Why is the game imbalanced?
|strofix|
Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165453Members
Join Date: 2012-11-01 Member: 165453Members
<div class="IPBDescription">A harder question than you might think</div>There are quite a number of threads being created which complain about a balance issue in NS2. While its true that the vast majority of these threads contain only anecdotal evidence about the writers personal experiences, it cannot be denied that ns2stats.org currently shows aliens to typically win 60% of all games. However, the problem I see in many of these threads is that the original and subsequent posters rarely try to analyse the game, and determine what the problem is. When you base your opinions on personal experience, it is all to easy to miss the forest for the trees. Tech advantage quickly manifests as unit imbalance, territory advantage as mobility imbalance. What I think would be far more beneficial would be an objective look at the mechanics. Which mechanics differ between teams (as these have the potential to create balance issues) and which mechanics are especially important when it comes to who wins or loses (as these create's a list of greatest potential impact on balance).
In my honest opinion, I think NS2 is facing quite a grave problem at the moment. Many games have balance issues, and many games have solved their balance issues. That, in itself, is not that big of deal. However I think that UWE are potentially struggling to identify the balance issue. This thread is intended for people to post their <b>in depth </b> analysis of what the core balance issue currently is. I advise anyone who chooses to post to put a good deal of thought into what they write. It is all too east to come up with on the spot diagnoses for subtle symptoms, or surefire solutions to big problems, without thinking about the other pieces of the puzzle, which are all connected. I would also like to request that any posters keep references to other posts to a minimal. Hopefully to keel derailment to a minimum, and also to try and encourage succinct explanations, rather than relying on half of someone else's theory. Also, try and give your theory a descriptive title that sums it up accurately.
<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->TL;DR
Post your detailed theory regarding the core balance issue that is causing aliens to win more often than marines. Don't flame or reference other people's theories. <!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<u>___________________________________________________________________________</u>
<b>Commander/Player interaction</b>
In my opinion, the balance issue lies almost entirely in the meta game. I view most of the units/lifeforms to be very well balanced. Skulks/Marine combat in the early game is very fair, and I think would be skewed by no more than 3% either way, if at all. I also view both the alien and marine commanders as very balanced, with neither having more or less impact than the other. I think the imbalance lies in the interaction the commander has with the players on the ground, and how that interaction differs between the two teams.
The marine commander is essentially entirely dependant on the marine players, and cannot expand without their efforts and cooperation. The aliens are essentially unaffected by any of their commanders decisions in the first 3-4 minutes of the game. While this is an example of asymmetric gameplay at work, this form of asymmetry can never have a positive impact on gameplay, for the following reason:
Either good cohesion between the commander and his players provides additional, scaling power for the marine team, which means that aliens cannot scale in the same way, and will be underpowered in a game involving good commanders on both sides
OR
Good cohesion is <b>required </b>for the marine team to compete fairly with the alien team , which means the marine team becomes much weaker than the alien team in games with bad commanders on both sides.
The only conceivable solution that I can see is to remove this particular example of asymmetric gameplay. In order for balance to be maintained at all skill levels, the commanders reliance on his players must be equal for both teams.
I have two potential ways to accomplish this.
1. Make MACs more widely used and ubiquitous.
The same way that gorges occasionally assist an alien commanders rapid expansion, marines should also rarely be required to fast track a marine commanders expansion. In all other situations, this task should be assigned to MACs. Their vulnerable and temporal nature makes them an adequate reflection of the alien team's cyst.
2. Increase the gorges role in building and expansion.
Slowing down the default rate of cyst infestation, while increasing the rate of gorge assisted infestation, would create a link between the commanders abilities and his player's assistance. An alien commander should be able to expand at roughly a third of the rate he is currently able to, with that rate being increased to perhaps just above the current rate when assisted by a gorge.
In my honest opinion, I think NS2 is facing quite a grave problem at the moment. Many games have balance issues, and many games have solved their balance issues. That, in itself, is not that big of deal. However I think that UWE are potentially struggling to identify the balance issue. This thread is intended for people to post their <b>in depth </b> analysis of what the core balance issue currently is. I advise anyone who chooses to post to put a good deal of thought into what they write. It is all too east to come up with on the spot diagnoses for subtle symptoms, or surefire solutions to big problems, without thinking about the other pieces of the puzzle, which are all connected. I would also like to request that any posters keep references to other posts to a minimal. Hopefully to keel derailment to a minimum, and also to try and encourage succinct explanations, rather than relying on half of someone else's theory. Also, try and give your theory a descriptive title that sums it up accurately.
