This isn't really a strict balance issue. We can already tell that from the unchanged shotgun and the warped win loss ratios of yesterpatch. The shotgun doesn't mean aliens will always be at a disadvantage.
This may, however, be an enjoyment issue. Being one shot isn't fun. Especially not when alien spawn times are like they are.
In my opinion, the only real issue here is for skulks. Sure, a shotgun can kill you extremely quickly even as a fade or lerk, but you choose to engage, nobody forces you to. If you see a marine with a shotgun and you choose to attack him with no extra backup, you cannot then turn around and complain when he two shots you.
I don't know if Focus will ever be brought back, if they did it would be nerfed considerably. Fades would likely be reworked as well, as it stands they've got enough escape and dodge mechanics to barely be hit by the average player before getting the first hit off. With Silence, Camo, Blink, or their Shift the NS2 fade would be untouchable if the ability was dropped in right now.
Focus does not have to be brought back in it's original state though.
It does not have to double damage & halve attack rate, it could boost damage by only 50% and halve attack rate, it could boost damage by 100% but reduce attack rate by two thirds or it could remove the glancing swipe/bite cones so you have to hit accurately.
Or any combination of the above.
Balance is always achievable by experimenting with the numbers. It's just a question of how much time and effort does it take to find the right numbers.
I agree that putting focus in as it originally appeared would be broken though.
This isn't really a strict balance issue. We can already tell that from the unchanged shotgun and the warped win loss ratios of yesterpatch. The shotgun doesn't mean aliens will always be at a disadvantage.
This may, however, be an enjoyment issue. Being one shot isn't fun. Especially not when alien spawn times are like they are.
In my opinion, the only real issue here is for skulks. Sure, a shotgun can kill you extremely quickly even as a fade or lerk, but you choose to engage, nobody forces you to. If you see a marine with a shotgun and you choose to attack him with no extra backup, you cannot then turn around and complain when he two shots you.
I agree. Enjoyment is a big part of what keeps the average player playing. In my opinion, the marine side is satisfying. You got your shottie, jetpacks, rifles, mines, and Exos. Exos could use some work but I tend to feel really good in one. Even late game you usually have W3 A3 so you do not feel completely helpless/useless.
Imo, aliens do not feel as enjoyable even when you win. Skulks, the base class is frustrating and feels much slower than what it used to be. Nerfing marine movement/SG is not the solution either. Though it downright frustrating dying to one shot of the sg after you get so many bites in, the issue is the skulk is a 0 res life form and so it has to be weaker by default. But when you invest all the res into a higher life form you cannot afford to lose it for the sake of enjoyability. Losing it would mean defaulting to a skulk for a while without any res. Not to mention coming across Jet pack SG which is difficult to do anything against with the current skulk movement. Once you are in this situation you start to get frustrated at dying even when you planned an ambush. Meanwhile losing everything on marines you will still never get one shotted by an alien life form at full A3.
Sometimes I wish the entire game was based around the skulk becoming stronger passively because I find the wall crawl ability the best in the game as it feels the most alien. Sewlek's mod takes a couple of good steps in the right direction for aliens at least. If only aliens/skulks could easily be made more enjoyable without horribly skewing balance.
Problem with skulk is mainly scaling, as the game progresses past a certain point (I will call this the 'leap/cara/cele' point) skulks get noticeably weaker and more frustrating to play. Doesn't help that their third hive ability is downright useless. Not exactly a great setup for a class that you have to play the most throughout any game as aliens.
Sewlek's balance mod introduces hive scaling. We can only hope it makes it into the actual game at some point.
The problem you and others have with shotun is that you tend to get one shot in the face with those things. I say deal with it. Skulks are NOT meant to be a bunnyhopping alien which can storm into every room without dying. Skulks are meant to be sneaky. You are suppose to wait behind a wall and attack that shotgunner from behind. If you feel you are "cannon fodder" midgame/lategame you aren't playing the way you should.
When it comes to lerks and fades off course it's perfectly fine that they die in 2 hits. If you die to a shotgun you are probably over extending. Just as skulks a fade/lerk should not go head on into a room with a shotgunner because you will die. And frankly you deserve to. Sneak behind them, wait for a distraction, but for f-sakes don't run in front of them at the point of their barrel and then create a thread claiming shotgun is OP.
That's like the equivalent of walking straight in front of an onos with a jp/<insert gun here>. You just don't do that.
For the record. A shotgun fires 17 pellets which do 11 damage per. If all hit that's 187 damage (with no weapons upgrade). A base fade dies within 2 shots but a carapace fade actually does not. Only with weapon 3 you can 2-shot a carapace fade.
And even then, 33 pellets need to hit the fade in order to do so. As a fade (or lerk) you should know this. So don't go near a marine with a shotgun or go in for 1 quick hit/bite and retreat (or die.).
Shotgun getting any form of nerf will only result in alien win ratio increasing again and then it's only a matter of time before the first "Fade is op" thread will start appearing again.
So pro tip if you tend to die a lot from shotguns:
-Don't run head-first into a room with a marine with a shotgun, flank them or wait around the corner.
-If you go head-first hit once and retreat. If you think "I can get this shotgunner just 1 more hit" you are doing something which is called "Over extending" and you (as you probably know) die like 95% of the time.
