Fades
|DFA| Havoc
Join Date: 2009-08-07 Member: 68375Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2009-08-07 Member: 68375Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Fades are broken for pub play, and they have been for pretty much the entirety of release. I don't care if they are 'fine' in competitive play, that is not what this thread is about. I am also not talking about the lifeform explosion, this is about a single fade being a nigh unstoppable killing machine.
The marines in pub games have significantly lower average levels of accuracy and coordination than competitive players, so the argument that marines simply need to learn to play / aim or coordinate / pinch is not productive.
The argument that a given player will be equally deadly on marines with a JP/shotty/whatever as they are with a fade is false. I know many people who are merely decent or good marines, but are unstoppable as fades. I have witnessed fades with 100/0 KDs on multiple occasions, and the only reason it's not more common to see the numbers that high is the games end before they have a chance. If you know what you are doing as a fade, you simply rack up unlimited kills until the match is over. There is a tremendous amount of anecdotal evidence to support this, and I would love to see the sponitor stats on fade KD ratios compared to everything else.
Furthermore, fades are able to operate far more independently and exert more map control than even the most skilled of individual marines. JP/Shotty marines need a regular influx of meds and ammo at the cost of t-res, exos need constant welding support. Jetpacks are comparatively easy to run down because of their limited fuel, and exos are easy to overwhelm because of their limited mobility. Jetpacks and exos also typically get introduced much later in the game than fades do.
From what I've seen, most people who defend fades do so because they like playing fades and don't want their favorite toy taken away. I think aliens would probably need to be tuned up in other areas to compensate for weaker fades, but the godmode absolutely needs to go.
Here come the flames.
The marines in pub games have significantly lower average levels of accuracy and coordination than competitive players, so the argument that marines simply need to learn to play / aim or coordinate / pinch is not productive.
The argument that a given player will be equally deadly on marines with a JP/shotty/whatever as they are with a fade is false. I know many people who are merely decent or good marines, but are unstoppable as fades. I have witnessed fades with 100/0 KDs on multiple occasions, and the only reason it's not more common to see the numbers that high is the games end before they have a chance. If you know what you are doing as a fade, you simply rack up unlimited kills until the match is over. There is a tremendous amount of anecdotal evidence to support this, and I would love to see the sponitor stats on fade KD ratios compared to everything else.
Furthermore, fades are able to operate far more independently and exert more map control than even the most skilled of individual marines. JP/Shotty marines need a regular influx of meds and ammo at the cost of t-res, exos need constant welding support. Jetpacks are comparatively easy to run down because of their limited fuel, and exos are easy to overwhelm because of their limited mobility. Jetpacks and exos also typically get introduced much later in the game than fades do.
From what I've seen, most people who defend fades do so because they like playing fades and don't want their favorite toy taken away. I think aliens would probably need to be tuned up in other areas to compensate for weaker fades, but the godmode absolutely needs to go.
Here come the flames.
Comments
I end up comming a lot, and the reason I don't get Exo's or JP's earlier is I have to have w/a at 2/2 to defend against the fades at 6-7min in.
I've seen other comms rush exo's 8 min in, but the marine team has always been getting torn apart by fades for 2 minutes and we end up playing defense with a1 exos at our 2 cc points. You can imagine that's not sustainable.
The real question UWE needs to ask itself in terms of balance is: "What is the alien team losing by having an entire team go fade?"
Right now the answer is nothing.
Going phase gates first means you will lose to fades. And to pretty much everything else as well.
I still see late game marines with A3/W3, jetpacks, and shotties dying to fades all the time in pub games. The upgrades don't stop fades, it just means they can't be as reckless as when they pop while marines are still at A1/W0.
I see the opposite, i.e. Texas Walker Fades walking into two shotties and grinding at one spot until they die. This is all anecdotal, and I'm feeling the exact opposite.
Now, if I joined some noob server where people are aiming with touchpads on their laptop, sure maybe I could go 50:2 on there. I have personally shot down most of an alien teams fades (3 when they had 4) simply because I was one of the only marines who could actually shoot something thats right in front of your face.
So I feel like the fade vs shotgun JP marine is fairly balanced, but if there is a skill gap on either side it will be very apparent.
The part I agree with you on is how there is no penalty to not go fade - this is because the onos is a giant pile of sh*t right now and will go down instantly if a handful of marines shoot 1 mag into it. Its a 60-84 pres punching bag that breaks in half when you punch it twice.
Fade explosion is an entirely different topic, but 1 fade shouldn't be dominating an entire team, eventually the fade will have to heavily commit to defend an important area, that's your chance.
Pretty much hit the nail on the head.
