Fades where are you
CCCorp
Join Date: 2003-03-14 Member: 14503Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2003-03-14 Member: 14503Members, Constellation
Just one thing ive been wondering is why does it take 9-12 mins for fades too show up in regular servers?
Marines already have GL's and almost jp's and have 2-3 hives locked down, this maybe different in competitive games but so far, as i mostly comm, its very frustrating too try and help my team when they cant play any higher life forms.
Marines already have GL's and almost jp's and have 2-3 hives locked down, this maybe different in competitive games but so far, as i mostly comm, its very frustrating too try and help my team when they cant play any higher life forms.
Comments
If, on the other hand, you have no RTs and no team coordination, you shouldn't be surprised when you don't get fades up quick to stay relevant.
As far as fade delays, it might have something to do that everyone seems to be going Lerk today to check out the spikes'n'stuff :-P . It should "go back to normal" in a day or two.
b) no pres while dead & skulks die far more than marines
Consider this: Because marine pres gain is doubled compared to aliens due to RTs, the effective cost of a fade is equivalent to nearly 100 pres for a marine player. Now also consider that fades have relatively poor maneuverability and low health for their 50 pres cost.
(it is even worse in competitive games because competitive marines crush competitive aliens harder than pub marines crush pub aliens)
In my experience, aliens need just as much res (if not more since their purchase points for lifeforms is so much higher) than marines and people should focus on retaining their res just like marines.
Res wins games. Get rts, get lifeforms. More rts means it not as devestating to lose fades. Try to convince your team to keep res.
Its even easier now that alien rts mature 30%, and marine rts die quicker.
yeah if i can hold 5 rt's sure the aliens win because the marines have no res too get a lot of gl's but still i find that fades still come around the 9 min mark and in order as a comm to drop an egg for one lone player for 50 res were i can get 2-3 upgrades for the whole team its not worth it since 50/50 chance of that fade getting shotgun'ed down in the first 2 mins of his life :)
one marine that can aim > entire alien team
(in pugs that is)
but all these problems are probable fixed in 12-16 man servers or competitive play, only problem is 88% of the people who will try this game out next week are not going to play competitave
more like 95% lol
In my experience, aliens need just as much res (if not more since their purchase points for lifeforms is so much higher) than marines and people should focus on retaining their res just like marines.
Res wins games. Get rts, get lifeforms. More rts means it not as devestating to lose fades. Try to convince your team to keep res.
Its even easier now that alien rts mature 30%, and marine rts die quicker.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
4 res points typically means you have cysts covering 50% or more of the map. Good luck doing that against non blind marines.
Killing them helps.
In my experience, aliens need just as much res (if not more since their purchase points for lifeforms is so much higher) than marines and people should focus on retaining their res just like marines.
Res wins games. Get rts, get lifeforms. More rts means it not as devestating to lose fades. Try to convince your team to keep res.
Its even easier now that alien rts mature 30%, and marine rts die quicker.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In competitive games, aliens only hold 2-3 RTs because that's all they can hold. Marines are too good for them to hold anymore. It's not that competitive aliens want to only hold 3 RTs, it's that they can't possibly hope to hold any more than that in an even game. The alien RTs past 2-3 are far too vulnerable, impossible to defend, and often force aliens into a situation where they can lose a hive after getting wiped at an RT.
On a map like veil, you're doing really well as aliens if you hold even 3 RTs.
Pubs have a varying degree of skill. Typically good marines are better than good skulks by a larger amount than pub marines are better than pub skulks. Therefore it just gets harder for aliens as marines skill up. Pubs are wildcards, almost any strategy can work or not work based purely on the random skill and teamwork that are displayed in pubs.
In the games where you hold 4-5 RTs you say you dominate. It is the other way around. Because you're dominating you hold >3 RTs.
This, this, this.
The reason why fades come out so late in most games is simply because at 3 RTs, p.res income is pretty slow, which is also another reason the alien comm usually goes for a quick onos egg. (Although to be fair, I think in 224 a quick fade egg + blink can be equally viable, provided it is given to a great player. But that's 70 t.res, you may as well drop the onos egg for 75...)
