<!--quoteo(post=2066661:date=Jan 25 2013, 01:27 PM:name=SpaceJew)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SpaceJew @ Jan 25 2013, 01:27 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066661"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Aim lower, problem solved.
You're talking about a gun that can one-shot multiple skulks. Point me at a similar mechanic for Aliens to one shot several Marines, then we can have a discussion.
And no, Spores do not one-shot Marines.
EDIT:
You're looking at it backwards, too. If one Marine with a GL hits the field, how much will it cost the Aliens to put whips at every important juncture?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
4 locations, maybe. (Three hives, and the obligatory double resource location).
<!--quoteo(post=2066639:date=Jan 25 2013, 04:58 PM:name=KilledByDeath)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (KilledByDeath @ Jan 25 2013, 04:58 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066639"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's also hilarious when you bounce the Grenade off a wall around the corner, and the grenade travels back to you in the exact same trajectory and angle.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=2066600:date=Jan 25 2013, 01:57 PM:name=Locklear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Locklear @ Jan 25 2013, 01:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066600"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Remove whips, let the GL be soft countered by a player since it should be an anti-structure weapon and not countered by any structure. Especially with how absurd Crag healing is with a Gorge.
Gets old watching games with perfectly good Marine pushes getting shut down by 3x crags, a whip and a gorge because the whip hits every grenade back, the gorge and crags heal the whip. And the rifles/shotguns are usually on lifeforms or occasionally dumping meaningless damage into said structures.
Kthanks.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why? so we can have even more watered down strategies and ignore shades more?
Whips reflecting grenades is only a serious problem if your entire team bought a grenade launcher. One trooper with two clips, or two troopers with one clip kills a whip dead even with crag heals.
Citing three crags, one whip, and a gorge means that the rough cost of that location was much higher than your one grenade launcher. Minus the whip, your one grenade launcher would win. So why aren't your LMG'ers focus firing the whip?
Or, wait, are you by yourself attacking a heavily held aliens location? Or is this an actual push you're trying to describe?
All this being said, whips reflecting grenades from around corners or from under the map is broken. Supposedly it's been fixed, but I can't say for sure. One grenade being reflected into your face won't kill you either way, so unless you just emptied your GL clip on a whip you should have enough warning to let the rest of your team do their thing, which then lets you annihilate everything since there's only one counter to the GL.
EDIT:
As Ironhorse said, the GL isn't so much anti-structure as it is anti-everything except whips. Trying to say it's only good on structures is being extremely disingenuous.
<!--quoteo(post=2066573:date=Jan 25 2013, 08:28 PM:name=bERt0r)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (bERt0r @ Jan 25 2013, 08:28 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066573"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The fact that an anti structure weapon is hardcountered by a structure is simply not logical.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I feel that if GL's were just removed from the game as it is, it would be better off.
Thing is, there are anti-structure weapons and then there's the Grenade Launcher.
An anti-structure weapon, such as the flamethrower, is pretty much useless on players while annihilating all structures.
A grenade launcher does <i>well</i> versus structures, but also annihilates players. It's why there's a hard-counter to it, and it's why the flamethrower has it's own niche. You can argue that the GL has other limiting factors like ammo capacity, but that doesn't change the fact that one grenade will kill every skulk in it's AoE. If there were ten skulks right on top of each other, they're all dead in one shot. A silly, impossible situation perhaps but it <i>could</i> happen.
Too often people think they should be a one-man wrecking crew with a grenade launcher. The scarey thing is that they are, unless there's a whip. Ergo, killing the whip should be any teams priority once you know there's one there. (Figuring if you have a grenade launcher in your squad at all, that is.)
If they don't focus fire the Whip, you can't really complain. That is your team being bad, since the GL would easily kill <i>any and all skulks</i> in the general area. While the other guys are killing the whip, try shooting at their feet with your GL. After the whips dead, <i>then</i> fire at the structures.
This is really not complicated. It's a team game, not a solo deathmatch arena.
(This doesn't even count the times I've seen suicide GL troopers defending a base. Or a GL trooper simply phasing between bases shooting at his feet. GL is very strong, unless you shoot at <i>the one thing</i> you shouldn't.)
I don't see a problem with whips being a hard counter to GL's.
