Aliens and why you should stop whining
Brainmaggot
Join Date: 2012-09-03 Member: 157535Members
Join Date: 2012-09-03 Member: 157535Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Short guide how to play aliens if you think they're UP.</div>I've seen lots of people whining about aliens being underpowered and needing everything from health buffs to damage increases.
From what I've read this seems to be rooted in a couple of misunderstandings.
To begin with there seems to be a lot of people who think that evolving into a higher lifeform such as lerk, fade and onos means you can now automatically take on groups of marines. This just isn't the case. NS2 still needs to be played as a <b>team game</b>. Playing as alien is all about picking your fights. Since the alien team has such high mobility, this becomes relatively easy considering the low mobility of marines (even with phase gates, it's really expensive and messy if the marines try to phase to lots of places of the map at the same time, not to mention that it spreads their team thin). Don't go solo, just don't.
All you need most of the time is distractions. Having a few skulks run into or through a room from different locations is enough for a lerk or a fade to be able to run in there and tear up marines with ease. If you kick it up another notch and actually attack from different locations and angles you'll most likely also claim the room you're attacking.
Team play and coordination is of great importance in this game and that goes for marines as well as aliens. It just differs slightly in how you apply it.
Another weird complaint I've seen around the forums is that skulks are way too easily killed in the latter stages of the game. This is how it's supposed to be.
If you can't afford going onos or fade, go lerk or gorge to support your team. It's always needed. If you can't even afford that, you need to adjust how you play.
The role of a skulk changes as the match progresses. This however doesn't mean that skulks become useless, quite the contrary.
* In straight up engagements against marines, you can focus on killing the back line of the marines to break up their effectiveness. Kill the grenade launcher guy, kill a welder, kill someone who's covering the front line of the marines.
* Go to the parts of the map where you think no one is located at the moment and kill the resource towers there. The resource towers is pretty much the most important thing on the map to control, kill off the ones that no one is around. You'll strangle the resource flow of the marines and force players to move from where they can inflict damage to your team. The marine team will need to go back there at some point.
* Attack a marine base where you suspect no one is defending at the moment. Use the mobility you have. Going into a marine base and attacking the observatory, power or command station will force the marine team to react. They will have to move players there to get rid of you which will weaken the marine team's strength on other parts of the map. If you do this effectively, especially if you attack with 2-3 skulks, you'll most likely force a beacon. Forcing a beacon can be especially effective in the latter stages of a match since there might be exosuits on the field. The exosuits won't be beaconed and will be left alone on the field, ripe for picking for your teammates. When you force the marine team to react, you dictate the pace of the game and where the fights happen.
I'll touch briefly on some fundamentals here as well since most of the complaints about the alien team seems to stem from players not really understanding how to win with them.
The marine team's tech is full of things that's made for frontal assault and defense. The alien team's tech is full of mobility, team assistance and stealth.
This should tell you that as an alien, you need to use the element of surprise to your advantage. The marine team should win straight up frontal engagements and should be able to defend better. If you choose to engage the marines in frontal engagements, you should lose.
Quickly attack parts of the map where the marines aren't currently located. Surprise the marines with sneaky positions. Blitz a base from different angles.
Most importantly; if standing shoulder to shoulder with your mates and attacking positions head on is what you like, play marines.
If you like to surprise, move fast and use coordinated attacks, play aliens.
The two teams are fundamentally different and hence should be played in an entirely different way.
Most important of all is that if you do want to play aliens, just play them a lot.
Watch good players and how they use the different lifeforms, try to emulate their tricks and tactics.
Whatever you do, don't play aliens for a little while and then come into the forums to whine about them being severely underpowered. That just isn't true.
Whining about stuff that doesn't need to be fixed can even become dangerous. I've seen too many games become a muddy mess due to the developers listening to the hordes
of whiners blaming their bad play on the game.
Go out there and chomp some heads off.
It's way more fun than spending your time trying to flood the forums with tears.
