<!--quoteo(post=2024599:date=Nov 15 2012, 07:21 AM:name=Live_Feed)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Live_Feed @ Nov 15 2012, 07:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024599"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i love that win percentage graph because half the games i play a day either have no commander for one team, or a clearly new commander who doesn't want to listen to instruction. Then you've got the games where only 3 people actually join a team and is over when the single, lonely player decides "f this" and quits.
Truly a honest measure of balance.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
fortunately, onos egg drop has nothing to do with balance, it's just simply not fun.
but that's not what this topic is about, i would dare to say aliens - marines would be pretty much balanced ( or balanced enough for public games ) if there wasn't onos egg drop, it... just.... ruins.... games.... everygame where onos egg drop has been used, has been waste of time, it's so dull and boring tactic and marines have absolutely no chance againts it unless you stop it in first 4minutes of game wich is impossible in public games because you need to do organized sniping runs to enemy rt's.
<!--quoteo(post=2024590:date=Nov 15 2012, 03:10 PM:name=Juomari)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Juomari @ Nov 15 2012, 03:10 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024590"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->then you really don't know the size of this problem, really, because i appearently play in servers where people DO have a clue what to do, aliens wins 50% of the game WITHOUT onos drop egg, i have tested this strategy over 20 times and i have NEVER lost, unless like i have said million times, alien team simply doesn't know how to play, but then again they would lose whatever tactic used, or if extremely bad player picks up the egg, only times when i have lost using this strategy is games where players ask me "what is an onos egg ?" or "we can't afford to evolve to onos yet" when i ask someone to get onos egg.
and i disagree, i win almost everytime 1v1 fight with a skulk, i'm not kidding, mayby i have been just lucky not to encounter any good marine, but i think marine is in disadvantage position when 1v1 fight, however when it's 4marine vs 4skulks, i think marines wins almost everytime, this is because there can be 1 guy to lure skulks and 3 shoots them from afar, same goes when I play as marine, i always lose to a skulk 1v1 battle but when i go with team i can easily aim and shoot them from afar.
and you can have onos at 4mins if you dominate earlygame, at the time 6min you can have onos AND leap, cara and cele, with "only" 3rt's you can add 2mins to each, that's 6min to first onos, 8mins to upgrades.
Or mayby it's because you play in 20+p servers ? because there i can imagine 1onos making a less impact than in 16p servers, mayby i should give these 20-24p servers a try.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
try to sound a little less condescending maybe?
i play in 14-16p servers only, and with evenly skilled teams excluding myself (aka a close game) i usually get about 5-10:1 as a marine and 3-5:1 as a skulk.
furthermore, when i'm playing as skulk there are frequent situations where it would be suicide to engage a marine (assuming he's not a nub), but it's rarely the same when i play as marine. as a marine i'm supremely confident at killing skulks, and every death to a skulk is because i embarrassingly failed my aim or got outplayed.
maybe i just play on servers where the alien commanders want a fair game instead of borderline griefing onos rush every time. when it's a steamroll it's no more fun to be on the winning side than the losing side, it's just a bad game with no lessons learned and no satisfaction.
Pubs marines are pretty bad right now when it comes to actually getting out of base. I played a game with a comm and his buddy who insisted that we lost on mineshaft because we had operations, deposit, and sorting, and 3 of us kept running up north tunnel killing crusher and tunnel rt's. We eventually couldn't push anymore into the hive because the comm refused to support us at all and instead built turrets and rushed jp's instead of actual armor and weapon upgrades. We had armor 1 after about 15 minutes cause they thought that somehow turrets were going to save us.
In short there are a lot of really bad marine players right now.
<!--quoteo(post=2024615:date=Nov 15 2012, 07:32 AM:name=Davil)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Davil @ Nov 15 2012, 07:32 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024615"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Pubs marines are pretty bad right now when it comes to actually getting out of base. I played a game with a comm and his buddy who insisted that we lost on mineshaft because we had operations, deposit, and sorting, and 3 of us kept running up north tunnel killing crusher and tunnel rt's. We eventually couldn't push anymore into the hive because the comm refused to support us at all and instead built turrets and rushed jp's instead of actual armor and weapon upgrades. We had armor 1 after about 15 minutes cause they thought that somehow turrets were going to save us.
In short there are a lot of really bad marine players right now.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i had a game wher aliens were going for onos drop tactic (for my very suprise... nothing new under the sun), so i knew what i had to do, i scanned all their near rt's, hives etc, i (for my suprise, noted that marines was actually listening to me) managed to organize attack via beacon to kill their early hivedrops, killed like 6-7 of their rt's in earlygame, however, i was verylow on resources so i didn't have sg's or mines or robotics facility, all i had was phasegates and weapon / armor upgrades as i tought they were most important.
so by the time we have w3 and a2 i researched jetpacks and only then first onos ( or actually there was soon 2 onos ) spawned, both teams very low on resources and i order them to get jp / sg's and hunt onoses down and take their hivedown, then my team start's to whine exo suits.... and i knew we were doomed, so what i do ? i research dual exo's naturally since my team insisted and it turns out 70% of my marines had 100res because they were saving them for exo's, so my whole team jumps into exo suits, i tell them to defend base but they insist rushing hives, onoses rush marinebase -> beacon not helping since there was only 3 marines without exo suit, we lose and marines blame me being WORST commander ever, for not building turrets in tech points and secondary bases and for not getting exo's faster but instead got "useless jetpacks".
<!--quoteo(post=2024302:date=Nov 15 2012, 03:31 AM:name=metcomposite)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (metcomposite @ Nov 15 2012, 03:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024302"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Wanna know my "build order" that tends to win most pub matches?
