First Impresstions

radogar · December 2012

<div class="IPBDescription">My first impresstions of the game</div>Hi, I thought I write down my impresstions of the game and how I see it now. It maybe interesting for other beginners, people how 'teach' on rooky-servers and the devs. However I don`t want to say thies thing shoud be changed. I only want to share my impressions. For my person: I have played a little bit Natruale Selection 1 back then. Had followed the Projekt on Youtube, and had collected my own expirience over the last three days. So here is what I feel:

Aliens Common: Aliens feel in general stronger most of the game. Till you reach late marine game. But most time they don't get there. In Combat Mod it is the absolute opposite of that, but thats an other story. I think one of the main problems is that aliens can still rambo but marines don't.

Skull: Most of the Skull feels all right. His speed, damage, durability I like how it is balanced. The only thing I can't understand is thies wild suiced attack, and why there aren't more ways to upgread him. It whoud be nice to have something like Mature Skulls how maybe cost 10 res but are therfor stronger or faster or something like this. This woud be awsome.

Goreg: Here are the moste changes compered to Natrual Selection 1. But I like most of it. The Bellyslide is great. The Clogs are cool. But I can't understand why of all this lifeforms he has the best wapon aginst exo suits. An exo usualy kills an goreg pritty fast.

Lerk: The new Lerk is still a pain in the a$$. But thats OK. He can die really fast, and he must go into close combat more often than in Natrual Selection 1, so for my opinion balance is given.. I think I will learn to deal with or aginst it later on.

Fade: It still feels like a good fade turn the game for the aliens no mater what the marins do. Its like they have no way to deal with it, till it is vary late endgame. And when I played it it was very easy to hit and run. The mariens only wher able to kill me when I was to agressiv. Or maybe because there were rookies too. And when you play aginst a good fade it feels like you can't do anything. So maybe there is a way aginst fades but it isn't vary intuitiv.

Onos: I like the new Onos. The one in Natrual Selection 1 was like a worse Fade for more Res. But the new one is defintive worth its money. And absolutly destructiv, but tahts ok he is the last lifeform you can expect that.

Kahramander: (Alien Commander) The Alien Commander feels absolutly different from the Marine Commander. Thats interesting. Sometimes i whished I had a litle bit more direct controle like the Marine Commander. Like when we had the Marine team surounded in one position. I had build support structures on each side and watch my fellow Aliens destroying ther base slowly. It was a little bit boring. Otherwise I had enought moments when I didn't know how to share my attention. So thies is maybe a luxerius problem. By the way it woud be nice to have the active abilitys in little buttons somewere direct and alltime in the command-display. Like the Spells in Majesty. There are little buttons wich are gray and become colorfull if the ability is useabele. They also have a little number over it wich shows the ability cost. If you want to use some you can click it and click on the map where you wont to use it. It thing this woud be more intuitive than to sourch in the build-menu for spells.


Mariens Common: There is lot of things how seams of at the marine side. First why is there no rifleslap with other wappons than the LMG? At last it woud be nice to slap aliens with an Granadeluncher.
Second why is the sprint so how can I say that... not a sprint. It doesn't feel they get any extra speed at all. Or at least not enougt. How shoud they be able to follow an fleeing alien? Maybe it whoud be better to incrase the speedbonus and decrease the distance where you are able to sprint.
Third I don't get why they don't regenerate (I don't mean the ability regeneration, I mean the default regeneration) over time like the aliens do? Thats seams to be unfair even if it woudn't change much. But the biggest problem is there is no class for midgame. They have the default marine how works like Goreg and Skull, the Jetpacks to be a little bit like a Leerk, and at last the Exos to deal with the Onos. But they lack to have something aginst fades.

Weappons cost: Compare to the cost and average usetime between Marines weappons and Alien Lifforms. The Marienweppons feel to expencive. I know they can be reused by an other player but that still feel wasted.