<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro--><!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->TL;DR
Post your detailed theory regarding the core balance issue that is causing aliens to win more often than marines. Don't flame or reference other people's theories. <!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<u>___________________________________________________________________________</u>
<b>Commander/Player interaction</b>
In my opinion, the balance issue lies almost entirely in the meta game. I view most of the units/lifeforms to be very well balanced. Skulks/Marine combat in the early game is very fair, and I think would be skewed by no more than 3% either way, if at all. I also view both the alien and marine commanders as very balanced, with neither having more or less impact than the other. I think the imbalance lies in the interaction the commander has with the players on the ground, and how that interaction differs between the two teams.
The marine commander is essentially entirely dependant on the marine players, and cannot expand without their efforts and cooperation. The aliens are essentially unaffected by any of their commanders decisions in the first 3-4 minutes of the game. While this is an example of asymmetric gameplay at work, this form of asymmetry can never have a positive impact on gameplay, for the following reason:
Either good cohesion between the commander and his players provides additional, scaling power for the marine team, which means that aliens cannot scale in the same way, and will be underpowered in a game involving good commanders on both sides
OR
Good cohesion is <b>required </b>for the marine team to compete fairly with the alien team , which means the marine team becomes much weaker than the alien team in games with bad commanders on both sides.
The only conceivable solution that I can see is to remove this particular example of asymmetric gameplay. In order for balance to be maintained at all skill levels, the commanders reliance on his players must be equal for both teams.
I have two potential ways to accomplish this.
1. Make MACs more widely used and ubiquitous.
The same way that gorges occasionally assist an alien commanders rapid expansion, marines should also rarely be required to fast track a marine commanders expansion. In all other situations, this task should be assigned to MACs. Their vulnerable and temporal nature makes them an adequate reflection of the alien team's cyst.
2. Increase the gorges role in building and expansion.
Slowing down the default rate of cyst infestation, while increasing the rate of gorge assisted infestation, would create a link between the commanders abilities and his player's assistance. An alien commander should be able to expand at roughly a third of the rate he is currently able to, with that rate being increased to perhaps just above the current rate when assisted by a gorge.
Comments
The real issue is that marines are supposed to be trying to:
-build buildings at base
-claim territory
-build extractors
-protect extractors
-claim a second tech point
-secure second tech point
All of this - and more - marines are trying to do, at the same time as being attacked by skulks.
<b>The skulks on the other hand have NO responsibilities at all. Nothing. </b>
The khamm does it all on his own in the backfield. So aliens are free to attack and harass marines at will, since they never have to defend their side of the map in the early game. The marines are so busy they never have time to harass the alien structures.
It's essentially a one-sided battle. Marines have all those responsibilities *and* they have to deal with constant attacks. The skulks only need to keep the marines busy, dead, or both. Just keep killing off marine extractors and you'll cripple the marines to the point where they get too far behind. Then it's just a waiting game as your second hive drops and you start sending out higher lifeforms to set the marines back further, which leads to the eventual Onos parade to finish it off.
Yawn.
The real issue is that marines are supposed to be trying to:
-build buildings at base
-claim territory
-build extractors
-protect extractors
-claim a second tech point
-secure second tech point
All of this - and more - marines are trying to do, at the same time as being attacked by skulks.
<b>The skulks on the other hand have NO responsibilities at all. Nothing. </b>
The khamm does it all on his own in the backfield. So aliens are free to attack and harass marines at will, since they never have to defend their side of the map in the early game. The marines are so busy they never have time to harass the alien structures.
It's essentially a one-sided battle. Marines have all those responsibilities *and* they have to deal with constant attacks. The skulks only need to keep the marines busy, dead, or both. Just keep killing off marine extractors and you'll cripple the marines to the point where they get too far behind. Then it's just a waiting game as your second hive drops and you start sending out higher lifeforms to set the marines back further, which leads to the eventual Onos parade to finish it off.
Yawn.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yup, agreed, NS1 worked becausde players had to be dedicated to Gorge and drop RTs and secure hives, now that role is non existant, so you have an ENTIRE team of skulks free to harrass the marines, while they have to build, protect, secure, etc.
From that point of view, this game is very imbalanced, that is why I advocate for gorges to be brought back to what they were.
From that point of view, this game is very imbalanced, that is why I advocate for gorges to be brought back to what they were.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Keeping the alien commander, and forcing gorges to build his stuff, would be terribly boring for the gorges. No real decision making, just hold right click.
Now that gorges have good hit reg for spit, perhaps we can nerf alien extractors hp into the ground, forcing more aliens to go gorge purely for defense?
Thing is: Marines need to play offensively to win against an ok-or-better Alien team.
Why? Aliens can fight and expand somewhere else at the same time, Marines can't. So Marines need to focus on keeping Aliens contained right from the start, or they lose due to this disadvantage.
But: Marines play defensively.
Some causes of "bad" Marine behaviour:
<ul><li> Aliens are faster.</li><li> I think it's a psychological thing that Skulks are supposed to be aggressive and die, but Marines are not.</li><li> Marine defense is just better than Alien defense (ranged attacks, Armories,...), so they tend to be defensive.</li><li> The "Tech Points in a circle" map design makes Marines split and do anything BUT attack Alien Harvesters, especially in the important first few minutes of the game (Docking I'm looking at you!).
