<!--quoteo(post=2065739:date=Jan 24 2013, 12:41 AM:name=beyond.wudge)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (beyond.wudge @ Jan 24 2013, 12:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2065739"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Marine builds are continuing to evolve as players learn how the side works and what steps are required to make it work.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Seriously? You're gonna invoke L2P? Despite the fact that it's been a month since the special, all the game needs is for people to learn how to play and all will be as right as rain?
I hate to burst your bubble, but as people learn how to play marines better, they learn how to play aliens better. Which is why the imbalance in win/loss hasn't moved, despite a month of "marine builds evolving". When will people understand what I and the developers have been saying repeatedly. The game is imbalanced and it favours the alien team right now. If the guys who wrote this game don't think this is an issue of 'marine builds evolving' then that's not the case. Player skill hasn't changed the imbalance one iota.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you don't like beacons then don't beacon.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I don't like that beacon is broken. I'm not going to just ignore it, I'm going to push to get it fixed. If games were 50/50, you might have a case. When over 60% of games are won by the alien team, that case gets really weak.
<!--quoteo(post=2065746:date=Jan 24 2013, 01:10 AM:name=hakenspit)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (hakenspit @ Jan 24 2013, 01:10 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2065746"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As I said...do you remember the complaints about feign death and how fades where impossible to kill? Well that same issue would be present for exo's....except they are a lot stronger in both delivering and taking damage than a fade was.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->No, they're really not.
What slays me about the perceptions about EXOs is that people are influenced by their *perceptions* that the EXO is a threat, when it really isn't.
It reminds me of people who played gorge after the spit hit registration issue was fixed. When confronted by a marine they would still flee, instead of turning and fighting. They fail to see how weak marines are, and how strong spit is. Once they *DO*, marines start dying really fast.
With EXOs the worst thing people can do is treat them like they're a big deal. News flash, they're not. They're very easy to deal with, and many a game on aliens our team has dispatched waves of EXOs repeatedly, despite their welding attempts etc. EXOs are just so pathetic that if you treat them as pathetic they are no longer a threat. If you're a skulk, get in here and chomp at him or the welder when he hits a corner. I've lost count of the number of EXO kills I've gotten as a skulk. As a gorge, get out there and send some long ball bile bombs at them. Lerks, get the gas (and perhaps umbra) going. Not only do you kill the welders you make it impossible for the EXO to see the gorge spamming him and the skulk that is about to kill him.
You don't even need Onos to deal with EXOs. Seriously, people who defend the craptastic nature of the EXO clearly don't know how to engage and kill EXOs. If they did, they wouldn't be trying to suggest that the EXO is some kind of marine powerhouse.
Beacon is bad for marines when EXOs are on the field. Period. Any alien team who can't kill EXOs that have had their welders beaconed deserve to lose the game right then and there. There is no excuse for it. Even if EXO armor was 1000, it still wouldn't be a significant threat. Instead of a skulk taking 7 seconds to get a kill, it takes 12. Big whoopee. Toss two skulks at it and it dies in 6 seconds. For the gorge he will have to suffer with needing THREE bile bombs to kill the EXO instead of TWO. Oh the horror!
If marine teams are beaconing EXOs, then they are giving up map control. Any team that gives up map control puts themselves in a precarious position. All that beaconing an EXO will do is give marines a chance to not lose the game - as they would with beacon as it is now.
What slays me about the perceptions about EXOs is that people are influenced by their *perceptions* that the EXO is a threat, when it really isn't.
It reminds me of people who played gorge after the spit hit registration issue was fixed. When confronted by a marine they would still flee, instead of turning and fighting. They fail to see how weak marines are, and how strong spit is. Once they *DO*, marines start dying really fast.