-If you are a lerk use those darn spikes, wth are you thinking flying up a shotgunner
-Remeber that as a alien your armor might seem "low and not meaningfull" but armor actually stops twice the amount of damage a shotgun shot does. 100 carpace armor stops 200 shotgun damage.
-With above point taking into account heal up, don't go into a battle if you have 50 armor as a carpace fade. Wait a bit till you regen or search up a hive. A lerk and fade can friggin hop around the map in a matter of seconds it should not be hard to find a healing spot (hive/crag).
Well, it is a 20 res weapon, and since it's only effective at short range, it should be able to one shot skulks up close imo. Lerks should also know better not to get close to shotties anyway, they have spikes to deal with them. I only think fades could maybe use just a little HP or armor buff.
Let me turn this around...
The fade is a 50 res weapon, and since it's only effective at short range, it should be able to one shot marines up close imo....
Now does that make sense? I didn't think so.
The fade can easily destroy a single basic marine, as it should. The only problem is when it's facing a shotgun marine it can get in trouble quite fast, hence is why I said fades could use a small buff, instead of nerfing the shotgun.
You do understand why it would be absurd to have marines pay 20 res for a close range weapon that can't even deal with a 0 res vanilla skulk adequately? LMGs have the accuracy advantage, being able to gun a skulk down before it gets close. Shotgun is the close quarters specialisation, meaning you have to let aliens get close to you for it to be effective. If it would then require more than one shot to kill a skulk, it would need a significant boost in RoF to compensate.
In other words, the shotgun has to be able to kill a skulk faster than a skulk is able to kill a marine in close quarters, otherwise there would be no point of paying 20 res for it.
I have to agree with the OP. It was actually one of the first things I noticed as soon as I bought the game. I made a thread about it as well.
The problem is mostly one of "fun". Marines are fun throughout the game. Lost your shotgun (that counters everything but an onos) no problem, the rifle is still viable and gets damage boosts. Skulks in the end game are useless. Not only that, shotguns can be passed from one dead teammate to a living one. If you lose an alien form, your SOL. I understand exos work the same way as forms though.
Alien's seem to be a case of high risk- so so reward.
I rarely take a SG before jetpack because its so high risk and easy to lose it. It is exactly like losing an alien lifeform from a personal perspective because either it times out and disappears, gets bilebombed or your 50 res teammate who is saving for exo (hurr durr) will grab it before you can respawn.
It's annoying to die as a fade from 2-3 shots but what use would a 20 res weapon be otherwise? It's the only counter.
Skulks are excellent all game, they can backdoor structures, kill exos, flamers, GL and even have a chance at killing jetpackers.
Problem with skulk is mainly scaling, as the game progresses past a certain point (I will call this the 'leap/cara/cele' point) skulks get noticeably weaker and more frustrating to play. Doesn't help that their third hive ability is downright useless. Not exactly a great setup for a class that you have to play the most throughout any game as aliens.
Sewlek's balance mod introduces hive scaling. We can only hope it makes it into the actual game at some point.
I don't think scaling the skulks power up is necessary. I think many people do (or maybe should) accept that the skulk is not meant to be able to effectively combat shotguns. It is necessary that skulks attack shotgunners, but not that they kill them.
The issue is that dying instantly and constantly means that a large portion of your game is spent not playing. In my opinion, the ratio of playing to not playing should never ever come anywhere close to equal, and a player should never have to spend more than 25% of their time, at worst, spawning in.
For the most part I think that fades, lerks and gorges can entirely be excluded from this particular train of thought. If you die as a fade, that sucks, but chances are you were alive for a good 2-3 minutes even if you are awful. Having to then wait 13 seconds to spawn isn't a big deal. Because of this, any change to spawning mechanics would mainly affect skulk players.
I think it would be interesting if a form of hive scaling was introduced which affected spawn times. For every hive you get, spawn times are reduced by x seconds.
With one hive, spawn times should be slightly faster than they currently are, not by a massive amount though. To compensate, eggs should be made slightly weaker so its easier to kill them all off. Ideally a new equilibrium would be established that was just as balanced as the old system, with eggs being easier to kill, but faster spawning skulks making it harder to focus on them.
At two hives, spawning would be moderately faster, with skulks getting back on the field in a more timely manner after quickly being dispatched. If the marines make a concerted push against a hive, the faster spawning would hopefully be offset by the weaker eggs, and the marines ability to focus a lot of them down quickly. Of course, the other hive would still be spawning in aliens quickly, they would just have a little ways to run.
At three hives, spawning should be little more than a formality. Skulks should, at this point, be dispatched fairly quickly, and be able to rejoin the fight just as rapidly.
At four hives, spawning should be almost instant. It would actually be possible to end marine turtles through attrition with something as awful as the current xenocide.
I don't even understand what you're trying to say?
The point is that his argument that it should 1-shot was that it cost 20 res and had a small (effective) range. That argument doesn't make any sense just like the fade argument doesn't.
You do understand why it would be absurd to have marines pay 20 res for a close range weapon that can't even deal with a 0 res vanilla skulk adequately? LMGs have the accuracy advantage, being able to gun a skulk down before it gets close. Shotgun is the close quarters specialization, meaning you have to let aliens get close to you for it to be effective. If it would then require more than one shot to kill a skulk, it would need a significant boost in RoF to compensate.
