<!--quoteo(post=2056559:date=Jan 5 2013, 03:57 PM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Jan 5 2013, 03:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2056559"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->marines are already having a hard time on pubs, and that is not something we are just ignoring. ... We are working on the problem of the balance being skewed too much in the alien's favor<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->While it's good to hear that the developers recognize and will address issues with marines losing too much on pubs, I'd love it if you could post some stats (perhaps even on a weekly basis) of what the win/loss ratio looks from your end. There is so much speculation out here, it would be great to see some hard numbers.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->We highly encourage everyone to try and play the balance mod, before getting caught up in arguing the pros and cons of these changes. The feedback is far more useful to us, coming from players who have actual experience playing the mod.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Have you considered having one day/night a week where you jump on a server - and change the name to indicate a developer is there running the new balance mod? While feedback is great, I find that watching a spontaneous game can often show what isn't seen in a structured playtest. I know you have the playtest thing you are working on getting together, but getting 16 random people on a server could have a lot of appeal from a development standpoint. (at least it would for me anyway)
I have been running the balance mod on my server. Instant cyst killing looks weird, but also doesn't uproot whips, which appear to get uprooted after some time, as though the instant infestation is only cosmetic.
This is more of an alien buff, and on my server is causing even more alien wins? Obviously only anecdotal as it's a small sample, but still.
douchebagatronCustom member titleJoin Date: 2003-12-20Member: 24581Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
edited January 2013
<!--quoteo(post=2056735:date=Jan 5 2013, 09:00 PM:name=ogz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ogz @ Jan 5 2013, 09:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2056735"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->may be a silly question, but how do I go about finding 'balance patch' servers?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
currently not very easy. you just have to look for servers that show up as yellow in the server list and hopefully they'll have something in the server name that mentions the balance mod
<!--quoteo(post=2056559:date=Jan 6 2013, 05:57 AM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Jan 6 2013, 05:57 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2056559"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->May I direct your attention to the front page news post again regarding how we go about balancing the game? It is not a matter of listening to comp players vs pub players, it is about making changes to the game that are necessary to improve it in the long run.
The changes in this balance patch do buff aliens quite a bit, but they are changes that have been requested from the community for quite some time, and we personally feel they are an improvement to the game, both competitively and on the pub side. The flip side, of course, is that marines are already having a hard time on pubs, and that is not something we are just ignoring. The problem is, that is a larger issue with many factors, including factors outside of gameplay. For example, people who are experiencing large framerate drops in combat likely suffer more on the marine side then the alien side, due to the nature of the range vs melee, and the speed at which aliens move. There is also a very different learning curve between marines and aliens. Typically for a new player, it is easier to pick up the marine side of the game, due to its familiarity, whereas new alien players have a hard time being as effective due to the drastically different playstyle required. But once a player does start to learn the game, and learn how to move and dodge and use all the abilities and upgrades as an alien, it seems like it then skews the other way, with newer marine players struggling more to be able to hit the very fast moving aliens.
We are working on the problem of the balance being skewed too much in the alien's favor, and a few changes, such as the ones made to cysts, are meant to be a step towards addressing it. However, because the problems are generally deeper then just tweaking some numbers on the marine side, it is going to require more thought and more time to sort out the best way to properly address the issue, without resorting to temporary fixes that are bad for the game in the long run.
We highly encourage everyone to try and play the balance mod, before getting caught up in arguing the pros and cons of these changes. The feedback is far more useful to us, coming from players who have actual experience playing the mod.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Balance in pubs is skewed due to poor comms, marines not adapting to shade 1st hive or just plain old not following/having orders. Win loss, as you guys have often said, is not the only metric to judge a balanced game by. These changes seem to go a way to addressing some of the fun aspect for aliens.
Cysts instantly retreating, when coupled with whips un-rooting when not on infestation is OP'd. This will severely punish aliens lack of mobility and allow for a ninja marine to easily get power up, kill 1 cyst and immediately be building a PG. By the time the aliens know (either hearing power go up or cyst attacked) they wont be able to react fast enough to stop this PG going up and hoards of marines pouring through. I thought the fall back rate for infestation meant that the marines had to wait 3-5 seconds before being able to put up the PG.