GL's can be recovered, reloaded, then reused; which they are in almost every game I've played. Whips cost 15 res <b>each</b>, must be rooted, must be on cyst to be useful.
SpaceJew, did you ever try out the marine side and bought a GL? It is pretty much impossible to 1on1 a skulk with a GL (equl skill levels). Even if you manage to pull it off, the damage of the grenades will bring you near death. So much for one man armies. The flamethrower on the other hand is much more useful in combat as well in clearing out rooms. I think it even does more dps vs structures than the GL.
The problem with whips hardcountering GL is that flayra himself said that hardcounters in FPS are bad. AFAIK, this was the reason why the HMG was removed.
A grenade laucher is a huge investment: Advanced Armory, GL Research + the actual cost per weapon. This is more than 60 res already.
<!--quoteo(post=2066445:date=Jan 25 2013, 02:07 PM:name=Frothybeverage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Frothybeverage @ Jan 25 2013, 02:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066445"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Whips cost 15 res, GLs cost 20 res.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->The problem with whips being a hard counter to grenade launchers is that the game isn't supposed to HAVE any hard counters. This comes straight from Charlie's design <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/150pxFW1b_KqgdzIF4MNxO1xBA-jrndZZ9-d_Ez0L1js/edit?pli=1#" target="_blank">document</a>... <!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->NS2 favors “soft†counters over “hard†counters. The idea of one technology, unit or ability easily defeating another one works better in an RTS than an FPS. It’s also not very interesting. So whenever possible, NS2 aims to have certain abilities be stronger against other abilities, but still allowing for player skill to close the gap.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->It would seem whips totally break his own rule on this.
...a more fair comparison would be whip to an arc. Both cost 15 tres, but an arc hard counters every alien structure from a far greater range and through walls. May have to factor in the cost of scans, but that's a small price to pay for 2 free volleys through walls. Any whip in range of GL is almost always in range of an arc. Whips supported by 3 crags? So that's 45 tres (15 for whip and 10x3 for crag) against 45 tres for 3 arcs. I'm pretty sure 3 arcs will demolish any forward alien base just fine with little difficulty as long as it's supported by some marines.
...so why is this a problem again? It's a problem for whips to deny GL spam (in which one salvo can easily kill every lifeform besides Onos), but it's fine to ignore the fact that there's a marine tres unit of similar cost that hard counters it along with every other alien structure?
Ok, for those new players that might not know this; whips were a soft counter at one point and it failed miserably. Whips would wack a grenade away from the direction a hive was in. This resulted in whips throwing grenades into each other, walls, the aliens team, or more commonly not doing anything at all. This resulted in GL spam annihilating everything in their path, with no mercy shown. There were actually posts on the forums, search if you don't believe me, about how OP Grenade Launchers were. And you know what? <i>They were OP as hell.</i>
No one even bought whips after a while, because they did nothing except die. GL's are easier to get than people make them out to be, it's just that Marines are experiencing the reverse issue that the Aliens had. GL's have a hard counter, so no one researches grenade launchers. At least in the current situation, no one is given anything that is over powered. A whip in and of itself is not going to decimate the Marines team. Even a room of them will probably not get a single kill unless people simply don't see them until it's too late. Then your 100 T.Res of whips got <i>one</i> kill.
RNG based deflection = known failure of design. Considering, once again, how powerful the grenade launcher is in virtually any situation outside of 1v1 I think it might be as good as it's going to get.
EDIT:
Just had an idea. Let skulks eat grenades, literally. Then let the skulk run at Marines with grenades on their insides. That is an acceptable change too. ^_^
You are comparing apples and oranges. An arc cannot do anything on its own. It need some marine babysitters and spotters. Moreover arcs can only attack structures. A whip on the other hand is completly self sufficient, apart from infestation. Whips do good damage to players. Flamethrowers have a hard time apporaching a whip-farm because of their huge range. Apart from reflecting grenades, whips can even be upgraded to throw bilebombs. Thats like upgrading a sentry to a minigun sentry.
=> Arcs need loads of micro while whips are easily spammable.
<!--quoteo(post=2066481:date=Jan 25 2013, 12:45 PM:name=ScardyBob)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ScardyBob @ Jan 25 2013, 12:45 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066481"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Trust me, it was worse when whips were soft counters to GLs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> yep I remember the days, whips use to be worthless, I remember whips use to assist GL's at times by lugging a grenade to the hive.