In other words, the shotgun has to be able to kill a skulk faster than a skulk is able to kill a marine in close quarters, otherwise there would be no point of paying 20 res for it.
Agreed, but my argument (as it has been for a long time) is that it should not be able to 1-shot a skulk who has cara. Make it 2 shot them, that's still faster than they can get 3 (or more if you have armor upgrades) bites in and it allows for strategic decisions. When I attack a marine, I rarely am able to see what weapon they have before they fire it (ofc FT/GL are much more obvious) and thus I am not able to decide whether I should engage or not until I attack. This means that as long as the marine has good aim, he can 1-shot any skulk who attacks him. Sure, the skulk may get a bit or 2 in, but, tbh, he doesn't stand a chance.
With the ability to 1-shot, the skulk doesn't have any chance to back off once the engagement is begun. Against an LMG, the skulk can decide that the marine can aim and duck into cover and/or make a run for it. This is not possible if he gets 1-shot. Add to that the fact that it 2 shots fades/lerks and that there is this weird "smooth damage registry" whereby you can take a lot more damage than your health meter indicates, you end up with SG marines killing much more than they should be able to (again, assuming the marine can aim).
This is a rare instance, but SG marines can hold off many skulks (4-5) who attack them near simultaneously. A skulk attempting to do the same would end up as mince meat since marines are able to spread out and use their range advantage. The SG goes completely against the "marines are ranged/aliens are melee" idea since it gives the melee advantage to the marine while they are able to retain a bit of their ranged advantage as well.
My personal opinion is that in one of these beta build balance test releases (or mods) they should experiment with the SG and other things to test out what would happen if the SG's damage was lowered (or something else that achieved a similar effect) so that it could not 1-shot a skulk/2-shot lerk/fade at w0.
I would argue that the marine is in less danger when letting the alien get close than the alien is. The alien can be 1/2-shot while the marine takes 2-3 hits even at a0.
And I have proposed before that SGs have their damage halved, but RoF doubled (so they keep the same dps), but that was QQed down by all the marine players.
And I have proposed before that SGs have their damage halved, but RoF doubled (so they keep the same dps), but that was QQed down by all the marine players.
But wouldnt that change the whole role of the shotgun? It is a slow RoF high burst damage weapon. Decreasing its RoF and halfing damage would just turn it into a spam cannon (Enter L4D1 auto-shotgun) and no one wants that. The whole balance around the shotgun currently is that its rate of fire IS slow. If a fade gets in your face and you miss the first meat shot, you are going to be swiped twice before you get your second shot off. I agree that it is annoying that skulks can and often do get 1-shot by a marine that can aim but that is the beauty of the weapon. It's specs reward people who can aim and punishes people who cant.
I don't even understand what you're trying to say?
The point is that his argument that it should 1-shot was that it cost 20 res and had a small (effective) range. That argument doesn't make any sense just like the fade argument doesn't.
You do understand why it would be absurd to have marines pay 20 res for a close range weapon that can't even deal with a 0 res vanilla skulk adequately? LMGs have the accuracy advantage, being able to gun a skulk down before it gets close. Shotgun is the close quarters specialization, meaning you have to let aliens get close to you for it to be effective. If it would then require more than one shot to kill a skulk, it would need a significant boost in RoF to compensate.
In other words, the shotgun has to be able to kill a skulk faster than a skulk is able to kill a marine in close quarters, otherwise there would be no point of paying 20 res for it.
And I have proposed before that SGs have their damage halved, but RoF doubled (so they keep the same dps), but that was QQed down by all the marine players.
I'd be willing to try that out. Just to see how it plays. Although I kinda like being able to one shot a skulk. It's just very fulfilling to get that perfect hit on a skulk that's jumping in your face, even though it can be frustrating as an alien player.
Shotties are nice like this, I don't see why fades would need a buff since people say they're already OP (which they are not, in my opinion). The fade is like a "scout" to me, I always pick one or two, always trying to catch them off guard, and if I'm cautious, I shadowstep + hit, run away for a sec and shadowstep + jump to them to repeat, if I feel confident I just shadowstep dance (shadowstep in circles around the marine, hitting when passing him for those who don't know). I usually use it mostly for defending until we've pumped out some oni since not so many people react fast enough to lone rines smashing the upgrades, and the fade is pretty much the fastest lifeform so it's easy to deal with nuicances. With just some practise, you'll be untouchable by 1-2 marines at all times.
I'd be willing to try that out. Just to see how it plays. Although I kinda like being able to one shot a skulk. It's just very fulfilling to get that perfect hit on a skulk that's jumping in your face, even though it can be frustrating as an alien player.
Agreed, it is satisfying for a marine and frustrating for a skulk. That begs the question, why is something that's frustrating for one side in the game? Why does only one side get the satisfaction of 1 shots (and 2 of those to boot)? If we're going to have to have this stupid mechanic, give it to each side so everyone can be equally satisfied and frustrated...
Others have already said this, but the counter to shotguns is cautious aliens.
Range is also a counter. Lerk spiking and/or gorge spitting from a distance is a great way to AT LEAST distract shotgunners while other aliens go in for the kill. Sometimes you'll actually kill them. If anything, they run back to their armory lord and savior.