It might be me but I dont think marines need any more help doing massive damage to hives, arcs that can shoot through walls, PG's to zip around map and JP's fly around and be mostly immune to the base enemy life form all combine to allow marines to quickly and easily get into a hive room and take it down. It seems kinda silly that infestation can be so fundamentally crucial to one side and almost completely irrelevant to the other. Marines are no longer slowed down when running on it, now your proposing it instantly disappears when a cyst is killed. Meanwhile aliens have it growing at a slow rate (delaying building harvesters, crags etc), slowly draining economy through cyst costs, limiting where they can build.
1 marines with JP and FT will be able to render a room useless in seconds, the alien khamm will just not invest in any whips as they will be rendered useless by a marine by killing its cyst and then just leaving it to do (or attacking with axe...whatever).
<!--quoteo(post=2056559:date=Jan 5 2013, 01:57 PM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Jan 5 2013, 01:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2056559"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->May I direct your attention to the front page news post again regarding how we go about balancing the game? It is not a matter of listening to comp players vs pub players, it is about making changes to the game that are necessary to improve it in the long run.
...
We are working on the problem of the balance being skewed too much in the alien's favor, and a few changes, such as the ones made to cysts, are meant to be a step towards addressing it. However, because the problems are generally deeper then just tweaking some numbers on the marine side, it is going to require more thought and more time to sort out the best way to properly address the issue, without resorting to temporary fixes that are bad for the game in the long run.
We highly encourage everyone to try and play the balance mod, before getting caught up in arguing the pros and cons of these changes. The feedback is far more useful to us, coming from players who have actual experience playing the mod.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It is great that you acknowledge the alien advantage right now. That is basically all I really wanted to hear. I am sure addressing it properly will not be an easy task. The only concern I have now is how there are alot of number tweaks in this mod, most making marines weaker. If they are great for the long run, couldn't they wait until other changes are worked on to address the alien advantage? Makinig this problem worse by any update seems like a very bad thing, long run or not. Better to not have any update until this problem is addressed. At that time put in the long-awaited fixes because then they will not make the game worse, short term.
Take the Fade health increase for example. I assume many people complain that fades die too easy. I don't agree but maybe overall they do. Can't that change wait until aliens win less often?
I played the balanace mod last night, its very hard to find a server that is running it. I do like the cyst change. To be honest I hardly saw the other changes do much of anything. I cant say that is good or bad, but so far that is what I saw.
I don't see the point for the cyst changes and mine changes. Both already have very strong counters that only need to be utilized correctly. Flamer and lerk/bilebomb.
Cyst spam is actually more effective than I thought (although completely negated by a welder) since I first posted about it - though still haven't been denied building something or even delayed significantly due to cysts and feel an experienced player shouldn't be hindered too much by it.
One thing that I think would help the situation, without it being overkill (which I believe current cyst changes in the balance patch are), is to make it so that nutrient myst doesn't effect cysts. That way, building denial is still kind-of possible, but isn't too difficult to kill the cysts without a welder and resume building.
cleansing infestation instantly is a good addition but the way it is done is wrong. only way to instantly clear infestation should be flamethrower's job. no matter you kill the cyst or not, flamethrowers fire should cleanse the place off the infestation.
this way you can actually put a real job to those pesky flamethrowers.
<!--quoteo(post=2057003:date=Jan 6 2013, 03:00 PM:name=kespec)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kespec @ Jan 6 2013, 03:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2057003"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->flamethrowers fire should cleanse the place off the infestation.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I would consider myself a "professional" public player. I've had plenty of experience with the game now and I am seeing a disturbing trend with Aliens still winning the majority of games if they have the vaguest of clues as to what to do. I usually play in public servers (UWE official) and the pub servers that clans run. The teams usually consist of 1-2 newbies at any given time, usually evenly spread between the two sides. In both types of server it's the same. Aliens follow a very simple strategy.
Game begins: no one wants to be Alien comm so someone with some experience hops in.
Standing orders: 1. harass the marines constantly at spawn. When they are dead, eat their IPs till they spawn back. If marine spawns back, kill him and resume IP eatage. If you die, just group up at Hive and rush straight back there again. Just hold down mouse1, move the mouse in the general direction of the marines, and keep tapping spacebar -- marines can't touch you. (NO RES FOR MINES/still researching)
2. By now any stray marines would also fall back to defend main base. One or two skulks can sneak to whatever res towers they have and munch them down before any marine waddles his way back up there after securing base.