<!--quoteo(post=2066829:date=Jan 25 2013, 09:13 PM:name=bERt0r)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (bERt0r @ Jan 25 2013, 09:13 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066829"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->=> Arcs need loads of micro while whips are easily spammable.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
... you're comparing siege tanks vs spine crawlers... it's not exactly a focus-sink in either case. and yeah, whips are defensive and delay things, but nobody <b>should</b> die to whips, arcs are literally the only thing marine comms have to focus on when they come into play... and they rape things... they just violate alien structures, through walls... and they kill eggs...
they force engagement by aliens, effectively converting marine offensives into marine defensives, something that marines are much stronger at.
Whips may have been useless before but there honestly was no way to make them useful except as a hard counter to grenades? That was never even part of their original function. I feel like whips right now have almost no synergy between their abilities. They can whip things in melee range, they can bombard stuff at medium range, and they can deflect incoming grenades. None of those things work together in a meaningful way and depending on where you place your whip it probably is only accomplishing one of those things.
<!--quoteo(post=2066669:date=Jan 25 2013, 01:42 PM:name=CommunistWithAGun)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (CommunistWithAGun @ Jan 25 2013, 01:42 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066669"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why? so we can have even more watered down strategies and ignore shades more?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
NS1 strategy was far more in depth and didn't require whips to do it.
Having whips in the game adds nothing good for gameplay imo.
GL player damage can go for all I care @ IronHorse, the other weapons are far more effective at doing that. The GL physics are a joke in aiming at aliens.. the only effective way is to noobtube teammates' feet.
Forcing the Marines to basically ARC almost every game is what waters down Marine strategy. In competitive games we are seeing more and more of this stalemate stuff unless the Marines just completely outfrag and dominate the map or just have far greater skill in general.. they usually have to resort to ARCs at some point.
The GL rarely gets it done, if it does it's usually due to the alien Commander not placing whips prior to a rush, or just a flat out Alien derp.
Don't even get me started on Flamethrowers with the comments about "flamethrowers disable whips"!
GL's been a major balance issue for a while, initially it was underslung on the LMG....JP & GL's never looked scarier.
Then things started to get nerfed (bye bye underslung GL), but GL spam was still an issue. Heck you could just sit outside an alien hive and lob grenades in from a safe distance. This was fun for the marines (if you consider shooting fish in a barrel fun) and infuriating for the aliens.
Whips then got give knock-back for grenades. They first used to hit back in direction they came from, Meant you never stayed in one spot for long if you where using a GL.
The marines griped that this was OP'd and it should be nerfed, what we got next was random throwing.
Random throwing was worse than no throwback at all, what would happen is marines would lob grenades at whips who would then randomly throw in any direction. There is only a very narrow path for that GL to take that results in it doing no damage. Instead what happened more often is it was thrown around a hive room. It could be thrown into your upgrades or a groups of evolving lifeforms. It made the marines job easier than having no knock-back as for ~75% of the time it was thrown deeper into the hive room or into spaces you would not expect grenades to be lobbed in (so you might well have thought good place to go ler/fade/onos).
Now we have reverted more back to the original model but with a twist, it wont throw back 100% like it used to...there may be other changes but I have not really cared. You learn pretty quick how to get past whips....having a buddy with FT is good, but a LMG or even a pistol is also handy. Un-root those whips and they wont be lobbing back any grenades....so take out those cysts first.
Look, this is the problem: The LMG is the answer to everything. LMG must kill skulks, onos, gorges and lerks from afar. Now if your LMG marines have to spend their ammo into the whips, you create a great opportunity for the aliens to attack. Whips provide such great turtling potential because they simply soak up bullets and deny grenades.
I am perfectly happy with whips and how they hard counter GLs. What I am not fine with is how buggy/glitchy they can be at throwing them back through walls/corners/VENTS.
Was just playing Fail last night as a Marine. We were hunkered down in Dome, pushing into Cargo (early on). Grenades and JPs had just come up as we had Pipe and Nano (of course). They have the entire NE tunnel into Cargo completely lamed up (whips included) and we can't seem to make headway. I take a GL into the vent thinking I will put some pressure directly on the hive from the vent, I see a Skulk a ways down inside the vent and shoot a couple of grenades at him. The whips BELOW THE VENT, flung them back at me INSIDE the vent, you know...THROUGH multiple walls.