In later game stages, a two front war results so Marines don't win either front and are eventually overpowered by sheer Alien resource advantage (because of countless unharassed Alien Harvesters).</li><li> Marines have to make the right trade off between getting Extractors and being aggressive. Aliens just have to protect their Harvesters - if they can do that, they win (and if they can't, the lose!).</li></ul>
Marines just have to learn to attack. Go right for Alien Harvesters, only getting Extractors on the way. Make sure Aliens are busy, then you can get more Extractors. Don't go everywhere at the same time.
Two examples, from my observation:
<ul><li>Refinery:
How Marines lose: one half of team goes Pipeworks, other half goes Smelting. Maximum distances apart from each other. Of course they cannot defend against the faster Skulks. Not a single Harvester is harassed.
How Marines win: Marines go straight for Containment via Pipeworks and Lava Falls, getting Extractors on the way. They put pressure on Containment and harass Conduit, Chasm Harvesters.</li><li>Docking:
How Marines lose: half of team is in Cafe/Bar, other half in East Wing/Departures.
How Marines win: Marines go right for Stability Monitoring and stay there. Aliens are down to one Hive and one or two Harvesters.</li></ul>
<b>TLDR: Offense is the best defense. This is unintuitive for Marines due to game asymmetry and design.</b>
<!--quoteo(post=2063237:date=Jan 19 2013, 06:52 PM:name=TimMc)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TimMc @ Jan 19 2013, 06:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2063237"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->...perhaps we can nerf alien extractors hp into the ground, forcing more aliens to go gorge purely for defense?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The problem is Alien Harvesters aren't even being attacked. They could have 10 HP and nothing would change.
IF Marines go for Harvesters early game, Aliens already lose in 99% of cases.
Most marineteams lose cause a pack of 5 standing around an resnode and waiting for an rt to build.
After that they build an robotics, some turrets,....
Meanwhile the alien spread all over the map.
Then the marines "pushing" to next resnode and the same thing like above happen again.
Waiting, building,...
Meanehile the aliens attacking the suff the marines build before.
######.
The pack of 5 ran back to defend and this happen again and again and again.
Most marineteams spend NO time to attack alienstructures and wonder about massonos rushes.
You need only 2 marines to build stuff, the rest could spred out and kille harvesters for example.
80% of the pub marine teams are to passiv and wait for the all mighty com to tell them what todo.
There is ALWAYS something todo, killing alien harvesters for example. You dont need a com for that. Just DO it.
An example: Veil, which shouldn't be a ns2 map imo as its built for ns1 is heavily alien favoured if you have 2 teams of equal skill. The only maps that are 'fair' in my book are tram and summit.
Really good thread, but i would definately assume that noone will ever agree with this. I personally even think at least 50% of imbalance issues are caused by Commander systems. Marine one is kinda skill demanding, actually too much skill demanding while the other one is just noobish like hell. Of course there are exceptions, but if you set an or two equally skilled rts player on both sides, it's kind of really obvious.
I know it's dangerous to write down so simply about both commanders, but i would like to give you an example of demand to be a good/good enough commander.
Of course, only for those who know how this game works(techs etc) even basically, and also assuming that teammates' skills are pretty equally good(so that they can demand/suggest/do what they want also by themselves).
(I would also exaggerate a bit.)
Marine Commander : Good at communication, Good at languages, Especially good at English, Good leadership, Good capacity on seeing through entire map, Good plan, Fast reaction, Good at carculation, Good at expectation, Good tactic, Good alternative tactic, Knowing map layout, Knowing right hotkeys etc. blablabla
Alien Commander : Knowing how to click Q and Mouse 1, Being able to understand english.
I don't find any asymmetrie on this comparision. This is just unbelievabely unfair, not asymmetrical or something.
That's not completely true. Skulks have responsibility to keep marines rt's and bases harassed. Skulks are most useful when they attack behind the lines. Performance of your skulks will decide much of how the game will roll out. If you start to see arc and exo trains you know that skulks haven't done their job very well.
This is true, but even if your Skulks are being silly and not harassing behind enemy lines, they will still often be able to tie up marines and keep them from pushing through. As long as your Skulks are fighting <i>at all</i> they can hold the marines back from expanding. Meanwhile the alien commander is able to expand without the aliens having to help build or anything.
Basically Savant is right. I guess eggs are maybe meant to moderate the ability of the alien team to throw Skulks away to their death, but it doesn't really work out. Moving to a khamaander instead of having aliens go Gorge to expand might not have been a great idea.
Basically performance, animations and hitreg.