3. While this is going on we should have 3-4 RTs at least, plus the first upgrade. Pull back a skulk or two to defend second hive, the rest can keep harassing M-spawn or get any marine RTs.
4. By 11 mins someone should be ready with onos. Gorge goes with him to take out a secondary base the marines may have. If they phase there, counter-attack on M-spawn power node.
5. Get a few more res nodes and push secondary base with 2-3 onos, 1-2 gorge. Lerk harass is also really effective on powernodes. Fades can be impossible to kill if the guy being fade knows how to use it.
6. Time to get third hive and remaining few upgrades. Get some crags and whips near M-spawn and get the team to rush in and go for the power node. Pwnt. Latest is 25mins, usually with 2 decent alien soldiers 20mins victory is possible.
In short, constant alien pressure ensures victory.
The only times this doesn't work is if the aliens are totally uncoordinated and don't listen to the commander or don't defend the second hive. But in most games I command/play in as alien there's no need to defend second hive because the marines are too busy being spawn-rushed for the first 10mins. Seriously, a good marine team can be destroyed by a bunch of inept aliens.
The key problem is not fade health or marine armor cost, or how fast infestation disappears. ALIENS SPAWN TOO FAST. Marines are being wiped out because usually in a 3 skulks vs. 4 marines engagement, 3 marines will die (IN PUBS, you know, where most people play). One marine will get the 3 skulks, but another skulk that just spawned back will finish off that (now low health) marine and will be able to start eating the IPs/power node before any more marines spawn and by then anyway more skulks can arrive.
Skulk harass is getting unbearable, and the solution is what? Make marine spawn take longer!? AND make armor more expensive!? Wow. Public marines need more armor. Why would you even contemplate these changes? And no, infestation receding instantly is silly, and in no way compensates for the marine spawn-nerf. Even if you go for mines first, by the time the base is secure, the aliens have spread cysts all over the map, and can immediately rush to wherever you try to expand to.
Seriously, where does UWE get their ideas for balance changes from? If you make this game unplayable for newbies and even experienced public players, the game is going to get a bad reputation and people will stop playing. Yeah, yeah, they've already paid the money and it's no loss to you if they quit after buying, but they are going to tell all their friends the game's unplayable or just not mention the game to anyone at all, and go back to something else.
There's a bit of elitist snobbery on these boards, with people saying stuff like "Oh if they don't like it, they should just get out of NS2", the thing is, economics will punish any game whose developers take on that attitude -- I'm not saying UWE is like that, but you guys who profess to love this game seem pretty short-sighted.
Why was CS so popular? Why is it still one of the top-10 played games on Steam? Because if you put in effort to learn how to play, you are rewarded with success in the game, whichever team you are on. As I get more experience in this game, I find it becomes harder to play on one side, and these constant balance changes, lurching from one extreme to the other, really is going to bring the whole thing crashing down.
I still maintain that release build balance with a buff for fade health, and the movement of power nodes in Docking was all that we needed. Why can't the "elites" playing competitively play a modded version, and you guys just leave us public players alone? Steam sales with a 60% discount may be encouraging, but how many of those new players actually stick around? Reading changelogs and proposed changes it seems increasingly clear that the devs are doggedly focused on tinkering with trivialities and managing the decline of a game that had so much potential. Shame.
---- EDIT: just wanted to add what someone else posted elsewhere (emphasis added):
<!--quoteo(post=2054702:date=Jan 2 2013, 10:43 AM:name=Ribo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Ribo @ Jan 2 2013, 10:43 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054702"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Ok, here is the problem. Every game, the aliens,in a pack, harass the marines to slowdown resource captures. The aliens save up for <b>invisible, double armor rhinos</b>. <b><i>Everyone evolves into an invisible double armor rhino.</b></i> <b>The marines lose</b>.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Haven't tested the mod yet, so I won't say anything to the changes. But I got one crazy idea about RFK:
<b>What if you get 1pres for every time you <u>are killed</u> by another player?</b> (Not for kills by natural causes, whips, hydras or sentries!)
