there is a huge gap between the prerequisites for competence between marines and aliens
the probability of finding a decent fade is higher than the probability of finding a decent marine, and the game is not balanced for this disparity
I don't care if a decent marine can rival a decent alien, because there will always be more decent aliens. that's the nature of the skill requirements for this game.
it happens in pubs. it happens in div3. it happens in div2
maybe in some iteration of the game, there was a balance at the highest levels of play... at every other level, aliens OP.
I could just as easily make a mod that raised alien HP across the board and say it was balanced. after all, marines just need to learn to aim better. 50% accuracy is for wusses. let's balance the game around 100%
If you don't want player skill to be factored into the units, go play a pure RTS like StarCraft. Even then, you'll find that the most skilled "commander" will win.
If you don't want player skill to be factored in at all, go play jokenpo. It's the most balanced game ever.
The only point I agree with you is that marines are harder than aliens. It's been like that since release, but build 250 helped a little bit. It's not huge as you say though.
Oh, and for the record: I played a pub game yesterday as aliens where we had like 4 or 5 fades at one point (myself included). We lost the game because aliens did not have teamwork and let marines have enough time to buy exos and push us out. I lost my Fade twice to the exos. Do I complain about exos being OP? Of course not, they're fine, I was at fault there. Should we have won? No, we had no teamwork. Are fades OP? Definitely not.
I will continue to say this, although I doubt that people in this thread will understand. You cannot judge the effectiveness of a lifeform based solely on its kill death ratio. This is a highly objective based game, it goes much deeper than solely getting kills.
Fades are going to have better K/Ds than pretty much anything else in this game. That's by design. They are designed to be able to kill marines pretty easily 1 on 1 and they are designed to be able to flee quickly if they are in danger so they don't die. But a Fade going 20-1 isn't necessarily tipping the balance in favor of its team. If a fade is going around picking off solo marines, what is he really doing that is making his team more likely to win? He isn't hurting the marine res flow, he isn't assisting in taking down marine bases or structures. Although it results in a pretty K/D, going around as a fade and getting cheap kills doesn't do much to affect the big picture of a game.
Marines aren't designed to get K/Ds that are as good as Fades. Dying as a marine is much more acceptable than dying as a Fade, and unless you are an amazing shot or the alien team is horribly organized you will die. Just because Fades are more capable of going 20-1 than marines (and by the way it is possible to get that kind of K/D as a marine, I've seen it done countless times) does not mean that there are more decent Fades than decent marines. Because really, a marine that continuously sacs himself to destroy alien RTs and put pressure on alien bases is actually doing more to help his team than a Fade going around by itself and scoring cheap frags.
I will continue to say this, although I doubt that people in this thread will understand. You cannot judge the effectiveness of a lifeform based solely on its kill death ratio. This is a highly objective based game, it goes much deeper than solely getting kills.
Fades are going to have better K/Ds than pretty much anything else in this game. That's by design. They are designed to be able to kill marines pretty easily 1 on 1 and they are designed to be able to flee quickly if they are in danger so they don't die. But a Fade going 20-1 isn't necessarily tipping the balance in favor of its team. If a fade is going around picking off solo marines, what is he really doing that is making his team more likely to win? He isn't hurting the marine res flow, he isn't assisting in taking down marine bases or structures. Although it results in a pretty K/D, going around as a fade and getting cheap kills doesn't do much to affect the big picture of a game.
Marines aren't designed to get K/Ds that are as good as Fades. Dying as a marine is much more acceptable than dying as a Fade, and unless you are an amazing shot or the alien team is horribly organized you will die. Just because Fades are more capable of going 20-1 than marines (and by the way it is possible to get that kind of K/D as a marine, I've seen it done countless times) does not mean that there are more decent Fades than decent marines. Because really, a marine that continuously sacs himself to destroy alien RTs and put pressure on alien bases is actually doing more to help his team than a Fade going around by itself and scoring cheap frags.
And what if you have 2/3rds of the team fade and going for those ridiculous KDs?
I will continue to say this, although I doubt that people in this thread will understand. You cannot judge the effectiveness of a lifeform based solely on its kill death ratio. This is a highly objective based game, it goes much deeper than solely getting kills.
Fades are going to have better K/Ds than pretty much anything else in this game. That's by design. They are designed to be able to kill marines pretty easily 1 on 1 and they are designed to be able to flee quickly if they are in danger so they don't die. But a Fade going 20-1 isn't necessarily tipping the balance in favor of its team. If a fade is going around picking off solo marines, what is he really doing that is making his team more likely to win? He isn't hurting the marine res flow, he isn't assisting in taking down marine bases or structures. Although it results in a pretty K/D, going around as a fade and getting cheap kills doesn't do much to affect the big picture of a game.
