At this point, in the vast majority of games on marines, everyone buys exos and everyone buys GLs and this is what is causing a lot of losses to occur. In conjunction with lack of aggression, lack of comm support and ignoring W/A upgrades until later, it results in a 70% win rate for aliens in public. I assume that the early fade ball is what is dominating marines at the moment in competitive, even on the balance cup mod.
Watching fades constantly get 2 full shotgun blasts in the face and be fast enough to be out of the room before that 3rd shot reloads is absurd, only to come back 20 seconds later with full hp and own your face because the majority of comms refuse to drop any kind of support at their own initiative. Saying that, getting 2 solid shotgun hits as an average player vs an average fade is a lot harder than it sounds. The effort effectiveness gap of fade vs a shotgun marine is so huge, the risk reward is also vastly in favor of fade. If you always play superbly and smartly, you will NEVER die in a public game until dual miniguns come out and in force.
I'm seriously hoping that fades are looked at in the content patch and the near future because playing marines is just an absolute chore at the moment vs a decent alien team. Specifically I'm hoping for an initial res cost back up to 50. Might give marines more than 8 minutes to tech up until a fade ball starts handing them their concede button.
TL;DR - Skill cap between fade and shotgun marine is extremely large. Lack of knowledge and understanding from grunts and commanders makes for dominant fades.
simply, fade has too much gap between high skill and low skill player.
I think what people are actually saying is that there are three tiers of fade, new fades, middle tier fades and God tier fades, with very few people staying new tier, and very few people being forced to up their game into God tier.
"Saying that, getting 2 solid shotgun hits as an average player vs an average fade is a lot harder than it sounds. The effort effectiveness gap of fade vs a shotgun marine is so huge, the risk reward is also vastly in favor of fade."
^ I agree completely with this statement. In most cases a successful encounter with a Fade simply means you were able to cause them to retreat. Unless ridiculously overcommitting or trapped a Fade will very rarely die. So even if you do manage to get a decent shotgun blast or two the fade will simply retreat and re-engage you 20 seconds later with full health while the marine is likely wounded or at least without armor (as no one else ever buys welders).
simply, fade has too much gap between high skill and low skill player.
I think what people are actually saying is that there are three tiers of fade, new fades, middle tier fades and God tier fades, with very few people staying new tier, and very few people being forced to up their game into God tier.
I totally agree with this. Unless you're against competitive/really good players, there's no incentive or requirement to improve beyond middle tier in pub games. Vs middle tier fades, you're often required as a shotgunner to be diligent at improving your accuracy. You can't be a middle tier shotgunner and do consistently well compared to a middle tier fade, even with a jetpack.
In my opinion the fade should just scale better with bio mass. It may stay at 40 res, but be really fragile at low bio mass levels.
If it took only 1 1/2 shot gun shots to kill a fade, it would be risky to go fade at the 6 minute mark.
I also think that Umbra is available too early on bio mass 3.
The bio mass tree should be changed to
tunnel > bile > leap > umbra > shadow step > spores > etc (or even shadow step > umbra)
Leap on bio mass 3 would benefit alien diversity, because the balance transition from mostly non leap skulks to fades would be smoother. You wouldn't necessarily be forced to go fade to deal with the increasing pressure of the first upgrades and shotguns. The adrenaline cost might need to be increased a little though.
Umbra on the other hand makes a pack of skulks (/ fades) with a gorge almost unkillable in the early and mid game.
I want umbra to become a problem before we nerf it, lol. People need to figure out it's REALLY good. Just like buying welders+getting medpacks.
Didn't say nerfing, just making it available later, having it require a second hive in exchange for earlier leap.
Most of the games I play leap doesn't even appear after 15 minutes, because at time you can research it, you're already about to have fades on the field.
And just because a lot of people don't utilize (early) umbra, doesn't mean it's not a problem.
Those who do just steam roll public marines.
I want umbra to become a problem before we nerf it, lol. People need to figure out it's REALLY good. Just like buying welders+getting medpacks.
Didn't say nerfing, just making it available later, having it require a second hive in exchange for earlier leap.
Most of the games I play leap doesn't even appear after 15 minutes, because at time you can research it, you're already about to have fades on the field.
And just because a lot of people don't utilize (early) umbra, doesn't mean it's not a problem.
Those who do just steam roll public marines.
leap is pretty OP, and deserves to be on second hive. summer cup just moved umbra to 4 biomass and had no 3 biomass unlock.
I want umbra to become a problem before we nerf it, lol. People need to figure out it's REALLY good. Just like buying welders+getting medpacks.
Didn't say nerfing, just making it available later, having it require a second hive in exchange for earlier leap.
Most of the games I play leap doesn't even appear after 15 minutes, because at time you can research it, you're already about to have fades on the field.
And just because a lot of people don't utilize (early) umbra, doesn't mean it's not a problem.
Those who do just steam roll public marines.
leap is pretty OP, and deserves to be on second hive. summer cup just moved umbra to 4 biomass and had no 3 biomass unlock.
Yep, that's why I suggest a slight increase in energy cost. It is a compromise to having weaker initial fades.
I am aware of the summer cap change, but that was just a last minute hot fix to have somewhat of a balanced game.
Something is definitely wrong with shotgun, or my aim, maybe hitreg or bulledspread or both combined. I need to literally be standing next to skulk to 1shot him or fade to do the close to max dmg. from like 2-3 meter distance a good shotgun hit seems to do half of the max dmg(something like 80-110) to fade and like 40 damage to skulk, when in ns1 this would have been max damage to the fade and a dead skulk. Currently shotgun hits which are not done exactly standing next to fade just tickles which contributes to current opness of fades.