With EXOs the worst thing people can do is treat them like they're a big deal. News flash, they're not. They're very easy to deal with, and many a game on aliens our team has dispatched waves of EXOs repeatedly, despite their welding attempts etc. EXOs are just so pathetic that if you treat them as pathetic they are no longer a threat. If you're a skulk, get in here and chomp at him or the welder when he hits a corner. I've lost count of the number of EXO kills I've gotten as a skulk. As a gorge, get out there and send some long ball bile bombs at them. Lerks, get the gas (and perhaps umbra) going. Not only do you kill the welders you make it impossible for the EXO to see the gorge spamming him and the skulk that is about to kill him.
You don't even need Onos to deal with EXOs. Seriously, people who defend the craptastic nature of the EXO clearly don't know how to engage and kill EXOs. If they did, they wouldn't be trying to suggest that the EXO is some kind of marine powerhouse.
Beacon is bad for marines when EXOs are on the field. Period. Any alien team who can't kill EXOs that have had their welders beaconed deserve to lose the game right then and there. There is no excuse for it. Even if EXO armor was 1000, it still wouldn't be a significant threat. Instead of a skulk taking 7 seconds to get a kill, it takes 12. Big whoopee. Toss two skulks at it and it dies in 6 seconds. For the gorge he will have to suffer with needing THREE bile bombs to kill the EXO instead of TWO. Oh the horror!
If marine teams are beaconing EXOs, then they are giving up map control. Any team that gives up map control puts themselves in a precarious position. All that beaconing an EXO will do is give marines a chance to not lose the game - as they would with beacon as it is now.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Ok so you dont hink an exo that can be beaconed out of harms way is not a balance issue...
Lets get feign death back (or better yet redemption but on the khamms command instead of the faulty trigger on HP of old) then for fades and Onos. We will again see fades back to the glory days before feign death was removed and a fade could over extend with no worries. After all you want to be able to push exo's out without worrying about wider game play issues.
<!--quoteo(post=2065800:date=Jan 24 2013, 12:07 AM:name=Savant)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Savant @ Jan 24 2013, 12:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2065800"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Toss two skulks at it and it dies in 6 seconds. For the gorge he will have to suffer with needing THREE bile bombs to kill the EXO instead of TWO. Oh the horror!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I am disgusted by your misinformation regarding Exos and bile bomb. It takes 7 bile bombs to kill one Exo without it being welded, assuming every bile bomb is counted as a direct hit with no damage falloff. On top of that, unless that Gorge gets enzymes, those bile bombs will never out damage a welder.
The fact of the matter is that Exos are a threat when used correctly.
Forcing a beacon means that Exos become much less of a threat, as they're cut off from their support.
The issue in this thread, however, is beacons, and I repeat that I feel beacons are in a good place.
<!--quoteo(post=2065739:date=Jan 24 2013, 05:41 AM:name=beyond.wudge)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (beyond.wudge @ Jan 24 2013, 05:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2065739"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Beacon is a tool. It has certain quirks, advantages and disadvantages. Believe it or not it doesn't have to be in the game.
I think some people have some serious "I WANT TO WIN" issues in this thread. Marine builds are continuing to evolve as players learn how the side works and what steps are required to make it work. If you don't like beacons then don't beacon.
I have won many games due to a few well placed beacons. I have rallied whole teams for massive game-ending pushes through a well-timed beacon. I have trolled the hell out of my team during the end game with about fifty chained beacons and begun a twenty minute troll fest by about six different commanders from my team (and the alien team haha) armoury spamming and recycling randomly all over the place. Beacon isn't the problem.
If you want those exos reinforced then keep building phase gates near them. All you need is one guy who does it for you while the push is on. If you want your exos to live then they will fall back when the team beacons until marines reinforce them. If you want to keep them alive during a beacon then have 1-2 extra MACs saved nearby (out of any bilebombing zones) so then they have some welding meanwhile. In short, analyse the situation, prepare a solution, give it about 10-20 games before people start to get used to what you're doing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> ^ This. And what Timarius said.