Marines aren't designed to get K/Ds that are as good as Fades. Dying as a marine is much more acceptable than dying as a Fade, and unless you are an amazing shot or the alien team is horribly organized you will die. Just because Fades are more capable of going 20-1 than marines (and by the way it is possible to get that kind of K/D as a marine, I've seen it done countless times) does not mean that there are more decent Fades than decent marines. Because really, a marine that continuously sacs himself to destroy alien RTs and put pressure on alien bases is actually doing more to help his team than a Fade going around by itself and scoring cheap frags.
And what if you have 2/3rds of the team fade and going for those ridiculous KDs?
Then the whole marine team is not competent enough to deal with them. All it takes is shotguns, good aiming and teamwork. Eventually you will take down one, then another, then the next one, until all of them are dead or you get exos/arc their hives/what have you. If you can't deal with Fadeballs, you still have something to learn.
games aren't 100% alien wins because they end up being 12v12 or something stupid like that, not because the game is anywhere close to balanced for its target audience (according to the developers: 6v6-8v8).
the game is designed to be this back and forth where aliens are supposed to fight back against marine aggression. instead aliens get the res advantage early game, aliens get the combat advantage mid game, and the game is about aliens breaking a turtle.
fades don't need to play the RTS. aliens already won the RTS, and it happens every single time except when marines are either stacked or competent (div1)
the game is designed to be this back and forth where aliens are supposed to fight back against marine aggression. instead aliens get the res advantage early game, aliens get the combat advantage mid game, and the game is about aliens breaking a turtle.
Don't really know how you can make this statement. Neither aliens or marines are naturally at a advantage or disadvantage. Player skill is the deciding factor for this. If you are referring to res flow, well then yes aliens don't need as much res to tech up, but the game accounts for that. In a good game between two fairly equal teams, fades should come up right as w1-a2 shotguns appear. (1-1 if you get gates to early.) And to top that off, marines often have to break alien turtles too.
the game is designed to be this back and forth where aliens are supposed to fight back against marine aggression. instead aliens get the res advantage early game, aliens get the combat advantage mid game, and the game is about aliens breaking a turtle.
Don't really know how you can make this statement. Neither aliens or marines are naturally at a advantage or disadvantage. Player skill is the deciding factor for this. If you are referring to res flow, well then yes aliens don't need as much res to tech up, but the game accounts for that. In a good game between two fairly equal teams, fades should come up right as w1-a2 shotguns appear. (1-1 if you get gates to early.) And to top that off, marines often have to break alien turtles too.
Maybe he's just having bad luck in pubs and venting his frustration here. Maybe it's because in the games he played marines spent a lot of res on useless sentries and phase gates everywhere and left teching for later. I don't know.
This thread really is pointless as you said before joshhh.
I also find it interesting that nobody complained about exos, which also tend to rack up the kills. I was votekicked out of a server twice because my railgun was destroying groundskulks and straightlerks/sentrylerks left and right.
I also find it interesting that nobody complained about exos, which also tend to rack up the kills. I was votekicked out of a server twice because my railgun was destroying groundskulks and straightlerks/sentrylerks left and right.
Indeed, I must admit to going 83 3 as an exo in combat (without losing the exo), I would have stopped as I felt bad, but one guy was raging SO HARD I kinda had to see the round out! Railguns are absolutely awesome
the game is designed to be this back and forth where aliens are supposed to fight back against marine aggression. instead aliens get the res advantage early game, aliens get the combat advantage mid game, and the game is about aliens breaking a turtle.
Don't really know how you can make this statement. Neither aliens or marines are naturally at a advantage or disadvantage. Player skill is the deciding factor for this. If you are referring to res flow, well then yes aliens don't need as much res to tech up, but the game accounts for that. In a good game between two fairly equal teams, fades should come up right as w1-a2 shotguns appear. (1-1 if you get gates to early.) And to top that off, marines often have to break alien turtles too.
looking at individual lifeforms by themselves was never really the point
NS2 is supposed to have OP marines followed by OP fades followed by OP marine late-game & OP alien 3rd hive. both sides were supposed to use their time of strength to clinch victory.
the game was designed around marines being at an advantage before fades come.
then fades are supposed to turn the game around.
that might still happen with competent marines (<1% of games)
but in everything below the highest level, it's just aliens expanding without any successful marine pressure
fades are no longer game-changers, because aliens are never behind as much as they're supposed to be. some upgrades and weapons are supposed to dominate pre-fade aliens, and that isn't happening fast enough because people keep telling marines to l2p whereas alien gets what is almost a free pass
NS2 is supposed to be a dynamic back and forth where relative power jumps in big steps and each side has a window of opportunity to use an advantage to make big plays
instead we just get aliens winning all phases of the early game and then OP exos. so it's just a sloppy mess of aliens attacking bases and marines hoping they have enough players to turtle until exos come out
they even accelerated the tech tree to eliminate those windows of opportunity
marines failed hard at pushing before? and now they're supposed to do it in even less time?
