge, lerk isn't that fast, spores require you to die to shotguns to use, bite requires you to hope they don't have shotguns.
Fade:
fade is 50 res iirc, it should do more damage, and should be faster, it was nerfed early beta because people had 20 fps and couldn't hit it.
Onos:
Don't know, seems good though.
My issue w/this game is a marine late game is viable, powerful (w3 a3), helps his team etc. Late game this marine can also use phasegates, get medkits dropped on him, and pick up guns for free. And run to the armory and be healed super fast whenever.
And late game skulk is grenade/exo/flamethrower/shotgun fodder. New alien players will spend 1/2 the game holding "C" to look at the map to see where the marines are at. Wall-jumping makes little sense, it's out of place in this kind of game, and it's difficult to tell if it's even working (i wonder if im going faster?) Not even Xenocide is that effective.
Tons of ways to fix all of this, but what changed in 224 isn't going to magically increase alien win rate to 50% at all.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
And there was also a xenocide that actually did damage.
I UWE say they dont like hidden modifiers but damn it atleast it allowed aliens to scale (along iwth multiple chambers to build up each upgrade).
I am at a loss as to why they continue to refuse to consider bringing these elements back?
Build 3 shells let carapce increase by say 15 AP per shell, seemed pretty damn intuitive to me. More so than simply not scaling at all.
I have no particular opinion on the alien changes, but I guess it's no rocket science to tell whether the early game core issues have been adressed at all. It's not some magical mystery gameplay that's impossible to predict or analyse with the knowledge available.
but you don't even need to play (though I did) the patch to understand how little it'll change things orz
The performance has improved massively, and that means all the marines hitscan weapons are also far more accurate. Despite the alien buffs in this build, the performance increase has meant a bigger buff for marines. This will also keep happening, as performance improves further. Hell, even with my poor underpowered PC, I can now track skulks thanks to performance improvements.
Also mid-late game, a vanilla marine with a rifle automatically has any upgrades the team has researched, can be healed anywhere on the map (by the hand of god) and also at armory locations which can be placed anywhere on the map, or close to a teleporter, so marine can get there easily.
Aliens have to get all they way back to their nearest hive (which may be the other side of the map), or try and find a specific gorge teammate to heal you, and there may not be any anywhere. Of course there are crags, but you need at least 3-4 crags to effectively heal players, and you have no way to teleport quickly to that forward base.
I know the game is asymetrical by design, but it is asymetrical in marines favour, when we are talking about the base class.
Here are a few suggestions...
Allow skulks to choose upgrades while waiting to spawn.
Make crags more effective, make them work more like an armory, so you only need 1 in an outpost.
More solutions are needed, but here is the funny thing, these issues are not new in 224, they have been around for a long time, and people have been complaining about them for a long time. They will continue to become more and more evident the better performance gets.
UWE removed hidden numbers like armor scaling in NS1. I don't know what was so hidden about scaling armor with the number of hives. It makes sense and can be clearly noted. If they are loathe to do that, they need to figure out another way to scale.
I am not saying the skulks should be able to take out lvl 3 marines, but I am saying a skulk with 3 hives and all upgrades shouldn't have to run away everytime he encounters a lvl 3 marine.
Yeah, they can still feel quite under-powered, but when you play as a team, they're still useful - for instance, playing against the marines' strongest weapon, the exo, a couple of skulks in conjunction with a gorge (so the two lowest life forms), can tear them apart very quickly if they can dodge the minigun for long enough.
The competitive matches we've seen recently highlight how fluid the changes in balance of power can be, so although you think they're not making a difference, with teamwork, they make pretty good assassins :-)
The biggest thing I think I'd like to see re-introduced is the ability to parasite structures - which made them useful by themselves by giving your team a visibility advantage (ok, so marines can scan, but it costs)
Marines still spawn at a high rate, can rapid sprint across the map, get healed in moments to full health with armories and skulks are fat.
Yeah, they can still feel quite under-powered, but when you play as a team, they're still useful - for instance, playing against the marines' strongest weapon, the exo, a couple of skulks in conjunction with a gorge (so the two lowest life forms), can tear them apart very quickly if they can dodge the minigun for long enough.
The competitive matches we've seen recently highlight how fluid the changes in balance of power can be, so although you think they're not making a difference, with teamwork, they make pretty good assassins :-)
The biggest thing I think I'd like to see re-introduced is the ability to parasite structures - which made them useful by themselves by giving your team a visibility advantage (ok, so marines can scan, but it costs)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So 3 lifeforms can take out 1...assuming you have two hives and bile bomb....thats your justification for saying "skulks are fine".