Needless to say, I was raging out hardcore over the mic about that one...
<!--quoteo(post=2066804:date=Jan 25 2013, 07:02 PM:name=Savant)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Savant @ Jan 25 2013, 07:02 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2066804"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The problem with whips being a hard counter to grenade launchers is that the game isn't supposed to HAVE any hard counters. This comes straight from Charlie's design <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/150pxFW1b_KqgdzIF4MNxO1xBA-jrndZZ9-d_Ez0L1js/edit?pli=1#" target="_blank">document</a>... It would seem whips totally break his own rule on this.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=2067105:date=Jan 26 2013, 11:39 AM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Jan 26 2013, 11:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2067105"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Except that that rule has been broken many times since that document already. Hello lerk DoT poison hard countered by medpacks, as one example.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> that's not strictly a hard counter, though. medpacks require investment / resources / attention. in order for Lerk dot to be completely nullified by meds you have to already be winning the resource war. in order for grenades to be completely nullified you just have to have the whip.
<!--quoteo(post=2067105:date=Jan 26 2013, 04:39 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Jan 26 2013, 04:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2067105"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Except that that rule has been broken many times since that document already. Hello lerk DoT poison hard countered by medpacks, as one example.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->With respect, that's like saying crags are a hard counter to bullet damage. Yeah medpacks will heal marine damage, just as crags will heal alien damage. That doesn't make it a counter since it is a fundamental aspect of gameplay. If marines are damaged, they can be healed. So can aliens.
All of the marine counters are soft because they all have limits. We could bring up mines, which can insta-kill early skulks. However, aliens have a counter for this with ranged weapons and carapace. You can bring up the observatory which is a counter to camouflage, but range limits turn it from a hard counter to a soft counter since it only protects their base. (not to mention that it is also easily killed - having an observatory doesn't prevent skulks from doing damage) I could go on an on, but there is nothing the marines have that completely nullifies an alien trait.
If whips only reflected half of the grenades, then you could call it a soft counter. If marines could research some mechanism that would make grenades explode on impact, then that would make whips a soft counter. However, when whips make a grenade launcher obsolete, that's a hard counter. When you have a GL and you are in range of whips, **you have no weapon**. That's a hard counter, and it shouldn't be in the game.
Feel free to bring up other hard counters, but I can't think of any.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited January 2013
<!--quoteo(post=2067162:date=Jan 26 2013, 03:16 PM:name=Savant)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Savant @ Jan 26 2013, 03:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2067162"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->All of the marine counters are soft because they all have limits. If whips only reflected half of the grenades, then you could call it a soft counter.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> If the distinction between a hard counter and a soft counter is it's imposed limits, well, Whips dont knockback 100% of grenades. So there's your limit, making it a soft counter. I dont think your 50% suggestion applies to the other soft counters you mentioned, so i don't see that number as a requirement for this particular mechanic.
Not to mention, similar to your obs vs cloak analogy, you can counter whips' ability to counter with killing cysts or using flamethrowers, or simply shooting it. If you are alone with a GL then you've done something wrong, <i>as these soft counters are all designed around using soft RPS mechanics</i>.. one of these is the GL and why it is now a standalone weapon - you should not be engaging with it alone or with teammates that don't have other weapon types. Its like expecting your pre 236 gorge to be always viable in combat against two, 0 pres marines.
@ Gliss: whips require far more investment than medpacks, costing 15 times as much and requiring more strategy through positioning. So "just have to have the whip" is just like saying "just have to spam medpacks" or "just have to spend res on scan" etc etc.. they all require investment / resources / attention
But again.. all this is irrelevant because the GL is not playing it's role properly as an "anti structure" weapon. Until then i couldn't remotely see removing the only thing stopping GLs from being a laughing house of OP-ness. (like it was, for a short time, as others have recounted)
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited January 2013
<!--quoteo(post=2067188:date=Jan 26 2013, 04:46 PM:name=xDragon)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (xDragon @ Jan 26 2013, 04:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2067188"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Amazing to see how people are still so clueless about how the mechanics play out in game, do you even play this game beyond just staring at the art?