A lot of public players focus on getting RTs first instead of sending one group out to pressure. Many don't weld their teammates and the commanders seem to hate dropping meds/ammo even when the marines are deep in alien territory where they need them the most. Commanders think they have to rush phasegates for defense when their marines just need to hit their c key more often. All of these contribute to early fade domination by delaying upgrades, not delaying alien resflow for fades, and generally having weaker marines when the fades attack. Nowadays it's even worse because some comms will skip shotguns for the AA even when fades come out.
skulks can base rush with something like 95% success rate in pubs
I can solo a base with 1 IP more than half the time and I'm not even good
also, fades are a problem because marines can't fight them by the time they come out. the only option is turtling...
you can't expect marines to attack by 6 minutes when they failed at attacking by 10 minutes before
there was absolutely nothing done to help them in that regard.
marine spawn time nerf.
armory nerf.
skulk speed boost.
gorge cost decrease.
welders are 1 res cheaper, but that changes nothing
power surge exists, but that requires too much coordination
it doesn't help that any half-decent player will have more casual fun going alien and fading than trying to struggle with marines and teamwork and no margin for error
I'm honestly not sure how to go about nerfing the fade. I read somewhere that supposedly fades got a nerf to their speed last patch when blinking, not sure if it is the case but regardless. Nerfing the fade's hp much more than what it has is not something I'm a fan of, if only because right now all it takes is 2 full-on shotgun blasts to kill a fade.
Perhaps I should be asking what your idea of what the fade should be is. As far as I've ever considered, I've always thought of as our fade being an assassin. As long as he keeps his enemies surprised or disoriented, he will, for the most part, always win. If the enemy knows he is coming, or stays in a group and has com support, the fade is going to have a much tougher time of it. In other words Fades are great at picking off marines without support, but cannot do well against large numbers or buildings.
If you're suggesting this without changing the way shadowstep works, then you might just as well remove fades from the game completely. A fade with nothing but the current shadowstep wouldn't be a match to a single w1a1 lmg marine. If you'd make shadowstep viable in travel again, i.e. pre-250, then I don't see the point.
Its the ammount of fades that pop up @ the same time.
There only 2 options left in my opinion:
Find a way to split the players pres (this would end in an more mixed alienteam)
or
Bind lifeforms more on biomass (this would end in an fadeball also, but a bit later and the fades would be weaker if biomass level is not high enough)
All the other ideas like: Stronger shotguns, HMG, .. would have an impact on other lifeforms too.
Imagine a stronger shotgun. This would end in threads like:
"Skulk is useless now, 1 hit shotgun op"
Wonder why Fade becomes 'new' widespread pubstomping mechanic.
It isn't much of a mystery, or a 'problem', it is the clear and predictable result of the changes to fade.
-Colt
Also, while they increased shotgun fire rate, they also nerfed the damage, soooo... No surprises Fades seem a little nuts right now.
Dunno how to fix tho. Maybe reduce speed just a tiny bit?
The sad story of 250/251 is: all the new possible ways end always in the same result: fadeball with umbra lerk.
So the new options for the alien-com are just eyewash.
Another sad story is that 250/251 is based on 3 month of community balancing.
3 month to have over 80% alien wins in clanwars and around 65% on pub.
If you keep that in mind some should rethink there ideas like: make * stronger and everything is fine. cause its not that easy.
Werent the people complaining b249 and before that fades were pubstomping also.
not really. the community raised pretty much all the important issues, but the complaints were largely ignored
and that's kind of excusable because this game is apparently still in beta there was lots of nonsense as well among the complaints
the problem is they haven't fixed anything 2 months later...
and it's a problem because this game isn't really in beta
I believe that's what he meant by putting "new" in quotes. Making them more deadly for lower skill players has only exacerbated the issue.
@ BobRossTheBoss
The problem isn't with commanders going phase at every tech point, I do that in most comm games. The problem is that as a pub commander, without phase, you're relying exclusively on your marines being able to think for themselves or follow your orders, have some communication from each other and have some level of skill. Teching up first sounds like a reasonable strategy and it is in comp play but in pubs, it's a fools errand. Then your team whines at you because you didn't get phase gates. Until we get whittled down to a community of mostly knowledgeable and hardcore players, that is never going to happen consistently.
I'm not saying that every marine commander would rather tech up before phase but that if it was the better option in pub play, more would do it and more would catch on but it's just not. That style of strategy and build just isn't compatible holistically in pub play, the less risky and more stable option is the phase gate play. I would like to see it catch on more though, maybe it will get marine players to think for themselves and being more aggressive. It's just tough for average pubs to think like that, if they could, the fade problem imo would be drastically diminished.
That's my theory anyway, I'll command some games and see if it can work consistently but I see it as being more frustrating than successful, most marines don't even know the map key and never use the bloody thing.
I've one clipped + 2 pistoled a fade that was clearly the first time that played had ever faded, but I've also put an entire clip at a fade straight line blinking at me down a long draw and done maybe 60 damage before he killed me.
The fade's ability to crouch should just be removed. I think this might be contributing to the hitreg strangeness, as the fade's position is snapping around as he grazes the ground before jumping faster than any animation blending can keep up.
Im sure you have enough marines with aim and gamesense in clanwars. Why is the alien win ratio over 80% there?
Its possible you are hitting the blue cloudish ink effect that is created when the fade blinks away.
If a player has halfway decent skill as a fade it’s clear why they would want to go fade. They have access to blink right off the bat when they should only have shadow step. For marines that can’t hit the broad side of a barn they have no problems hitting an onos but don’t have a chance in hell hitting a fade.
vs
and the game will be fixed. Thanks for your insight.