there's no dynamism left unless marines are stacked
fade needs that speed boost it gains from blinking removing when the fade jumps, currently you can move around fine without adrenaline or shadow step simply by using blink for a second then jumping 3 times rinse repeat and it makes it very difficult for marines
fade needs that speed boost it gains from blinking removing when the fade jumps, currently you can move around fine without adrenaline or shadow step simply by using blink for a second then jumping 3 times rinse repeat and it makes it very difficult for marines
You know you can continue indefinitely, barring clipping or mucking up slopes? Use strafe keys to maintain momentum.
it's just aliens expanding without any successful marine pressure
fades are no longer game-changers, because aliens are never behind as much as they're supposed to be. some upgrades and weapons are supposed to dominate pre-fade aliens, and that isn't happening fast enough because people keep telling marines to l2p whereas alien gets what is almost a free pass
Are the marines even trying to pressure RTs?
More often than not this is what I see in pubs (thanks to the influx of new players):
- Marines who go alone into the alien base trying to do something and get killed on the way because they don't check corners and can't shoot skulks (and they ignore harvesters on the way)
- Marines who waste their time killing every single cyst on their path instead of going straight to the harvester (much like skulks killing power nodes before extractors)
- Marines who are unaware of their surroundings. You know, skulks can climb walls. Smart ones will climb walls and ambush you. That does not make them OP
- Marines who do not spend any res at all because they want exos, so they stick with the LMG and nothing else even against fades
- Marines who do not buy a Welder, and even if they do, they do not weld their teammates, buildings, etc. unless there is absolutely no imminent or immediate threat (they do weld the exos... sometimes). I've welded a power node (in the main base, no less) that was one parasite close to being destroyed in a room with 4 marines. All 4 marines were waiting for an Onos to come around the corner instead of taking their time to weld the base
- Marines who stick around a room waiting for... something. An order, perhaps. The Phase Gate. Exos. Sentries. A teammate. The Onos.
- Commanders who spend all team res on sentries, second IP and robotics at start, very early phase gate tech, but not armor and weapon upgrades, nor shotguns or mines. I have to ask for them to research these or we'll be fighting Fades with LMGs, and even then it usually takes a long time because "we have no res now" (of course, I should've realized all of that res went into sentries and phase gates everywhere)
- Commanders who do not drop a single medpack or ammo pack, or react too slowly to a medpack/ammo pack request
- Not a sign of RT pressure because marines are supposedly having their asses handed to them since "aliens are always at an advantage". You do not have to be a good shot to kill RTs, you do have to be aware of your surroundings though as said above
On the alien side:
- Groundskulks, rambogorges, straightlerks, sentrylerks, walkerfades, these kinds of things. Please don't pretend these do not exist, although they become rare with time
- Commanders who spend all team res on whips, shades, crags all over the place before upgrades, usually several of them in the same room. At least aliens can still get lerks, fades, etc. without requiring a research like shotguns which might explain why aliens are at an "advantage", but still...
- Not much RT pressure either, even though skulks move fast, climb walls, can use vents early on, all that. It should be easier to hit the marine base with those traits, but they prefer to hit power nodes and marines instead. I guess that's why marines build so many sentries all over the map instead of, you know, researching mines and having players spend their res on these extremely helpful weapons on the early game
- Aliens who try to base rush, fail, rinse and repeat
As I said before, I agree with you that marines are harder to play, but please reassess the game strategies you've been seeing before complaning that aliens have the advantage. Marines have a lot more opportunity to screw things up. It's harder to screw up as aliens since they're fast, they do not require researches to evolve to higher lifeforms, there aren't many places to waste team res and alien commading is generally easier than marine commanding.
Marines can dominate aliens just fine before fades, provided their commander is spending res properly and the marines are pressuring the alien base. The same is true for aliens before jetpacks/exos. Games can end before aliens have fades/marines have jetpacks/exos, team stacking not required.
fade needs that speed boost it gains from blinking removing when the fade jumps, currently you can move around fine without adrenaline or shadow step simply by using blink for a second then jumping 3 times rinse repeat and it makes it very difficult for marines
This will only happen if Blink becomes nearly free, which is never.
Fades are supposed to move fast and be hard to hit. The price they have to pay is energy, and if they spend all of it, they risk having to walk away from the battle, possibly dying in the process.
I will continue to say this, although I doubt that people in this thread will understand. You cannot judge the effectiveness of a lifeform based solely on its kill death ratio. This is a highly objective based game, it goes much deeper than solely getting kills.
Fades are going to have better K/Ds than pretty much anything else in this game. That's by design. They are designed to be able to kill marines pretty easily 1 on 1 and they are designed to be able to flee quickly if they are in danger so they don't die. But a Fade going 20-1 isn't necessarily tipping the balance in favor of its team. If a fade is going around picking off solo marines, what is he really doing that is making his team more likely to win? He isn't hurting the marine res flow, he isn't assisting in taking down marine bases or structures. Although it results in a pretty K/D, going around as a fade and getting cheap kills doesn't do much to affect the big picture of a game.
