How many people feel this is the number one thing that imbalances early game
MrChoke
Join Date: 2012-12-13 Member: 174990Members, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-12-13 Member: 174990Members, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Shadow
I am looking back at what makes me get so frustrated with this game to the point that I now stopped playing it. Obviously the imbalance of aliens winning so much is it on a macro scale. But what is it that most often leads to this outcome? I think it is the marines getting killed by skulks early game. Think about this simple case for a second. How often do you see a single marine kill a single skulk? Next to never. Unless the skulk player is brand new to the game and goes in a straight line toward the marine, the marine will almost always lose. I'd love to know what the statistics are on this simple, yet very common situation. Almost everyone agrees that marines lose because they cannot hold RT early game. Could it be because they rarely can kill a skulk early game?
I also don't care what you "L2P" people want to say to me. You need to put yourself in the shoes of the run-of-the-mill lone player playing NS2. He's got no clan, he's got no friends playing. He picks a random server and he starts playing. This is a guy who is not brand new to the game but he hasn't logged 1000 hours either. He knows how to play but he is not a "perfect aim God" which is the requirement for a single marine to kill any half-way decent skulk. So what does he do? He gets killed. And killed again, and again. Now the "L2P" people are crying "marines need teamwork!!!" to win. Yes and the aliens need NONE. Again, a random guy on a server playing with random players. How often do you get good team work from random people on the internet? Rarely. This is a requirement for a marine victory and is not needed at all for aliens. So marines lose the RT battle and they lose the game. This represents the NS2 game I play almost every single time.
Let me make anouther point. Someone else posted some statistcis about how many people bought this game and quit playing soon after. A ton of people have done this. Why do you think that might be? How many of them got sick of this situation and they quit? I am not like most. I really loved the game and played it a ton. But eventaully it got to me too and I quit. If you were to somehow only run statistics on how many games are random players versus random players, how much do you want to bet the alien win rate would not be 60%, it would much closer to the statistics I see. 75% or higher.
How about this suggestion that I know the "L2P" would love. Increase the marines starting armor. Increase their starting health. Maybe this game does need some serious balance changes after all. Anyway, my parting thoughts. Have fun.
I also don't care what you "L2P" people want to say to me. You need to put yourself in the shoes of the run-of-the-mill lone player playing NS2. He's got no clan, he's got no friends playing. He picks a random server and he starts playing. This is a guy who is not brand new to the game but he hasn't logged 1000 hours either. He knows how to play but he is not a "perfect aim God" which is the requirement for a single marine to kill any half-way decent skulk. So what does he do? He gets killed. And killed again, and again. Now the "L2P" people are crying "marines need teamwork!!!" to win. Yes and the aliens need NONE. Again, a random guy on a server playing with random players. How often do you get good team work from random people on the internet? Rarely. This is a requirement for a marine victory and is not needed at all for aliens. So marines lose the RT battle and they lose the game. This represents the NS2 game I play almost every single time.
Let me make anouther point. Someone else posted some statistcis about how many people bought this game and quit playing soon after. A ton of people have done this. Why do you think that might be? How many of them got sick of this situation and they quit? I am not like most. I really loved the game and played it a ton. But eventaully it got to me too and I quit. If you were to somehow only run statistics on how many games are random players versus random players, how much do you want to bet the alien win rate would not be 60%, it would much closer to the statistics I see. 75% or higher.
How about this suggestion that I know the "L2P" would love. Increase the marines starting armor. Increase their starting health. Maybe this game does need some serious balance changes after all. Anyway, my parting thoughts. Have fun.
Comments
I'm very often that player: I don't generally have my online mates around when I start playing. I'm far from a great player, and my aim is pretty poor.