Go shoot a whip with 4 grenades as a single marine and tell me if one gets through - and if you even survive.
Lemme just kill the cyst with my pistol and wait 20 seconds for the infestation to receded and the whip to unroot, I'm sure no aliens will come.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A) you could stand to be more tactful B) Its not supposed to knock back 100% iirc, if it's doing this then no I haven't noticed, and I'll report it. I personally just aim far and away from them when applicable or run through. C) you shouldn't use your pistol if you are utilizing the GL properly (with teammates who have lmgs and shotguns.. or hey, with flamethrowers so you don't have to wait!)
That's the design at least. The practicality /viability of it is another argument.
Comments
You're talking about a gun that can one-shot multiple skulks. Point me at a similar mechanic for Aliens to one shot several Marines, then we can have a discussion.
And no, Spores do not one-shot Marines.
EDIT:
You're looking at it backwards, too. If one Marine with a GL hits the field, how much will it cost the Aliens to put whips at every important juncture?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
4 locations, maybe.
(Three hives, and the obligatory double resource location).
So, 60 res.
Indeed it is, I wonder how the whips do that?
(Three hives, and the obligatory double resource location).
So, 60 res.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So your saying GLs should cost 60 res?
Gets old watching games with perfectly good Marine pushes getting shut down by 3x crags, a whip and a gorge because the whip hits every grenade back, the gorge and crags heal the whip. And the rifles/shotguns are usually on lifeforms or occasionally dumping meaningless damage into said structures.
Kthanks.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why? so we can have even more watered down strategies and ignore shades more?
Citing three crags, one whip, and a gorge means that the rough cost of that location was much higher than your one grenade launcher. Minus the whip, your one grenade launcher would win. So why aren't your LMG'ers focus firing the whip?
Or, wait, are you by yourself attacking a heavily held aliens location? Or is this an actual push you're trying to describe?
All this being said, whips reflecting grenades from around corners or from under the map is broken. Supposedly it's been fixed, but I can't say for sure. One grenade being reflected into your face won't kill you either way, so unless you just emptied your GL clip on a whip you should have enough warning to let the rest of your team do their thing, which then lets you annihilate everything since there's only one counter to the GL.
EDIT:
As Ironhorse said, the GL isn't so much anti-structure as it is anti-everything except whips. Trying to say it's only good on structures is being extremely disingenuous.
I feel that if GL's were just removed from the game as it is, it would be better off.
An anti-structure weapon, such as the flamethrower, is pretty much useless on players while annihilating all structures.
A grenade launcher does <i>well</i> versus structures, but also annihilates players. It's why there's a hard-counter to it, and it's why the flamethrower has it's own niche. You can argue that the GL has other limiting factors like ammo capacity, but that doesn't change the fact that one grenade will kill every skulk in it's AoE. If there were ten skulks right on top of each other, they're all dead in one shot. A silly, impossible situation perhaps but it <i>could</i> happen.
Too often people think they should be a one-man wrecking crew with a grenade launcher. The scarey thing is that they are, unless there's a whip. Ergo, killing the whip should be any teams priority once you know there's one there. (Figuring if you have a grenade launcher in your squad at all, that is.)
If they don't focus fire the Whip, you can't really complain. That is your team being bad, since the GL would easily kill <i>any and all skulks</i> in the general area. While the other guys are killing the whip, try shooting at their feet with your GL. After the whips dead, <i>then</i> fire at the structures.
This is really not complicated. It's a team game, not a solo deathmatch arena.
(This doesn't even count the times I've seen suicide GL troopers defending a base. Or a GL trooper simply phasing between bases shooting at his feet. GL is very strong, unless you shoot at <i>the one thing</i> you shouldn't.)
I don't see a problem with whips being a hard counter to GL's.
GL's can be recovered, reloaded, then reused; which they are in almost every game I've played. Whips cost 15 res <b>each</b>, must be rooted, must be on cyst to be useful.
It's riskier to invest in whips then in GL's.
The problem with whips hardcountering GL is that flayra himself said that hardcounters in FPS are bad. AFAIK, this was the reason why the HMG was removed.