Marines aren't designed to get K/Ds that are as good as Fades. Dying as a marine is much more acceptable than dying as a Fade, and unless you are an amazing shot or the alien team is horribly organized you will die. Just because Fades are more capable of going 20-1 than marines (and by the way it is possible to get that kind of K/D as a marine, I've seen it done countless times) does not mean that there are more decent Fades than decent marines. Because really, a marine that continuously sacs himself to destroy alien RTs and put pressure on alien bases is actually doing more to help his team than a Fade going around by itself and scoring cheap frags.
And what if you have 2/3rds of the team fade and going for those ridiculous KDs?
Then the whole marine team is not competent enough to deal with them. All it takes is shotguns, good aiming and teamwork. Eventually you will take down one, then another, then the next one, until all of them are dead or you get exos/arc their hives/what have you. If you can't deal with Fadeballs, you still have something to learn.
Striker, you don't understand. In a 6v6 the only time fades should die is if they solo or over commit on poor targets.
Played a game yesterday against some decent marines (ADHD, Jewbear, Ritual, blind) and our fade ball ran circles around the marines hitting the res behind them and killing the capper then wiping out any small pressure they committed to. It's so easy to pick your fights as fades because you're so mobile you have that extra bit of time to decide.
For example.
5 man pressure? Base rush
4 man pressure? Base rush
3 man pressure? Wipe phase gate and pick off pressure group.
2 man pressure? Get res biter through if possible and then clear pressure.
1 man pressure? lol dead.
0 man pressure? Greedy khamm and res ripping fades.
Ok, so the problem now is the fadeball, not the fade by itself. I have to admit I haven't played 6v6 or competitive since build 250, so I can't really tell if that is really a problem, but I'll assume it is (even though there are some important details missing on your match report, like how many fades were there, what tech both sides had and who was on your team).
Let's think about why that happens. You see, every alien player has his own personal res pool. Everyone earns it at the same rate. Eventually everyone who has not spent their res will have 40 or 45 res and go fade all at the same time. Those who did spend will eventually die and save for fade. Boom, fadeball.
Now, how could we prevent this?
- Make certain higher lifeforms only available through egg drops (Fade and Onos most likely)? That would tie them to the tech level as well. But keep in mind claw exos and jetpacks are available at 1 base.
- What if there was a limit on the number of fades, like in Combat? Maybe 1 for every 3 players on the team? Should exos be limited in numbers too?
NS2 is supposed to have OP marines followed by OP fades followed by OP marine late-game & OP alien 3rd hive. both sides were supposed to use their time of strength to clinch victory.
the game was designed around marines being at an advantage before fades come.
then fades are supposed to turn the game around.
NS2 is supposed to be a dynamic back and forth where relative power jumps in big steps and each side has a window of opportunity to use an advantage to make big plays
Where did you get this information? I don't ever recall hearing UWE say this is how the game is suppose to be. Either you're presenting how you think the game should be or you're some kind of mind-reading wizard. I can't tell.
IIRC, the game is designed to give the advantage to the more skilled team. (Unless you get Alien top spawn on Tram. :P)
Honestly, I feel like fade wouldn't be as big a problem if we got rid of the stupid purple smoke. I'm talking about the puff that obscures the fade everytime he enters blink.
You still would need to fix fade ball and map mobility, but actually being able to see things properly through blink spam would go a long way. Then you're not just relying on shotgun to snap shot fades.
Ok, so the problem now is the fadeball, not the fade by itself. I have to admit I haven't played 6v6 or competitive since build 250, so I can't really tell if that is really a problem, but I'll assume it is (even though there are some important details missing on your match report, like how many fades were there, what tech both sides had and who was on your team).
Let's think about why that happens. You see, every alien player has his own personal res pool. Everyone earns it at the same rate. Eventually everyone who has not spent their res will have 40 or 45 res and go fade all at the same time. Those who did spend will eventually die and save for fade. Boom, fadeball.
Now, how could we prevent this?
- Make certain higher lifeforms only available through egg drops (Fade and Onos most likely)? That would tie them to the tech level as well. But keep in mind claw exos and jetpacks are available at 1 base.
- What if there was a limit on the number of fades, like in Combat? Maybe 1 for every 3 players on the team? Should exos be limited in numbers too?
Every post I've made since page 4 contributes to my argument that 1 fade alone is not OP and that the fade ball is the problem. Anyone thinking otherwise is wrong for reasons you've stated about trapping/aim etc and the fact that fade balls are the biggest contributing factor to the demise of many marine teams.