If you keep doing it, you'll reach those 50-3 scores you use as an argument as to why something is over/underpowered in due time, trust me :)
From what I've read this seems to be rooted in a couple of misunderstandings.
To begin with there seems to be a lot of people who think that evolving into a higher lifeform such as lerk, fade and onos means you can now automatically take on groups of marines. This just isn't the case. NS2 still needs to be played as a <b>team game</b>. Playing as alien is all about picking your fights. Since the alien team has such high mobility, this becomes relatively easy considering the low mobility of marines (even with phase gates, it's really expensive and messy if the marines try to phase to lots of places of the map at the same time, not to mention that it spreads their team thin). Don't go solo, just don't.
All you need most of the time is distractions. Having a few skulks run into or through a room from different locations is enough for a lerk or a fade to be able to run in there and tear up marines with ease. If you kick it up another notch and actually attack from different locations and angles you'll most likely also claim the room you're attacking.
Team play and coordination is of great importance in this game and that goes for marines as well as aliens. It just differs slightly in how you apply it.
Another weird complaint I've seen around the forums is that skulks are way too easily killed in the latter stages of the game. This is how it's supposed to be.
If you can't afford going onos or fade, go lerk or gorge to support your team. It's always needed. If you can't even afford that, you need to adjust how you play.
The role of a skulk changes as the match progresses. This however doesn't mean that skulks become useless, quite the contrary.
* In straight up engagements against marines, you can focus on killing the back line of the marines to break up their effectiveness. Kill the grenade launcher guy, kill a welder, kill someone who's covering the front line of the marines.
* Go to the parts of the map where you think no one is located at the moment and kill the resource towers there. The resource towers is pretty much the most important thing on the map to control, kill off the ones that no one is around. You'll strangle the resource flow of the marines and force players to move from where they can inflict damage to your team. The marine team will need to go back there at some point.
* Attack a marine base where you suspect no one is defending at the moment. Use the mobility you have. Going into a marine base and attacking the observatory, power or command station will force the marine team to react. They will have to move players there to get rid of you which will weaken the marine team's strength on other parts of the map. If you do this effectively, especially if you attack with 2-3 skulks, you'll most likely force a beacon. Forcing a beacon can be especially effective in the latter stages of a match since there might be exosuits on the field. The exosuits won't be beaconed and will be left alone on the field, ripe for picking for your teammates. When you force the marine team to react, you dictate the pace of the game and where the fights happen.
I'll touch briefly on some fundamentals here as well since most of the complaints about the alien team seems to stem from players not really understanding how to win with them.
The marine team's tech is full of things that's made for frontal assault and defense. The alien team's tech is full of mobility, team assistance and stealth.
This should tell you that as an alien, you need to use the element of surprise to your advantage. The marine team should win straight up frontal engagements and should be able to defend better. If you choose to engage the marines in frontal engagements, you should lose.
Quickly attack parts of the map where the marines aren't currently located. Surprise the marines with sneaky positions. Blitz a base from different angles.
Most importantly; if standing shoulder to shoulder with your mates and attacking positions head on is what you like, play marines.
If you like to surprise, move fast and use coordinated attacks, play aliens.
The two teams are fundamentally different and hence should be played in an entirely different way.
Most important of all is that if you do want to play aliens, just play them a lot.
Watch good players and how they use the different lifeforms, try to emulate their tricks and tactics.
Whatever you do, don't play aliens for a little while and then come into the forums to whine about them being severely underpowered. That just isn't true.
Whining about stuff that doesn't need to be fixed can even become dangerous. I've seen too many games become a muddy mess due to the developers listening to the hordes
of whiners blaming their bad play on the game.
Go out there and chomp some heads off.
It's way more fun than spending your time trying to flood the forums with tears.
If you keep doing it, you'll reach those 50-3 scores you use as an argument as to why something is over/underpowered in due time, trust me :)
Comments
You realize the game launched yesterday right?