I'd be willing to try that out. Just to see how it plays. Although I kinda like being able to one shot a skulk. It's just very fulfilling to get that perfect hit on a skulk that's jumping in your face, even though it can be frustrating as an alien player.
Agreed, it is satisfying for a marine and frustrating for a skulk. That begs the question, why is something that's frustrating for one side in the game? Why does only one side get the satisfaction of 1 shots (and 2 of those to boot)? If we're going to have to have this stupid mechanic, give it to each side so everyone can be equally satisfied and frustrated...
it's very frustrating getting picked off by a fade as a LMG marine, but that's fine, right?
OK call me crazy... but I was debating this with someone from work (who also plays) and he made a simple yet interesting suggestion.
Swap shotgun and flamethrower. (in all ways, place on tech tree, cost, research time, everything.)
Both shotgun and flamethrower are short range weapons, and have limited ammo. The difference is that flamethrower has more DOT and shottie is spike damage.
You can't whip yourself around and one shot a skulk with a flamethrower. Yet the lerk would still be at risk from the shottie, which means it would remain a counter.
I haven't given it too much thought, but it does have some potential.
Shotguns are crucial for mid game fights when fades come out. Requiring a AA for shotguns is a bad idea. Getting a AA out on the field early means that marines have to sacrifice Arms Labs upgrades. A squishy marine with a shotgun is still a squishy marine.
The skulk getting 1-shot complaint is dumb. Do as others have said... Play smart... Ambush with a group... Don't attack solo... etc.
The main problem is that you can't tell whether it was a huge damage blast or a small one on you to react - to retreat or to continue fighting, until it's too late, it takes a second for it to show your 'new' health. So basically you just have to play under the assumption that they're going to wack you with a huge burst.
it's very frustrating getting picked off by a fade as a LMG marine, but that's fine, right?
Their point is that a shotgun can one-shot skulks and two-shot everything else but Oni. A LMG marine can still do a lot of damage to a Fade if he's smart, careful and aims properly (although it depends on the Fade not being insanely good).
Here's one thing aliens should try: babblers. Now that they cling to lifeforms forever and last longer, they should be able to hold off at least one shotgun blast giving enough time for the skulk to land at the very least 2 bites. Yes, that requires a Gorge and 2 pres; still cheaper than 20 pres for the shotgun.
Others have already said this, but the counter to shotguns is cautious aliens.
Range is also a counter. Lerk spiking and/or gorge spitting from a distance is a great way to AT LEAST distract shotgunners while other aliens go in for the kill. Sometimes you'll actually kill them. If anything, they run back to their armory lord and savior.
It shouldn't take 2 player and 30 res to take down 1 person and 20 res (+10 with jetpack at which point the marine still is winning 7/10 times)
If anything, shotguns should not be able to one shot Lerks, since most of their damage is coming from bites. They are huge, easily spottable targets because of their wings.
They should not one shot a carapaced skulk. I do agree with one shotting a vanilla skulk, but one shottign a carapaced skuls seems a little excessive.
Fades also should be able to take 2 1/2 shot, especially considering that there never is only one shotgun if marines play properly.
Also I am a little disappointed about the lack of mention of the jetpack + shotty combo in this thread. You know, the point where it actually starts seeming too strong.
All of the mobility comparisons shatter, as jetpacks make chasing anything but a celerity lerk / a fade a breeze.
I do agree with people saying "play more cautiously as aliens", that is the biggest reason so many people complain.
tl;dr: Shotguns are only really too strong with jetpacks, at which point they are severly hard to counter even with advanced lifeforms because they at least 2 shot everything but an onos, carapace or not.
I just felt that is the point in every game where they seem way to strong to me personally. Before that you still have some chance of getting away at times.
It's crazy to me. Half of you say just don't fight a Marine with a Shotgun, which is wrong on so many levels it doesn't even bear a response.
The other half say ambush, or back off after you land a few hits. I don't know what maps you play on, or if you play as Aliens at all, but quite a few maps involve long, tight corridors, and not many places for skulks to hide and ambush from. You know that when you enter a room you check certain spots. You must be thinking about a Marine that is completely oblivious to the ceiling even being there, which is just not realistic. And when a small pack of Marines is attacking our harvesters, or even worse, our upgrades or Hive, I should just play hit and run and HOPE that all 2-3 of them are bad at aiming a Shotgun.
Silence is great and all, but there are obvious reasons why Khammanders don't open with a Shade hive (at least, after the most recent update, which killed Camo). Shade hive comes last, and for a good reason.
Take off your rose tinted glasses. I don't play on the Alien side in order to be your target practice. I can't count how many times I've gotten 4 bites in and the Marine missed me completely until finally his 4-5th shot landed. How phenomenal. So now I just got punished because I didn't avoid EVERY SINGLE SHOT.
Carapace is next to useless after W2, other than for Onos.
Give me a fighting chance.
If I am required to land 5 bites on you as a Skulk, why can't you be bothered to land 2 shots on me when I have Carapace?
Again, this is all talking about situations where JETPACKS ARE NOT INCLUDED. That is for another time.
I want to hear about how the OP is able to 2 shot fades easily. If you can't youre just another....you know.
Learning to deal with shotguns is parallel to the learning curve marines go through when just starting the game. L2teamwork.
