Making a learning curve lower or 'more even' is a bad move for any game not to mention competitive play. I really dislike the geriatric skulk patch and not to mention the lazer lerks, but I can also understand where the dev team is coming from. They are listening to the complaints of the vocal fraggees, while not listening to the content silence of the fraggers. The skill ceiling is pretty paramount in importance for the longevity of this game. Gameplay is actually THE most important aspect of any game, while graphics plays little part in how successful a game becomes. And lowering the skill ceiling is killing the gameplay.
NS2 isn't just an action game
lowering the skill ceiling of the mechanical aspects gives more weight to the strategy / teamwork / tactics.
this is fairer for competition and highlights NS2's strengths instead of its shortcomings
if NS2 was predominantly played on LAN with supercomputers and with tons of teams so that the skill gap within a division wasn't enormous, then you could argue that movement + aim are more important skills. but given the realities of NS2's engine and player base, it's more important to emphasize the other aspects
honestly, why would you pick NS2 if you want to play a rewarding combat game? there are so many better options...
@Flipper: Your example of a Marine 20 feet away from Alien is a very skewed example. You're putting a frail Alien out in the open in an improper engagement to fit your argument. That is one slippery slope. Knowing when to engage as an Alien is the easiest part to be skilled at but escaping effectively and consistently when things go sour should be the hardest part. It wasn't before this patch. Truth. Now it takes skill to be a good skulk as it should be.
Doesnt change the fact that marines won most 1v1s before and now win almost all.
honestly, why would you pick NS2 if you want to play a rewarding combat game? there are so many better options...
I think it has less to do with wanting a combat game and more to do with wanting NS2 to have better combat in it. Obviously we all like the game, we play it competitively. I tend to agree with marshall that movement is one of the more important aspects of the game. It's certainly what sold me on it. I got into NS because of skulk movement, and almost nothing else.
"A "skill ceiling" is completely based off of how difficult it is to be good at something"
-Vile | Frisky
That is somewhat correct, but you're just not quite there yet buddy. Let me put it this way, since you enjoy sc2. In SC1 there are a lot more things to do or actions per minute spent on creating or macro'ing, compared to sc2 where macro'ing is extremely simple (because of the hotkey situation). In sc2 anyone can build units just as fast the next guy, because you can hotkey a billion buildings to the button 1. In SC1 there is a much larger spectrum of competencies in macro abilities. Larger spectrum, high skill ceiling, constraints given by the game. Getting it? Ok now for a direct comparison.
Now in NS2 post-patch skulks are slower and pre-patch skulks were faster. Still with me?
There are less things you can do now with the skulk post-patch. Hang in there buddy almost done.
The best players' skill compared to the worst players' post-patch .... wait for it ....
has narrowed in terms of skill gap. The skill ceiling has been lowered for skulks.
The "A "skill ceiling" is completely based off of how difficult it is to be good at something" is wrong. The best players will still be the best, but the skill gap between the best and the worst has decreased. That is the 'skill ceiling' has lowered.
this is not true. lowering a specific mechanic requirement does not necessarily mean lowering skill. it's simply a question of where the developers want their player skill to be focused.
in fact, you can observe this exact scenario in Quake 3. Q3's movement was limited with very little airstrafing involved. there was not much room for sideways air movement and you couldn't bunnyhop "around" corners, you had to land, turn, and then circlejump again. (seen here).
this is where Quake 3: CPMA came in, a "balance mod" that was deemed necessary to spice up "vanilla Quake 3" as it was renamed. the movement was brought much closer to the original Quakeworld in addition to many other elements in the interest of creating a "higher skill cap"
CPM duel on Aerowalk, seen here. (comparison: pre B240 Skulk)
compare this with the same map played in VQ3, seen here. (comparison: B240 Skulk)
notice how differently they play. at the end of the day, neither is more "skilled" than the other.
the gameplay elements of CPM involve speeding into an enemy and outaiming / outdodging them, where the gameplay elements of VQ3 are more focused around positioning, timing, and mindgames.