I started playing again around a week ago from a couple of months break, i was playing dota2 and crap. I've been playing pretty much maybe around 30-40 hours or something and i have NEVER died as fade during this time in the midgame im pretty certain. And i fade maybe 50% of time when aliens. It really seems hard to die unless u make some huge mistake like trying to solo 2 exosuits supported by 4 shotgunners. I consider myself good but not great player, have some competitive experience.
Also moving quickly across the map doesn't reguire any energy due the "kangaroo" jumping, and fade with cele is riculously fast u don't even need to blink in battle to initiate u can just hop on like 4 marines with shotguns and kill one of them before they can really even react and blink away with ur full energy when they start shooting, then go regen which takes likes 5 seconds go back kill another and repeat without really ever being in real danger. For them to kill that fade they pretty much all need to get a perfect point blank range shots off at the same time so the fade cant just blink away and reset the fight.
Ok maybe im exaggerating a bit but never have i found so hard to kill fades with sgs nor have i felt so easy to just destroy groups of shotgunners without even being "afraid" of them. lower resource costs for lerk and fade and removing the armory welding(because u need to spend ur res to welders those crappy shotguns are even more expensive than before relatively, u might also be armorless when that fade returns coz nobody welded ur ass) are too responsible for the current imbalance imo.
Comments
Watching fades constantly get 2 full shotgun blasts in the face and be fast enough to be out of the room before that 3rd shot reloads is absurd, only to come back 20 seconds later with full hp and own your face because the majority of comms refuse to drop any kind of support at their own initiative. Saying that, getting 2 solid shotgun hits as an average player vs an average fade is a lot harder than it sounds. The effort effectiveness gap of fade vs a shotgun marine is so huge, the risk reward is also vastly in favor of fade. If you always play superbly and smartly, you will NEVER die in a public game until dual miniguns come out and in force.
I'm seriously hoping that fades are looked at in the content patch and the near future because playing marines is just an absolute chore at the moment vs a decent alien team. Specifically I'm hoping for an initial res cost back up to 50. Might give marines more than 8 minutes to tech up until a fade ball starts handing them their concede button.
TL;DR - Skill cap between fade and shotgun marine is extremely large. Lack of knowledge and understanding from grunts and commanders makes for dominant fades.
I think what people are actually saying is that there are three tiers of fade, new fades, middle tier fades and God tier fades, with very few people staying new tier, and very few people being forced to up their game into God tier.
^ I agree completely with this statement. In most cases a successful encounter with a Fade simply means you were able to cause them to retreat. Unless ridiculously overcommitting or trapped a Fade will very rarely die. So even if you do manage to get a decent shotgun blast or two the fade will simply retreat and re-engage you 20 seconds later with full health while the marine is likely wounded or at least without armor (as no one else ever buys welders).
I totally agree with this. Unless you're against competitive/really good players, there's no incentive or requirement to improve beyond middle tier in pub games. Vs middle tier fades, you're often required as a shotgunner to be diligent at improving your accuracy. You can't be a middle tier shotgunner and do consistently well compared to a middle tier fade, even with a jetpack.
If it took only 1 1/2 shot gun shots to kill a fade, it would be risky to go fade at the 6 minute mark.
I also think that Umbra is available too early on bio mass 3.
The bio mass tree should be changed to
tunnel > bile > leap > umbra > shadow step > spores > etc (or even shadow step > umbra)
Leap on bio mass 3 would benefit alien diversity, because the balance transition from mostly non leap skulks to fades would be smoother. You wouldn't necessarily be forced to go fade to deal with the increasing pressure of the first upgrades and shotguns. The adrenaline cost might need to be increased a little though.
Umbra on the other hand makes a pack of skulks (/ fades) with a gorge almost unkillable in the early and mid game.
Didn't say nerfing, just making it available later, having it require a second hive in exchange for earlier leap.
Most of the games I play leap doesn't even appear after 15 minutes, because at time you can research it, you're already about to have fades on the field.
And just because a lot of people don't utilize (early) umbra, doesn't mean it's not a problem.
Those who do just steam roll public marines.
leap is pretty OP, and deserves to be on second hive. summer cup just moved umbra to 4 biomass and had no 3 biomass unlock.
Yep, that's why I suggest a slight increase in energy cost. It is a compromise to having weaker initial fades.
I am aware of the summer cap change, but that was just a last minute hot fix to have somewhat of a balanced game.
I started playing again around a week ago from a couple of months break, i was playing dota2 and crap. I've been playing pretty much maybe around 30-40 hours or something and i have NEVER died as fade during this time in the midgame im pretty certain. And i fade maybe 50% of time when aliens. It really seems hard to die unless u make some huge mistake like trying to solo 2 exosuits supported by 4 shotgunners. I consider myself good but not great player, have some competitive experience.
Also moving quickly across the map doesn't reguire any energy due the "kangaroo" jumping, and fade with cele is riculously fast u don't even need to blink in battle to initiate u can just hop on like 4 marines with shotguns and kill one of them before they can really even react and blink away with ur full energy when they start shooting, then go regen which takes likes 5 seconds go back kill another and repeat without really ever being in real danger. For them to kill that fade they pretty much all need to get a perfect point blank range shots off at the same time so the fade cant just blink away and reset the fight.
Ok maybe im exaggerating a bit but never have i found so hard to kill fades with sgs nor have i felt so easy to just destroy groups of shotgunners without even being "afraid" of them. lower resource costs for lerk and fade and removing the armory welding(because u need to spend ur res to welders those crappy shotguns are even more expensive than before relatively, u might also be armorless when that fade returns coz nobody welded ur ass) are too responsible for the current imbalance imo.
Ok, theres some mumbling tldr.