Bait tactics work just as well for aliens as they do marines. As a lerk or skulk you must learn when to close distances. If you are baiting, do your best to grab attention and avoid dangerous distances. That gives time for your team to close distances under all the gunfire. Why do you think UWE incorporated orientation into hive site. So you know when a shotgun is pointing away from you.
As for this unenjoyable crybaby skulking, a 0res marine is just as bad. Non-Jp lmg is essentially cannon fodder for higher life forms, the same way a skulk is to higher tech. Jp Lmg on the other hand is 10 res. guess what else is 10 res? Gorge eggs. Too many games I've played when all we needed was more bile bomb. When I lose my life form I'm gorge duty now. I deal with it.
Super tip: always get com to drop life forms so you can save for onos. Useful if you're on 2 hives.
As a marine player I would like a nerf to the shotgun, as an alien player too but mostly as a marine player.
Currently, the shotgun is sufficiently powerful that its cost makes it somewhat prohibitive, by the time I can justify spending money on a shotgun, I can probably justify waiting for exos/jetpacks before I do so. A shotgun is simply a straight damage buff, so it's not as though one on the team will make a significant difference to the team's versatility, in the way a single flamer or a single grenade launcher can do. I am willing to spend more on those weapons because they are often needed, shotguns are simply helpful.
To that end I would much rather have a less powerful shotgun, at a lower price. That way I get to retain a meaningful role for the rifle, as well as getting to choose between two different weapon/combat styles more freely, on a team where there is very little choice to be had until much later in the game.
Marine enjoyability would be enhanced, I think, by a cheap shotgun as opposed to the... unnecessarily effective one we have at the moment. It's good, certainly, but so are many things on the marine team, the shotgun just lacks a role for me beyond being the only straight weapon upgrade you can take as a jetpacker, I suppose. It's not cheap enough to be an early game option, and it's not useful or effective enough to take lategame unless you haven't got anything better to take, such as if your team is going pure jetpack and so can't use exosuits for your general purpose firepower. Midgame, well you're probably better off waiting for jetpacks/exos so your 20 res is less likely to go to waste.
Obviously it would also be nice as aliens for the marines not to have a more effective melee weapon than they do.
As a fade, the way to deal with a shotgunner is to get that 1 or 2 swipes in, and then bail the hell out, heal yourself and engage him again. The power of the aliens is their ability to decide when to engage and when to disengage; marines don't have this opportunity. If the marines are camping at an armory or defending a phase gate then yeah, it's going to get pretty difficult, but keeping the marines on the defensive IS a victory for the aliens. Aliens can keep pressure on the marine extractors while tying the marines on defense business, so fighting without getting any kills while keeping the marines on the phase gates is a comfortable position for the aliens. If the marines are pushing harvesters or a hive room, then picking off individual marines from the group becomes much more possible, as long as you still only go in for 1 or 2 swipes at a time. If you keep moving, they won't be able to land enough shots to kill you unless you're extremely unlucky. You can see this in competitive games, fades stay alive because they're extremely cautious and don't stay close to a group of marines for more than half a second at a time, and the marines they're fighting against are extremely good shots.
As a skulk, well, there's little you can do. Against early upgrade shotgunners (W0-1, A0-1) it's still entirely possible, though the marine has the upper hand (as he SHOULD), but beyond that it becomes extremely stupid to engage shotgun-wielding marines with a skulk, carapace or not. In this mid-game situation the skulk's duty is harassment, moving behind enemy lines and killing extractors, not marine-hunting. At this stage you have the fades to deal with the shotgunners, and if you don't, then you've been outplayed in macro and there's nothing to cry about shotguns being too strong.
A lerk is a supportive life form, you're supposed to wear the shotgunners down with your spikes for them to be easier targets for fades. Going for the bites is extremely risky, and a spiking lerk should never be within the range of a shotgun, which is easy to accomplish if you don't get too fixated in trying to get bites and kills.
Fades counter shotguns, shotguns counter fades, it's all pretty well balanced. The only problem here is that shotguns are stronger in the hands of inexperienced players than fades are, so I can see how shotguns might seem too powerful on public servers.
Tbh shotties are not to bad it tends to be the player on the firing end of the shottie who is bad for not attempting to even ambush or avoid his shots.
Comments
This may, however, be an enjoyment issue. Being one shot isn't fun. Especially not when alien spawn times are like they are.
In my opinion, the only real issue here is for skulks. Sure, a shotgun can kill you extremely quickly even as a fade or lerk, but you choose to engage, nobody forces you to. If you see a marine with a shotgun and you choose to attack him with no extra backup, you cannot then turn around and complain when he two shots you.
Focus does not have to be brought back in it's original state though.
It does not have to double damage & halve attack rate, it could boost damage by only 50% and halve attack rate, it could boost damage by 100% but reduce attack rate by two thirds or it could remove the glancing swipe/bite cones so you have to hit accurately.
Or any combination of the above.
Balance is always achievable by experimenting with the numbers. It's just a question of how much time and effort does it take to find the right numbers.
I agree that putting focus in as it originally appeared would be broken though.
I agree. Enjoyment is a big part of what keeps the average player playing. In my opinion, the marine side is satisfying. You got your shottie, jetpacks, rifles, mines, and Exos. Exos could use some work but I tend to feel really good in one. Even late game you usually have W3 A3 so you do not feel completely helpless/useless.