this is all easily relatable back to walljumping. the previous walljump was far too brainless for my liking. it was just too ridiculous to be able to lead charges into rooms and be nearly invincible as you could instantly change direction and go hide behind cover. the new movement (and ideally any Skulk movement) should force you to choose engagements wisely with careful consideration of positioning as well as the noise you're making.
your point aside, I do agree that the current Skulk movement is very frustrating. the acceleration alone isn't massively influential on gameplay, it just feels very unnatural. especially in comparison to marine movement, which is insanely fast. no other game has the insane fast A-D-A-D (side strafing) speeds of a marine, even Quake. in contrast, no other game has the insanely low , floaty A-D-A-D speeds of the b240 Skulk, it's comparable to Halo or other console shooter movement. this alone is one of the worst things about playing Skulk. if something just feels completely sluggish / syrupy / wrong it simply won't be fun to play regardless of what the winrates are or what the gameplay is.
on that note, please stop bringing winrate into it, it doesn't matter if it's 50/50 if all the alien losses are in the first few minutes and all the alien wins are because they held until Onos (sound familiar?). I'm not saying this is the case, it's obviously very extreme. however, I definitely believe marines have a much more significant early game presence with the Skulk movement the way it is in combination with the ridiculous mine buff. the winrate is completely insignificant if the early game is this heavily marine biased due to mines. it simply becomes a game of holding out and repeated boring Skulk deaths. this not good for gameplay, at any winrate. it does not matter if it is 50/50 or 90/10.
I'm honestly quite confused as to what direction the movement is trying to take. I thought the idea behind landing stopping your momentum was to prevent single-wall walljumping to gain massive speed, but apparently that's a bug. if the plan is to eventually reduce the Skulk mobility in this sense then they really won't be that efficient at traveling around the map at all.
people don't think map movement speed makes much of a difference, but in a game with RTS elements it's just as significant a factor in balance as gun recoil is to an FPS. for example, if Skulks barely win an engagement in the middle of the map in Crossroads, it takes that much longer for a Skulk to travel back to the hive and heal. they have no time to start causing any economic damage to the RT or set up an engagement before those same marines can spawn and walk back, let alone reinforcements from other areas. map-mobility is one of the greatest assets about playing Skulk and it's really stripped down in this build. I felt like winning engagements was incredibly minor because there was no map presence to back it up.
I'm honestly quite confused at the massive Skulk movement changes since the b230 nerf pretty much. I agree with one idea behind it, which is to not allow Skulks to charge headfirst into engagements and come out ahead.
[rant]but at this point, Skulk movement with its flaws and hidden rules is more frustrating than bunnyhopping ever was. it's incredibly map dependent and offers little depth to gameplay. I really feel a strafe acceleration movement mechanic accomplishes everything NS2 need it to, it doesn't even necessarily have to include bunnyhopping, but there's such a knee-jerk reaction to anything remotely related to bunnyhopping from typically unqualified people that I guess it's pointless to discuss.[/rant]
I'm not quite sure what a specific mechanic 'requirement' is, but I think I understand what you're getting at. So what you're saying is there are two different 'styles of gameplay'. One mainly focuses on moving skills, while the other relies on pro hiding skills.
Both styles incorporate each characteristic of the other's, but the game's mechanics either allow you to do the former, or respectively limits you to the latter.
To reiterate lowering the movement speed mechanics of the skulk restricts the max skill (ceiling) achievable for movement, but in turn increases the skill ceiling for camping.
See I could agree with you on this perspective, but it doesn't seem right calling camping a skill. If this game had a prone button you would know why I choose not to call camping a skill. More movement requires better aim requires better skill = higher skill ceiling. Slowing down the movement turns the game into a waiting game, where both sides wait for the other to make a mistake. Believe me I've played games like that and they are not fun to play or watch.
I'm not quite sure what a specific mechanic 'requirement' is, but I think I understand what you're getting at. So what you're saying is there are two different 'styles of gameplay'. One mainly focuses on moving skills, while the other relies on pro hiding skills.