This will get rid of the tech explosion. It will make the game more newb-friendly. It will reward the players that are active for the team. Giving more pres to players that die often (lower skill) won't make them over powered. If the player with the low skill gets the fade / onos faster it won't be this much of a problem for the balance of the teams. It will also reduce the snowballing. Bad teams have at least a chance to recover. And everybody loves games, that are balanced and enthralling. Nobody likes skill stacked steam rolls. Its also less frustrating to die.
But one down side it has: It can't be used to polish your ego. It isn't a reward when you can kill many enemies. But as others said, you already gained map control.
<!--quoteo(post=2057425:date=Jan 7 2013, 05:07 PM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Jan 7 2013, 05:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2057425"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But one down side it has: It can't be used to polish your ego. It isn't a reward when you can kill many enemies. But as others said, you already gained map control.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> If you can't find any other downsides, you better start looking a bit harder.
<!--quoteo(post=2055938:date=Jan 4 2013, 08:27 AM:name=NeoRussia)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NeoRussia @ Jan 4 2013, 08:27 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2055938"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Finally a stop to cyst spam.
No resource loss while dead = awesome. Was resource for kill tested?
Upgrades need to be buffed, not nerfed. It's only a single bullet more in damage for rifle and armour 1 doesn't even do anything despite for whatever reason most commanders insist on still researching it, now it will be a magnet for bad commanders like sentries are. Better upgrades will also put a stop to groundskulks with early cara being annoying so it should happen.
GL damage reduction, as if GL's weren't bad enough with how they are killing the marines that use them and they are already inferior to arcs for siegeing. Damage output is so incredibly random because of the physics being broken, physics in NS2 need to be fixed first before anything else it to happen to the GL. Marine respawn nerf, probably the worst update idea here. The reason aliens have such a high winrate is because only the alien team can wipe their opposition off one side of the map and the marine team will lose control of that side completely unless they can phase through fast enough, which is impossible earlygame. Marines are punished very heavily for their mistakes while aliens practically get a free ride. This nerf will only make the problem worse than it is, with an even worse winrate for marines.
Don't see a point in the mine nerf, mines were in the right place already. They die pretty easily to lerk spikes and not so much anything else. A lerk in play can already guarantee an area is clear of mines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No offense but a lot of this information is incorrect.
<!--quoteo(post=2057428:date=Jan 7 2013, 06:26 PM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Jan 7 2013, 06:26 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2057428"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you can't find any other downsides, you better start looking a bit harder.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=2057451:date=Jan 7 2013, 12:19 PM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Jan 7 2013, 12:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2057451"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Nice to see so many well thought arguments against a non conform idea.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
1 huge one would be it rewards bad game play and punishes good game play.
Why is dieing either bad or good game play? It shows at least, that you are active. While no res while dead "rewards" inactivity. I also don't think it should be called a "reward". It is a tweak to balance the teams in terms of skill. The one that gets the kill is already rewarded by more map control, this will lead to an overall victory. The one who dies just got 1 little res to not get behind to much. Maybe 1pres is even to much. It should just be a compensation.
It's just not how video games work. You're supposed to be rewarded for success and punished for failure(if only through the absence of a reward). That's what makes it fun when you do well. Getting a bonus for dying turns the whole incentive structure on its head and creates all sorts of abuse.
Maybe. But -No Res while Dead- hasn't produced hordes of afk-skulks either. Or am I the only one who finds many NS2 games very predictable after the first 5 minutes? Most games are going on for 20min and more. But after 5 minutes you can say by the map control, which team will win. I only think there needs to be a compensation for this snowballing effect. Rather than an unneeded reward for a thing you will do anyway, because it is fun.
<!--quoteo(post=2057469:date=Jan 8 2013, 04:46 AM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Jan 8 2013, 04:46 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2057469"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Maybe. But -No Res while Dead- hasn't produced hordes of afk-skulks either. Or am I the only one who finds many NS2 games very predictable after the first 5 minutes? Most games are going on for 20min and more. But after 5 minutes you can say by the map control, which team will win. I only think there needs to be a compensation for this snowballing effect. Rather than an unneeded reward for a thing you will do anyway, because it is fun.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <b>res for death</b>.
No see, he's thought of that angle already and will only award pres for pvp kills as indicated in his op.