1. Run around as skulk for 30 seconds (and die because I suck) 2. Realize that there's no commander, facepalm, jump in command chair 3. Drop ~4 res nodes. 70% of the time these won't be attacked. 4. Drop a hive. Chances are this also won't be attacked either. 5. Get some upgrades. (Carapace/Celerity, Leap) 6. Take/retake some more res nodes 7. Whatevs, I'm like a 6 res node 2 hive alien commander who hasn't lost any 30-40 res investments; time to take requests from my team members. ("Oh, you want adrenaline, blink, regeneration, and spores? Uhh...sure, coming right up--have fun. =D")
And this generally wins.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
From my experience, this does not generally win games. Check mate.
Seriously though. If marines comm/team is bad aliens win. If aliens comm/team is bad marines win. If both are bad, games will drag out forever. It's a player skill issue, not a design issue.
<!--quoteo(post=2024617:date=Nov 15 2012, 09:34 AM:name=AWhite)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (AWhite @ Nov 15 2012, 09:34 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024617"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This was stated earlier but here's the picture for the math averse:
Grabbed from NS2stats just moments ago.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Even more useless than the global Win/Loss numbers because of NS2Stats' small and homogenous sample size.
<!--quoteo(post=2024621:date=Nov 15 2012, 03:39 PM:name=Juomari)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Juomari @ Nov 15 2012, 03:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024621"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i had a game wher aliens were going for onos drop tactic (for my very suprise... nothing new under the sun), so i knew what i had to do, i scanned all their near rt's, hives etc, i (for my suprise, noted that marines was actually listening to me) managed to organize attack via beacon to kill their early hivedrops, killed like 6-7 of their rt's in earlygame, however, i was verylow on resources so i didn't have sg's or mines or robotics facility, all i had was phasegates and weapon / armor upgrades as i tought they were most important.
so by the time we have w3 and a2 i researched jetpacks and only then first onos ( or actually there was soon 2 onos ) spawned, both teams very low on resources and i order them to get jp / sg's and hunt onoses down and take their hivedown, then my team start's to whine exo suits.... and i knew we were doomed, so what i do ? i research dual exo's naturally since my team insisted and it turns out 70% of my marines had 100res because they were saving them for exo's, so my whole team jumps into exo suits, i tell them to defend base but they insist rushing hives, onoses rush marinebase -> beacon not helping since there was only 3 marines without exo suit, we lose and marines blame me being WORST commander ever, for not building turrets in tech points and secondary bases and for not getting exo's faster but instead got "useless jetpacks".
any toughts ? =)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
thoughts = server side mod to force random team selection, preventing a situation where nubs end up anti-stacking the marine team.
<!--quoteo(post=2024621:date=Nov 15 2012, 08:39 AM:name=Juomari)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Juomari @ Nov 15 2012, 08:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024621"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->we lose and marines blame me being WORST commander ever, for not building turrets in tech points and secondary bases and for not getting exo's faster but instead got "useless jetpacks".
any toughts ? =)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My thoughts would be, how in the hell would turrets stop an onos?
Pub marines definitely have problems with being too defensive. They frequently get stuck reacting the whole game, frantically running between RTs while aliens claim the map. Comms also spend far too much money on turrets. It's possible that balance will shift as marines learn to take control of the game by playing more aggressively.
<!--quoteo(post=2024357:date=Nov 15 2012, 08:11 PM:name=Skyforger2)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Skyforger2 @ Nov 15 2012, 08:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024357"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I could say something but there is a saying picture says a thousand words ! So look at this for a good half an hour ok, then post again.
<img src="http://www.unknownworlds.com/cache/thumbnails/WinLoss_450x375.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I spent all night doing 2 hive tres onos and winning every game. There is a serious problem, the only way marines win is if the alien team is way worse than them. <!--quoteo(post=2024414:date=Nov 15 2012, 09:18 PM:name=Juomari)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Juomari @ Nov 15 2012, 09:18 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024414"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->only if it was that simple, you can never allow aliens have more than 1rt or it's lost game, or another option is they have max 2-3rt's and never allow them to build second hive, in public game this is just asking too much, to have your marines do 3 things at the same time, 1. and most important thing, snipe enemy rt's and upgrades and hives 2. expand and build those rt's and then get the puck out. 3. defend phasegates, there is no resources to build bases, all you can place to "key locations" is 1phasegate and rt, nothing else, armory is waste of resources because you can just either weld friend or phase to base for healing. And you need those w3 and jetpacks / sg's ASAP, and preferably a3 too, building com stations / armrories / observatory slows researches by A LOT.
not to mention you need pro commander to organize this, and even if commander alone is good it isn't enough, most of the times marines in public games only semi-listens you, they don't follow your orders by the book, commander always needs to scan possible rt's, upgrades and hives and then organize striketeams to snipe these out, if marines fail to snipe, they fail the game and it's lost. Biggest problem i see in public games and you try to organize marines to snipe rt's / upgrades etc is they get distracted, if 1 skulk attacks them they hold and hold's the ground for 1minute to make sure no more skulks are coming, they stop to hack cysts with axes, they stop to shoot the eggs / resource tower or something they are not ordered to kill, and if you pressure them too much to kill something you want killed, they start to ignore skulks and basicly 1 skulk kills whole team.