Both styles incorporate each characteristic of the other's, but the game's mechanics either allow you to do the former, or respectively limits you to the latter.
To reiterate lowering the movement speed mechanics of the skulk restricts the max skill (ceiling) achievable for movement, but in turn increases the skill ceiling for camping.
See I could agree with you on this perspective, but it doesn't seem right calling camping a skill. If this game had a prone button you would know why I choose not to call camping a skill. More movement requires better aim requires better skill = higher skill ceiling. Slowing down the movement turns the game into a waiting game, where both sides wait for the other to make a mistake. Believe me I've played games like that and they are not fun to play or watch.
Lol. Pro "camping" skills.
If you want to see actual skulk skill, just watch Tane's skulk and the mind games he plays with Marines. That's actual skill. Nothing to do with camping. You calling it camping is quite funny though.
Tricking your opponent and making him think you're somewhere else and then catch him off guard is definitely not camping. In fact, Marines usually deal with campers quite easily since by definition they are sitting and waiting in one spot that all the Marine has to do is have half a brain to check it.
The skulk movement isn't here to stay afaik. But there's still skill to be had with the skulk atm.. and it really shows with some of the higher tier players of ns1 that have such discipline and skill with their skulks despite the movement change.
if you liken choosing engagements to camping, then you might as well call prediction and mindgames "guessing". use of weighted words does not help your argument sound convincing. either way, Yuuki sums it up far better than I can:
I think you got it a bit backward here, less air control would make the skulk harder to play and give it more depth. The main reason is that if you can't correct your trajectory instantly planning becomes relevant, you will have to plan your trajectory taking into account the map geometry and such.
It's a bit like a car game, if you have complete control and can change direction at will it will be very basic to drive, while if you have more momentum and limited controls, you will start to have to plan your trajectory, turns, adjust your speed, etc.
It also allow for mistakes, if you mess up your control or planning you can crash into a wall. It gives you the feeling of being "on the edge" at high speed.
So control should be inversely proportional to speed.
Less air control would be going backwards for this game. More control in the air, equates to the marine having to use aim in a totally three dimensional environment. There are plenty of games that concentrate on aiming on a flat plane, Natural Selection 2 is not one of them, and it should not become one of them. I don't think I need to emphasize why having a predictable and constrained flight path would be a bad idea; its the skill ceiling.
Choosing engagements is one thing. It is a specific team skill that comes with lots of experience with a core group of players. It is a skill, but hiding spots is just experience and map knowledge, not really a skill. Constraining movement is not the way to go. Of course there has to be balance if marines are pretty slow to begin with, but whatever they did to skulk movement and restricting air movement control is just too much.
how is an increased dependency on aim a good thing?
especially for a game with NS2's engine (bad performance, netcode, many other issues) & low playerbase (high pings for many)
just because something takes skill doesn't mean it's beneficial for a game.
quake doesn't need headshots
starcraft 2 doesn't need to go back to starcraft 1's UI
NS2 has its own issues, but the good parts of it always have advantages & disadvantages instead of just being recipes
- movement can either be fast OR silent, not both (unless you get silence which is a huge cost of its own)
- abilities cost energy which is a limited resource
the basic movement system out of combat is a trickier topic.
something like tribes is nice because there is the right type of skill (planning / cost / benefit) and it makes physical sense so people will actually be willing to learn it
if you liken choosing engagements to camping, then you might as well call prediction and mindgames "guessing". use of weighted words does not help your argument sound convincing. either way, Yuuki sums it up far better than I can:
I think you got it a bit backward here, less air control would make the skulk harder to play and give it more depth. The main reason is that if you can't correct your trajectory instantly planning becomes relevant, you will have to plan your trajectory taking into account the map geometry and such.
It's a bit like a car game, if you have complete control and can change direction at will it will be very basic to drive, while if you have more momentum and limited controls, you will start to have to plan your trajectory, turns, adjust your speed, etc.