People need to understand, that Exos or Beacons are not an ultimate tool. I mean, how boring would this be? Just hit the button, and you saved your base. Just research Exos and you win. Can really nobody understand, that this is bad and boring? Exos are neither the ultimate pawnage tool, nor are they useless. Stop your constant exaggerations. Exos and Beacons are tools and you need to know how to use them. You can even use them wrong. But only because you can't use them in the right way, doesn't mean they are useless.
This whole discussion can easily be summed up by this comic: <img src="http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/6/65/think_logically.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
€dit: Oh, and there is some misinformation in this thread (beside the obvious exaggerations): A beacon beams all marines to the nearest CC. So the OBs does NOT need to be in the same room. It does NOT need to have the same power node as the base. If you have only 1 base, the OBs can be on the other side of the map, but will beacon the marines to the CC. It also does NOT revive all dead marines. It only spawns all marines that were right about to spawn at an IP.
It took a great deal of time in professional circles before Zerg worked out how to deal with them. However, people eventually worked out how to hold and beat them. Like any game this skill was beginning to filter down and become a norm for many players, an established skillbase that every SC2 player learnt. A true development in the meta began to take place, the kind that makes games deep and interesting. The developments that SC1 thrived off for years and years without any patching.
Then reapers got nerfed and they basically fell out of the game for most of it's competitive life. This happened to numerous units and abilities. All the cool and interesting stuff has been nerfed into the ground by over-reactions and the game has become increasingly stale and stagnant.
In broad strokes the truth of NS2 is simply this: NS2 has been modelled on SC2. SC2 is a build order game where between high level players skill most times does not overcome build order. MvP showed this championship after championship despite being injured. NS1 was imbalanced, but like SC1 its skill factor allowed a player to overcome imbalance. NS2 refuses to let skill make a big enough difference and the player base is too QQ to let anyone get good enough for it to ever make a difference.
If you want NS2 to become a boring game to play then please, continue with your whining. Please, contribute to the nerfing of every fun, interesting or powerful thing so you can get your 'I don't have to try 50/50 win rate.' Easy-mode everything so then your beacons and other tools are just magic bullets to every problem and you don't have to spend any real investment to learn how to make them work. Be a nihilistic cry baby and kill this game like how so many games are killed before they even get released.
Have the play testers tried out beaconable exos? If so, what happened? If not, I think it would be interesting to try.
Right now, I will very rarely buy an exo. I'm more useful and having more fun with a jetpack, shotgun and welder, of which I can get more than 2 for the cost of a dual exo. But if they were beaconable, I would think it could be a reasonable trade off to spend the TRES to save someone's 75 PRES. i.e. "hey com, out here on my own, welders just died, incoming onoii, bacon please"
<!--quoteo(post=2065832:date=Jan 24 2013, 02:42 AM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Jan 24 2013, 02:42 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2065832"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->People need to understand, that Exos or Beacons are not an ultimate tool. I mean, how boring would this be? Just hit the button, and you saved your base. Just research Exos and you win. Can really nobody understand, that this is bad and boring? Exos are neither the ultimate pawnage tool, nor are they useless. Stop your constant exaggerations. Exos and Beacons are tools and you need to know how to use them. You can even use them wrong. But only because you can't use them in the right way, doesn't mean they are useless.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So Marines basically have zero Ultimate Tools while Aliens get the Mother of All Ultimate tools.
Yup, fair and balance stuff right here. Gosh gee Marines just need to lrn2play never mind the fact that their tech tree ######ING SUCKS.
The thing I have trouble with here is that when marines *are* on top, they can absolutely decimate aliens, exos or not. And often it doesn't take long. When the boot is on the other foot, aliens often take a while, because marines have a decent turtling ability in comparison.
The top tech for marines, assuming they've held aliens back from too much map expansion, is good enough for them to polololroll the aliens. The trouble is getting there.