Taking tram as example. No matter where you start, you should head for ele and repair ASAP. You only need one guy at base to build basic strucutres, one to get closest RT and when first guy finishes, he gets second RT near main base. All the others should hold tech points and wait for PGs, if those are bigger servers with lots of players, some should go on and harass enemy.
What is always happening in pub games? 5 people building armory, then waiting there asking for obs for a few minutes, while there are at most two guys who went to get RTs and comm won't place em right away because he spent all the res on robotics and lab.
I agree that would be nice.
I disagree that it really matters -- but if it fools marines into <i>thinking </i>it has mattered, it will have done the important thing: trick them into not making a mistake by playing aggressive.
By far the #1 reason for marines dying is lack of aggression.
Now, i wanna throw in my humble opinion at this point as well as giving some comments on points brought up by former posters:
I agree on OP that the alien commander is very dependent on his team, and in case of a bad and/or not cooperative team, you plain lost. But i also have to say that you shouldnt balance a game to work even with the most newbie player available. However, i think the playerdependence is okay for the marines, as i can state at least from my personal experience, because if you have teams which actually listen to you, things are going quite well (for most of the game...)
I also agree with hozz that the marine "combatstyle" is attracting players to hold onto a defensive "playstyle" which results in a common tendency towards defensive gameplay, which on the long run will bring you a lose. I also agree with him that many marineteams/coms make the mistake of "splitpushing" in the early stages of the game, which causes them to lose.
Well, now let me explain what factors into the actual imbalance the most imo and why i think that the points brought up by now are indeed a problem, but a problem which wouldnt seem so drastically if some other aspects were better balanced.
You see, i didnt know about NS2 before it released on steam. However, i bought it during the winter sale and already got 63hours of playtime. Much of this time i spent as a commander, both alien and marine.
I already figured out what hozz said about the problematic of splitpushing in early game, so whenever i was commander, i ordered my team focus on ONE wing of the map, whilest maybe one or two marines (im always playing 14-16 Player slot servers) keep heading into another direction in order to harass and capture Ressources and Techpoints.
Im also focussing ressources on fast phase gates, because thats the only way you can secure the expansions behind your neighboring sectors.
This tactic turned out well. For example, i like to play Veil as a marine. Im focussing my marines on the West or East Wing, depending on where the aliens main hive is i want to go to the side of the map where the aliens will have the longer walk to go. Then we are taking East junction/West Junction and use phasegates to grab Nanogrid ASAP. Having nanogrid, you have a minimum of THREE harvesters at all time, while you are able to use skylights and topographical as well without putting too much effort into it. This strategy worked well in a few cases, sometimes my team was too slow/too weak in order to make it. But when they were able to, i could give regular upgrades and we could easily drive multiple attacks simultaneously.
You have to see, if this tactic works out, you have secured Nano grid after 3-4, max 5 minutes. Up and unto this point, everything in the game seems balanced to me, but then things start to get ugly, as of my POV...
Im a passionate Alien player, indeed i played aliens before i played marines, and i played them a lot before i played marines, because i love their playstyle. Now, im a player who loves challenges, and once i had made good progress in my alien skills, i started practicing marine. I practiced a lot, both as soldier and commander, i think my playtime on both teams should be equally. Well, in the meantime, im starting to HATE aliens, not because of their playstyle, but because of their obvious advantages in comparison with the marines. This has become worse the longer the game existed, because ppl learned how to play aliens, how to command aliens, and therefore most games have lost any suspense to me, because its almost inevitable that the aliens overpower you. And now im telling you why.
Its the unit balance, as OP described it. Imho, Aliens have a much better stance both in early, mid and lategame. The only phae in the game that things are even are the first few minutes before they get their first trait - and i dont mean any trait, no, i mean celerity.
You see, as an alien, you have to make sure you make it towards the marine before he can shoot you. Once youre around him, he almost cant kill you in a 1on1. You are jumping, strafing, biting him to death. I experienced this situation from both sides. When im playing skulk, i have this feeling of superiority against marines from start on. Of course, this feeling decreases with the marines ongoing weapon upgrades, but even in lategame, when marines have maximum defense and offense upgrades, a skulk with leap, adrenaline and carpace can easily tear the marine apart.
Well, in short: Skulks are stronger than marines. This pattern repeats itself up to the onos. In mid game, the fade dominates with his ridiciulous blink and can only be taken out by very well coordinated teamplay. The lerk is a constant threat and with the spores, he actually gives a f*ck on marine armor upgrades. Of course, marine SQUADS can take out alien forces by focussing single targets together, although they cant kick an onos unless they have jetpacks, for which they need to have two Com stations RUNNING and at least 10 ressources at hand. However, the worst joke imo is the double minigun exo. It costs 75 ressources, CANT be dropped by the commander, it cant phase, it cant beacon, it CANT move but only crawl on two feet, and it has FAR less healthpoints than the onos and cant win a one with an onos, indeed it may even lose a 1on1 with a skulk if the skulk manages to ambush him get close before he can focus his miniguns on him. I experienced this both as an exo and as a skulk/onos.