So what you will have is a meta game of skulks rushing the CC and marines rushing the hive, and neither team wanting to kill one another. It's quite brilliant really.
Comments
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->We highly encourage everyone to try and play the balance mod, before getting caught up in arguing the pros and cons of these changes. The feedback is far more useful to us, coming from players who have actual experience playing the mod.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Have you considered having one day/night a week where you jump on a server - and change the name to indicate a developer is there running the new balance mod? While feedback is great, I find that watching a spontaneous game can often show what isn't seen in a structured playtest. I know you have the playtest thing you are working on getting together, but getting 16 random people on a server could have a lot of appeal from a development standpoint. (at least it would for me anyway)
Looking forward to the next patch (which would also hopefully make the game crash less).
This is more of an alien buff, and on my server is causing even more alien wins? Obviously only anecdotal as it's a small sample, but still.
currently not very easy. you just have to look for servers that show up as yellow in the server list and hopefully they'll have something in the server name that mentions the balance mod
The changes in this balance patch do buff aliens quite a bit, but they are changes that have been requested from the community for quite some time, and we personally feel they are an improvement to the game, both competitively and on the pub side. The flip side, of course, is that marines are already having a hard time on pubs, and that is not something we are just ignoring. The problem is, that is a larger issue with many factors, including factors outside of gameplay. For example, people who are experiencing large framerate drops in combat likely suffer more on the marine side then the alien side, due to the nature of the range vs melee, and the speed at which aliens move. There is also a very different learning curve between marines and aliens. Typically for a new player, it is easier to pick up the marine side of the game, due to its familiarity, whereas new alien players have a hard time being as effective due to the drastically different playstyle required. But once a player does start to learn the game, and learn how to move and dodge and use all the abilities and upgrades as an alien, it seems like it then skews the other way, with newer marine players struggling more to be able to hit the very fast moving aliens.
We are working on the problem of the balance being skewed too much in the alien's favor, and a few changes, such as the ones made to cysts, are meant to be a step towards addressing it. However, because the problems are generally deeper then just tweaking some numbers on the marine side, it is going to require more thought and more time to sort out the best way to properly address the issue, without resorting to temporary fixes that are bad for the game in the long run.
We highly encourage everyone to try and play the balance mod, before getting caught up in arguing the pros and cons of these changes. The feedback is far more useful to us, coming from players who have actual experience playing the mod.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Balance in pubs is skewed due to poor comms, marines not adapting to shade 1st hive or just plain old not following/having orders.
Win loss, as you guys have often said, is not the only metric to judge a balanced game by. These changes seem to go a way to addressing some of the fun aspect for aliens.
Cysts instantly retreating, when coupled with whips un-rooting when not on infestation is OP'd.
This will severely punish aliens lack of mobility and allow for a ninja marine to easily get power up, kill 1 cyst and immediately be building a PG. By the time the aliens know (either hearing power go up or cyst attacked) they wont be able to react fast enough to stop this PG going up and hoards of marines pouring through.
I thought the fall back rate for infestation meant that the marines had to wait 3-5 seconds before being able to put up the PG.
It might be me but I dont think marines need any more help doing massive damage to hives, arcs that can shoot through walls, PG's to zip around map and JP's fly around and be mostly immune to the base enemy life form all combine to allow marines to quickly and easily get into a hive room and take it down.
It seems kinda silly that infestation can be so fundamentally crucial to one side and almost completely irrelevant to the other.
Marines are no longer slowed down when running on it, now your proposing it instantly disappears when a cyst is killed. Meanwhile aliens have it growing at a slow rate (delaying building harvesters, crags etc), slowly draining economy through cyst costs, limiting where they can build.
1 marines with JP and FT will be able to render a room useless in seconds, the alien khamm will just not invest in any whips as they will be rendered useless by a marine by killing its cyst and then just leaving it to do (or attacking with axe...whatever).
...
We are working on the problem of the balance being skewed too much in the alien's favor, and a few changes, such as the ones made to cysts, are meant to be a step towards addressing it. However, because the problems are generally deeper then just tweaking some numbers on the marine side, it is going to require more thought and more time to sort out the best way to properly address the issue, without resorting to temporary fixes that are bad for the game in the long run.