The Onos isn't really the Mother of All Ultimate tools, but I would agree that it's better than anything the marines have as a tech in its own right. The game sometimes seems to revolve around marines winning before too many aliens can go onos together.
I think it's arguably worth trying to improve the exo's attacking capability, while trying not to improve its defensive capability. The only way I can think to achieve this is to slightly increase the movement speed for the exo. Beyond that, any improvements you make to the exo will make it more powerful in defense also, then you just leave your exos defending base while jetpackers head out to roflstomp the hives. Any problems in a particular base? Beacon, secure, and jetpackers head out again.
To be fair, though - if you get to this point res-wise, and have been able to stifle alien expansion, then you *should* be able to win, so I'm not against a slight boost to marine top tech in principle: it's just that they usually currently don't need a boost to top tech, it's the early game they struggle with on the whole.
I personally don't like having exos move out of base (too far). Sometimes, it works, but any half-coordinated alien team tends to push the beacon button specifically to take the exos down, and there's not a whole lot you can do about that as marines.
I don't agree that exos should beacon back to base, though. I accept the argument that they're now faced with the long walk back to the front line, but actually everything they do well in attack, they do better in defense in any case. It's almost always better to free up your jetpackers for the front line attack, for the following reasons: 1) they cost less if they die 2) they can get back to the front line quicker upon death or after beacon 3) they can evade aliens more easily 4) you can combine weapon types with flamers destroying buildings, grenades defending teammates and destroying buildings not near whips, and rifles/shotguns taking down aliens very effectively (okay this one's a bit of a stretch as an argument over exos, because ideally you'd have the same but with an exo added into the mix).
<!--quoteo(post=2065832:date=Jan 24 2013, 02:42 AM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Jan 24 2013, 02:42 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2065832"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->€dit: Oh, and there is some misinformation in this thread (beside the obvious exaggerations): A beacon beams all marines to the nearest CC. So the OBs does NOT need to be in the same room. It does NOT need to have the same power node as the base. If you have only 1 base, the OBs can be on the other side of the map, but will beacon the marines to the CC. It also does NOT revive all dead marines. It only spawns all marines that were right about to spawn at an IP.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As a matter of fact, I can mention a game right now where I watched the entire team get mowed down by Oni and skulks, and one beacon brought every single one of them back into the fight before the power node went down. That was the reason we turned a two CC two RT turtle into a win. It took a lot of time, and a lot of coordination, but keeping Exos in base fended off huge Onos rushes until the aliens were bled dry.
You gotta' use your tools correctly.
EDIT: Coincidentally, I just looked at the lua file for observatories. It shouldn't have respawned all of my doods (read: units). That's odd....
EDIT: This happened in a 20 player server. All 10 marines came back at once despite being dead with a total of 3 IPs on the map still alive.
EDIT: Tested it. It doesn't. Was odd that I got all of my marines back a few times... but it doesn't happen every time.
<!--quoteo(post=2065480:date=Jan 23 2013, 11:20 AM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Jan 23 2013, 11:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2065480"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Actually, 2 Exos and 2 jetpackers have no problem against 8 aliens, if we are not talking about more than 2 onos here. If you really can't understand, why you shouldn't make a push with exos but without any defense in base, I don't know how to explain it to you.
Despite your GG-stories, I have won games with Exos. But that is the same anecdotal evidence you claim to prove your point.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ha, ok man.. 2 exos + 2 jetpacks is going to beat 2 onos + 6 assorted aliens? Lets call it 1 fade, 1 lerk, 2 skulks and 2 gorges. With evenly skilled players, the aliens would wipe those 4 marines in about 10 seconds flat. If you don't agree then you clearly have no clue what you are saying. The only possible chance for survival would be if the jetpackers flee the scene in which case you lose the 2 exos. The bile bombs alone will cut the armor in half as the marines approach, then during the actual battle the gorges healing the onos would mean the 4 marines would all be dead and you probably wouldn't even lose 1 onos. Even if the marines focus fire and kill 1 onos they are all dead after that.. unless the alien team is just horrible.