Your suggestion about tres fades only is an interesting idea. The shotguns would have to have the same rule apply to them as well then for marines. But this is boring play for a random person just wanting to join in the fight with whatever weapon they want.
Unfortunately 1 fade on it's own is not hard to beat, and the rest of the fades would be too slow to come out.
Limiting the number of fades per team is also boring for players and frustrating if a bad player picks it up and wastes it. Also if we use the pres system still, you have a never ending ball of fades.
I still stand by my solution to scale skulks up better, fade hp lower slightly, fade structure damage lower, onos more viable.
In MMORPGs there's a term "flavour of the month". Fades are flavour of the month and need to be nerfed to make other lifeforms more viable for structure damage or tanking. It should not be optimal that out of 5 lifeforms, you have 4 or 5 of the same.
Make structure damage done by a fade negligible. Force teams to have skulks and gorges present to take down a gate. That would at least reduce the fade ball to about 3 fades instead of the 4 man ball.
Your suggestion about tres fades only is an interesting idea. The shotguns would have to have the same rule apply to them as well then for marines. But this is boring play for a random person just wanting to join in the fight with whatever weapon they want.
Unfortunately 1 fade on it's own is not hard to beat, and the rest of the fades would be too slow to come out.
Limiting the number of fades per team is also boring for players and frustrating if a bad player picks it up and wastes it. Also if we use the pres system still, you have a never ending ball of fades.
Yeah, even if res costs were adjusted to make it viable it would not reduce the boringness factor. Also, that adds one more possibility for commanders to screw up/troll the team.
The fade limit is supposed to be a maximum number of fades at any point in time, not a resource which you spend and it's gone. With that, 1 fade per 3 players would mean at most 2 fades on a 6v6 at any point in time. I believe this would not work well in pub games though. But still, I'd like to experiment with that.
it's just aliens expanding without any successful marine pressure
fades are no longer game-changers, because aliens are never behind as much as they're supposed to be. some upgrades and weapons are supposed to dominate pre-fade aliens, and that isn't happening fast enough because people keep telling marines to l2p whereas alien gets what is almost a free pass
Are the marines even trying to pressure RTs?
...
As I said before, I agree with you that marines are harder to play, but please reassess the game strategies you've been seeing before complaning that aliens have the advantage. Marines have a lot more opportunity to screw things up. It's harder to screw up as aliens since they're fast, they do not require researches to evolve to higher lifeforms, there aren't many places to waste team res and alien commading is generally easier than marine commanding.
Marines can dominate aliens just fine before fades, provided their commander is spending res properly and the marines are pressuring the alien base. The same is true for aliens before jetpacks/exos. Games can end before aliens have fades/marines have jetpacks/exos, team stacking not required.
I am fully aware of the strategies. what you fail to realize is that execution is what wins games, and the bar for alien competence is so much lower and has been decreasing.
You know all those strategies pre b250 to kill res and hives before fadeplosion? now marines are expected to make them work in a lot less time if they want to avoid playing the turtle game.
even if by some miracle your random group of pub marines knows what pressure is, that doesn't mean they can necessarily make it work well.
relatively nobody cares how good the marine strategies are if NOBODY can execute them effectively except the most elite teams.
even now, the best teams are only going to succeed at them if they completely dominate with rifle/shotgun.
as I said, I can give all aliens more HP and nothing changes if I expect marines to just aim better.
NS2 is supposed to have OP marines followed by OP fades followed by OP marine late-game & OP alien 3rd hive. both sides were supposed to use their time of strength to clinch victory.
the game was designed around marines being at an advantage before fades come.
then fades are supposed to turn the game around.
NS2 is supposed to be a dynamic back and forth where relative power jumps in big steps and each side has a window of opportunity to use an advantage to make big plays
Where did you get this information? I don't ever recall hearing UWE say this is how the game is suppose to be. Either you're presenting how you think the game should be or you're some kind of mind-reading wizard. I can't tell.
IIRC, the game is designed to give the advantage to the more skilled team. (Unless you get Alien top spawn on Tram. :P)
Go look at the tech tree (esp. pre b250)
Go look at things are staggered and what it accomplishes
graph 'combat strength' over time. look how it isn't a smooth curve but jumps with tech or other purchases/explosions
if the devs wanted pre-fade aliens to be able to compete with marine upgrades, shotguns, and arcs, they would have designed the game completely differently
if they wanted the attack windows to shrink, they would have designed the game differently a long time ago
If the game is designed to give advantage to the more skilled team, they have failed miserably because aliens are winning without much skill at all while marines are only winning when they completely outskill the enemy
but keep telling marines to "get some skill"
even if they learn to play after 1000 hours compared to aliens spending 200 hours, they will still never learn to aim
Everything you said is still your own interpretation of the tech path and the graphs. The game is asymmetrical. If they wanted a perfectly linear "combat strength" graph, they would have created a marine vs marine game with a mirrored tech tree. I am not arguing the game is perfectly balanced. It is just not as bad as you are making it out to be.