I don't generally have trouble killing single skulks, and can sometimes kill 2 together even if I'm on my own. Sometimes. I absolutely DO NOT AGREE that you have to be a "perfect aim God" to kill any half-way decent skulk as a single marine. Simply not true. Why don't you take me up on my offer of joining forces one day? I'll happily play on some US servers if that's convenient to you? Honestly, I would like to help, partly to stop the seemingly unending flow of topics about the same thing from you, and partly because I genuinely don't see what you describe in the games I'm playing - and I'm a distinctly average player who plays on pubs and very often without any of my steam mates playing at the same time.
I however kill plenty of single skulks. If lucky sometimes even 2 or 3.
They DO use correct skulkplay. Climbing, jumping.
Its called situational awareness.
* Skulks near obs have circles around them. Shoot them.
* Sound will let you know something is near, and usually in which direction.
* Asume skulks use cover to ambush, and move in patterns accordingly.
* spray in bursts if you miss to many bullets. As to conserve ammo on wrong shots.
* do not forget a rifle bash to finish it of is faster then reload or weapon switch.
I often miss half the magazine or more on a skulk. But you do not need the whole mag.. you need what.. 6, 7 bullets to kill it?
Aim matters, but experience matters more.
A newb marine can kill a skulk going in a straight line. If he encounters a skulk NOT going in a straight line.. guess what? That skulk learned how to skulk a bit by either experience or tutorials.
A marine who has not learned has little chance vs a skulk who has learned, which should be the point.
A marine who learned vs a skulk who has not learned has a easier time aswell.
Herein lies the problem. Skulks are easier to learn up to a point, not only by tutorial, but also by speccing when dead.
If you die and see your skulk teammate walk against anything but he floor, jump, and rank up kills its not so hard to imagine that you, as a new player, should also do that.
Marine movement is harder to notice. If you do not recognise the threat, you may not see the movement patern of a good marine. You just see it as a odd movement.
You can not see the marine missed half a mag, but survived on experience. You, as the new player, may asume he did not miss a single bullet.
It IS and will always be a L2P issue.
We should not try to change that, but ask ourselves.. how can we make it clear to new players that it IS the way to do it?
I'm a fairly good skulk, can often take 2/3 or 4 rookie marines alone and take 1/2 average marines; but I've come across quite a few marines players that I just can't get near to, even with backup.
You could say this is an issue of no match making (and I'd tend to agree), but given that we don't and probably won't get match making I'd rather not making high level marine play even more potent than it is now. If there was a way to buff up these low to mid level marines without making the guys with good aim even better I'd support that.
Random idea towards that would be to toggle the LMG in two modes. Firstly the current mode, if you can aim it's deadly, if you can't or you panic all your bullets are now in the wall. The second mode would be a slower and more spread out, if you can aim the spread is now going to be missing a load of bullets and your not going to do as much DPS, but if you can't aim you'll get a few lucky hits in from the spread and have more time to track before your clip runs dry.
I consider myself a decent player, and can often win 1v1 as marine, its simply a matter of letting marines understand what each lifeform is capable of, and how to outplay them, anticipating when a skulk will leap off the wall to attack, and leaping out of the way in a direction that leaves the skulk in your field of view.
Just to reiterate, I'm not saying overall knowledge of this game is the only issue, alien economy and teamwork requirements need to be looked at, but the dramatic difference we are seeing is due to lack of overall knowledge.
Feel free to include me in your "L2P" conspiracy.
Personally, I don't have a problem with that and I'll tell you why. The main reason why I'm OK with it is because of 'glancing bites', 'extra bite cones' or whatever you want to call it. Back in NS1 skulks had a heck of a time since bites were hit or miss, and there were plenty of embarrassing videos showing skulks clearly having a marine dead centre of the screen and not getting a bite credit. Given how many bites were missed, marine health/armor was adjusted accordingly for sake of balance.
Now we have skulks that actually connect with bites. No longer do I find myself cursing a marine that didn't die like I do with skulks when I occasionally unload a clip into them and they somehow live.
I'd love the devs to test out an armor boost for marines. Since early game marines have the most significant impact to the game, this could do good things to balance.