About the recall - it should be able to be cancelled for a loss of maybe 5 res, and it should revive dead marines as it did in NS1. I'm not sure how I feel about recalling Exos.. it would be good but it might be too overpowered as the recall would mean certain death for some of the higher life form aliens who rushed the base. At the same time losing your exos every time you recall does get very annoying. So perhaps it should recall the exos, but in doing so the exo needs to "reboot" once in base, causing a 3 second 'time out' on their guns.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A beacon beams all marines to the nearest CC.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> While I knew that beaconing (for example) in bar will get you to cafe (assuming no locker CC), I never really wondered does CC has to have power ?
Let's say you have cafe and terminal. Power down in cafe, but you still have powered obs in bar. Will beacon bring you to cafe or terminal?
The CC does not need to be powered, as far as I know.
@joederp: You are right. I voiced it bad. 2 onos OR 8 skulks. But this is beside the point. It was to show, that you can construct any case. Are the aliens attacking together or do they need to travel through the map first. Do they come from the same direction or different? Are the Exo at a position where onos can't easily reach them? Is there an armory blocking the way? There are so many variables. But the point is, in skilled hands and with good teamplay, Exos are very strong. But they aren't THE ultimate tool. They are balanced just fine. The onos is not. But this is a different topic.
Comments
I hate to burst your bubble, but as people learn how to play marines better, they learn how to play aliens better. Which is why the imbalance in win/loss hasn't moved, despite a month of "marine builds evolving". When will people understand what I and the developers have been saying repeatedly. The game is imbalanced and it favours the alien team right now. If the guys who wrote this game don't think this is an issue of 'marine builds evolving' then that's not the case. Player skill hasn't changed the imbalance one iota.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you don't like beacons then don't beacon.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I don't like that beacon is broken. I'm not going to just ignore it, I'm going to push to get it fixed. If games were 50/50, you might have a case. When over 60% of games are won by the alien team, that case gets really weak.
What slays me about the perceptions about EXOs is that people are influenced by their *perceptions* that the EXO is a threat, when it really isn't.
It reminds me of people who played gorge after the spit hit registration issue was fixed. When confronted by a marine they would still flee, instead of turning and fighting. They fail to see how weak marines are, and how strong spit is. Once they *DO*, marines start dying really fast.
With EXOs the worst thing people can do is treat them like they're a big deal. News flash, they're not. They're very easy to deal with, and many a game on aliens our team has dispatched waves of EXOs repeatedly, despite their welding attempts etc. EXOs are just so pathetic that if you treat them as pathetic they are no longer a threat. If you're a skulk, get in here and chomp at him or the welder when he hits a corner. I've lost count of the number of EXO kills I've gotten as a skulk. As a gorge, get out there and send some long ball bile bombs at them. Lerks, get the gas (and perhaps umbra) going. Not only do you kill the welders you make it impossible for the EXO to see the gorge spamming him and the skulk that is about to kill him.
You don't even need Onos to deal with EXOs. Seriously, people who defend the craptastic nature of the EXO clearly don't know how to engage and kill EXOs. If they did, they wouldn't be trying to suggest that the EXO is some kind of marine powerhouse.
Beacon is bad for marines when EXOs are on the field. Period. Any alien team who can't kill EXOs that have had their welders beaconed deserve to lose the game right then and there. There is no excuse for it. Even if EXO armor was 1000, it still wouldn't be a significant threat. Instead of a skulk taking 7 seconds to get a kill, it takes 12. Big whoopee. Toss two skulks at it and it dies in 6 seconds. For the gorge he will have to suffer with needing THREE bile bombs to kill the EXO instead of TWO. Oh the horror!
If marine teams are beaconing EXOs, then they are giving up map control. Any team that gives up map control puts themselves in a precarious position. All that beaconing an EXO will do is give marines a chance to not lose the game - as they would with beacon as it is now.