There are a billion new people who dont.
amazin
<!--quoteo(post=2002703:date=Oct 31 2012, 08:06 AM:name=Xostean)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Xostean @ Oct 31 2012, 08:06 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2002703"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You realize the game launched yesterday right?
There are a billion new people who dont.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, I really appreciate it. I made an account just to say thanks, was really just lurking, but this was good to know. I'm a huge fan of NS since the half-life mod days, but I never really got into it.
Thanks again for taking the time to explain! Makes me feel more welcome at least!
This.
Also, whether or not the Aliens are UP or OP, the alien gameplay still sucks harder than a hobo at a bus stop for pocket change.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The marine team's tech is full of things that's made for frontal assault and defense. <b>The alien team's tech is full of mobility, team assistance and stealth.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hahahaha
Stopped here. Haha.
amazin<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
He probably played NS1 *cackle*
There is an issue with the Skulk scaling to late game, a 3 hive Skulk is nowhere near a 3 3 Lmg Marine... even with carapace , adren , silence , celerity ... a skulks damage will always remain the same.
If you went Onos and lost it in a push, chances are high you wont have much resources left ... Skulking for a while is mandatory for the majority of the playerbase.
Thats part of the issue there ... Marines get tougher and do more damage even without spending p.res , there is nothing that boosts a Skulks damage, and you need to sacrifice armor boosting to get the famed 'high mobility' of the Aliens.
(Marines have more mobility that aliens, they can afford to leave the base to all in on a hive thanks to beacons, they can be at multiple points of the map as a group thanks to PGs and they can buy JP's to seriously boost personal mobility... A Fade and perhaps the Lerks beat Marines in mobility but at a high p.res cost, and Blink is a 2nd hive research ability).
This is where the idea Aliens suck stems from, late game Skulks are virtually nothing but distractions and cannon fodder (5 full bites to drop a 3 3 lmg marine whereas a marine can drop that same skulk with less than 1 clip of bullets from the basic lmg).
There is also issues of actually trying to land hits on a hopping marine, marines bounce around and swing thier axes and quiet often put up a huge fight against multiple skulks... so much for melee ranged dominance, whereas marines are undeniably masters at range against all forms.
I know UWE will sort it out, but to tell everyone Aliens are fine and learn to play is merely hiding issues and not sorting them out.
Aliens early game is very strong, which leads to under 2 min victories but should the marine hold on to mid game and keep a few collectors online... then marines own mid and late game.
(Hence the popularity of the early Onos, need that late game form just to push against the Marine mid game).
Also, whether or not the Aliens are UP or OP, the alien gameplay still sucks harder than a hobo at a bus stop for pocket change.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
yep. it doesn't really have much to do with whether or not it's underpowered or overpowered, just that it's boring as hell to play. you're always playing from behind, no matter what - at no point are you able to just straight up win the game unless you have a plethora of dropped onos eggs or something, and that really only works in pubs. as a skulk lategame, you're probably spending your time biting things that aren't other players (trying to force beacons, etc). it's incredibly boring and dull. just because it works doesn't mean it's good.
The issue is this. No matter how good I get as ANY alien species. I will never have the ability to compare to ANY Marine.
Today I plan to play marine, I have played First Person Shooters competitive on many games. Knowing that I can grab a shotty, and one-2 hit any alien, or just keep the default gun, or I bet I could use the pistol ONLY and still have a positive KDR. We shall see.
It reminds me of First Person Shooters that you can "pay to win" and you'll get higher damage guns, and more armor than any normal player. Except on NS2 Marines get this by default and Aliens have less damage and less health.
Can you imagine having a game-mode on counterstrike where one team is melee, and the other team gets to use guns AND have double the health of the melee and the melee weapons do less DPS. ANYONE who thinks this will be balanced in competitive play is insane.
I don't even know how Competitive games will be played at this point. Marines are so much more tactically better I can't see any competitive team that would choose to be alien. Unless there is Friendly Fire, I could see that evening the playing field a little bit.