A grenade laucher is a huge investment: Advanced Armory, GL Research + the actual cost per weapon. This is more than 60 res already.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->NS2 favors “soft†counters over “hard†counters. The idea of one technology, unit or ability easily defeating another one works better in an RTS than an FPS. It’s also not very interesting. So whenever possible, NS2 aims to have certain abilities be stronger against other abilities, but still allowing for player skill to close the gap.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->It would seem whips totally break his own rule on this.
...so why is this a problem again? It's a problem for whips to deny GL spam (in which one salvo can easily kill every lifeform besides Onos), but it's fine to ignore the fact that there's a marine tres unit of similar cost that hard counters it along with every other alien structure?
No one even bought whips after a while, because they did nothing except die. GL's are easier to get than people make them out to be, it's just that Marines are experiencing the reverse issue that the Aliens had. GL's have a hard counter, so no one researches grenade launchers. At least in the current situation, no one is given anything that is over powered. A whip in and of itself is not going to decimate the Marines team. Even a room of them will probably not get a single kill unless people simply don't see them until it's too late. Then your 100 T.Res of whips got <i>one</i> kill.
RNG based deflection = known failure of design. Considering, once again, how powerful the grenade launcher is in virtually any situation outside of 1v1 I think it might be as good as it's going to get.
EDIT:
Just had an idea. Let skulks eat grenades, literally. Then let the skulk run at Marines with grenades on their insides. That is an acceptable change too. ^_^
A whip on the other hand is completly self sufficient, apart from infestation. Whips do good damage to players. Flamethrowers have a hard time apporaching a whip-farm because of their huge range. Apart from reflecting grenades, whips can even be upgraded to throw bilebombs. Thats like upgrading a sentry to a minigun sentry.
=> Arcs need loads of micro while whips are easily spammable.
yep I remember the days, whips use to be worthless, I remember whips use to assist GL's at times by lugging a grenade to the hive.
... you're comparing siege tanks vs spine crawlers... it's not exactly a focus-sink in either case. and yeah, whips are defensive and delay things, but nobody <b>should</b> die to whips, arcs are literally the only thing marine comms have to focus on when they come into play... and they rape things... they just violate alien structures, through walls... and they kill eggs...
they force engagement by aliens, effectively converting marine offensives into marine defensives, something that marines are much stronger at.
NS1 strategy was far more in depth and didn't require whips to do it.
Having whips in the game adds nothing good for gameplay imo.
GL player damage can go for all I care @ IronHorse, the other weapons are far more effective at doing that. The GL physics are a joke in aiming at aliens.. the only effective way is to noobtube teammates' feet.
Forcing the Marines to basically ARC almost every game is what waters down Marine strategy. In competitive games we are seeing more and more of this stalemate stuff unless the Marines just completely outfrag and dominate the map or just have far greater skill in general.. they usually have to resort to ARCs at some point.
The GL rarely gets it done, if it does it's usually due to the alien Commander not placing whips prior to a rush, or just a flat out Alien derp.
Don't even get me started on Flamethrowers with the comments about "flamethrowers disable whips"!
otherwise aren't they anti structure and anti lifeform? so just anti everything
Then things started to get nerfed (bye bye underslung GL), but GL spam was still an issue. Heck you could just sit outside an alien hive and lob grenades in from a safe distance.
This was fun for the marines (if you consider shooting fish in a barrel fun) and infuriating for the aliens.
Whips then got give knock-back for grenades.
They first used to hit back in direction they came from, Meant you never stayed in one spot for long if you where using a GL.
The marines griped that this was OP'd and it should be nerfed, what we got next was random throwing.
Random throwing was worse than no throwback at all, what would happen is marines would lob grenades at whips who would then randomly throw in any direction.
There is only a very narrow path for that GL to take that results in it doing no damage.
Instead what happened more often is it was thrown around a hive room. It could be thrown into your upgrades or a groups of evolving lifeforms.
It made the marines job easier than having no knock-back as for ~75% of the time it was thrown deeper into the hive room or into spaces you would not expect grenades to be lobbed in (so you might well have thought good place to go ler/fade/onos).
Now we have reverted more back to the original model but with a twist, it wont throw back 100% like it used to...there may be other changes but I have not really cared.
You learn pretty quick how to get past whips....having a buddy with FT is good, but a LMG or even a pistol is also handy.