Commander: May opinion of the marine commander is: Thies guy has way to mutch to do? He must building, heal in combat, planing strategys, managing resoureces, resarch and figthing rambo skulls how chum the command chair. I really thing they shoud move work from the Command Chair out to the Marines. Like Medic and no Medpack drops, Supportmarines how can give you ammo, or special Equip Mareins how can scan areas from time to time.

Marine Buildings: It woud be nice to have some NPC at start of the game how can build thing instead of marines. Espcially if all of your fellow marins walk instantly away at the begining. Thats an rooky-only problem but it is still an problem. And you whish to seperate in 3 parts because you have to build, defend and use the com chair at the same time. Moving MACs to the Command Chair woud be an idea. Maybe have something different in the Robotic Factory. Like Arc like Turet-Robots wich you can repositioning like Arcs or Wips. They coud still be have the sight limit of the current ones but dont need an Turet Battery.

Me philiosophy about unreachable Marine changes (way to mutch work): By the way its semas to be that the Mariens only have to classes. The normale Marine, wich have so many equip that he dont look like a class any more. And the Exos how play howl diffrent. So most games it feels like you playing Skulls (Default Marine) the hole time till you get Onis (Exos). Maybe the Marines shoud be more specialisiced. Split then in diferent classes take away and give other ability. You coud make it so you don't buy Wapons, you by Classes how have Weappons, and maybe other things like other stats (Healt, Armor, Jetpacks...). But as a tread of you lose abilities like the Aliesn do (Can't build, can't weld, moves slower...). That coud be help flatting the game expirience without overpowering something. But I know thats a to much work for the defs.

That where my first impresstions on the game. And a lot of Text by the way. Hope ther weren't to much spelling errrors, and that it can help someone. If you want, you can tell ohter readers and me your impresstions. I woud like to read them, and they don't have to be so long. Otherwise thank you for reading this.

Kouji_San · December 2012

First of all is called a Skulk :P

Going down your list, trying to bring it into perspective of the ideas behind certain things in the game:
<ul><li>The suicide of the Skulk does make me scratch my head. Of course it is awesome to kill multiple "unarmoured" marines in one go. but it goes against the "no res during death" thing that is in NS2</li><li>The gorge isn't supposed to 1v1 an EXO.During attacks both are highly dependent on their team to support them and with them supporting their team. A gorge's Bile Bomb is designed to arch and be uses as indirect artillery. So in effect a Gorge should never expose himself of marines direct line of fire (apart from grenades of course). Being a support unit, the others on the team should soak up the damage, while the Gorge is supporting and healing from the sidelines.</li><li>I believe the Lerk is in a good place right now, concerning balance. It is a glass cannon, but highly effective. It is sad that is is usually a better choice compared to the Fade though... Shotguns are the bane of a Lerk.</li><li>The fade's counter is basically armour upgrades and the Shotgun (and jetpack later on to chase him down). He can die in 2 shots to the thing, so if you've got two marines shooting him full blast he's gone. A good Fade is hard to take down, but good marines can do it. It's a skill thing, as a matter of fact the Fade currently doesn't scale very well against Weapons 3 and Armour 3 at all. Being a hit and run unit and with the amoury also repairing armour it kinda negates his role to some extend during end game. And he has Vortex which is high energy cost and highly situational (don't use it :P)</li><li>Onos is usually GG if played well, which kinda makes me sad for marines and happy for the aliens...</li><li>The alien commander interface will get an overhaul at some time, there is a lot of stuff missing currently like being able to keep track of you upgrades or general logical layout of the things you can do. It's true the Hive Mind (I like to call it that :P), is entirely different compared to the marine commander. Where the Hive Mind is very passive and just indirect support, the Commander is a highly supportive role with medkits, ammo, research, orders and structure placement which in turn is dependent on marines constructing them as opposed to the Alien structures automatically growing.