Imo, aliens do not feel as enjoyable even when you win. Skulks, the base class is frustrating and feels much slower than what it used to be. Nerfing marine movement/SG is not the solution either. Though it downright frustrating dying to one shot of the sg after you get so many bites in, the issue is the skulk is a 0 res life form and so it has to be weaker by default. But when you invest all the res into a higher life form you cannot afford to lose it for the sake of enjoyability. Losing it would mean defaulting to a skulk for a while without any res. Not to mention coming across Jet pack SG which is difficult to do anything against with the current skulk movement. Once you are in this situation you start to get frustrated at dying even when you planned an ambush. Meanwhile losing everything on marines you will still never get one shotted by an alien life form at full A3.
Sometimes I wish the entire game was based around the skulk becoming stronger passively because I find the wall crawl ability the best in the game as it feels the most alien. Sewlek's mod takes a couple of good steps in the right direction for aliens at least. If only aliens/skulks could easily be made more enjoyable without horribly skewing balance.
Sewlek's balance mod introduces hive scaling. We can only hope it makes it into the actual game at some point.
When it comes to lerks and fades off course it's perfectly fine that they die in 2 hits. If you die to a shotgun you are probably over extending. Just as skulks a fade/lerk should not go head on into a room with a shotgunner because you will die. And frankly you deserve to. Sneak behind them, wait for a distraction, but for f-sakes don't run in front of them at the point of their barrel and then create a thread claiming shotgun is OP.
That's like the equivalent of walking straight in front of an onos with a jp/<insert gun here>. You just don't do that.
For the record. A shotgun fires 17 pellets which do 11 damage per. If all hit that's 187 damage (with no weapons upgrade). A base fade dies within 2 shots but a carapace fade actually does not. Only with weapon 3 you can 2-shot a carapace fade.
And even then, 33 pellets need to hit the fade in order to do so. As a fade (or lerk) you should know this. So don't go near a marine with a shotgun or go in for 1 quick hit/bite and retreat (or die.).
Shotgun getting any form of nerf will only result in alien win ratio increasing again and then it's only a matter of time before the first "Fade is op" thread will start appearing again.
So pro tip if you tend to die a lot from shotguns:
-Don't run head-first into a room with a marine with a shotgun, flank them or wait around the corner.
-If you go head-first hit once and retreat. If you think "I can get this shotgunner just 1 more hit" you are doing something which is called "Over extending" and you (as you probably know) die like 95% of the time.
-If you are a lerk use those darn spikes, wth are you thinking flying up a shotgunner
-Remeber that as a alien your armor might seem "low and not meaningfull" but armor actually stops twice the amount of damage a shotgun shot does. 100 carpace armor stops 200 shotgun damage.
-With above point taking into account heal up, don't go into a battle if you have 50 armor as a carpace fade. Wait a bit till you regen or search up a hive. A lerk and fade can friggin hop around the map in a matter of seconds it should not be hard to find a healing spot (hive/crag).
The fade can easily destroy a single basic marine, as it should. The only problem is when it's facing a shotgun marine it can get in trouble quite fast, hence is why I said fades could use a small buff, instead of nerfing the shotgun.
You do understand why it would be absurd to have marines pay 20 res for a close range weapon that can't even deal with a 0 res vanilla skulk adequately? LMGs have the accuracy advantage, being able to gun a skulk down before it gets close. Shotgun is the close quarters specialisation, meaning you have to let aliens get close to you for it to be effective. If it would then require more than one shot to kill a skulk, it would need a significant boost in RoF to compensate.
In other words, the shotgun has to be able to kill a skulk faster than a skulk is able to kill a marine in close quarters, otherwise there would be no point of paying 20 res for it.
The problem is mostly one of "fun". Marines are fun throughout the game. Lost your shotgun (that counters everything but an onos) no problem, the rifle is still viable and gets damage boosts. Skulks in the end game are useless. Not only that, shotguns can be passed from one dead teammate to a living one. If you lose an alien form, your SOL. I understand exos work the same way as forms though.
Alien's seem to be a case of high risk- so so reward.
Marines are low risk - good reward.
It's annoying to die as a fade from 2-3 shots but what use would a 20 res weapon be otherwise? It's the only counter.
Skulks are excellent all game, they can backdoor structures, kill exos, flamers, GL and even have a chance at killing jetpackers.
I don't think scaling the skulks power up is necessary. I think many people do (or maybe should) accept that the skulk is not meant to be able to effectively combat shotguns. It is necessary that skulks attack shotgunners, but not that they kill them.
The issue is that dying instantly and constantly means that a large portion of your game is spent not playing. In my opinion, the ratio of playing to not playing should never ever come anywhere close to equal, and a player should never have to spend more than 25% of their time, at worst, spawning in.
For the most part I think that fades, lerks and gorges can entirely be excluded from this particular train of thought. If you die as a fade, that sucks, but chances are you were alive for a good 2-3 minutes even if you are awful. Having to then wait 13 seconds to spawn isn't a big deal. Because of this, any change to spawning mechanics would mainly affect skulk players.
I think it would be interesting if a form of hive scaling was introduced which affected spawn times. For every hive you get, spawn times are reduced by x seconds.
With one hive, spawn times should be slightly faster than they currently are, not by a massive amount though. To compensate, eggs should be made slightly weaker so its easier to kill them all off. Ideally a new equilibrium would be established that was just as balanced as the old system, with eggs being easier to kill, but faster spawning skulks making it harder to focus on them.