Im focussing on combat here because i used multiple ways of building the game as marine commander, and in the last 2 weeks i mentioned that, no matter how im approaching the game, its only possible to win if the marines combatskill/commanderskill is a lot higher than that of the alienteam, which results in a boring game anyway. Its frustrating, and im losing the fun in this game, which doesnt mean that i wouldnt like it anymore, but at the moment, its no real fun playing alien nor marine. Of course, Alien is still cool because the gameplay is unique to the genre, and ###### as a skulk you have TONS of ways to lay ambushes, and thats tons of fun to me. But at the end of the day, a game stands and falls for me with the challenges it can offer to me, and at the moment, playing marine is either boring or frustrating, and playing Alien is almost always the same because you dont really have to invent new combattechniques, neither do i really have refine them, because im ridiculously strong as a SKULK, not to speak of a fade (concerning Marine Assassination) or gorge (concerning siege and support) or lerks (concerning offensive support).
Well, that was a load of criticism, but i also have some propositions to make on how you could improve the balance.
You see, your most important attribute in combat as an alien is your superiority in speed and agility. The marines can compensate that with jetpacks, but unfortunately these are very expensive to research, they have to be bought by the players or the com in order to equip them and if you die they are gone for good and you have to rebuy. Also, you need a second base to buy them.
Id propose to make Jetpacks even more expensive to research, but on the other hand make them standardequipment for the marines once they are researched, let them spawn with jetpacks. The aliens, if their com is smart, will have their celerity since the beginning and the jetpack is just a compensation for that alien trait. Aliens dont need to pay for their adrenaline and/or celerity either.
Make the shotgun cheaper!
I also think that double minigun exos should be droppable. One could consider them to be droppable only if the marines own three bases, as its the same rule for the aliens as well.
Scans. They are pretty expensive, if you consider that you are just pushing a button on an already installed obervatory? I know, the reason is that marines should be forced to build an obervatory into their forwarded bases, so the aliens cant sneak in camo. But please, dont demand 3 ressource units for a scan! I could live with 2, but rather dump it to 1. The marine commander already has to spend lots of money into the upgrades and support structures.
There are also some "comfot issues" id like to meantionbefore closing:
- The phasegates. At the moment, marines are always ported to the phasegate built lately. Id propose that the com can set "priority gates" to which the marine is ported first.
- Medpacks. They dont actually drop where my cursor is :P at least it feels like it.
- MACs/ARCs. Give the MACs a "guard" order, so you dont have to take care they are repairing stuff. The ARCs are still a bit of a mess to command.
All in all, there are many ways to balance the game, but i think the focus should be on strengthening the marines' mid and lategame.
Aliens don't need to do anything other than 'attack the enemy'. That's it. At game start the absolute simplest role is that of a skulk. Run to the marine side of the map and kill stuff.
So long as aliens have no early game responsibilities, they have nothing to lose by attacking the marines.
Alternately, if marines try and get too aggressive, they end up dead sitting in a spawn queue, while their extractors get rolled.
The khamm does it all on his own in the backfield. So aliens are free to attack and harass marines at will, since they never have to defend their side of the map in the early game. The marines are so busy they never have time to harass the alien structures.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I concur.
1 or 2 marines with a very good shot can change this somewhat but what u say is almost always true in public games.
I suspect ultimately that marines fall foul of Entropy - There's 3 ways marines can lose (take out the power in their last base, kill them all with no ip's, kill all CC's) whereas there's only 1 way aliens can lose (kill ALL hives). It's overwhelmingly more likely that marines will lose even before the game has begun.
Are you currently unsatisfied with the marine/skulk balance? I find that, in an even battle, each win just as much as the other. If marines were indeed harder to play, wouldn't a blatant imbalance be apparent? Maybe one is, but I certainly don't notice it.
And if marines aren't harder, then marine skill shouldn't be an issue. It wouldn't really make sense to claim that players are good at aliens but bad at marines, simply because they are, and for no other reason. If players are struggling to be affective with marines, there must be an underlying reason.
The real issue is that marines are supposed to be trying to:
-build buildings at base
-claim territory
-build extractors
-protect extractors
-claim a second tech point
-secure second tech point
All of this - and more - marines are trying to do, at the same time as being attacked by skulks.
<b>The skulks on the other hand have NO responsibilities at all. Nothing. </b>
<b>The khamm does it all on his own in the backfield. So aliens are free to attack and harass marines at will, since they never have to defend their side of the map in the early game. The marines are so busy they never have time to harass the alien structures.
</b>
It's essentially a one-sided battle. Marines have all those responsibilities *and* they have to deal with constant attacks. The skulks only need to keep the marines busy, dead, or both. Just keep killing off marine extractors and you'll cripple the marines to the point where they get too far behind. Then it's just a waiting game as your second hive drops and you start sending out higher lifeforms to set the marines back further, which leads to the eventual Onos parade to finish it off.