Also, nowhere in my post did I say anything about L2P or "get skill."
I also find it interesting that nobody complained about exos, which also tend to rack up the kills. I was votekicked out of a server twice because my railgun was destroying groundskulks and straightlerks/sentrylerks left and right.
railguns have the job to kill skulks and lerks. they also cost a lot of res. and by the way exos got nerfed in 251. the fade was never nerfed. and compared to an onos is killing and exo much easier. just 2 or 3 good jumping skulks and an exo can have a problem
Everything you said is still your own interpretation of the tech path and the graphs. The game is asymmetrical. If they wanted a perfectly linear "combat strength" graph, they would have created a marine vs marine game with a mirrored tech tree. I am not arguing the game is perfectly balanced. It is just not as bad as you are making it out to be.
Also, nowhere in my post did I say anything about L2P or "get skill."
asymmetrical does not mean: " no balance possible". it is possible! they just have to try and try again changing res-system or abbilities. i would try to give the marines more speed and a little bit more health. than see what it does to the new statistics. if we can get closer to 50:50 our job is done! or simply nerf the fades. there is a lot you can do to give more balancing to the game
Comments
the probability of finding a decent fade is higher than the probability of finding a decent marine, and the game is not balanced for this disparity
I don't care if a decent marine can rival a decent alien, because there will always be more decent aliens. that's the nature of the skill requirements for this game.
it happens in pubs. it happens in div3. it happens in div2
maybe in some iteration of the game, there was a balance at the highest levels of play... at every other level, aliens OP.
I could just as easily make a mod that raised alien HP across the board and say it was balanced. after all, marines just need to learn to aim better. 50% accuracy is for wusses. let's balance the game around 100%
If you don't want player skill to be factored in at all, go play jokenpo. It's the most balanced game ever.
The only point I agree with you is that marines are harder than aliens. It's been like that since release, but build 250 helped a little bit. It's not huge as you say though.
Oh, and for the record: I played a pub game yesterday as aliens where we had like 4 or 5 fades at one point (myself included). We lost the game because aliens did not have teamwork and let marines have enough time to buy exos and push us out. I lost my Fade twice to the exos. Do I complain about exos being OP? Of course not, they're fine, I was at fault there. Should we have won? No, we had no teamwork. Are fades OP? Definitely not.
Really have to disagree here.
Fades are going to have better K/Ds than pretty much anything else in this game. That's by design. They are designed to be able to kill marines pretty easily 1 on 1 and they are designed to be able to flee quickly if they are in danger so they don't die. But a Fade going 20-1 isn't necessarily tipping the balance in favor of its team. If a fade is going around picking off solo marines, what is he really doing that is making his team more likely to win? He isn't hurting the marine res flow, he isn't assisting in taking down marine bases or structures. Although it results in a pretty K/D, going around as a fade and getting cheap kills doesn't do much to affect the big picture of a game.
Marines aren't designed to get K/Ds that are as good as Fades. Dying as a marine is much more acceptable than dying as a Fade, and unless you are an amazing shot or the alien team is horribly organized you will die. Just because Fades are more capable of going 20-1 than marines (and by the way it is possible to get that kind of K/D as a marine, I've seen it done countless times) does not mean that there are more decent Fades than decent marines. Because really, a marine that continuously sacs himself to destroy alien RTs and put pressure on alien bases is actually doing more to help his team than a Fade going around by itself and scoring cheap frags.
And what if you have 2/3rds of the team fade and going for those ridiculous KDs?
Then the whole marine team is not competent enough to deal with them. All it takes is shotguns, good aiming and teamwork. Eventually you will take down one, then another, then the next one, until all of them are dead or you get exos/arc their hives/what have you. If you can't deal with Fadeballs, you still have something to learn.
the game is designed to be this back and forth where aliens are supposed to fight back against marine aggression. instead aliens get the res advantage early game, aliens get the combat advantage mid game, and the game is about aliens breaking a turtle.
fades don't need to play the RTS. aliens already won the RTS, and it happens every single time except when marines are either stacked or competent (div1)
Don't really know how you can make this statement. Neither aliens or marines are naturally at a advantage or disadvantage. Player skill is the deciding factor for this. If you are referring to res flow, well then yes aliens don't need as much res to tech up, but the game accounts for that. In a good game between two fairly equal teams, fades should come up right as w1-a2 shotguns appear. (1-1 if you get gates to early.) And to top that off, marines often have to break alien turtles too.
Maybe he's just having bad luck in pubs and venting his frustration here. Maybe it's because in the games he played marines spent a lot of res on useless sentries and phase gates everywhere and left teching for later. I don't know.
This thread really is pointless as you said before joshhh.
Hmm.
less newbies as the old ones learned.