Actually sometimes "pro commander" is worse for the team than turtlecommander, because marines just isn't good enough to stop aliens taking over earlygame, if this is true then turtlecommander can keep marines in the game longer, but nevertheless game is over anyways, it just lasts longer.
this is asking too much from public games, can marines do this ? yes they can if they're good, but most of the aliens just always have that 3rt's and second hive at 5mins of the game, if this happens it's gameover for marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This is why the 2 hive tres onos build is so deadly in pubs, it is just so easy to do. Marines have their work cut out for them every single game. They still win some but it is just so hard right now
I haven't played for a while, and will probably start again this weekend. The last time I played, marines were winning almost every game I played. They added the exo since then. So what happened to marines? Did they take away the arc trains? I keep seeing that the marine strategy should be to play offense now. The last time I played, it was aliens play offense and marines turtle until arc trains come out. So are arcs gone and exos just not as good?
I disagree with everything the op said All the problems listed in this thread are 100% due to poor commanding and new players not understanding the subtleties of the game. Give it some time for all the new players to catch up with the meta-game. If anything marines have a HUGE advantage late in the game, as 2-3 exos working with a handful of marines with welders are near unbeatable.
7 - 8 marines with JPs and level 3 assault rifles, maybe a GL or two for any crags = dead hive in under 30 seconds with focus fire.
pRes cost: (70 || 80) + (0 || 25 || 50) = anywhere from 70 - 130 2 slow moving dual minigun exosuits that gets ###### by onoses = 150
JP has immense mobility - all 7 - 8 marines can fly straight into the hive, dump their ammo on it (and the crags) and that hive is done in 30 seconds. After the hive is done, beacon to save as many marines as you can. Dead marines respawn, grab another JP, and hit the remaining hive or take out the 2nd hive.
Exos are deadly but the mobility of the exo AND the welder marine sucks. They have their place, but JPs are a much better use of res for marines on the blitzkrieg.
<!--quoteo(post=2024695:date=Nov 16 2012, 02:57 AM:name=lumina)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (lumina @ Nov 16 2012, 02:57 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024695"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I haven't played for a while, and will probably start again this weekend. The last time I played, marines were winning almost every game I played. They added the exo since then. So what happened to marines? Did they take away the arc trains? I keep seeing that the marine strategy should be to play offense now. The last time I played, it was aliens play offense and marines turtle until arc trains come out. So are arcs gone and exos just not as good?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I didn't bother to play during beta, so I don't know what caused it to be like this, but the problem right now is the alien comm can safely get an onos egg out around 6 minutes into the game. The onos then gets some breathing space for the comm and you can easily get the upgrades you skipped. The only way marines can beat the aliens to that sort of tech is if the aliens are playing badly. It's getting kind of boring really.
Marines can win still, if they play well enough to prevent or delay the egg long enough to get all their tech up, it is just really hard, impossible even if the teams are even. <!--quoteo(post=2024703:date=Nov 16 2012, 03:01 AM:name=thecowsaysmoo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (thecowsaysmoo @ Nov 16 2012, 03:01 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024703"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I disagree with everything the op said All the problems listed in this thread are 100% due to poor commanding and new players not understanding the subtleties of the game. Give it some time for all the new players to catch up with the meta-game. If anything marines have a HUGE advantage late in the game, as 2-3 exos working with a handful of marines with welders are near unbeatable.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> There is hardly a metagame right now. If everyone learns to play it'll be just alien wins until a balance patch comes <!--quoteo(post=2024621:date=Nov 16 2012, 01:39 AM:name=Juomari)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Juomari @ Nov 16 2012, 01:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024621"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i had a game wher aliens were going for onos drop tactic (for my very suprise... nothing new under the sun), so i knew what i had to do, i scanned all their near rt's, hives etc, i (for my suprise, noted that marines was actually listening to me) managed to organize attack via beacon to kill their early hivedrops, killed like 6-7 of their rt's in earlygame, however, i was verylow on resources so i didn't have sg's or mines or robotics facility, all i had was phasegates and weapon / armor upgrades as i tought they were most important.
so by the time we have w3 and a2 i researched jetpacks and only then first onos ( or actually there was soon 2 onos ) spawned, both teams very low on resources and i order them to get jp / sg's and hunt onoses down and take their hivedown, then my team start's to whine exo suits.... and i knew we were doomed, so what i do ? i research dual exo's naturally since my team insisted and it turns out 70% of my marines had 100res because they were saving them for exo's, so my whole team jumps into exo suits, i tell them to defend base but they insist rushing hives, onoses rush marinebase -> beacon not helping since there was only 3 marines without exo suit, we lose and marines blame me being WORST commander ever, for not building turrets in tech points and secondary bases and for not getting exo's faster but instead got "useless jetpacks".
any toughts ? =)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Only what you've already probably gathered, jetpacks are way better than sentry farms and exos and should come first. I find if I can get jetpacks with weapons upgrades out before the pub khammander can get the onos out there is a real chance of winning. People need to know what a jetpack is though and what it does.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->People need to know what a jetpack is though and what it does.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Q: What is a jetpack? A: It's not an exosuit.
Q: What does a jetpack do? A: A jetpack welds exosuits.
<!--quoteo(post=2024712:date=Nov 15 2012, 10:07 AM:name=Draco Houston)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Draco Houston @ Nov 15 2012, 10:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024712"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Marines can win still, if they play well enough to prevent or delay the egg long enough to get all their tech up, it is just really hard, impossible even if the teams are even.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Requires aggressive tactics and not the typical turtle, that's why marine teams are failing miserably against aliens right now. You know how often I see a marine team start in repair on mineshaft and I'll go right into cave by myself and get the hive to 30% while the other guys sit there attacking a harvester. Hives die very quickly when you have several marines shooting them. For some reason no one seems to get that.
A lot of new players are going to stack marines. A lot of veteran players aren't going to mind going aliens.