What slays me about the perceptions about EXOs is that people are influenced by their *perceptions* that the EXO is a threat, when it really isn't.
It reminds me of people who played gorge after the spit hit registration issue was fixed. When confronted by a marine they would still flee, instead of turning and fighting. They fail to see how weak marines are, and how strong spit is. Once they *DO*, marines start dying really fast.
With EXOs the worst thing people can do is treat them like they're a big deal. News flash, they're not. They're very easy to deal with, and many a game on aliens our team has dispatched waves of EXOs repeatedly, despite their welding attempts etc. EXOs are just so pathetic that if you treat them as pathetic they are no longer a threat. If you're a skulk, get in here and chomp at him or the welder when he hits a corner. I've lost count of the number of EXO kills I've gotten as a skulk. As a gorge, get out there and send some long ball bile bombs at them. Lerks, get the gas (and perhaps umbra) going. Not only do you kill the welders you make it impossible for the EXO to see the gorge spamming him and the skulk that is about to kill him.
You don't even need Onos to deal with EXOs. Seriously, people who defend the craptastic nature of the EXO clearly don't know how to engage and kill EXOs. If they did, they wouldn't be trying to suggest that the EXO is some kind of marine powerhouse.
Beacon is bad for marines when EXOs are on the field. Period. Any alien team who can't kill EXOs that have had their welders beaconed deserve to lose the game right then and there. There is no excuse for it. Even if EXO armor was 1000, it still wouldn't be a significant threat. Instead of a skulk taking 7 seconds to get a kill, it takes 12. Big whoopee. Toss two skulks at it and it dies in 6 seconds. For the gorge he will have to suffer with needing THREE bile bombs to kill the EXO instead of TWO. Oh the horror!
If marine teams are beaconing EXOs, then they are giving up map control. Any team that gives up map control puts themselves in a precarious position. All that beaconing an EXO will do is give marines a chance to not lose the game - as they would with beacon as it is now.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ok so you dont hink an exo that can be beaconed out of harms way is not a balance issue...
Lets get feign death back (or better yet redemption but on the khamms command instead of the faulty trigger on HP of old) then for fades and Onos.
We will again see fades back to the glory days before feign death was removed and a fade could over extend with no worries.
After all you want to be able to push exo's out without worrying about wider game play issues.
I am disgusted by your misinformation regarding Exos and bile bomb. It takes 7 bile bombs to kill one Exo without it being welded, assuming every bile bomb is counted as a direct hit with no damage falloff. On top of that, unless that Gorge gets enzymes, those bile bombs will never out damage a welder.
The fact of the matter is that Exos are a threat when used correctly.
Forcing a beacon means that Exos become much less of a threat, as they're cut off from their support.
The issue in this thread, however, is beacons, and I repeat that I feel beacons are in a good place.
I think some people have some serious "I WANT TO WIN" issues in this thread. Marine builds are continuing to evolve as players learn how the side works and what steps are required to make it work. If you don't like beacons then don't beacon.
I have won many games due to a few well placed beacons. I have rallied whole teams for massive game-ending pushes through a well-timed beacon. I have trolled the hell out of my team during the end game with about fifty chained beacons and begun a twenty minute troll fest by about six different commanders from my team (and the alien team haha) armoury spamming and recycling randomly all over the place. Beacon isn't the problem.
If you want those exos reinforced then keep building phase gates near them. All you need is one guy who does it for you while the push is on. If you want your exos to live then they will fall back when the team beacons until marines reinforce them. If you want to keep them alive during a beacon then have 1-2 extra MACs saved nearby (out of any bilebombing zones) so then they have some welding meanwhile. In short, analyse the situation, prepare a solution, give it about 10-20 games before people start to get used to what you're doing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
^ This. And what Timarius said.