I agree that playing aliens from the start is hard. No surprise, people have like 95% more experience in playing shooters than as an agile melee class.
There will be balance issues, the game is not perfect, nothing is. But take time, accept the licks, to slowly master the alien classes. They are fragile in straight up fights, but they are competitive enough once players know how to use them. Do remember that a few thousand beta players tested the last few builds, particularly in the last 3 months, and this is what we ended up with.
If you're a new player, just grit your teeth and scale the learning curve. It helps no one in the long run to insist on making changes to the base game from day 1. It takes years to achieve a university degree; should we change the system to allow it to be done in 6 months?
NS2 will be hard to master, especially Kharaa, but once it clicks and you get it, it's just a fantastic achievement to know you did it through your own skill and experience. Just give it a month of solid play, that's all I ask.
The issue is this. No matter how good I get as ANY alien species. I will never have the ability to compare to ANY Marine.
<i>This is just not true at all watch some of the tourneys and tell me aliens can't beat marines when you know what you're doing. This game is asymmetrical the marines have upfront and from a distance assault power but if you can get inside to melee range as an alien without damage you have a good chance of killing them. If you get behind them and surprise them its almost a sure kill. </i>
Today I plan to play marine, I have played First Person Shooters competitive on many games. Knowing that I can grab a shotty, and one-2 hit any alien, or just keep the default gun, or I bet I could use the pistol ONLY and still have a positive KDR. We shall see.
<i>I totally agree with you on this right now the problem is people don't know how to play the class as we said earlier. Drop in with some clan or experienced beta players and see how well your KDR does then </i>
It reminds me of First Person Shooters that you can "pay to win" and you'll get higher damage guns, and more armor than any normal player. Except on NS2 Marines get this by default and Aliens have less damage and less health.
<i>That is the point marines are full frontal assault like you seem to like. Aliens are skulking in the shadows waiting to strike for most of the game. If you run in like a crazy the marines will shoot you before you even get close.</i>
Can you imagine having a game-mode on counterstrike where one team is melee, and the other team gets to use guns AND have double the health of the melee and the melee weapons do less DPS. ANYONE who thinks this will be balanced in competitive play is insane.
<i>This is just false no offence the problem you are talking about is when the aliens don't match the marines tech. Aliens need to use higher level life forms to win just like marines need higher level tech to win. Saying well marines had high tech but aliens had low lifeforms so they died well of course they did!!</i>
I don't even know how Competitive games will be played at this point. Marines are so much more tactically better I can't see any competitive team that would choose to be alien. Unless there is Friendly Fire, I could see that evening the playing field a little bit.
<i>Watch some of the tourney that have recently been held you will notice they are really well balanced I recommend the blindNS feed or NS2 feed on twitch tv.</i><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->... hmm so when the marines assualt the Hive rooms, are the skulks suppose to run off to eat collectors and try nail the base ? Or do the skulks wait for the hive to die then ambush the marines as they move to the next hive ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Use the map (default 'C'). Shows you everything and lets you know where to go. Marines typically control 60% of a map by mid game. Aliens early game need to delay that push as much as they can by being aggressive, gangbanging one side of the map, hitting the game, ambushing etc.
Once marines get phase gates and start locking down areas, you can tell from the Map that they have a lot of territory. The more territory marines have, the less they are able to defend it. This is when 1-2 skulks going behind enemy lines can wipe out all their rear RTs in less than 3 minutes.
You should be doing this once you get the sense the marines have more map control, not when they are already assaulting the hive.
In late game when marines have a lot of tech, aliens should have lerks/fades/onos and especially GORGES bilebombing, which can stalemate an assault at the very least, and even beat it back. This stalemate gives times for a commando skulk to wipe out marines' supply lines.
In combat, aliens can't stand up to direct firepower, with the exception of the onos, but even then, the onos can take on at 2 marines, at most 3 if it kills 1 fast. But remember, marines frontload all their combat capabilities. In combat, if you're the point, your mission is NOT to go for a kill, but to draw fire, jump to the side, above, behind, waste marine ammo clips. Then when they start reloading, the rest of the team is amongst them killing.