Not surprised.
I've seen plenty of good back and forth in my time spent playing. Most of the time pub marines losing is because no one listened to their commander. On aliens you can get away with being more independent from the comm, since he builds practically everything by himself. Marines require more coordination between marine and commander. Aliens are super fast and 1 smart guy can keep down a ###### marine team's RTs all day.
Just the nature of the game, nothing wrong with Aliens.
in a low-mid skill game, marines only win when they're substantially better than aliens if the teams are fair, then aliens almost always win
it's not really feasible to expect coordinated harvester raids, supply drops, and early pressure while staying alive versus an endless stream of skulks
whereas aliens often have a 100% self-sufficient and almost perfectly efficient commander along with soldiers that may not be great, but are good enough at keeping marines busy until onos time
if the game is 'balanced' if aliens only have 1-2 early harvesters, then it makes sense why aliens win all the time because they easily get 4-5
I just wanted to say that it's a little silly to say that Marines should have more RT than Aliens.
Whichever side caps the most Resource nodes early on is very likely to win, especially if they can hold on to them in the mid-game.
Saying Marines should have 6 RT's and Aliens should have 3 RT's...well I just can't imagine winning as Aliens on only 3 RT's and letting the Marines have 6? That's just asking for it.
If most Alien Commanders are subsisting on only 3, no wonder they all go early Onos and flip out when that early Onos gets capped by an even halfway organized team. Early to mid game rapid expansion has won me quite a few games, and perhaps lost a few too when there are Marines that play like they're skulks and ninja deep into Aliens territory to snipe some resource nodes. Also, a gorge is <i>mandatory</i> to help build RT's, Hives, and other buildings if you're seriously trying to win. A hive without a gorge is a loss waiting to happen. Their clogs are specifically designed to block access to area's that are vital to hold as Aliens due to cyst chain fragility. A decent Gorge or two will win you games.
Arguably, the Fade is designed to smack down such ballsy res-sniping Marines. This is also why I'm a drifter spammer.
I'm a big believer in making the cheaper life-forms better for my team, since they're faster, cheaper, and more effective than your whole team ending up as Onos (At least it isn't as bad as a whole team of Exo, though). Bile Bomb, Spores, and Blink can make a huge, huge difference to a team. Just as much of a difference as if you had dropped an early Onos (though a bit slower), and it's more fun for the entire team instead of putting your entire teams future in the hands of one Onos.
I just wish all these '6-minute Onos' commanders would stop thinking that a Gorge can save an Onos from the concentrated fire of 10 guys. They can't, and no amount of yelling at the Gorge is going to change their heal rate. Especially if the rush-commander never bothered to research adrenaline. *sigh*
the game in its current state, the team with more rts in the long run will win just because the other one cannot get exos/onos as fast as the other team provided that aliens do not succeed (or attempt) with the 4 minutes onos rush.
<!--quoteo(post=2025362:date=Nov 15 2012, 10:34 PM:name=Lofung)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Lofung @ Nov 15 2012, 10:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2025362"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->the game in its current state, the team with more rts in the long run will win just because the other one cannot get exos/onos as fast as the other team provided that aliens do not succeed (or attempt) with the 4 minutes onos rush.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In addition, the Comm cannot drop a duel exo, only a fist exo. I find the fist exo pretty useless and the duel exo sufficiently more viable. Once a Marine loses his 75 pres, it's unlikely that he will get another duel exo that game. On the other hand, its very common for an Alien player to lose his 75 pres on an Onos and get another Onos from the Comm.
<!--quoteo(post=2024626:date=Nov 15 2012, 08:43 AM:name=Neoken)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Neoken @ Nov 15 2012, 08:43 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024626"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->From my experience, this does not generally win games. Check mate.
Seriously though. If marines comm/team is bad aliens win. If aliens comm/team is bad marines win. If both are bad, games will drag out forever. It's a player skill issue, not a design issue.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The design challenge is making a game that's balanced across a range of skill levels. I don't know about clan play, but from the 67/33 winrate in favor of aliens someone posted earlier, aliens have a clear advantage in pub play. Maybe part of this is because noobs tend to stack marines. But I think a lot of this is because of insufficient marine aggression. As alien comm, my entire base will build itself.
<!--quoteo(post=2024635:date=Nov 15 2012, 08:53 AM:name=tarquinbb)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tarquinbb @ Nov 15 2012, 08:53 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024635"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->thoughts = server side mod to force random team selection, preventing a situation where nubs end up anti-stacking the marine team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This seemed pretty common in NS1, so I imagine as people become more familiar with server tools it will appear more often.
If the Marines commander can't drop Dual-Exo's that is kind of silly. I actually seem to recall having an issue finding it while commanding Marines, that might explain why. The single-gun Exo is a complete and utter waste of resources in my opinion, and only seems to exist as a stepping stone to Dual-Exo. It could use more armor or some other mechanic besides a stupid fist bump to make it something anyone ever buys.
Perhaps allowing the Marines to drop Dual-Exo would be a reasonable enough solution, but at the end of the day I've been stomped by plenty of amazing Marines commanders. Those amazing Marine commanders have probably become frustrated with public game players, because even on the aliens team there are just too many people that don't seem to own a microphone or even care about what the rest of the team is doing. The loss of one Marine to Rambo Syndrome is way worse than losing one Alien, since the Alien doesn't need to build structures (but can).
New players being bad is quite expected, and it's hardly surprising that newer players stack Marines. I've seen it happen, with five guys that went 2-30 K/D/R with no score as marines last round standing inside the Marines team door. I just shake my head, join aliens, and kill them again. I couldn't join the Marines, <i>even if I wanted to</i> most games.