That being said, the nerf to marine axe structure damage will probably help in keeping those alien harvesters alive a little easier at least. (And the buffs to skulk and lerk help a llot as well) Also let's not forget that map choice plays a big role here. In veil 2 RTs is usually the most you can expect to hold, where as in for example summit, you should at least be able to get 3 off the start. (And up to 5 once you have that second hive)
P.S Get rid of no res for death, it's a terrible mechanic that primarily punishes aliens. And fix the alien spawn system...
The only times Fades are effective, are when Aliens can mass them, or for pick off lone Marines. Personally, I prefer Lerk for the role, as they provide much more team support.
Perhaps Swipe damage should be increased slightly (72 punctual damage, or 90 damage to players), to allow 2/3 Swipes to badly injure a Marine with Armor lvl 1/3, followed by one or two ranged hits (Parasite/Spikes/Spit) to finish off.
Then again, I don't think the lack of fades is completely about the meta or lack of practice. Currently the carapace is pretty much a requirement for fade doing anything effective, and non-blink fading is unforgiving too. I personally find that even though I've practiced fading a lot, I am more effective with a skulk in many situations. Sure, I die with a skulk a lot more, but I also do more damage in most cases. A few patches back I used to eagerly go fade as soon as blink was up, but now I often go fade only because it seems necessary. More practice, maybe. I think it is too early to tell for sure, but I'd love to see a small bump in fade base armour. Something like 50 -> 60-70 for start, to cope with performance increases. The carapace fade doesn't seem to need armour increases though.
Then again, maybe I'll just give 224 some time and non-upgraded fades some practice and L2P ;)
...
Its scary that your a playtester
I wish they'd revert the marine armor lab upgrade costs to be honest, marines just get to A and W3 too quickly atm.
Yeah the assassin role has really been toned down. It's harder to score kills because it's harder to survive the time required to deliver 4 swipes, plus the time to blink away to safety. Feign death largely got around that, but it was horribly OP for fades, so I'm glad feign is gone.
Even when the fade does score the kill, it's not as consequential as it was in the past. Marines can respawn quickly thanks to IP mechanics and they can get anywhere on the battlefield quickly thanks to phase and sprint. So in effect, often racking up kills as a fade is only a mild disruption to the marine team's agenda.
Of course it is more effective if the marine was carrying a bought weapon. But the marines can recover dropped weapons, so this benefit isn't always achieved. Further, and as some others have mentioned, the way the game plays now with marines holding more res nodes than aliens, that benefit is further diluted (pRes is easy for marines, so losing weapons isn't a big deal).
Over the last 20 builds it feels to me like the number of resource nodes held by marines:aliens as a ratio has flipped. And essentially I think it would be a healthy thing for the game to be designed around balanced resource income resulting in balanced games. It doesn't <i>have</i> to be symmetrical but I think more game balance efforts should focus on balancing resource income to match whatever expectations we have. And then deriving costs based on those expectations, rather than in response to whatever feels right in a given build. Perhaps the balance changes in the last 20 builds have focused too much on raw outcomes without considering what actually happens during the game.
Once upon a time, in build 19x there was a fairly common belief that you couldn't let aliens get 2 hives because fades would win the game. It has changed so much.
very true alien work hard too finally get he's higher life form (fade) and BAM shotgun rush too hive one mistake and bye bye higher life forms, but unlesss you kill there entire team the marines just sprint in pick up there shotguns/gls and keep walking no loss of res or side effect
That's.... actually kinda an awesome idea.
Also able to get lot of kills with my skulk with regen/celerity and just biting, running, walking up wall, jumping head biting = win.
With fade, im like preying i dont die when i blink away. And only go Fade if the game gets too hard. Otherwise I overflow with 100res usually. Honestly, i dont think Fade should get hurt when he blinks. Its trans dimensional man :P
Onos is my worst unit, cause i always die charing the enemy with my skulk buddies behind me, bam, 75 res gone. woo.
I've played natural selection since almost the very beginning, from when the whole game depended on your FPS, i could never jp ran out of fuel instantly, so i know the dev's have come a long way and will keep up the great work, balance is always the hardest thing in these games