We highly encourage everyone to try and play the balance mod, before getting caught up in arguing the pros and cons of these changes. The feedback is far more useful to us, coming from players who have actual experience playing the mod.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It is great that you acknowledge the alien advantage right now. That is basically all I really wanted to hear. I am sure addressing it properly will not be an easy task. The only concern I have now is how there are alot of number tweaks in this mod, most making marines weaker. If they are great for the long run, couldn't they wait until other changes are worked on to address the alien advantage? Makinig this problem worse by any update seems like a very bad thing, long run or not. Better to not have any update until this problem is addressed. At that time put in the long-awaited fixes because then they will not make the game worse, short term.
Take the Fade health increase for example. I assume many people complain that fades die too easy. I don't agree but maybe overall they do. Can't that change wait until aliens win less often?
I played the balanace mod last night, its very hard to find a server that is running it. I do like the cyst change. To be honest I hardly saw the other changes do much of anything. I cant say that is good or bad, but so far that is what I saw.
Just my thoughts. Thanks for your reply.
One thing that I think would help the situation, without it being overkill (which I believe current cyst changes in the balance patch are), is to make it so that nutrient myst doesn't effect cysts. That way, building denial is still kind-of possible, but isn't too difficult to kill the cysts without a welder and resume building.
cleansing infestation instantly is a good addition but the way it is done is wrong. only way to instantly clear infestation should be flamethrower's job. no matter you kill the cyst or not, flamethrowers fire should cleanse the place off the infestation.
this way you can actually put a real job to those pesky flamethrowers.
The thing is.. they do that just fine right now..
Game begins: no one wants to be Alien comm so someone with some experience hops in.
Standing orders: 1. harass the marines constantly at spawn. When they are dead, eat their IPs till they spawn back. If marine spawns back, kill him and resume IP eatage. If you die, just group up at Hive and rush straight back there again. Just hold down mouse1, move the mouse in the general direction of the marines, and keep tapping spacebar -- marines can't touch you. (NO RES FOR MINES/still researching)
2. By now any stray marines would also fall back to defend main base. One or two skulks can sneak to whatever res towers they have and munch them down before any marine waddles his way back up there after securing base.
3. While this is going on we should have 3-4 RTs at least, plus the first upgrade. Pull back a skulk or two to defend second hive, the rest can keep harassing M-spawn or get any marine RTs.
4. By 11 mins someone should be ready with onos. Gorge goes with him to take out a secondary base the marines may have. If they phase there, counter-attack on M-spawn power node.
5. Get a few more res nodes and push secondary base with 2-3 onos, 1-2 gorge. Lerk harass is also really effective on powernodes. Fades can be impossible to kill if the guy being fade knows how to use it.
6. Time to get third hive and remaining few upgrades. Get some crags and whips near M-spawn and get the team to rush in and go for the power node. Pwnt. Latest is 25mins, usually with 2 decent alien soldiers 20mins victory is possible.
In short, constant alien pressure ensures victory.
The only times this doesn't work is if the aliens are totally uncoordinated and don't listen to the commander or don't defend the second hive. But in most games I command/play in as alien there's no need to defend second hive because the marines are too busy being spawn-rushed for the first 10mins. Seriously, a good marine team can be destroyed by a bunch of inept aliens.
The key problem is not fade health or marine armor cost, or how fast infestation disappears. ALIENS SPAWN TOO FAST. Marines are being wiped out because usually in a 3 skulks vs. 4 marines engagement, 3 marines will die (IN PUBS, you know, where most people play). One marine will get the 3 skulks, but another skulk that just spawned back will finish off that (now low health) marine and will be able to start eating the IPs/power node before any more marines spawn and by then anyway more skulks can arrive.
Skulk harass is getting unbearable, and the solution is what? Make marine spawn take longer!? AND make armor more expensive!? Wow. Public marines need more armor. Why would you even contemplate these changes? And no, infestation receding instantly is silly, and in no way compensates for the marine spawn-nerf. Even if you go for mines first, by the time the base is secure, the aliens have spread cysts all over the map, and can immediately rush to wherever you try to expand to.
Seriously, where does UWE get their ideas for balance changes from? If you make this game unplayable for newbies and even experienced public players, the game is going to get a bad reputation and people will stop playing. Yeah, yeah, they've already paid the money and it's no loss to you if they quit after buying, but they are going to tell all their friends the game's unplayable or just not mention the game to anyone at all, and go back to something else.