Just to point out, that statistic on win-rates that was posted was from a stat website that doesn't include any official servers and only included 500 rounds played. Not saying it's a bad statistic, but in a game that's had <i>well</i> over 70,000 rounds played since it went public I'm not so convinced by that stat as perhaps I could be. Given the speed that UWE has decided to revert regen, I'd say it probably doesn't look good. How bad, though, I couldn't accurately say.
I feel a great pity for anyone trying to command, especially if they've got through most RTS games by turtling furiously. If you're not a Kill the Peons/Harvesters/Miners/Wind Traps/Power Stations sort of player then you're going to struggle with NS.
I'd have thought that by now we'd have some sort of scripted guide to being a Commander, hell even a Flash animation..
If you want a good game, join up with friends beforehand and THEN pick your server. If all else fails you can at least share some laughs while getting destroyed.
I think lack of combat skill has a lot to do with it as well - you would think that playing marine is something everybody is already accustomed to, but you would be surprised. It's very common for me to be in a 2v1 fight as a marine where I do like 80 damage to the skulk, it kills me, and then it kills the other guy. Basically meaning he didn't land a single bullet the whole time. I commanded a game in Refinery where I had one guy build at the start and everyone else rush Lava falls hard - every last marine died on the bridge before even reaching the RTs. Not a whole lot you can do as a commander like that. It's just going to take time for people to learn how to play properly.
What happens, and has happened in the past, is that the game tends to get balanced for the clan 6v6 games, and so it becomes woefully unbalanced on the 12v12 and up games. Problem is, that's where most people tend to play. Even if that doesn't happen, you have a game that is balanced for the 'ideal' makeup of players.
This means the game is won or lost before it starts, just by virtue of who happens to be comm/khamm, and how badly the teams are stacked. (which also happens - OFTEN)
The main reason (IMHO) why aliens feel advantaged is since - if you played the old version - you could electrify RTs. Some thing happening now. You have fast aliens who if they are smart will race the map gobbling up marine res nodes. Since marines are slow and the game is designed for them to stay in groups, it means marines need an experienced comm and a good number of experienced players to stay above the curve.
<b>I'd like to see electrified res towers brought back. </b>
If skulks want to kill the res tower, they can still take out the power node and *then* the tower. Meanwhile, it gives marines more response time, and less lost res to lost towers.
<!--quoteo(post=2025892:date=Nov 16 2012, 12:32 PM:name=Savant)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Savant @ Nov 16 2012, 12:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2025892"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What happens, and has happened in the past, is that the game tends to get balanced for the clan 6v6 games, and so it becomes woefully unbalanced on the 12v12 and up games. Problem is, that's where most people tend to play. Even if that doesn't happen, you have a game that is balanced for the 'ideal' makeup of players.
This means the game is won or lost before it starts, just by virtue of who happens to be comm/khamm, and how badly the teams are stacked. (which also happens - OFTEN)
The main reason (IMHO) why aliens feel advantaged is since - if you played the old version - you could electrify RTs. Some thing happening now. You have fast aliens who if they are smart will race the map gobbling up marine res nodes. Since marines are slow and the game is designed for them to stay in groups, it means marines need an experienced comm and a good number of experienced players to stay above the curve.
<b>I'd like to see electrified res towers brought back. </b>
If skulks want to kill the res tower, they can still take out the power node and *then* the tower. Meanwhile, it gives marines more response time, and less lost res to lost towers.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Power nodes would render electricity completely useless I think. It's not any harder to kill the power first, which is basically just as damaging as losing the RT. If what you want is tech that helps pub marines hold their territory but isn't too powerful in high-end games... Isn't that pretty much what sentries are? They just need to be less crippling to the marine economy IMO.
Comments
Truly a honest measure of balance.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
fortunately, onos egg drop has nothing to do with balance, it's just simply not fun.
but that's not what this topic is about, i would dare to say aliens - marines would be pretty much balanced ( or balanced enough for public games ) if there wasn't onos egg drop, it... just.... ruins.... games.... everygame where onos egg drop has been used, has been waste of time, it's so dull and boring tactic and marines have absolutely no chance againts it unless you stop it in first 4minutes of game wich is impossible in public games because you need to do organized sniping runs to enemy rt's.
and i disagree, i win almost everytime 1v1 fight with a skulk, i'm not kidding, mayby i have been just lucky not to encounter any good marine, but i think marine is in disadvantage position when 1v1 fight, however when it's 4marine vs 4skulks, i think marines wins almost everytime, this is because there can be 1 guy to lure skulks and 3 shoots them from afar, same goes when I play as marine, i always lose to a skulk 1v1 battle but when i go with team i can easily aim and shoot them from afar.
and you can have onos at 4mins if you dominate earlygame, at the time 6min you can have onos AND leap, cara and cele, with "only" 3rt's you can add 2mins to each, that's 6min to first onos, 8mins to upgrades.
Or mayby it's because you play in 20+p servers ? because there i can imagine 1onos making a less impact than in 16p servers, mayby i should give these 20-24p servers a try.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
try to sound a little less condescending maybe?
i play in 14-16p servers only, and with evenly skilled teams excluding myself (aka a close game) i usually get about 5-10:1 as a marine and 3-5:1 as a skulk.
furthermore, when i'm playing as skulk there are frequent situations where it would be suicide to engage a marine (assuming he's not a nub), but it's rarely the same when i play as marine. as a marine i'm supremely confident at killing skulks, and every death to a skulk is because i embarrassingly failed my aim or got outplayed.
maybe i just play on servers where the alien commanders want a fair game instead of borderline griefing onos rush every time. when it's a steamroll it's no more fun to be on the winning side than the losing side, it's just a bad game with no lessons learned and no satisfaction.