Sure Gorge can help out the build speed of structures, but marines building speed grows with each players on the field, where aliens need a specialization (Gorgies)

You can however support end game with forward healing/energy/cloak stations with eggs as well. And of course you can whip out the Drifters to get some enzyme going (Sort of a Primal Scream)</li><li>Adding rifle butt to other weapons would change their role too heavily. For instance a shotgun would become way too powerful if you can slap aliens and then shot them while having that dazed effect. The shotgun is already plenty powerful. On the subject of the grenadelauncher, it is supposed to be very exposed as it is a huge damage dealer to alien outposts, it basically requires teamwork and a jetpack to be effective mid-end game. And it would make the rifle's role a bit less unique, UWE wants all weapons to be completely unique and viable.

Imho sprint is already too fast on the tiny maps, add to this the instant relocation using phasegates it messes a bit with the gameflow

In general marines receive their healing from armories and the commander and also get permanent upgrades in the form of uniquely role/class changing weapons (rifle, shotgun, flamethrower, grenaldelauncher, mines, welder. jetpack, EXO). And of course their weapon and armour upgrades. The weapons and armour upgrades make them more powerful the longer the game goes on (early,mid,end game). Where aliens get their roles and abilities from new lifeforms, marines get those from their weapons and upgrades its all part of the asymmetrical aspect of the game :)</li><li>you have to keep in mind that marines can potentially expand faster and their extractors start generating resources the moment they are fully constructed. The alien Harvesters grow at a slower rate and they also have to invest in cyst chains and Gorges to speed up the process. Add to this that if an alien dies they have to re-evolve which takes a bit of time and personal res. So in the end, the teams are both expensive in a different way.</li><li>I'm quite intrigued in your idea of support units out on the field that help out in terms of healing, scanning. A bit of combat mode in the NS2 gameplay... However I do think it might interfere with the strategy and resource spend on certain strategies the commander wanted to do. This has already change compared to NS1 with players outfitting themselves... Still interesting though!</li><li>Having a MAC at the start was tried a few times and it was also tied to the command chair at some point. Heck there was even something funky as having it tied to two command chairs and having dual commanders on the marine team. But yeah, if marines wander off into the map. That is not a game issue but a learn to play issue. The fact that one or two marines need to stay and build the initial stuff also adds to map control and expansion speed changes of the marine team. If you've have all marines run off you have the additional support out on the field to speed up construction and cover as opposed to having one side a tiny bit weaker during early game. The well known 2,2 split with base marine reinforcing the 2 marines when all is constructed -> talking about 6v6 competive matches.

I've also seen no initial armory and just getting the extractors up and running as soon as possible with a 3,2 split and the first one that dies has to construct the base structures. There are plenty of option :P</li><li>As I've mentioned before, the marines change their role based on their weapon+potential jetpack or EXO. For instance:

<ul><li>Rifle is a good allround weapon to do a constant stream of damage on range (Structures, Onos, escaping aliens)</li><li>Shotgun is good against the hit and run aliens that start appearing mid-game (Lerk, Fade) with the burst damage and close range Skulks killing or chasing down that Onos/Gorge</li><li>Flamethrower is an energy sapper and anti infestation and anti Whip grenade slap back</li><li>Grenadelancher is an area denial versus Skulks and anti structure</li><li>Welder is a support repairer and of course anti infestation (get them cysts)</li><li>Jetpack, superior mobility for end game vs Lerks and Fades</li><li>EXO... Not sure, I love the things but I don't like playing as one. They are heavy damage end game units, but for my taste are too dependent on the team, while not being able to use PG's or help construction. Which probably shouldn't change, but I just don't like playing one because of this. I love supporting the beast though.

There was talk about being able to exit the EXO to help with construction at some point (they do drop all their weapons when they enter one, so maybe when exiting one a marine only has his pistol and axe, kinda like fighter pilots :P</li></ul></li></ul>

Its always good to read first impression, I hope you at least go something out of this post and the reasoning behind the current implementations. And as you've probably noticed, things do change from time to time when a better implementation of something has been tested and accepted. This was of course more prominent during the Alpha and Beta phase, a time when the devs could release the experimental stuff without big consequences labeled under Alpha/Beta :P

First Impresstions

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