There's a bit of elitist snobbery on these boards, with people saying stuff like "Oh if they don't like it, they should just get out of NS2", the thing is, economics will punish any game whose developers take on that attitude -- I'm not saying UWE is like that, but you guys who profess to love this game seem pretty short-sighted.
Why was CS so popular? Why is it still one of the top-10 played games on Steam? Because if you put in effort to learn how to play, you are rewarded with success in the game, whichever team you are on. As I get more experience in this game, I find it becomes harder to play on one side, and these constant balance changes, lurching from one extreme to the other, really is going to bring the whole thing crashing down.
I still maintain that release build balance with a buff for fade health, and the movement of power nodes in Docking was all that we needed. Why can't the "elites" playing competitively play a modded version, and you guys just leave us public players alone? Steam sales with a 60% discount may be encouraging, but how many of those new players actually stick around? Reading changelogs and proposed changes it seems increasingly clear that the devs are doggedly focused on tinkering with trivialities and managing the decline of a game that had so much potential. Shame.
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EDIT: just wanted to add what someone else posted elsewhere (emphasis added):
<!--quoteo(post=2054702:date=Jan 2 2013, 10:43 AM:name=Ribo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Ribo @ Jan 2 2013, 10:43 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2054702"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Ok, here is the problem. Every game, the aliens,in a pack, harass the marines to slowdown resource captures. The aliens save up for <b>invisible, double armor rhinos</b>. <b><i>Everyone evolves into an invisible double armor rhino.</b></i> <b>The marines lose</b>.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>What if you get 1pres for every time you <u>are killed</u> by another player?</b>
(Not for kills by natural causes, whips, hydras or sentries!)
This will get rid of the tech explosion.
It will make the game more newb-friendly.
It will reward the players that are active for the team.
Giving more pres to players that die often (lower skill) won't make them over powered.
If the player with the low skill gets the fade / onos faster it won't be this much of a problem for the balance of the teams.
It will also reduce the snowballing. Bad teams have at least a chance to recover.
And everybody loves games, that are balanced and enthralling. Nobody likes skill stacked steam rolls.
Its also less frustrating to die.
But one down side it has: It can't be used to polish your ego. It isn't a reward when you can kill many enemies. But as others said, you already gained map control.
If you can't find any other downsides, you better start looking a bit harder.
No resource loss while dead = awesome. Was resource for kill tested?
Upgrades need to be buffed, not nerfed. It's only a single bullet more in damage for rifle and armour 1 doesn't even do anything despite for whatever reason most commanders
insist on still researching it, now it will be a magnet for bad commanders like sentries are. Better upgrades will also put a stop to groundskulks with early cara being annoying so it should happen.
GL damage reduction, as if GL's weren't bad enough with how they are killing the marines that use them and they are already inferior to arcs for siegeing. Damage output is so incredibly random because of the physics being broken, physics in NS2 need to be fixed first before anything else it to happen to the GL.
Marine respawn nerf, probably the worst update idea here. The reason aliens have such a high winrate is because only the alien team can wipe their opposition off one side of the map and the marine team will lose control of that side completely unless they can phase through fast enough, which is impossible earlygame. Marines are punished very heavily for their mistakes while aliens practically get a free ride. This nerf will only make the problem worse than it is, with an even worse winrate for marines.
Don't see a point in the mine nerf, mines were in the right place already. They die pretty easily to lerk spikes and not so much anything else. A lerk in play can already guarantee an area is clear of mines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No offense but a lot of this information is incorrect.
Enlighten me, please.
Not just the worst suggestion for ns2, but just in general.
1 huge one would be it rewards bad game play and punishes good game play.
I only think there needs to be a compensation for this snowballing effect. Rather than an unneeded reward for a thing you will do anyway, because it is fun.
I only think there needs to be a compensation for this snowballing effect. Rather than an unneeded reward for a thing you will do anyway, because it is fun.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>res for death</b>.
bind "key" kill
???
profit
Can't possibly see anything wrong with this.
So what you will have is a meta game of skulks rushing the CC and marines rushing the hive, and neither team wanting to kill one another. It's quite brilliant really.