When as Kharaa you break the marines' lines and fight prolonged they [1] reload at different times, limiting firepower [2] they start hitting each other and blocking shots [3] lose HP & armour. HP is healed fast with medpacks, but armour is much harder to repair, which makes marines easier to kill. Spores (AOE anti-HP) and Bilebomb (AOE anti-armour) soften marines up rapidly.
Marines are all about the brick wall, direct combat. Kharaa are about getting above, behind, using AOE attacks, hit and run, obscuring vision with spores & cloak, silence to win. Different playstyles. Asymmetrical. Balance is not perfect, but it's reasonably close. Aliens have a higher skill ceiling, just takes a while to reach there. And once you reach that ceiling, you'll look upon this beginning and smile, as you tear into hapless marines who just can't hit you.
Use the map (default 'C'). Shows you everything and lets you know where to go. Marines typically control 60% of a map by mid game. Aliens early game need to delay that push as much as they can by being aggressive, gangbanging one side of the map, hitting the game, ambushing etc.
Once marines get phase gates and start locking down areas, you can tell from the Map that they have a lot of territory. The more territory marines have, the less they are able to defend it. This is when 1-2 skulks going behind enemy lines can wipe out all their rear RTs in less than 3 minutes.
You should be doing this once you get the sense the marines have more map control, not when they are already assaulting the hive.
In late game when marines have a lot of tech, aliens should have lerks/fades/onos and especially GORGES bilebombing, which can stalemate an assault at the very least, and even beat it back. This stalemate gives times for a commando skulk to wipe out marines' supply lines.
In combat, aliens can't stand up to direct firepower, with the exception of the onos, but even then, the onos can take on at 2 marines, at most 3 if it kills 1 fast. But remember, marines frontload all their combat capabilities. In combat, if you're the point, your mission is NOT to go for a kill, but to draw fire, jump to the side, above, behind, waste marine ammo clips. Then when they start reloading, the rest of the team is amongst them killing.
When as Kharaa you break the marines' lines and fight prolonged they [1] reload at different times, limiting firepower [2] they start hitting each other and blocking shots [3] lose HP & armour. HP is healed fast with medpacks, but armour is much harder to repair, which makes marines easier to kill. Spores (AOE anti-HP) and Bilebomb (AOE anti-armour) soften marines up rapidly.
Marines are all about the brick wall, direct combat. Kharaa are about getting above, behind, using AOE attacks, hit and run, obscuring vision with spores & cloak, silence to win. Different playstyles. Asymmetrical. Balance is not perfect, but it's reasonably close. Aliens have a higher skill ceiling, just takes a while to reach there. And once you reach that ceiling, you'll look upon this beginning and smile, as you tear into hapless marines who just can't hit you.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Very well put. This is mostly what I have been trying to say but better :D
- Mobility is not the alien-advantage. They need , especially on bigger maps, hive-teleport back. "Arwwww aliens have CELERITY!!!!" <--- what a bull######-argument. Its like to say "marines have Sprint!"(which is free) .
- Crags need also an upgrade. Cant be true that one 10-tres armory can heal the whole team in a few seconds. But it needs min. 5 crags in a forwarded alienbase with a lower effect.
Aliens often run off by themselves, not realising they too need to go in squads (or hunting packs if you'd prefer). I myself am guilty of this.
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->I'm no expert but here's some advice for fades:
1. Do not even consider the class without blink.
2. Do not engage large groups of marines if they're aware you're there, blink behind them, attack, blink away as soon as they react to being attacked
3. In a 1v1 against a shotgun run if he gets a clear good shot on you just once, two full hits will kill you. Blink around chaotically, never attack from the front, make him miss and waste his shots.