It also allow for mistakes, if you mess up your control or planning you can crash into a wall. It gives you the feeling of being "on the edge" at high speed.
So control should be inversely proportional to speed.
speed vs. control like driving games sounds nice. needs acceleration though? tough to make that intuitive for a skulk without engines. maybe some sliding + jumping chaining without air control could sound reasonable enough for people to learn it... add some wall-bouncing for changing directions without losing speed and it might work
I can only speak for myself and without even reading all the comments in this thread.
Skulks pre Gorgeous was a cakewalk.
A good trick with skulk is to hold down shift and jump while moving around, this will make you silenced and able to sneak up on 2 marines and kill one of them before the other one reacts. Luckily this act have been made harder now since my timing with the jumps have to be better (i can't just spam space anymore).
That and good old ambushing marines around corners should do the trick. Don't run down a long corridor with 5 marines shooting from the other end (duh).
I find marines to be alot harder than aliens since marines HAVE to play together in order to succeed whereas aliens can successfully run around and do their own things aslong as they kill/destroy.
The wall jump bug is probably the single worst thing to ever happen to skulks, but it's going to be fixed so I'll reserve some judgement until that gets patched (hopefully asap).
That said, they should have fixed the hitbox bugs present with skulks and left it at that and seen what that did to skulk survivability. If I'm not getting shot right because of problems with the engine, that's fine. But that's also a big change to make. If somehow fixing a bug suddenly makes it so that I get hit by twice as many bullets as I used to, that change alone has balance implications and has to be looked at within the framework of the rest of the game.
I'm not a competition level skulk, but I think I'm damn good in comparison to your average pub. There are players on these forums who routinely do the "35-2 server clearing aim-bot-like marine" and who destroy me as skulk at my best. There are plenty of pubs who can't hit the broad side of a barn who I could dance circles around and take on 2 to 1 sometimes even rushing in full view and still getting a kill or two before they finished me off.
The thing is, now I really do feel like a walking brick. I feel like I have a big fat target painted on me as skulk and if I get seen before I'm in melee range I either better have a way to retreat or I'm going to die. I feel like this even on pub servers with truly terrible people. I am dying literally twice as often as I used to in situations where I might have died before but it wasn't certain. While you can say I should just adjust, the fact is that skulk is no longer fun to play. Ambushing is well and good and effective, but I want anyone who thinks these changes were needed to make skulks "what they should be" think about the real implications of making the basic combat form for aliens, the thing that everyone starts as, absolutely require greater numbers or an ambush in order to win an engagement.
Think about that for a second.
It is true that skulk, realistically speaking, has a higher skill floor than marines. It is flat out harder to be completely useless as a skulk than as a marine. You almost have to try or just afk to manage it.
Skulks have to be able to assault. Ambushing should be heavily to the skulks advantage. But a skulk should have the ability to win a stand up fight without the full element of surprise.
Shotguns are fucking terrifying now. Even with leap you simply cannot stay out of a halfway decent marine's crosshairs long enough to get the kill. The ground acceleration change is a huge part of that. Not being able to change direction and circle in the opposite direction the marine is turning to whiz through his view in a half a second and hopefully make him waste the reaction shot and get another bite in means that skulks become a liability rather than an asset after a certain point.
Before this patch I could occasionally take out JP/Shotty marines as an Adrenaline/Leap skulk with other upgrades. Not often, and even less often against really good players, but it was possible and worth trying 1 on 1. Now it's not even remotely possible unless you catch them building or welding or using an armory or something. It's not worth trying. They can JP backwards faster than you can keep up with and even if they fix wall walk once the marine forces you to change direction you're fucked, you lose all momentum and your only prayer is a perfect leap into their face and that they miss the resulting straight on shotgun blast so you don't just die.