Yawn.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Definitely wrong there. The fact that marines don't think they have time and aren't trying to harass alien structures early on is one of the main reasons they lose. As people are so keen on saying the trick to good marines is to get aggressive early and often. Sitting back and defending is the trap that's so easy to fall in because it's what marines are best at.
Marines also don't need nearly as many extractors to accomplish exactly the same thing. Nearly everything the alien team does costs more res (often more than double) and is easy to destroy and force them to do again. Marines could sit on 3 bases with no external extractors and easily come out on top as long as they deny the aliens resources and bases.
Little probelms:
Most marine weapons are garbage. The lmg doesn't have enough ammo or a big enough clip to get anything done alone. The grenade launcher is an anti structure weapon that is hard countered by a structure. The flamethrower is terrible as a weapon against any alien and is solely an anti gas utility or a cyst killer yet costs far too much. Mines are so-so, great against a poor alien com but with cyst spam blowing them up they become a poor resource investment versus a good one, besides which they only threaten skulks which dont cost any res so they are already questionable.
Exos are garbage all around. The only thing going for them is they are the only player controled anti structure weapon because of no ammo and high dps. Arcs are strictly better though.
Onos create huge positional vulnerability for marines because it takes 4 marines to deter 1 Onos, so aliens have men over. This would be OK but marine bases fall in seconds, Onos escape too well /too often and stomp is too strong on top of their stats already
Bile is too strong. It need to alert the marine comm, have a dps cap and be unaffected by enzyme or they need to massively increase the HP of key marine structures.
Marines are getting by on shotguns, phasegates, jetpacks and arcs on bad maps. The only thing that is of the same questionable use on alien is the fade, yet thats only because it looks bad compared to the Onos you could have saved for.
Sentries, power nodes, GLs, flamethrowers and exos all need significant buffs. The LMG could do with more ammo so i dont have to do a clumsy welder/ axe shuffle or request backup if I see a single whip and maybe a clip size upgrade later in the game.
Big problems:
Everything Savant pointed out.
In effect aliens have more players. The alien comm can hop out and join in, marine comm is tied down with constant busy work. Then you lose the players that are building for marine. Marines are down players traveling between any minor point untill jet pack and usually you need to send 2 marines for 1 skulk. Marine bases need rapid defence or someone left to guard them so you can lose another player.
There is little reason to divide your forces in the early game as alien as everything builds itself and marines are slow to get to the other side of the map. You can have 7 v 3 on one side of the map then run to the other side and clean up the other 3 while the comm and his base builder chill in base doing nothing.
Base resilience. Alien bases have no single point of vulnerability, everything has a ton of HP and most of it will be healing up as you shoot it. Marines dps is low without blowing their ammo, alien dps is tied to energy. Ammo runs out fast so you need comm baby sitting if you cant melee.
Early game rushes are a nighmare for marines too as at that stage they are easier to spawn lock than aliens and dont have their fast travel mechanisms yet or any welders to repair a vulnerable structure or node.
Aliens are stronger 1v1 for 90% of the game yet have more players free to attack and faster movement. Marines have 2 small windows of strength: shotgun before fades and lerks are out and jet pack + shotgun before Onos are out, then marines are weaker 1v1 again.
Comm ability mismatch. Alien comms need more busywork or marine comms need less - probably both. Khammander just makes a broad sweeping gesture on the map and tells the troops to go there. Any tech path works for alien. Commander is playing a clickfest LoL logistics edition while building, beaconing and dividing the troops, then you have to follow a build order or get chewed out for no PGs or armor 1. Too many marine techs are subpar.
Little probelms:
Most marine weapons are garbage. The lmg doesn't have enough ammo or a big enough clip to get anything done alone. The grenade launcher is an anti structure weapon that is hard countered by a structure. The flamethrower is terrible as a weapon against any alien and is solely an anti gas utility or a cyst killer yet costs far too much. Mines are so-so, great against a poor alien com but with cyst spam blowing them up they become a poor resource investment versus a good one, besides which they only threaten skulks which dont cost any res so they are already questionable.
Exos are garbage all around. The only thing going for them is they are the only player controled anti structure weapon because of no ammo and high dps. Arcs are strictly better though.
Onos create huge positional vulnerability for marines because it takes 4 marines to deter 1 Onos, so aliens have men over. This would be OK but marine bases fall in seconds, Onos escape too well /too often and stomp is too strong on top of their stats already
Bile is too strong. It need to alert the marine comm, have a dps cap and be unaffected by enzyme or they need to massively increase the HP of key marine structures.
Marines are getting by on shotguns, phasegates, jetpacks and arcs on bad maps. The only thing that is of the same questionable use on alien is the fade, yet thats only because it looks bad compared to the Onos you could have saved for.