In short there are a lot of really bad marine players right now.
<img src="http://blog.allenwhite.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ns2stats.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Grabbed from NS2stats just moments ago.
In short there are a lot of really bad marine players right now.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i had a game wher aliens were going for onos drop tactic (for my very suprise... nothing new under the sun), so i knew what i had to do, i scanned all their near rt's, hives etc, i (for my suprise, noted that marines was actually listening to me) managed to organize attack via beacon to kill their early hivedrops, killed like 6-7 of their rt's in earlygame, however, i was verylow on resources so i didn't have sg's or mines or robotics facility, all i had was phasegates and weapon / armor upgrades as i tought they were most important.
so by the time we have w3 and a2 i researched jetpacks and only then first onos ( or actually there was soon 2 onos ) spawned, both teams very low on resources and i order them to get jp / sg's and hunt onoses down and take their hivedown, then my team start's to whine exo suits.... and i knew we were doomed, so what i do ? i research dual exo's naturally since my team insisted and it turns out 70% of my marines had 100res because they were saving them for exo's, so my whole team jumps into exo suits, i tell them to defend base but they insist rushing hives, onoses rush marinebase -> beacon not helping since there was only 3 marines without exo suit, we lose and marines blame me being WORST commander ever, for not building turrets in tech points and secondary bases and for not getting exo's faster but instead got "useless jetpacks".
any toughts ? =)
1. Run around as skulk for 30 seconds (and die because I suck)
2. Realize that there's no commander, facepalm, jump in command chair
3. Drop ~4 res nodes. 70% of the time these won't be attacked.
4. Drop a hive. Chances are this also won't be attacked either.
5. Get some upgrades. (Carapace/Celerity, Leap)
6. Take/retake some more res nodes
7. Whatevs, I'm like a 6 res node 2 hive alien commander who hasn't lost any 30-40 res investments; time to take requests from my team members. ("Oh, you want adrenaline, blink, regeneration, and spores? Uhh...sure, coming right up--have fun. =D")
And this generally wins.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
From my experience, this does not generally win games. Check mate.
Seriously though. If marines comm/team is bad aliens win. If aliens comm/team is bad marines win. If both are bad, games will drag out forever. It's a player skill issue, not a design issue.
Grabbed from NS2stats just moments ago.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Even more useless than the global Win/Loss numbers because of NS2Stats' small and homogenous sample size.
so by the time we have w3 and a2 i researched jetpacks and only then first onos ( or actually there was soon 2 onos ) spawned, both teams very low on resources and i order them to get jp / sg's and hunt onoses down and take their hivedown, then my team start's to whine exo suits.... and i knew we were doomed, so what i do ? i research dual exo's naturally since my team insisted and it turns out 70% of my marines had 100res because they were saving them for exo's, so my whole team jumps into exo suits, i tell them to defend base but they insist rushing hives, onoses rush marinebase -> beacon not helping since there was only 3 marines without exo suit, we lose and marines blame me being WORST commander ever, for not building turrets in tech points and secondary bases and for not getting exo's faster but instead got "useless jetpacks".
any toughts ? =)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
thoughts = server side mod to force random team selection, preventing a situation where nubs end up anti-stacking the marine team.
any toughts ? =)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My thoughts would be, how in the hell would turrets stop an onos?
So look at this for a good half an hour ok, then post again.
<img src="http://www.unknownworlds.com/cache/thumbnails/WinLoss_450x375.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I spent all night doing 2 hive tres onos and winning every game. There is a serious problem, the only way marines win is if the alien team is way worse than them.
<!--quoteo(post=2024414:date=Nov 15 2012, 09:18 PM:name=Juomari)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Juomari @ Nov 15 2012, 09:18 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024414"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->only if it was that simple, you can never allow aliens have more than 1rt or it's lost game, or another option is they have max 2-3rt's and never allow them to build second hive, in public game this is just asking too much, to have your marines do 3 things at the same time, 1. and most important thing, snipe enemy rt's and upgrades and hives 2. expand and build those rt's and then get the puck out. 3. defend phasegates, there is no resources to build bases, all you can place to "key locations" is 1phasegate and rt, nothing else, armory is waste of resources because you can just either weld friend or phase to base for healing. And you need those w3 and jetpacks / sg's ASAP, and preferably a3 too, building com stations / armrories / observatory slows researches by A LOT.
not to mention you need pro commander to organize this, and even if commander alone is good it isn't enough, most of the times marines in public games only semi-listens you, they don't follow your orders by the book, commander always needs to scan possible rt's, upgrades and hives and then organize striketeams to snipe these out, if marines fail to snipe, they fail the game and it's lost. Biggest problem i see in public games and you try to organize marines to snipe rt's / upgrades etc is they get distracted, if 1 skulk attacks them they hold and hold's the ground for 1minute to make sure no more skulks are coming, they stop to hack cysts with axes, they stop to shoot the eggs / resource tower or something they are not ordered to kill, and if you pressure them too much to kill something you want killed, they start to ignore skulks and basicly 1 skulk kills whole team.
Actually sometimes "pro commander" is worse for the team than turtlecommander, because marines just isn't good enough to stop aliens taking over earlygame, if this is true then turtlecommander can keep marines in the game longer, but nevertheless game is over anyways, it just lasts longer.
this is asking too much from public games, can marines do this ? yes they can if they're good, but most of the aliens just always have that 3rt's and second hive at 5mins of the game, if this happens it's gameover for marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is why the 2 hive tres onos build is so deadly in pubs, it is just so easy to do. Marines have their work cut out for them every single game. They still win some but it is just so hard right now
Thoughts?