And honestly, if you say that a skulk should never be able to take out a JP/Shotty marine 1 on 1 with both fresh no matter what the skill difference you do not have an opinion on balance worth considering because you're approaching this from an RTS type standpoint and you have to allow that this is at it's heart an FPS game. I can't imagine anyone comming this game with all AIs like it was SC2 but I can imagine if Comm functions were somewhat automated that people would still very much enjoy eating marine ankles and roasting onos with flamethrowers.
speed vs. control like driving games sounds nice. needs acceleration though? tough to make that intuitive for a skulk without engines. maybe some sliding + jumping chaining without air control could sound reasonable enough for people to learn it... add some wall-bouncing for changing directions without losing speed and it might work
you're pretty much describing bunnyhopping which is just the funniest part about this entire thing
Well I wanted to give my opinion here, I have been playing since the game came out on steam, have played alien and marine many times also played commander often. I only play PUGS, I don´t even get how you do play something that it is not a PUG, no matter how pro you are unless you happend to have 20 friends who play the game, this is true for this game as it is for any multi player game that needs more than 3 players, so IMHO PUGS ARE THE GAME.
And I do not consider myself a particularly good player, neither a noob by all means, Have played about 30 games since this last patch was released, and I haven't seen any noticeable invalance in the win/loss ratio, while before I saw that aliens won a lot more often, but only when both teams had not a decent team work or communication.
But apart from winning stadistics, My own experience playing the skulk has been good so far, I can consistently win any 1vs1 with my skulk vs any marine provided he is alone and I spot him first(witch is the more usual) If I do my approach correctly, even if I cannot ambush I can still kill the marine always that I do not make some big mistake on my part.
The only difference I noticed after the patch is that it is way harder to dodge marine bullets when you are plainly IN FRONT OF HIM, witch IMHO should be hard and was too easy before, Skulks can still consistently attack a defended marine position, and I have seen it happend many times in this last two days, they just need numeric superiority or skill superiority, with makes sense and It is fair when you are attaking a bunch of people with rifles that know you are coming.
speed vs. control like driving games sounds nice. needs acceleration though? tough to make that intuitive for a skulk without engines. maybe some sliding + jumping chaining without air control could sound reasonable enough for people to learn it... add some wall-bouncing for changing directions without losing speed and it might work
you're pretty much describing bunnyhopping which is just the funniest part about this entire thing
only if you look at the end result and ignore the fact that it will alienate almost everyone as soon as you put something as dumb as waggling left & right to accelerate forward
raw acceleration is acceptable
jetpack/ski or jump/crouchslide can work
but things like bunnyhop are DOA, especially when people who understand the value of the mechanic are greeted with "oh u want performance? netcode? hitreg? visual clarity? lol too bad"
I know I am months late, but I want to point out something: I pre-ordered ns2 so I have played it ever since it was released. I was very unskilled and my stats were deplorable, never killed as much as I died. I stopped playing, probably in march, and started playing again the day before yesterday. The new skulk movement was not as hard to learn as people is mentioning. I didn't find out in any video. It was evident that jumping from a wall gave you a slight boost. With that little change, now I still suck playing as marine, but kill 3x the times I die as alien.
I only play in public games but never ever in a rookie server.
And this topic could be closed since it's been dead for months.
I know I am months late, but I want to point out something: I pre-ordered ns2 so I have played it ever since it was released. I was very unskilled and my stats were deplorable, never killed as much as I died. I stopped playing, probably in march, and started playing again the day before yesterday. The new skulk movement was not as hard to learn as people is mentioning. I didn't find out in any video. It was evident that jumping from a wall gave you a slight boost. With that little change, now I still suck playing as marine, but kill 3x the times I die as alien.
I only play in public games but never ever in a rookie server.
And this topic could be closed since it's been dead for months.
i hope the irony of this entire post isn't lost on you
Comments
NS2 isn't just an action game
lowering the skill ceiling of the mechanical aspects gives more weight to the strategy / teamwork / tactics.
this is fairer for competition and highlights NS2's strengths instead of its shortcomings
if NS2 was predominantly played on LAN with supercomputers and with tons of teams so that the skill gap within a division wasn't enormous, then you could argue that movement + aim are more important skills. but given the realities of NS2's engine and player base, it's more important to emphasize the other aspects
honestly, why would you pick NS2 if you want to play a rewarding combat game? there are so many better options...