People need to understand, that Exos or Beacons are not an ultimate tool. I mean, how boring would this be? Just hit the button, and you saved your base. Just research Exos and you win. Can really nobody understand, that this is bad and boring? Exos are neither the ultimate pawnage tool, nor are they useless. Stop your constant exaggerations. Exos and Beacons are tools and you need to know how to use them. You can even use them wrong. But only because you can't use them in the right way, doesn't mean they are useless.
This whole discussion can easily be summed up by this comic:
<img src="http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/6/65/think_logically.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
€dit: Oh, and there is some misinformation in this thread (beside the obvious exaggerations):
A beacon beams all marines to the nearest CC. So the OBs does NOT need to be in the same room. It does NOT need to have the same power node as the base. If you have only 1 base, the OBs can be on the other side of the map, but will beacon the marines to the CC. It also does NOT revive all dead marines. It only spawns all marines that were right about to spawn at an IP.
It took a great deal of time in professional circles before Zerg worked out how to deal with them. However, people eventually worked out how to hold and beat them. Like any game this skill was beginning to filter down and become a norm for many players, an established skillbase that every SC2 player learnt. A true development in the meta began to take place, the kind that makes games deep and interesting. The developments that SC1 thrived off for years and years without any patching.
Then reapers got nerfed and they basically fell out of the game for most of it's competitive life. This happened to numerous units and abilities. All the cool and interesting stuff has been nerfed into the ground by over-reactions and the game has become increasingly stale and stagnant.
In broad strokes the truth of NS2 is simply this: NS2 has been modelled on SC2. SC2 is a build order game where between high level players skill most times does not overcome build order. MvP showed this championship after championship despite being injured. NS1 was imbalanced, but like SC1 its skill factor allowed a player to overcome imbalance. NS2 refuses to let skill make a big enough difference and the player base is too QQ to let anyone get good enough for it to ever make a difference.
If you want NS2 to become a boring game to play then please, continue with your whining. Please, contribute to the nerfing of every fun, interesting or powerful thing so you can get your 'I don't have to try 50/50 win rate.' Easy-mode everything so then your beacons and other tools are just magic bullets to every problem and you don't have to spend any real investment to learn how to make them work. Be a nihilistic cry baby and kill this game like how so many games are killed before they even get released.
If not, I think it would be interesting to try.
Right now, I will very rarely buy an exo. I'm more useful and having more fun with a jetpack, shotgun and welder, of which I can get more than 2 for the cost of a dual exo. But if they were beaconable, I would think it could be a reasonable trade off to spend the TRES to save someone's 75 PRES. i.e. "hey com, out here on my own, welders just died, incoming onoii, bacon please"
So Marines basically have zero Ultimate Tools while Aliens get the Mother of All Ultimate tools.
Yup, fair and balance stuff right here. Gosh gee Marines just need to lrn2play never mind the fact that their tech tree ######ING SUCKS.
The top tech for marines, assuming they've held aliens back from too much map expansion, is good enough for them to polololroll the aliens. The trouble is getting there.
The Onos isn't really the Mother of All Ultimate tools, but I would agree that it's better than anything the marines have as a tech in its own right. The game sometimes seems to revolve around marines winning before too many aliens can go onos together.
I think it's arguably worth trying to improve the exo's attacking capability, while trying not to improve its defensive capability. The only way I can think to achieve this is to slightly increase the movement speed for the exo. Beyond that, any improvements you make to the exo will make it more powerful in defense also, then you just leave your exos defending base while jetpackers head out to roflstomp the hives. Any problems in a particular base? Beacon, secure, and jetpackers head out again.
To be fair, though - if you get to this point res-wise, and have been able to stifle alien expansion, then you *should* be able to win, so I'm not against a slight boost to marine top tech in principle: it's just that they usually currently don't need a boost to top tech, it's the early game they struggle with on the whole.
I personally don't like having exos move out of base (too far). Sometimes, it works, but any half-coordinated alien team tends to push the beacon button specifically to take the exos down, and there's not a whole lot you can do about that as marines.