LOL!! Thanks! You RAWK!
I remember your offer before. Thank you for offering to help me. I don't want to commit to a time/place or team with this game. For that last 3 months I played the heck out of this game, its all I played. But when I played, I had no pattern. Its whenever I could.
* Skulks near obs have circles around them. Shoot them.
CHOKE: Yup, I do
* Sound will let you know something is near, and usually in which direction.
CHOKE: Yup, I got headphones on, I use left and right direction. often I know when they ar ein a vent for example. I adjust to it.
* Asume skulks use cover to ambush, and move in patterns accordingly.
CHOKE: Not sure what you mean. I crouch, find cover myself when I can.
* spray in bursts if you miss to many bullets. As to conserve ammo on wrong shots.
CHOKE: I do spray in burst. A poster below brought up a great idea that I have not heard before. Have a firing mode on the LMG. That is VERY Interesting.
* do not forget a rifle bash to finish it of is faster then reload or weapon switch.
CHOKE: OK.... Rifle bash. I never do it, I will admit. Is it a waste of time? How about switching to an axe if you are out of ammo in both weapons. Dooes it ever work?
I often miss half the magazine or more on a skulk. But you do not need the whole mag.. you need what.. 6, 7 bullets to kill it?
CHOKE: I miss too much, I agree as do most marines I see. Skulks are moving around like lunatics and you need a friggin' aimbot to ever imagine hitting them.
We should not try to change that, but ask ourselves.. how can we make it clear to new players that it IS the way to do it?
CHOKE; I am not a new player. Unless I am in bad-attitude mode, I don't go 1 and 10 either. But I tell you what, I never went 10 and 1. I usually have a K/D ratio around 1.0. This is end of game though. Beginning of game, like most marines... it is much lower.
I'm not very good with the LMG compared to other players, I'm much, much more skilled with the Shotgun but I can still kill them fairly easily with it. It's a lot harder when Skulks use a more erratic pattern though, which is made easy with the air control that allows them to dodge bullets fairly well and quickly change direction in mid-air.
3 is basicly where you seem to screw up. Skulks are using cover. You should not! Do not crouch or cover versus skulks, unless you try to sneak past them. (which hardly works).
Stay on your feet. RUN. A skulk is a melee unit, get in long range where you have the advantage.
What I ment with movement paterns is to move in a way which is not benefitial to skulks. Strafewalk through a doorway so you keep speed while you swing your aim to the sides & top to check for skulks. Circle skulks to keep movement speed while dodging there ambush.
Walk in sort of circles around corners to have a better view before you walk in.
anything that reduces speed like crouch is the utmost last you want to do, in most cases!
5. of course rifle bash works. if a skulk is in close melee range, bash it. it will knockback a bit, and you can finish putting bullets in it, if its not dead yet.
6. The other guy was right. skulks DO move in paterns. predict and kill.
I hardly have the lack of kills you say you have as a marine, and my aim is bad.
Why it may or may not be true that this "imbalances" the game, this is just how it is intended by the developers.
Some random comment to the posts above me:
- I think rifle bash is a joke:-) Haven't killed a single Skulk with it.
- Crouching CAN help! If you are un-crouched, when the Skulk approaches you, he may end up under or above your horizontal aim direction (whether he jumps or not). So you have to plan for aiming horizontally, upwards AND downwards (towards your feet, just like in an Exo).
- While I agree that keeping distance is important, often *approaching* the Skulk works nice (most useful at the start of the face-off). You are more likely to hit (and if you hit, he will die before reaching you), and the little bastards don't expect it:-)
The last 2 points are especially useful for mediocre aimers like me:-)When crouched, the Skulk can come towards you horizontally (when he does not jump) or from above. So you don't have to plan for aiming downwards.
Like always in NS2, attack is the best defense. Go into spite mode, say"f##k it" and go right for them. It often works, and especially if you have problems killing Skulks in 1v1 and expect to die anyway, why not try this?