Doesnt change the fact that marines won most 1v1s before and now win almost all.
I think it has less to do with wanting a combat game and more to do with wanting NS2 to have better combat in it. Obviously we all like the game, we play it competitively. I tend to agree with marshall that movement is one of the more important aspects of the game. It's certainly what sold me on it. I got into NS because of skulk movement, and almost nothing else.
in fact, you can observe this exact scenario in Quake 3. Q3's movement was limited with very little airstrafing involved. there was not much room for sideways air movement and you couldn't bunnyhop "around" corners, you had to land, turn, and then circlejump again. (seen here).
this is where Quake 3: CPMA came in, a "balance mod" that was deemed necessary to spice up "vanilla Quake 3" as it was renamed. the movement was brought much closer to the original Quakeworld in addition to many other elements in the interest of creating a "higher skill cap"
CPM duel on Aerowalk, seen here. (comparison: pre B240 Skulk)
compare this with the same map played in VQ3, seen here. (comparison: B240 Skulk)
notice how differently they play. at the end of the day, neither is more "skilled" than the other.
the gameplay elements of CPM involve speeding into an enemy and outaiming / outdodging them, where the gameplay elements of VQ3 are more focused around positioning, timing, and mindgames.
this is all easily relatable back to walljumping. the previous walljump was far too brainless for my liking. it was just too ridiculous to be able to lead charges into rooms and be nearly invincible as you could instantly change direction and go hide behind cover. the new movement (and ideally any Skulk movement) should force you to choose engagements wisely with careful consideration of positioning as well as the noise you're making.
your point aside, I do agree that the current Skulk movement is very frustrating. the acceleration alone isn't massively influential on gameplay, it just feels very unnatural. especially in comparison to marine movement, which is insanely fast. no other game has the insane fast A-D-A-D (side strafing) speeds of a marine, even Quake. in contrast, no other game has the insanely low , floaty A-D-A-D speeds of the b240 Skulk, it's comparable to Halo or other console shooter movement. this alone is one of the worst things about playing Skulk. if something just feels completely sluggish / syrupy / wrong it simply won't be fun to play regardless of what the winrates are or what the gameplay is.
on that note, please stop bringing winrate into it, it doesn't matter if it's 50/50 if all the alien losses are in the first few minutes and all the alien wins are because they held until Onos (sound familiar?). I'm not saying this is the case, it's obviously very extreme. however, I definitely believe marines have a much more significant early game presence with the Skulk movement the way it is in combination with the ridiculous mine buff. the winrate is completely insignificant if the early game is this heavily marine biased due to mines. it simply becomes a game of holding out and repeated boring Skulk deaths. this not good for gameplay, at any winrate. it does not matter if it is 50/50 or 90/10.
I'm honestly quite confused as to what direction the movement is trying to take. I thought the idea behind landing stopping your momentum was to prevent single-wall walljumping to gain massive speed, but apparently that's a bug. if the plan is to eventually reduce the Skulk mobility in this sense then they really won't be that efficient at traveling around the map at all.
people don't think map movement speed makes much of a difference, but in a game with RTS elements it's just as significant a factor in balance as gun recoil is to an FPS. for example, if Skulks barely win an engagement in the middle of the map in Crossroads, it takes that much longer for a Skulk to travel back to the hive and heal. they have no time to start causing any economic damage to the RT or set up an engagement before those same marines can spawn and walk back, let alone reinforcements from other areas. map-mobility is one of the greatest assets about playing Skulk and it's really stripped down in this build. I felt like winning engagements was incredibly minor because there was no map presence to back it up.
I'm honestly quite confused at the massive Skulk movement changes since the b230 nerf pretty much. I agree with one idea behind it, which is to not allow Skulks to charge headfirst into engagements and come out ahead.