7 - 8 marines with JPs and level 3 assault rifles, maybe a GL or two for any crags = dead hive in under 30 seconds with focus fire.
pRes cost: (70 || 80) + (0 || 25 || 50) = anywhere from 70 - 130
2 slow moving dual minigun exosuits that gets ###### by onoses = 150
JP has immense mobility - all 7 - 8 marines can fly straight into the hive, dump their ammo on it (and the crags) and that hive is done in 30 seconds. After the hive is done, beacon to save as many marines as you can. Dead marines respawn, grab another JP, and hit the remaining hive or take out the 2nd hive.
Exos are deadly but the mobility of the exo AND the welder marine sucks. They have their place, but JPs are a much better use of res for marines on the blitzkrieg.
I didn't bother to play during beta, so I don't know what caused it to be like this, but the problem right now is the alien comm can safely get an onos egg out around 6 minutes into the game. The onos then gets some breathing space for the comm and you can easily get the upgrades you skipped. The only way marines can beat the aliens to that sort of tech is if the aliens are playing badly. It's getting kind of boring really.
Marines can win still, if they play well enough to prevent or delay the egg long enough to get all their tech up, it is just really hard, impossible even if the teams are even.
<!--quoteo(post=2024703:date=Nov 16 2012, 03:01 AM:name=thecowsaysmoo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (thecowsaysmoo @ Nov 16 2012, 03:01 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024703"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I disagree with everything the op said All the problems listed in this thread are 100% due to poor commanding and new players not understanding the subtleties of the game. Give it some time for all the new players to catch up with the meta-game. If anything marines have a HUGE advantage late in the game, as 2-3 exos working with a handful of marines with welders are near unbeatable.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There is hardly a metagame right now. If everyone learns to play it'll be just alien wins until a balance patch comes
<!--quoteo(post=2024621:date=Nov 16 2012, 01:39 AM:name=Juomari)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Juomari @ Nov 16 2012, 01:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024621"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i had a game wher aliens were going for onos drop tactic (for my very suprise... nothing new under the sun), so i knew what i had to do, i scanned all their near rt's, hives etc, i (for my suprise, noted that marines was actually listening to me) managed to organize attack via beacon to kill their early hivedrops, killed like 6-7 of their rt's in earlygame, however, i was verylow on resources so i didn't have sg's or mines or robotics facility, all i had was phasegates and weapon / armor upgrades as i tought they were most important.
so by the time we have w3 and a2 i researched jetpacks and only then first onos ( or actually there was soon 2 onos ) spawned, both teams very low on resources and i order them to get jp / sg's and hunt onoses down and take their hivedown, then my team start's to whine exo suits.... and i knew we were doomed, so what i do ? i research dual exo's naturally since my team insisted and it turns out 70% of my marines had 100res because they were saving them for exo's, so my whole team jumps into exo suits, i tell them to defend base but they insist rushing hives, onoses rush marinebase -> beacon not helping since there was only 3 marines without exo suit, we lose and marines blame me being WORST commander ever, for not building turrets in tech points and secondary bases and for not getting exo's faster but instead got "useless jetpacks".
any toughts ? =)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Only what you've already probably gathered, jetpacks are way better than sentry farms and exos and should come first. I find if I can get jetpacks with weapons upgrades out before the pub khammander can get the onos out there is a real chance of winning. People need to know what a jetpack is though and what it does.
Q: What is a jetpack?
A: It's not an exosuit.
Q: What does a jetpack do?
A: A jetpack welds exosuits.
-_-;
Requires aggressive tactics and not the typical turtle, that's why marine teams are failing miserably against aliens right now. You know how often I see a marine team start in repair on mineshaft and I'll go right into cave by myself and get the hive to 30% while the other guys sit there attacking a harvester. Hives die very quickly when you have several marines shooting them. For some reason no one seems to get that.
duh.
Also, you do have to take note that the Marines are much more inviting to new players than the aliens.
A lot of veteran players aren't going to mind going aliens.
Not surprised.
I've seen plenty of good back and forth in my time spent playing. Most of the time pub marines losing is because no one listened to their commander. On aliens you can get away with being more independent from the comm, since he builds practically everything by himself. Marines require more coordination between marine and commander. Aliens are super fast and 1 smart guy can keep down a ###### marine team's RTs all day.
Just the nature of the game, nothing wrong with Aliens.
in a low-mid skill game, marines only win when they're substantially better than aliens
if the teams are fair, then aliens almost always win
it's not really feasible to expect coordinated harvester raids, supply drops, and early pressure while staying alive versus an endless stream of skulks
whereas aliens often have a 100% self-sufficient and almost perfectly efficient commander along with soldiers that may not be great, but are good enough at keeping marines busy until onos time
if the game is 'balanced' if aliens only have 1-2 early harvesters, then it makes sense why aliens win all the time because they easily get 4-5
Whichever side caps the most Resource nodes early on is very likely to win, especially if they can hold on to them in the mid-game.
Saying Marines should have 6 RT's and Aliens should have 3 RT's...well I just can't imagine winning as Aliens on only 3 RT's and letting the Marines have 6? That's just asking for it.