Indeed, I must admit to going 83 3 as an exo in combat (without losing the exo), I would have stopped as I felt bad, but one guy was raging SO HARD I kinda had to see the round out! Railguns are absolutely awesome
looking at individual lifeforms by themselves was never really the point
NS2 is supposed to have OP marines followed by OP fades followed by OP marine late-game & OP alien 3rd hive. both sides were supposed to use their time of strength to clinch victory.
the game was designed around marines being at an advantage before fades come.
then fades are supposed to turn the game around.
that might still happen with competent marines (<1% of games)
but in everything below the highest level, it's just aliens expanding without any successful marine pressure
fades are no longer game-changers, because aliens are never behind as much as they're supposed to be. some upgrades and weapons are supposed to dominate pre-fade aliens, and that isn't happening fast enough because people keep telling marines to l2p whereas alien gets what is almost a free pass
NS2 is supposed to be a dynamic back and forth where relative power jumps in big steps and each side has a window of opportunity to use an advantage to make big plays
instead we just get aliens winning all phases of the early game and then OP exos. so it's just a sloppy mess of aliens attacking bases and marines hoping they have enough players to turtle until exos come out
they even accelerated the tech tree to eliminate those windows of opportunity
marines failed hard at pushing before? and now they're supposed to do it in even less time?
there's no dynamism left unless marines are stacked
You know you can continue indefinitely, barring clipping or mucking up slopes? Use strafe keys to maintain momentum.
Are the marines even trying to pressure RTs?
More often than not this is what I see in pubs (thanks to the influx of new players):
- Marines who go alone into the alien base trying to do something and get killed on the way because they don't check corners and can't shoot skulks (and they ignore harvesters on the way)
- Marines who waste their time killing every single cyst on their path instead of going straight to the harvester (much like skulks killing power nodes before extractors)
- Marines who are unaware of their surroundings. You know, skulks can climb walls. Smart ones will climb walls and ambush you. That does not make them OP
- Marines who do not spend any res at all because they want exos, so they stick with the LMG and nothing else even against fades
- Marines who do not buy a Welder, and even if they do, they do not weld their teammates, buildings, etc. unless there is absolutely no imminent or immediate threat (they do weld the exos... sometimes). I've welded a power node (in the main base, no less) that was one parasite close to being destroyed in a room with 4 marines. All 4 marines were waiting for an Onos to come around the corner instead of taking their time to weld the base
- Marines who stick around a room waiting for... something. An order, perhaps. The Phase Gate. Exos. Sentries. A teammate. The Onos.
- Commanders who spend all team res on sentries, second IP and robotics at start, very early phase gate tech, but not armor and weapon upgrades, nor shotguns or mines. I have to ask for them to research these or we'll be fighting Fades with LMGs, and even then it usually takes a long time because "we have no res now" (of course, I should've realized all of that res went into sentries and phase gates everywhere)
- Commanders who do not drop a single medpack or ammo pack, or react too slowly to a medpack/ammo pack request
- Not a sign of RT pressure because marines are supposedly having their asses handed to them since "aliens are always at an advantage". You do not have to be a good shot to kill RTs, you do have to be aware of your surroundings though as said above
On the alien side:
- Groundskulks, rambogorges, straightlerks, sentrylerks, walkerfades, these kinds of things. Please don't pretend these do not exist, although they become rare with time
- Commanders who spend all team res on whips, shades, crags all over the place before upgrades, usually several of them in the same room. At least aliens can still get lerks, fades, etc. without requiring a research like shotguns which might explain why aliens are at an "advantage", but still...
- Not much RT pressure either, even though skulks move fast, climb walls, can use vents early on, all that. It should be easier to hit the marine base with those traits, but they prefer to hit power nodes and marines instead. I guess that's why marines build so many sentries all over the map instead of, you know, researching mines and having players spend their res on these extremely helpful weapons on the early game
- Aliens who try to base rush, fail, rinse and repeat
As I said before, I agree with you that marines are harder to play, but please reassess the game strategies you've been seeing before complaning that aliens have the advantage. Marines have a lot more opportunity to screw things up. It's harder to screw up as aliens since they're fast, they do not require researches to evolve to higher lifeforms, there aren't many places to waste team res and alien commading is generally easier than marine commanding.
Marines can dominate aliens just fine before fades, provided their commander is spending res properly and the marines are pressuring the alien base. The same is true for aliens before jetpacks/exos. Games can end before aliens have fades/marines have jetpacks/exos, team stacking not required.
This will only happen if Blink becomes nearly free, which is never.
Fades are supposed to move fast and be hard to hit. The price they have to pay is energy, and if they spend all of it, they risk having to walk away from the battle, possibly dying in the process.
Striker, you don't understand. In a 6v6 the only time fades should die is if they solo or over commit on poor targets.