Sentries, power nodes, GLs, flamethrowers and exos all need significant buffs. The LMG could do with more ammo so i dont have to do a clumsy welder/ axe shuffle or request backup if I see a single whip and maybe a clip size upgrade later in the game.
Big problems:
Everything Savant pointed out.
In effect aliens have more players. The alien comm can hop out and join in, marine comm is tied down with constant busy work. Then you lose the players that are building for marine. Marines are down players traveling between any minor point untill jet pack and usually you need to send 2 marines for 1 skulk. Marine bases need rapid defence or someone left to guard them so you can lose another player.
There is little reason to divide your forces in the early game as alien as everything builds itself and marines are slow to get to the other side of the map. You can have 7 v 3 on one side of the map then run to the other side and clean up the other 3 while the comm and his base builder chill in base doing nothing.
Base resilience. Alien bases have no single point of vulnerability, everything has a ton of HP and most of it will be healing up as you shoot it. Marines dps is low without blowing their ammo, alien dps is tied to energy. Ammo runs out fast so you need comm baby sitting if you cant melee.
Early game rushes are a nighmare for marines too as at that stage they are easier to spawn lock than aliens and dont have their fast travel mechanisms yet or any welders to repair a vulnerable structure or node.
Aliens are stronger 1v1 for 90% of the game yet have more players free to attack and faster movement. Marines have 2 small windows of strength: shotgun before fades and lerks are out and jet pack + shotgun before Onos are out, then marines are weaker 1v1 again.
Comm ability mismatch. Alien comms need more busywork or marine comms need less - probably both. Khammander just makes a broad sweeping gesture on the map and tells the troops to go there. Any tech path works for alien. Commander is playing a clickfest LoL logistics edition while building, beaconing and dividing the troops, then you have to follow a build order or get chewed out for no PGs or armor 1. Too many marine techs are subpar.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Exos aren't garbage. They aren't as good as their price point probably should be, but they definitely help in an assault. 4JP marines and 2 exos will MASSIVELY outperform 6 JP marines, though any higher concentration of exos will probably be a liability. Their help generally comes from providing the "tank" team function. Aliens need to focus their attentions on the exos, which are hard to bring down as is, and it keeps marines from scattering and becoming useless at the first signs of higher lifeforms. Arcs do not provide this function normally. An alien team will instead focus on the defending marines first and then kill a defenseless arc, or let the specialist gorge kill the arcs while marines are busy fighting for their lives. With an exo the aliens will either try to kill the exo first or give the exo a free target while trying to kill its attendant marines.
You have to be careful of buffing marine weapon's power because in the right hands they can completely dominate aliens more so than even the most skilled aliens can hope to hurt the marines. The high skill cap as well as the very high synergy in groups can mean an explosive power curve left unchecked. Not that I'm outright saying things shouldn't be buffed, just to be very VERY careful with it.
The fade isn't so questionable. The fade has the fastest response time of any alien lifeform including the lerk, making him ideal for defense or backline attack. The onos role is again that of the tank class.
Early game rushes are bad for either team, the only thing stopping marines is their speed and their mistaken defensive preference. The marine commander can effectively prevent spawnlock permanently with a single 15res structure, where aliens only even have that option if they go shift (15res), build a shift (10 res) and spawn eggs for res.
Every alien structure has less defense than the marines. Everything but a hive can be killed quickly by a single marine in less than the time it takes a skulk or even fade to cross the map and handle the problem. Aliens may not have a single point of failure but their bases have many exploitable weaknesses.
If the exos can get there and if the aliens dont force a beacon. Actually no, i'd still rather have 6 jetpackers.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You have to be careful of buffing marine weapon's power because in the right hand they can completely dominate aliens more so than even the most skilled aliens can hope to hurt the marines. The high skill cap as well as the very high synergy in groups can mean an explosive power curve left unchecked. Not that I'm outright saying things shouldn't be buffed, just to be very VERY careful with it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, im not sure if the lmg needs a bigger clip but im fairly sure they could really do with more of them. The difference in ammo availablity between the lmg and shotgun is shocking.
The GL and flamethrower need something. The flamethrower needs more damage considering the short range it puts you at or it needs to be much cheaper as a solely utility weapon. Neither is worth the risk of being without jet pack funds and a shotgun is just better.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The fade isn't so questionable. The fade has the fastest response time of any alien lifeform including the lerk, making him ideal for defense or backline attack. The onos role is again that of the tank class.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The fade has a fast response time but everything responds fast for alien. Also aliens have no power nodes so a slower than lightning fast response time isn't important. Lerks do the assasination thing better, cheaper and have usefull utility. Onos is not a tank in an RPG sense, its a tank in a unstoppable killing machine sense.