Skulks getting close is only part of the issue, you then have to land a minimum of 3 bites....this simply increases as the game progresses.
But you also have to contend with the feeling that marines are more agile in combat (a competent marines a flipping nightmare to keep track of).
The skulks bite was only ever part of the issue and has by no means fixed the underlying issues whereby marines have more mobility than aliens.
The point is a vanilla marine at lvl 3 can take out skulks, Gorges (10res) and Lerks (30 res). 2 or 3 in a group can take down a fade fairly easily with concentrated fire. That imbablance needs addressing. Marines scale very well throughout the game. Aliens don't. No-one wants the stupid suggestions you made. But why should a player spawn and know that at that moment of spawning, if he is stright into battle, he has no chance. A marine spawning has a chance to kill and survive when he spawns late game, why should skulks insta die when they spawn late game? I mean, it's not as if you can spawn as anything else.
This is not patch whining, this is a constant on-going for the last 15 patches or so issue that has still not been addressed. What use is all the res in the world if you have no chance to spend it? A simple change like letting aliens choose upgrades while dead would do a lot to alleviate the issue, they made the upgrades free, they made the evolve time tiny, why not just get rid of it altogether, so aliens can spawn with some hope against a lvl 3 rifleman in your base.
This isn't about aim, this is about the usefulness of the default lifeform you spawn with, as you spawn.
The point is a vanilla marine at lvl 3 can take out skulks, Gorges (10res) and Lerks (30 res). 2 or 3 in a group can take down a fade fairly easily with concentrated fire. That imbablance needs addressing. Marines scale very well throughout the game. Aliens don't. No-one wants the stupid suggestions you made. But why should a player spawn and know that at that moment of spawning, if he is stright into battle, he has no chance. A marine spawning has a chance to kill and survive when he spawns late game, why should skulks insta die when they spawn late game? I mean, it's not as if you can spawn as anything else.
This is not patch whining, this is a constant on-going for the last 15 patches or so issue that has still not been addressed. What use is all the res in the world if you have no chance to spend it? A simple change like letting aliens choose upgrades while dead would do a lot to alleviate the issue, they made the upgrades free, they made the evolve time tiny, why not just get rid of it altogether, so aliens can spawn with some hope against a lvl 3 rifleman in your base.
This isn't about aim, this is about the usefulness of the default lifeform you spawn with, as you spawn.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Don't use logic and reason on him. It's impossible.
You guys also need to include resource retention in your scalability discussions. If a Fade dies, that's it. He's gone. You probably won't be able to Fade again in the same game. If a marine carrying a shotgun and jetpack dies, his shotgun can be retained by the team and he only loses the 10 resources of the jetpack.
Recycling buildings also adds resource retention. There's really no way for the aliens to compete. Everything hangs on the Fades, and a single Fade loss is devastating. I hate how the meta game ends. It's just as bad as how every single end game Zerg in SC2 is forced to go Broodlord Infester. There's no variation. There's nothing else you can do. You either his strong with Fades in NS2, or you die. It's a binary metagame, and it's not interesting.
<b>
Who cares about balance if it's not interesting?</b>
opinion of 2-4 ppl dont make it a universal "fact"
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The point is a vanilla marine at lvl 3 can take out skulks, Gorges (10res) and Lerks (30 res).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
yes "can" the flipside of that is a completely vanilla skulk fresh out of the egg can keep a fully loaded marine. hard? yes. impossible? no. stupid skulks complaining about getting shot down a corridor is never going to end, i get that. too much COD i suppose.
gorges arent an attack class so thats not even a point.
and ive been saying for ages that lerk should have range spore but thats not happening so.. in any case they still have improved spikes this patch so if youre worried about getting shot down then sit back and spike...
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->2 or 3 in a group can take down a fade fairly easily with concentrated fire.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
thats because whiners complained about "fade op" early beta (way back when reg wasnt that good and that favors melee attackers , PLUS the old blink mechanic was trash). now that reg is decent we still have "paper" fade. whiners get what they want way too much. fix? move in irregular patterns. if youre weak dont run to the most obvious exit at any decent marine will be pouring bullets into it the second you try to run giving you a good chance to get away. attack from behind. etc etc etc. marines cant use concentrated fire on an attacker using silence and blinking in from the rear.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Marines scale very well throughout the game. Aliens don't.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
opinion, i think they scale very well. you just think in terms of "skulk".