[rant]but at this point, Skulk movement with its flaws and hidden rules is more frustrating than bunnyhopping ever was. it's incredibly map dependent and offers little depth to gameplay. I really feel a strafe acceleration movement mechanic accomplishes everything NS2 need it to, it doesn't even necessarily have to include bunnyhopping, but there's such a knee-jerk reaction to anything remotely related to bunnyhopping from typically unqualified people that I guess it's pointless to discuss.[/rant]
Both styles incorporate each characteristic of the other's, but the game's mechanics either allow you to do the former, or respectively limits you to the latter.
To reiterate lowering the movement speed mechanics of the skulk restricts the max skill (ceiling) achievable for movement, but in turn increases the skill ceiling for camping.
See I could agree with you on this perspective, but it doesn't seem right calling camping a skill. If this game had a prone button you would know why I choose not to call camping a skill. More movement requires better aim requires better skill = higher skill ceiling. Slowing down the movement turns the game into a waiting game, where both sides wait for the other to make a mistake. Believe me I've played games like that and they are not fun to play or watch.
Lol. Pro "camping" skills.
If you want to see actual skulk skill, just watch Tane's skulk and the mind games he plays with Marines. That's actual skill. Nothing to do with camping. You calling it camping is quite funny though.
Tricking your opponent and making him think you're somewhere else and then catch him off guard is definitely not camping. In fact, Marines usually deal with campers quite easily since by definition they are sitting and waiting in one spot that all the Marine has to do is have half a brain to check it.
The skulk movement isn't here to stay afaik. But there's still skill to be had with the skulk atm.. and it really shows with some of the higher tier players of ns1 that have such discipline and skill with their skulks despite the movement change.
Choosing engagements is one thing. It is a specific team skill that comes with lots of experience with a core group of players. It is a skill, but hiding spots is just experience and map knowledge, not really a skill. Constraining movement is not the way to go. Of course there has to be balance if marines are pretty slow to begin with, but whatever they did to skulk movement and restricting air movement control is just too much.
especially for a game with NS2's engine (bad performance, netcode, many other issues) & low playerbase (high pings for many)
just because something takes skill doesn't mean it's beneficial for a game.
quake doesn't need headshots
starcraft 2 doesn't need to go back to starcraft 1's UI
NS2 has its own issues, but the good parts of it always have advantages & disadvantages instead of just being recipes
- movement can either be fast OR silent, not both (unless you get silence which is a huge cost of its own)
- abilities cost energy which is a limited resource
the basic movement system out of combat is a trickier topic.
something like tribes is nice because there is the right type of skill (planning / cost / benefit) and it makes physical sense so people will actually be willing to learn it
speed vs. control like driving games sounds nice. needs acceleration though? tough to make that intuitive for a skulk without engines. maybe some sliding + jumping chaining without air control could sound reasonable enough for people to learn it... add some wall-bouncing for changing directions without losing speed and it might work
Skulks pre Gorgeous was a cakewalk.
A good trick with skulk is to hold down shift and jump while moving around, this will make you silenced and able to sneak up on 2 marines and kill one of them before the other one reacts. Luckily this act have been made harder now since my timing with the jumps have to be better (i can't just spam space anymore).
That and good old ambushing marines around corners should do the trick. Don't run down a long corridor with 5 marines shooting from the other end (duh).
I find marines to be alot harder than aliens since marines HAVE to play together in order to succeed whereas aliens can successfully run around and do their own things aslong as they kill/destroy.
That said, they should have fixed the hitbox bugs present with skulks and left it at that and seen what that did to skulk survivability. If I'm not getting shot right because of problems with the engine, that's fine. But that's also a big change to make. If somehow fixing a bug suddenly makes it so that I get hit by twice as many bullets as I used to, that change alone has balance implications and has to be looked at within the framework of the rest of the game.