Onos win games, lerks win games. Fades are for showboating and padding scores on games you've already won.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Early game rushes are bad for either team, the only thing stopping marines is their speed and their mistaken defensive preference. The marine commander can effectively prevent spawnlock permanently with a single 15res structure, where aliens only even have that option if they go shift (15res), build a shift (10 res) and spawn eggs for res.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Aliens dont get rushed because of the distance and marines lack of speed. I mean if you lose every fight to marines on their way then you'd deserve it anyway. Aliens dont go all in by spawn rushing - marines do because if they are then who is building? Now that the spawn push is gone marines can get locked with 2 ips just as well. Dead as you step into existence. That a second early ip is necessary (and not for a high spawn rate, just so you have more time for marines to run back) shows the weakness of marines in this aspect
Aliens have no responsibilities other than kill extractors and kill marines. If the marines have time to wander around the map uncontested then they are playing against an alien team full of rookies. No reasonably competent alien team will ever allow marines to traipse over to their side of the map. With armor 0 the marines are too easy too kill.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Marines also don't need nearly as many extractors to accomplish exactly the same thing. Nearly everything the alien team does costs more res (often more than double) and is easy to destroy and force them to do again. Marines could sit on 3 bases with no external extractors and easily come out on top as long as they deny the aliens resources and bases.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Which game are you playing? You honestly think on a map like Veil a marine team is going to be able to take and hold two additional tech points from the beginning?
Aliens have no responsibilities other than kill extractors and kill marines. If the marines have time to wander around the map uncontested then they are playing against an alien team full of rookies. No reasonably competent alien team will ever allow marines to traipse over to their side of the map. With armor 0 the marines are too easy too kill.
Which game are you playing? You honestly think on a map like Veil a marine team is going to be able to take and hold two additional tech points from the beginning?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Veils a bad example. Docking on the other hand that happens frequently, either taking locker+caf or departures+caf. Of course it can happen in veil too if marines take cargo.
Basic marines with any amount of skill are far from easy to kill 1 on 1, if they spot you before your first bite your pretty much dead. Marines also scale in groups better, meaning 4 marines vs 4 skulks will be MUCH more in favor of the marines than 1v1 or 2v2. Once marines win a team battle like that even once, even if they lost the first time around, aliens are going to start looking at an egg lock.
and every res node takes about 1 minute to actually recover its cost of putting it down
more often than not i see marines trying to hold about 5 res nodes on the map when they can really only manage 3, and you just watch the res nodes on the edges dying constantly...
this actually creates 2 problems. the easy to spot one is the res isn't going anywhere (or might even be worse!), the other is that while you are busy trying to defend these extra nodes, you aren't attacking theirs!
i would suggest that its better to hold only 3 res nodes and have spare marines to attack theirs, than to try and hold 5, leave no marines around to attack, which means aliens are holding the other 4-5
Agreed. It's not impossible to learn how to aim at a bouncing skulk, but it is really counter-intuitive if going by model animations instead of experience with NS2's quirky hit-boxes.
The biggest problem here is that pub players have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. They're bringing up exo suits, ns_docking- things that hardly ever come up in a competitive game.
If you really want to balance this game, there really isn't that much you need to do. Add something small like 20 seconds to a harvester's build time. Right now, the only problem is that even if the aliens defend poorly and go down to one harvester, they can rebuild and become a very, very deadly force way too easily right now. In many competitive games, my team has gone down to one harvester as an alien (vs 6 marine harvesters). Throw in some RT harassment, phase gate harassment, and general stalling tactics, and we're back to three harvesters. Got three harvesters? That's a free fade egg after two minutes. And it's nearly impossible to kill a fade every two minutes unless you are wildly outskilled by the marines.
The reason why adding 20 seconds is a big deal (but a small change) is early on, a team will dedicate a carapace battle gorge to building RTs. Early on, this will speed up the build time by half due to healing spray. Later on in the game, if the marines wipe the alien team and take down a harvester, it is much harder for the aliens to plop down their res node and intermediate res node and stabilize again, because that's 20 seconds of slow resource flow (unless they sac 10 more pres for a gorge). It makes successful harvester kills worth so much more game impacting.
Just wanted to mention I just did some debugspeed tests to find that the fade is <i>significantly</i> faster around the map than the lerk. Doing a jump>blink tap with celerity can push a fade over 20 speed (and more if you can throw in a shadowstep), where the lerk is only going to get a (much more consistent) 13. That, plus the fact that a fade will kill more marines faster than a lerk easily still makes the fade the best for assassination/defense against small groups or solo marines. Lerks are a little better at handling jetpacks, but being so much more fragile it's still very risky for them to try.
Lerks definitely bring more utility to the attack with spores/umbra, but I would much rather have a single fade defending the back nodes from smart marines, the fade might actually get there and stop the marine before the node dies and can actually deal with a pair of marines doing it, or even more if he's good and can get them by surprise (love silence).