Un-root those whips and they wont be lobbing back any grenades....so take out those cysts first.
Pure Gold! Should be implemented as a hard counter to res overflow.
Was just playing Fail last night as a Marine. We were hunkered down in Dome, pushing into Cargo (early on). Grenades and JPs had just come up as we had Pipe and Nano (of course). They have the entire NE tunnel into Cargo completely lamed up (whips included) and we can't seem to make headway. I take a GL into the vent thinking I will put some pressure directly on the hive from the vent, I see a Skulk a ways down inside the vent and shoot a couple of grenades at him. The whips BELOW THE VENT, flung them back at me INSIDE the vent, you know...THROUGH multiple walls.
Needless to say, I was raging out hardcore over the mic about that one...
It would seem whips totally break his own rule on this.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pretty much this as well.
hakenspit nailed it.
Also, for those that missed it: That bug with whips being able to whack through walls and around corners has been fixed for next patch.
Although.. "lerk dot hard countered by medpaks"? Not sure if just trolling.
But the GL-whip situation and GL's doing too much damage to players is kind of an issue and I expect that something will be done about it.
that's not strictly a hard counter, though. medpacks require investment / resources / attention. in order for Lerk dot to be completely nullified by meds you have to already be winning the resource war. in order for grenades to be completely nullified you just have to have the whip.
All of the marine counters are soft because they all have limits. We could bring up mines, which can insta-kill early skulks. However, aliens have a counter for this with ranged weapons and carapace. You can bring up the observatory which is a counter to camouflage, but range limits turn it from a hard counter to a soft counter since it only protects their base. (not to mention that it is also easily killed - having an observatory doesn't prevent skulks from doing damage) I could go on an on, but there is nothing the marines have that completely nullifies an alien trait.
If whips only reflected half of the grenades, then you could call it a soft counter. If marines could research some mechanism that would make grenades explode on impact, then that would make whips a soft counter. However, when whips make a grenade launcher obsolete, that's a hard counter. When you have a GL and you are in range of whips, **you have no weapon**. That's a hard counter, and it shouldn't be in the game.
Feel free to bring up other hard counters, but I can't think of any.
If whips only reflected half of the grenades, then you could call it a soft counter.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If the distinction between a hard counter and a soft counter is it's imposed limits, well, Whips dont knockback 100% of grenades. So there's your limit, making it a soft counter. I dont think your 50% suggestion applies to the other soft counters you mentioned, so i don't see that number as a requirement for this particular mechanic.
Not to mention, similar to your obs vs cloak analogy, you can counter whips' ability to counter with killing cysts or using flamethrowers, or simply shooting it.
If you are alone with a GL then you've done something wrong, <i>as these soft counters are all designed around using soft RPS mechanics</i>.. one of these is the GL and why it is now a standalone weapon - you should not be engaging with it alone or with teammates that don't have other weapon types. Its like expecting your pre 236 gorge to be always viable in combat against two, 0 pres marines.
@ Gliss: whips require far more investment than medpacks, costing 15 times as much and requiring more strategy through positioning. So "just have to have the whip" is just like saying "just have to spam medpacks" or "just have to spend res on scan" etc etc.. they all require investment / resources / attention
But again.. all this is irrelevant because the GL is not playing it's role properly as an "anti structure" weapon.
Until then i couldn't remotely see removing the only thing stopping GLs from being a laughing house of OP-ness. (like it was, for a short time, as others have recounted)
Go shoot a whip with 4 grenades as a single marine and tell me if one gets through - and if you even survive.
Lemme just kill the cyst with my pistol and wait 20 seconds for the infestation to receded and the whip to unroot, I'm sure no aliens will come.
Go shoot a whip with 4 grenades as a single marine and tell me if one gets through - and if you even survive.
Lemme just kill the cyst with my pistol and wait 20 seconds for the infestation to receded and the whip to unroot, I'm sure no aliens will come.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A) you could stand to be more tactful
B) Its not supposed to knock back 100% iirc, if it's doing this then no I haven't noticed, and I'll report it. I personally just aim far and away from them when applicable or run through.
C) you shouldn't use your pistol if you are utilizing the GL properly (with teammates who have lmgs and shotguns.. or hey, with flamethrowers so you don't have to wait!)
That's the design at least. The practicality /viability of it is another argument.