I'm not a competition level skulk, but I think I'm damn good in comparison to your average pub. There are players on these forums who routinely do the "35-2 server clearing aim-bot-like marine" and who destroy me as skulk at my best. There are plenty of pubs who can't hit the broad side of a barn who I could dance circles around and take on 2 to 1 sometimes even rushing in full view and still getting a kill or two before they finished me off.
The thing is, now I really do feel like a walking brick. I feel like I have a big fat target painted on me as skulk and if I get seen before I'm in melee range I either better have a way to retreat or I'm going to die. I feel like this even on pub servers with truly terrible people. I am dying literally twice as often as I used to in situations where I might have died before but it wasn't certain. While you can say I should just adjust, the fact is that skulk is no longer fun to play. Ambushing is well and good and effective, but I want anyone who thinks these changes were needed to make skulks "what they should be" think about the real implications of making the basic combat form for aliens, the thing that everyone starts as, absolutely require greater numbers or an ambush in order to win an engagement.
Think about that for a second.
It is true that skulk, realistically speaking, has a higher skill floor than marines. It is flat out harder to be completely useless as a skulk than as a marine. You almost have to try or just afk to manage it.
Skulks have to be able to assault. Ambushing should be heavily to the skulks advantage. But a skulk should have the ability to win a stand up fight without the full element of surprise.
Shotguns are fucking terrifying now. Even with leap you simply cannot stay out of a halfway decent marine's crosshairs long enough to get the kill. The ground acceleration change is a huge part of that. Not being able to change direction and circle in the opposite direction the marine is turning to whiz through his view in a half a second and hopefully make him waste the reaction shot and get another bite in means that skulks become a liability rather than an asset after a certain point.
Before this patch I could occasionally take out JP/Shotty marines as an Adrenaline/Leap skulk with other upgrades. Not often, and even less often against really good players, but it was possible and worth trying 1 on 1. Now it's not even remotely possible unless you catch them building or welding or using an armory or something. It's not worth trying. They can JP backwards faster than you can keep up with and even if they fix wall walk once the marine forces you to change direction you're fucked, you lose all momentum and your only prayer is a perfect leap into their face and that they miss the resulting straight on shotgun blast so you don't just die.
And honestly, if you say that a skulk should never be able to take out a JP/Shotty marine 1 on 1 with both fresh no matter what the skill difference you do not have an opinion on balance worth considering because you're approaching this from an RTS type standpoint and you have to allow that this is at it's heart an FPS game. I can't imagine anyone comming this game with all AIs like it was SC2 but I can imagine if Comm functions were somewhat automated that people would still very much enjoy eating marine ankles and roasting onos with flamethrowers.
And I do not consider myself a particularly good player, neither a noob by all means, Have played about 30 games since this last patch was released, and I haven't seen any noticeable invalance in the win/loss ratio, while before I saw that aliens won a lot more often, but only when both teams had not a decent team work or communication.
But apart from winning stadistics, My own experience playing the skulk has been good so far, I can consistently win any 1vs1 with my skulk vs any marine provided he is alone and I spot him first(witch is the more usual) If I do my approach correctly, even if I cannot ambush I can still kill the marine always that I do not make some big mistake on my part.
The only difference I noticed after the patch is that it is way harder to dodge marine bullets when you are plainly IN FRONT OF HIM, witch IMHO should be hard and was too easy before, Skulks can still consistently attack a defended marine position, and I have seen it happend many times in this last two days, they just need numeric superiority or skill superiority, with makes sense and It is fair when you are attaking a bunch of people with rifles that know you are coming.
only if you look at the end result and ignore the fact that it will alienate almost everyone as soon as you put something as dumb as waggling left & right to accelerate forward
raw acceleration is acceptable
jetpack/ski or jump/crouchslide can work
but things like bunnyhop are DOA, especially when people who understand the value of the mechanic are greeted with "oh u want performance? netcode? hitreg? visual clarity? lol too bad"
plz awesome if you agree
I only play in public games but never ever in a rookie server.
And this topic could be closed since it's been dead for months.