If most Alien Commanders are subsisting on only 3, no wonder they all go early Onos and flip out when that early Onos gets capped by an even halfway organized team. Early to mid game rapid expansion has won me quite a few games, and perhaps lost a few too when there are Marines that play like they're skulks and ninja deep into Aliens territory to snipe some resource nodes. Also, a gorge is <i>mandatory</i> to help build RT's, Hives, and other buildings if you're seriously trying to win. A hive without a gorge is a loss waiting to happen. Their clogs are specifically designed to block access to area's that are vital to hold as Aliens due to cyst chain fragility. A decent Gorge or two will win you games.
Arguably, the Fade is designed to smack down such ballsy res-sniping Marines. This is also why I'm a drifter spammer.
I'm a big believer in making the cheaper life-forms better for my team, since they're faster, cheaper, and more effective than your whole team ending up as Onos (At least it isn't as bad as a whole team of Exo, though). Bile Bomb, Spores, and Blink can make a huge, huge difference to a team. Just as much of a difference as if you had dropped an early Onos (though a bit slower), and it's more fun for the entire team instead of putting your entire teams future in the hands of one Onos.
I just wish all these '6-minute Onos' commanders would stop thinking that a Gorge can save an Onos from the concentrated fire of 10 guys. They can't, and no amount of yelling at the Gorge is going to change their heal rate. Especially if the rush-commander never bothered to research adrenaline. *sigh*
In addition, the Comm cannot drop a duel exo, only a fist exo. I find the fist exo pretty useless and the duel exo sufficiently more viable. Once a Marine loses his 75 pres, it's unlikely that he will get another duel exo that game. On the other hand, its very common for an Alien player to lose his 75 pres on an Onos and get another Onos from the Comm.
There have been a few games where I have been able to get two Duals, but I always see multiple onos runs from alien players.
If they die... :)
Seriously though. If marines comm/team is bad aliens win. If aliens comm/team is bad marines win. If both are bad, games will drag out forever. It's a player skill issue, not a design issue.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The design challenge is making a game that's balanced across a range of skill levels. I don't know about clan play, but from the 67/33 winrate in favor of aliens someone posted earlier, aliens have a clear advantage in pub play. Maybe part of this is because noobs tend to stack marines. But I think a lot of this is because of insufficient marine aggression. As alien comm, my entire base will build itself.
<!--quoteo(post=2024635:date=Nov 15 2012, 08:53 AM:name=tarquinbb)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tarquinbb @ Nov 15 2012, 08:53 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2024635"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->thoughts = server side mod to force random team selection, preventing a situation where nubs end up anti-stacking the marine team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This seemed pretty common in NS1, so I imagine as people become more familiar with server tools it will appear more often.
Perhaps allowing the Marines to drop Dual-Exo would be a reasonable enough solution, but at the end of the day I've been stomped by plenty of amazing Marines commanders. Those amazing Marine commanders have probably become frustrated with public game players, because even on the aliens team there are just too many people that don't seem to own a microphone or even care about what the rest of the team is doing. The loss of one Marine to Rambo Syndrome is way worse than losing one Alien, since the Alien doesn't need to build structures (but can).
New players being bad is quite expected, and it's hardly surprising that newer players stack Marines. I've seen it happen, with five guys that went 2-30 K/D/R with no score as marines last round standing inside the Marines team door. I just shake my head, join aliens, and kill them again. I couldn't join the Marines, <i>even if I wanted to</i> most games.
Just to point out, that statistic on win-rates that was posted was from a stat website that doesn't include any official servers and only included 500 rounds played. Not saying it's a bad statistic, but in a game that's had <i>well</i> over 70,000 rounds played since it went public I'm not so convinced by that stat as perhaps I could be. Given the speed that UWE has decided to revert regen, I'd say it probably doesn't look good. How bad, though, I couldn't accurately say.
I feel a great pity for anyone trying to command, especially if they've got through most RTS games by turtling furiously. If you're not a Kill the Peons/Harvesters/Miners/Wind Traps/Power Stations sort of player then you're going to struggle with NS.
I'd have thought that by now we'd have some sort of scripted guide to being a Commander, hell even a Flash animation..
If you want a good game, join up with friends beforehand and THEN pick your server. If all else fails you can at least share some laughs while getting destroyed.
This means the game is won or lost before it starts, just by virtue of who happens to be comm/khamm, and how badly the teams are stacked. (which also happens - OFTEN)
The main reason (IMHO) why aliens feel advantaged is since - if you played the old version - you could electrify RTs. Some thing happening now. You have fast aliens who if they are smart will race the map gobbling up marine res nodes. Since marines are slow and the game is designed for them to stay in groups, it means marines need an experienced comm and a good number of experienced players to stay above the curve.
<b>I'd like to see electrified res towers brought back. </b>
If skulks want to kill the res tower, they can still take out the power node and *then* the tower. Meanwhile, it gives marines more response time, and less lost res to lost towers.
This means the game is won or lost before it starts, just by virtue of who happens to be comm/khamm, and how badly the teams are stacked. (which also happens - OFTEN)
The main reason (IMHO) why aliens feel advantaged is since - if you played the old version - you could electrify RTs. Some thing happening now. You have fast aliens who if they are smart will race the map gobbling up marine res nodes. Since marines are slow and the game is designed for them to stay in groups, it means marines need an experienced comm and a good number of experienced players to stay above the curve.
<b>I'd like to see electrified res towers brought back. </b>
If skulks want to kill the res tower, they can still take out the power node and *then* the tower. Meanwhile, it gives marines more response time, and less lost res to lost towers.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Power nodes would render electricity completely useless I think. It's not any harder to kill the power first, which is basically just as damaging as losing the RT. If what you want is tech that helps pub marines hold their territory but isn't too powerful in high-end games... Isn't that pretty much what sentries are? They just need to be less crippling to the marine economy IMO.