4. Energy, watch it carefully. The last thing you need is the inability to blink when you need to retreat.<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
As for what I think needs to be addressed, Mr.Greedy covered it.
- Mobility is not the alien-advantage. They need , especially on bigger maps, hive-teleport back. "Arwwww aliens have CELERITY!!!!" <--- what a bull######-argument. Its like to say "marines have Sprint!"(which is free) .
- Crags need also an upgrade. Cant be true that one 10-tres armory can heal the whole team in a few seconds. But it needs min. 5 crags in a forwarded alienbase with a lower effect.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't' know about the hive teleport back thing I think it would make aliens OP actually because they do move faster than marines. Sprint is a temporary effect and a normal vanilla skulk who knows how to ride the walls has no problem catching a sprinting marien not that they should be (should be setting up ambushes).
Crags do have an ability called healing wave that will do exactly what you are talking about the alien com however has to know to use it.
Costs team-res. Just do this 4 times and you've wasted enough tRes to build another Crag. In the long run it might be cheaper to just put down 3 crags.
(I might be wrong on my numbers, I avoid being comm and numbers change a lot in this game).
If anyone wants to get good at aliens, read this post first and foremost. Tactics revolving around teamwork and game sense are important, but they eventually come with time. Since most aliens will spend the majority of their time playing skulks, learning how to play them effectively should be the highest priority. I'd like to stress the importance of wall-jumping because of the added mobility and unpredictable movement it brings to the table. Combine this with in-game geometry to block/juke marine shots. This becomes even more effective with celerity and leap.
Also, try keeping dark vision turned on indefinitely. It makes spotting marines/structures a ton easier since their color palettes are so similar to in-game geometry.
Use the map (default 'C'). Shows you everything and lets you know where to go. Marines typically control 60% of a map by mid game. Aliens early game need to delay that push as much as they can by being aggressive, gangbanging one side of the map, hitting the game, ambushing etc.
Once marines get phase gates and start locking down areas, you can tell from the Map that they have a lot of territory. The more territory marines have, the less they are able to defend it. This is when 1-2 skulks going behind enemy lines can wipe out all their rear RTs in less than 3 minutes.
You should be doing this once you get the sense the marines have more map control, not when they are already assaulting the hive.
In late game when marines have a lot of tech, aliens should have lerks/fades/onos and especially GORGES bilebombing, which can stalemate an assault at the very least, and even beat it back. This stalemate gives times for a commando skulk to wipe out marines' supply lines.
In combat, aliens can't stand up to direct firepower, with the exception of the onos, but even then, the onos can take on at 2 marines, at most 3 if it kills 1 fast. But remember, marines frontload all their combat capabilities. In combat, if you're the point, your mission is NOT to go for a kill, but to draw fire, jump to the side, above, behind, waste marine ammo clips. Then when they start reloading, the rest of the team is amongst them killing.
When as Kharaa you break the marines' lines and fight prolonged they [1] reload at different times, limiting firepower [2] they start hitting each other and blocking shots [3] lose HP & armour. HP is healed fast with medpacks, but armour is much harder to repair, which makes marines easier to kill. Spores (AOE anti-HP) and Bilebomb (AOE anti-armour) soften marines up rapidly.
Marines are all about the brick wall, direct combat. Kharaa are about getting above, behind, using AOE attacks, hit and run, obscuring vision with spores & cloak, silence to win. Different playstyles. Asymmetrical. Balance is not perfect, but it's reasonably close. Aliens have a higher skill ceiling, just takes a while to reach there. And once you reach that ceiling, you'll look upon this beginning and smile, as you tear into hapless marines who just can't hit you.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thank you for filling in the gaps in my text. I actually had to rewrite my entire post due to messing it all up by hitting my backwards key and the browser not saving the text in the cache so some of what I wrote got lost :P.
I was getting into the higher skill ceiling of the aliens briefly in my post. It is just like you say, if you put in the work you'll reap the rewards tenfold. Exactly what I was saying in the end of my post.
What munchy said about using the ceiling is also very, very relevant.