At two hives, spawning would be moderately faster, with skulks getting back on the field in a more timely manner after quickly being dispatched. If the marines make a concerted push against a hive, the faster spawning would hopefully be offset by the weaker eggs, and the marines ability to focus a lot of them down quickly. Of course, the other hive would still be spawning in aliens quickly, they would just have a little ways to run.
At three hives, spawning should be little more than a formality. Skulks should, at this point, be dispatched fairly quickly, and be able to rejoin the fight just as rapidly.
At four hives, spawning should be almost instant. It would actually be possible to end marine turtles through attrition with something as awful as the current xenocide.
The point is that his argument that it should 1-shot was that it cost 20 res and had a small (effective) range. That argument doesn't make any sense just like the fade argument doesn't.
Agreed, but my argument (as it has been for a long time) is that it should not be able to 1-shot a skulk who has cara. Make it 2 shot them, that's still faster than they can get 3 (or more if you have armor upgrades) bites in and it allows for strategic decisions. When I attack a marine, I rarely am able to see what weapon they have before they fire it (ofc FT/GL are much more obvious) and thus I am not able to decide whether I should engage or not until I attack. This means that as long as the marine has good aim, he can 1-shot any skulk who attacks him. Sure, the skulk may get a bit or 2 in, but, tbh, he doesn't stand a chance.
With the ability to 1-shot, the skulk doesn't have any chance to back off once the engagement is begun. Against an LMG, the skulk can decide that the marine can aim and duck into cover and/or make a run for it. This is not possible if he gets 1-shot. Add to that the fact that it 2 shots fades/lerks and that there is this weird "smooth damage registry" whereby you can take a lot more damage than your health meter indicates, you end up with SG marines killing much more than they should be able to (again, assuming the marine can aim).
This is a rare instance, but SG marines can hold off many skulks (4-5) who attack them near simultaneously. A skulk attempting to do the same would end up as mince meat since marines are able to spread out and use their range advantage. The SG goes completely against the "marines are ranged/aliens are melee" idea since it gives the melee advantage to the marine while they are able to retain a bit of their ranged advantage as well.
My personal opinion is that in one of these beta build balance test releases (or mods) they should experiment with the SG and other things to test out what would happen if the SG's damage was lowered (or something else that achieved a similar effect) so that it could not 1-shot a skulk/2-shot lerk/fade at w0.
I would argue that the marine is in less danger when letting the alien get close than the alien is. The alien can be 1/2-shot while the marine takes 2-3 hits even at a0.
And I have proposed before that SGs have their damage halved, but RoF doubled (so they keep the same dps), but that was QQed down by all the marine players.
But wouldnt that change the whole role of the shotgun? It is a slow RoF high burst damage weapon. Decreasing its RoF and halfing damage would just turn it into a spam cannon (Enter L4D1 auto-shotgun) and no one wants that. The whole balance around the shotgun currently is that its rate of fire IS slow. If a fade gets in your face and you miss the first meat shot, you are going to be swiped twice before you get your second shot off. I agree that it is annoying that skulks can and often do get 1-shot by a marine that can aim but that is the beauty of the weapon. It's specs reward people who can aim and punishes people who cant.
I'd be willing to try that out. Just to see how it plays. Although I kinda like being able to one shot a skulk. It's just very fulfilling to get that perfect hit on a skulk that's jumping in your face, even though it can be frustrating as an alien player.
Agreed, it is satisfying for a marine and frustrating for a skulk. That begs the question, why is something that's frustrating for one side in the game? Why does only one side get the satisfaction of 1 shots (and 2 of those to boot)? If we're going to have to have this stupid mechanic, give it to each side so everyone can be equally satisfied and frustrated...
Range is also a counter. Lerk spiking and/or gorge spitting from a distance is a great way to AT LEAST distract shotgunners while other aliens go in for the kill. Sometimes you'll actually kill them. If anything, they run back to their armory lord and savior.
it's very frustrating getting picked off by a fade as a LMG marine, but that's fine, right?
Swap shotgun and flamethrower. (in all ways, place on tech tree, cost, research time, everything.)
Both shotgun and flamethrower are short range weapons, and have limited ammo. The difference is that flamethrower has more DOT and shottie is spike damage.
You can't whip yourself around and one shot a skulk with a flamethrower. Yet the lerk would still be at risk from the shottie, which means it would remain a counter.
I haven't given it too much thought, but it does have some potential.
The skulk getting 1-shot complaint is dumb. Do as others have said... Play smart... Ambush with a group... Don't attack solo... etc.
Their point is that a shotgun can one-shot skulks and two-shot everything else but Oni. A LMG marine can still do a lot of damage to a Fade if he's smart, careful and aims properly (although it depends on the Fade not being insanely good).
Here's one thing aliens should try: babblers. Now that they cling to lifeforms forever and last longer, they should be able to hold off at least one shotgun blast giving enough time for the skulk to land at the very least 2 bites. Yes, that requires a Gorge and 2 pres; still cheaper than 20 pres for the shotgun.
It shouldn't take 2 player and 30 res to take down 1 person and 20 res (+10 with jetpack at which point the marine still is winning 7/10 times)
If anything, shotguns should not be able to one shot Lerks, since most of their damage is coming from bites. They are huge, easily spottable targets because of their wings.