Played a game yesterday against some decent marines (ADHD, Jewbear, Ritual, blind) and our fade ball ran circles around the marines hitting the res behind them and killing the capper then wiping out any small pressure they committed to. It's so easy to pick your fights as fades because you're so mobile you have that extra bit of time to decide.
For example.
5 man pressure? Base rush
4 man pressure? Base rush
3 man pressure? Wipe phase gate and pick off pressure group.
2 man pressure? Get res biter through if possible and then clear pressure.
1 man pressure? lol dead.
0 man pressure? Greedy khamm and res ripping fades.
Let's think about why that happens. You see, every alien player has his own personal res pool. Everyone earns it at the same rate. Eventually everyone who has not spent their res will have 40 or 45 res and go fade all at the same time. Those who did spend will eventually die and save for fade. Boom, fadeball.
Now, how could we prevent this?
- Make certain higher lifeforms only available through egg drops (Fade and Onos most likely)? That would tie them to the tech level as well. But keep in mind claw exos and jetpacks are available at 1 base.
- What if there was a limit on the number of fades, like in Combat? Maybe 1 for every 3 players on the team? Should exos be limited in numbers too?
IIRC, the game is designed to give the advantage to the more skilled team. (Unless you get Alien top spawn on Tram. :P)
You still would need to fix fade ball and map mobility, but actually being able to see things properly through blink spam would go a long way. Then you're not just relying on shotgun to snap shot fades.
Every post I've made since page 4 contributes to my argument that 1 fade alone is not OP and that the fade ball is the problem. Anyone thinking otherwise is wrong for reasons you've stated about trapping/aim etc and the fact that fade balls are the biggest contributing factor to the demise of many marine teams.
Your suggestion about tres fades only is an interesting idea. The shotguns would have to have the same rule apply to them as well then for marines. But this is boring play for a random person just wanting to join in the fight with whatever weapon they want.
Unfortunately 1 fade on it's own is not hard to beat, and the rest of the fades would be too slow to come out.
Limiting the number of fades per team is also boring for players and frustrating if a bad player picks it up and wastes it. Also if we use the pres system still, you have a never ending ball of fades.
I still stand by my solution to scale skulks up better, fade hp lower slightly, fade structure damage lower, onos more viable.
In MMORPGs there's a term "flavour of the month". Fades are flavour of the month and need to be nerfed to make other lifeforms more viable for structure damage or tanking. It should not be optimal that out of 5 lifeforms, you have 4 or 5 of the same.
Yeah, even if res costs were adjusted to make it viable it would not reduce the boringness factor. Also, that adds one more possibility for commanders to screw up/troll the team.
The fade limit is supposed to be a maximum number of fades at any point in time, not a resource which you spend and it's gone. With that, 1 fade per 3 players would mean at most 2 fades on a 6v6 at any point in time. I believe this would not work well in pub games though. But still, I'd like to experiment with that.
That sounds reasonable.
I think we should talk about those ideas on Sewlek's Beta Test Mod thread.
I am fully aware of the strategies. what you fail to realize is that execution is what wins games, and the bar for alien competence is so much lower and has been decreasing.
You know all those strategies pre b250 to kill res and hives before fadeplosion? now marines are expected to make them work in a lot less time if they want to avoid playing the turtle game.
even if by some miracle your random group of pub marines knows what pressure is, that doesn't mean they can necessarily make it work well.
relatively nobody cares how good the marine strategies are if NOBODY can execute them effectively except the most elite teams.
even now, the best teams are only going to succeed at them if they completely dominate with rifle/shotgun.
as I said, I can give all aliens more HP and nothing changes if I expect marines to just aim better.
Go look at the tech tree (esp. pre b250)
Go look at things are staggered and what it accomplishes
graph 'combat strength' over time. look how it isn't a smooth curve but jumps with tech or other purchases/explosions
if the devs wanted pre-fade aliens to be able to compete with marine upgrades, shotguns, and arcs, they would have designed the game completely differently
if they wanted the attack windows to shrink, they would have designed the game differently a long time ago
If the game is designed to give advantage to the more skilled team, they have failed miserably because aliens are winning without much skill at all while marines are only winning when they completely outskill the enemy
but keep telling marines to "get some skill"
even if they learn to play after 1000 hours compared to aliens spending 200 hours, they will still never learn to aim
Also, nowhere in my post did I say anything about L2P or "get skill."
railguns have the job to kill skulks and lerks. they also cost a lot of res. and by the way exos got nerfed in 251. the fade was never nerfed. and compared to an onos is killing and exo much easier. just 2 or 3 good jumping skulks and an exo can have a problem
asymmetrical does not mean: " no balance possible". it is possible! they just have to try and try again changing res-system or abbilities. i would try to give the marines more speed and a little bit more health. than see what it does to the new statistics. if we can get closer to 50:50 our job is done! or simply nerf the fades. there is a lot you can do to give more balancing to the game