I've killed with it, but it is pretty useless. Your nearly always better off switching to pistol and then to ax then to try and use rifle bash. If they changed it so you could carry on reloading during a rifle bash attack then it would be worth while. (Speaking of reloading what's with Onos attacks causing reloads to stop?)
Then you are using it wrong. It should not be spammed.
Switch to pistol when you still have range.
Switch to axe when you are out of ammo or need to reload on both guns. (or when hitting structures)
Bash when a skulk is in melee range purely to conserve ammo between bursts, or to buy time for a reload.
So if you see it as a way to contain ammo and all in all buy time, you're good to go. If you see it for a way to do damage, thats using it wrong. Although it does enought damage on its own if need be.
I rarely see skulks play with any predictable pattern. I consider myself to be a poor skulk and I know not to do that. Most of the time it is random jumping, wall climbing, circilng and biting. Bites hitting on almost every mouse click too.
Not using best paths makes it easier for the marine aswell.
You are trying to "L2P" me, there is little need. I am not perfect at the game and I'll take pointers in case maybe I don't them. But I know that distance is cirtical. I know to strafe into rooms to keep your gun aimed at where you think the highest probabilty of a skulk is.
A better question is how long does it take people with much less hours in this game to figure that out? Because unless EVERYBODY on the marines know ALL that is required to be a kick-A$$ marine, the team will lose.
You know I believe you are absolutely right. They wanted it this way. That is exactly why for a long time I was willing to put up with this obvious imbalance early game. I assumed they wanted marines to get owned early game but they intended them to even out and move ahead later. But its not working. They are not moving ahead. They lose too much RT early game and its because they cannot win even matched against skulks.
You are asuming i ment specificly you, I did not.. YOU know. New players do not.. yes.. exactly.
And I said a few posts back that its very easy to pick up skulk play from speccing skulks when you are dead. It is less easy to pick up proper marine movement when you are speccing them when dead.
That in general is a L2P issue and why many new marines lose.
A lot of people have quit this game. I am one as well after logging about 250 hours to it. It is a very teamwork and high-skill game. That is a good thing but it needs balanced along those lines at all levels of hours played. I don't want this game to die, I really don't. But there alot of people that simply WILL NOT TOLERATE this imbalance long enough to "L2P" the marines. What I see on these random player server is people losing game after game because the alien team, often having logged as many hours as them, wipes them out. You think people want to stick with a game when they see this? Do you think most would even bother to post on this forum and talk about it? NO. If they do, they only get the constant BS about "L2P" and all the other flak I take everytime I post.
The bottom line is this. Do you, the clan and/or competitive, 500+ hour NS2 player want a large player base for this game? Does UWE want a large player for this game? If the answer is YES, you need to balance the game for ALL LEVELS OF HOURS PLAYED. If you don't, you will end up with a few hundred core people left, a bunch of empty servers, and UWE, a company needing to make money, laying off people. THAT IS WHY I POST THESE THREADS. I don't want it to happen. But when you look at the number of people no longer playing, IT ALREADY IS. Your "L2P" argument is killing this player base.
I go back to my original post. I challenge UWE to go off on a limb. Let's increase the starting armor for marines from 30 to 40. What is the worst thing that can happen? The pendulum swings to marines winning too much. A breath of fresh air in my book but not ideal. There is no way this change is going swing to something past the 60/40 we have now. Let's do it. If it sucks, back it out. We all have Steam. It takes seconds to download a patch like that.
Could not be more wrong. Seriously.
Early game skulk vs marine is pretty balanced imo. The reason why skulks have the edge is because marines have to focus on expanding their base (moving out and building stuff), while the skulks just have to focus on killing marines. Because skulks are also faster, they'll be waiting in ambush when marines try to spread out and cap res nodes.
off you go to "Advanced Call of Battlefield Ops III"