The gist of this thread is basically that aliens has to be played in a different way than marines. A sidenote is that aliens will be tougher to learn for most players since most players seem to come from fps shooter backgrounds rather than first person fighter/hacknslash backgrounds. This isn't surprising ofcourse since the FPS genre has a huge player base.
Using the ceilings, walls, jumping and staying illusive is always the number one priority. Anyone who comes from a background of for example Quake knows that dodging and positioning is more important than trying to get hits in on your enemy. If you don't take any damage, you'll get the kill eventually.
New/bad players tend to stress and go for the bites as soon as they can. It is much better to just let the marine waste his ammo shooting at shadows first and then go in for an easy kill. Some people in here say that marines can just jump and axe skulks. I'm sorry but then you're just a very bad skulk player. If you can't compensate for someone jumping, increase your sensitivity or something. It's really not that difficult. It is actually way more difficult for the marine player in that situation since you're the one with the smaller and faster model so I really don't understand how some people use that as an argument.
To reply to some of the other posters; yes I did play the beta. I also played NS1.
It is very evident in my title and my post that this is directed towards new players, especially those who claim that alien is a weak team.
If you're beef is with how fun aliens are to play, this isn't the thread for you.
This is about whether they are an underpowered team or not and what you can do yourself if you feel that way.
EDIT; To the people who say that late game skulks can't compare to late game marines. What situations are you talking about?
If you're talking about assaulting a bunch of marines, don't. See my original post regarding that.
Early or late game, it's still up to positioning, dodging, aim, timing and so on. Pretty much every time I surprise a single marine in late game, I kill him.
It might require a few more bites more but it really doesn't matter. By the time I'm biting him he usually doesn't have ammo in his main weapon anyway or is struggling some other way.
I personally really don't like "Well I do this in pub servers so that's why I'm right!"-arguments but I have to mention this because when a skulk has come into melee range with a lone marine, that marine is supposed to be dead. When I play, this is the case.
If you get stomped by marines in 1v1 you're doing something wrong. You need to surprise him, otherwise you're playing his game. You let him use his strengths. Use yours.
I don't even know how Competitive games will be played at this point. Marines are so much more tactically better I can't see any competitive team that would choose to be alien. Unless there is Friendly Fire, I could see that evening the playing field a little bit.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The reason this analogy doesn't work is because in counter-strike there are two identical teams. Two teams that play the same way and have the same means of killing the other team. This is not the case in NS2, where the game is balanced asymmetrically.
It doesn't take a whole team to counter attack as the aliens. Two gorges with bile bomb working together can really decimate a marine base in seconds. Get on TS or something with a friend and coordinate that kind of stuff, it'll work wonders.
Competitive play had been going on while in beta, I've watched a few matches on twitchtv actually, despite not being one to normally watch these things. I've seen aliens win, even when there was real balance issues due to a bug (marines got massive knock back from being bitten).
<i>edit: Then we have some patches from pre v220, where aliens dominated the game</i>
Me and my two friends have an alien w:l ratio of 5:1 this week. Whilst there are some things that need to be addressed, you're wrong about how imbalanced it is.
Please don't just say things like this.
If you think that this is the case, explain why.
Can't be arsed to explain? Then don't say anything at all in the first place.
Well they are new and just don't know or are you talking about us that are trying to explain the gameplay.
If you think that this is the case, explain why.
Can't be arsed to explain? Then don't say anything at all in the first place.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Brainmaggot - you'll find alot of this here, kind of just gotta go with it. People interchange "opinion" and "fact" pretty regularly as in "I believe in X strongly, so therefore it is fact and I'm correct". People (the fans) are deeply invested in NS2, which can be both good and bad.
cause it would take too long quoting each and every post that cries about opinionated 'balance issues" when they just started playing the game 2 hrs ago
True but I think we need to help educate the new guys on how to play effectively I don't want to just see the player base bottom out because we didn't help or just came off as not caring.