I don't agree that exos should beacon back to base, though. I accept the argument that they're now faced with the long walk back to the front line, but actually everything they do well in attack, they do better in defense in any case. It's almost always better to free up your jetpackers for the front line attack, for the following reasons:
1) they cost less if they die
2) they can get back to the front line quicker upon death or after beacon
3) they can evade aliens more easily
4) you can combine weapon types with flamers destroying buildings, grenades defending teammates and destroying buildings not near whips, and rifles/shotguns taking down aliens very effectively (okay this one's a bit of a stretch as an argument over exos, because ideally you'd have the same but with an exo added into the mix).
Wow that was more text than I'd intended.
A beacon beams all marines to the nearest CC. So the OBs does NOT need to be in the same room. It does NOT need to have the same power node as the base. If you have only 1 base, the OBs can be on the other side of the map, but will beacon the marines to the CC. It also does NOT revive all dead marines. It only spawns all marines that were right about to spawn at an IP.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As a matter of fact, I can mention a game right now where I watched the entire team get mowed down by Oni and skulks, and one beacon brought every single one of them back into the fight before the power node went down. That was the reason we turned a two CC two RT turtle into a win. It took a lot of time, and a lot of coordination, but keeping Exos in base fended off huge Onos rushes until the aliens were bled dry.
You gotta' use your tools correctly.
EDIT: Coincidentally, I just looked at the lua file for observatories. It shouldn't have respawned all of my doods (read: units). That's odd....
EDIT: This happened in a 20 player server. All 10 marines came back at once despite being dead with a total of 3 IPs on the map still alive.
EDIT: Tested it. It doesn't. Was odd that I got all of my marines back a few times... but it doesn't happen every time.
Despite your GG-stories, I have won games with Exos. But that is the same anecdotal evidence you claim to prove your point.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ha, ok man.. 2 exos + 2 jetpacks is going to beat 2 onos + 6 assorted aliens? Lets call it 1 fade, 1 lerk, 2 skulks and 2 gorges. With evenly skilled players, the aliens would wipe those 4 marines in about 10 seconds flat. If you don't agree then you clearly have no clue what you are saying. The only possible chance for survival would be if the jetpackers flee the scene in which case you lose the 2 exos. The bile bombs alone will cut the armor in half as the marines approach, then during the actual battle the gorges healing the onos would mean the 4 marines would all be dead and you probably wouldn't even lose 1 onos. Even if the marines focus fire and kill 1 onos they are all dead after that.. unless the alien team is just horrible.
About the recall - it should be able to be cancelled for a loss of maybe 5 res, and it should revive dead marines as it did in NS1. I'm not sure how I feel about recalling Exos.. it would be good but it might be too overpowered as the recall would mean certain death for some of the higher life form aliens who rushed the base. At the same time losing your exos every time you recall does get very annoying. So perhaps it should recall the exos, but in doing so the exo needs to "reboot" once in base, causing a 3 second 'time out' on their guns.
As it stands now, the recall is garbage.
It literally saves Marine games and aliens don't have it; they can't even phase (fast travel) between bases.
While I knew that beaconing (for example) in bar will get you to cafe (assuming no locker CC), I never really wondered does CC has to have power ?
Let's say you have cafe and terminal. Power down in cafe, but you still have powered obs in bar. Will beacon bring you to cafe or terminal?
@joederp: You are right. I voiced it bad. 2 onos OR 8 skulks. But this is beside the point. It was to show, that you can construct any case. Are the aliens attacking together or do they need to travel through the map first. Do they come from the same direction or different? Are the Exo at a position where onos can't easily reach them? Is there an armory blocking the way? There are so many variables. But the point is, in skilled hands and with good teamplay, Exos are very strong. But they aren't THE ultimate tool. They are balanced just fine. The onos is not. But this is a different topic.