They should not one shot a carapaced skulk. I do agree with one shotting a vanilla skulk, but one shottign a carapaced skuls seems a little excessive.
Fades also should be able to take 2 1/2 shot, especially considering that there never is only one shotgun if marines play properly.
Also I am a little disappointed about the lack of mention of the jetpack + shotty combo in this thread. You know, the point where it actually starts seeming too strong.
All of the mobility comparisons shatter, as jetpacks make chasing anything but a celerity lerk / a fade a breeze.
I do agree with people saying "play more cautiously as aliens", that is the biggest reason so many people complain.
tl;dr: Shotguns are only really too strong with jetpacks, at which point they are severly hard to counter even with advanced lifeforms because they at least 2 shot everything but an onos, carapace or not.
The other half say ambush, or back off after you land a few hits. I don't know what maps you play on, or if you play as Aliens at all, but quite a few maps involve long, tight corridors, and not many places for skulks to hide and ambush from. You know that when you enter a room you check certain spots. You must be thinking about a Marine that is completely oblivious to the ceiling even being there, which is just not realistic. And when a small pack of Marines is attacking our harvesters, or even worse, our upgrades or Hive, I should just play hit and run and HOPE that all 2-3 of them are bad at aiming a Shotgun.
Silence is great and all, but there are obvious reasons why Khammanders don't open with a Shade hive (at least, after the most recent update, which killed Camo). Shade hive comes last, and for a good reason.
Take off your rose tinted glasses. I don't play on the Alien side in order to be your target practice. I can't count how many times I've gotten 4 bites in and the Marine missed me completely until finally his 4-5th shot landed. How phenomenal. So now I just got punished because I didn't avoid EVERY SINGLE SHOT.
Carapace is next to useless after W2, other than for Onos.
Give me a fighting chance.
If I am required to land 5 bites on you as a Skulk, why can't you be bothered to land 2 shots on me when I have Carapace?
Again, this is all talking about situations where JETPACKS ARE NOT INCLUDED. That is for another time.
Learning to deal with shotguns is parallel to the learning curve marines go through when just starting the game. L2teamwork.
Bait tactics work just as well for aliens as they do marines. As a lerk or skulk you must learn when to close distances. If you are baiting, do your best to grab attention and avoid dangerous distances. That gives time for your team to close distances under all the gunfire. Why do you think UWE incorporated orientation into hive site. So you know when a shotgun is pointing away from you.
As for this unenjoyable crybaby skulking, a 0res marine is just as bad. Non-Jp lmg is essentially cannon fodder for higher life forms, the same way a skulk is to higher tech. Jp Lmg on the other hand is 10 res. guess what else is 10 res? Gorge eggs. Too many games I've played when all we needed was more bile bomb. When I lose my life form I'm gorge duty now. I deal with it.
Super tip: always get com to drop life forms so you can save for onos. Useful if you're on 2 hives.
Currently, the shotgun is sufficiently powerful that its cost makes it somewhat prohibitive, by the time I can justify spending money on a shotgun, I can probably justify waiting for exos/jetpacks before I do so. A shotgun is simply a straight damage buff, so it's not as though one on the team will make a significant difference to the team's versatility, in the way a single flamer or a single grenade launcher can do. I am willing to spend more on those weapons because they are often needed, shotguns are simply helpful.
To that end I would much rather have a less powerful shotgun, at a lower price. That way I get to retain a meaningful role for the rifle, as well as getting to choose between two different weapon/combat styles more freely, on a team where there is very little choice to be had until much later in the game.
Marine enjoyability would be enhanced, I think, by a cheap shotgun as opposed to the... unnecessarily effective one we have at the moment. It's good, certainly, but so are many things on the marine team, the shotgun just lacks a role for me beyond being the only straight weapon upgrade you can take as a jetpacker, I suppose. It's not cheap enough to be an early game option, and it's not useful or effective enough to take lategame unless you haven't got anything better to take, such as if your team is going pure jetpack and so can't use exosuits for your general purpose firepower. Midgame, well you're probably better off waiting for jetpacks/exos so your 20 res is less likely to go to waste.
Obviously it would also be nice as aliens for the marines not to have a more effective melee weapon than they do.
As a skulk, well, there's little you can do. Against early upgrade shotgunners (W0-1, A0-1) it's still entirely possible, though the marine has the upper hand (as he SHOULD), but beyond that it becomes extremely stupid to engage shotgun-wielding marines with a skulk, carapace or not. In this mid-game situation the skulk's duty is harassment, moving behind enemy lines and killing extractors, not marine-hunting. At this stage you have the fades to deal with the shotgunners, and if you don't, then you've been outplayed in macro and there's nothing to cry about shotguns being too strong.
A lerk is a supportive life form, you're supposed to wear the shotgunners down with your spikes for them to be easier targets for fades. Going for the bites is extremely risky, and a spiking lerk should never be within the range of a shotgun, which is easy to accomplish if you don't get too fixated in trying to get bites and kills.
Fades counter shotguns, shotguns counter fades, it's all pretty well balanced. The only problem here is that shotguns are stronger in the hands of inexperienced players than fades are, so I can see how shotguns might seem too powerful on public servers.