"skulk is no good against a jp a/w3 shotgun marine, this is not balanced, TO THE FORUMS!" ignoring the fact that you prolly have 50+ res , and could go fade at any time to have a much better chance against that marine.. i see this all the time in games and its annoying at best. so what more should the devs give you?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->No-one wants the stupid suggestions you made.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
and some of you ppls suggestions are even more absurd
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But why should a player spawn and know that at that moment of spawning, if he is stright into battle, he has no chance.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
just.. wow. why even play ANY game then. if you immediately think youre done the second the game starts then go play dance dance revolution or the sims?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A marine spawning has a chance to kill and survive when he spawns late game<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
so do skulks
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->why should skulks insta die when they spawn late game? I mean, it's not as if you can spawn as anything else.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
again they added the current spawning system to satisfy whiners
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is not patch whining, this is a constant on-going for the last 15 patches or so issue that has still not been addressed. What use is all the res in the world if you have no chance to spend it? A simple change like letting aliens choose upgrades while dead would do a lot to alleviate the issue,<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
so which is it, aliens dont scale or aliens dont have TIME to scale. should make up your mind
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->they made the upgrades free, they made the evolve time tiny, why not just get rid of it altogether, so aliens can spawn with some hope against a lvl 3 rifleman in your base.
This isn't about aim, this is about the usefulness of the default lifeform you spawn with, as you spawn.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
all because youre bad with skulk doesnt mean the current skulk is bad. they gave you the buffs you wanted and youre still complaining. its pointless and has been pointless the last 15 patches. it just keeps destabilizing the game each patch. ive already seen posts this morning actually complaining that aliens dont know which armor marines have now (because of their new poor aim attack crutch that doesnt deal equal damage as it should). next ppl will be complaining that onos dont fly = dont scale.
I agree: it is aggravating when you are spawning into combat and don't even have enough time to get upgrades and thus are at a significant disadvantage. I don't agree with scaling upgrades (we have lifeforms and hive upgrades for that) but I do think you should be given the options to.
A- Pick your egg.
B- Select your upgrades before you spawn.
c- Not have to wait for another spawn cycle if you egg dies before spawn timer is done.
And no, Aliens don't suck.
Gorges are normally a prime target (because it heals the other aliens, costs res, and is an easy kill). They can only damage armour with bilebomb and while this is useful, it doesn't make them in any way a replacement for a skulk. Every 10 res you spend on a Gorge is 10 res taken away from being able to use a stronger lifeform (and 19 res if you drop hydras).
A skulk costs 0 res, a lerk costs 30, a fade costs 50 (iirc).
A level 3 LMG costs 0
That is the problem. Saying "Play a stronger life-form" presumes that you can afford it. If the situation was reversed some how, would "just use exos!" be a valid argument?
The new lerk is also amazing to be honest, love the current spikes!
224 Is definitely a step in the right direction, but we're not entirely there yet. Gorges could still use some love at T1 as well, and I feel the (temp) removal of feign death has gimped the shade hive choice for 2nd or 3rd hive even more :/.
Also, for the sake of sanity I would recommend everyone to stop debating this issue with VeneM, he has clearly shown in several threads now that he simply doesn't understand the skulk scaling problem, no matter how many times it was explained, and as thus it's hopeless to further argue this issue with him.
The following changes imo are still warranted for aliens to really hit the right spot in terms of both fun and balance
- Skulk movement mechanics need some more finetuning (currently marines definitely have an edge in their ability to quickly jump and change direction)
- FOCUS (bring this back for shade, give crag hive feign death, redemption or some similar mechanic)
- Gorge still needs some love at T1
- Unlocked shade/shift/crags from start, shade/shift/crag hive choice enables abilities on these and buffs them in some way
- Some way for aliens to tech a little further even at just 1 hive, but at a greater cost and/or duration.
Bullet style weapons that hit the target the same moment you push the trigger. For example pistol is hit scan, but grenade launcher has a flying projectile and isn't hit scan.
They dont suck still
which is hilarious since im not the only one stating the obvious, skulks arent supposed to scale the whole game and no matter how many times its argued it doesnt make it true.
-Being able to preselect upgrades before spawning is a good idea IMO
-The base skulk needs some movement love. It handles like a bus full of fat kids and decent marines constantly out maneuver them while being hell to track. There was another thread that suggested the amount of aircontrol marines have is too much, either way something has to give here.