@FOrdPrefect your right because rines on 2 chairs 2 RTs should be balanced aginst aliens with 3 hives and 5-6 RTs...
If aliens are echoing whips then they have...
3 lvl 3 hives 270res
6 upgrade chambers 120res
1 of each chamber 55res
Skulk gorge fade upgrade 105res
4+ whips 40+res
570+ res later aliens are echoing whips.... This assumes ni healing bases, lifegorm drops, or lost structures...
Comebacks should be a matter of surprise/skill for the losing team or carelessness/poor team work for the winning.... Rines should not be able to turtle for a chance to win..
If you have two bases you usually hold the RT in between, too.
Take mineshaft, for example. I've seen quite a few games where Aliens held Cave, Sorting and Deposit, while Marines had Operations, Repair and Central.
Fairly balanced games, I dare say. A lot of back and forth.
After thinking about it, I will be honest. The theoretical lack of requiring another player to instigate this bothers me.
I don't like the idea of marines and aliens having an all out battle, and then the commander being able to have such a massive impact somewhere that nobody from either team is applying pressure. I prefer commanders to act through other players, not independently.
I would love it if this ability was somehow combined with gorge tunnels to make a nidus worm type attack for the commander.
If you just dump whips into a base with no support unless the marine team is literally asleep or they have zero GLs/flamers/exos/arcs it's not going to achieve much.
If you just dump whips into a base with no support unless the marine team is literally asleep or they have zero GLs/flamers/exos/arcs it's not going to achieve much.
Yup, except for the moment while the hordes of hapless greens infest all servers!
If you are marines on 2 tech points and aliens are on 3 and you are not losing (got enough res and map control), then you can afford some arcs in base to counter whip attack. Best defense is offense, tho. If you are not losing, you can scan alien hives from time to time and if you see a whip army growing, you might do something about it. If the game is equal.
If you can't afford arcs at base or regular scans to spot threat before it happens, you probably are not winning and therefore should die to whips.
Keep track of game time of judge by abilities lifeforms have. If you think/know biomass level is 'critical', start do thing that will prevent you from losing to whips.
There are some things that bother me, tho. Cost might be a little higher or there could be restriction on where you can use ability (like, only within 2x-5x range of grown cyst). Just dropping it anywhere seems to be too OP. Then again, if you have 3 hives, you will surely have some cysts not far from enemy base. This restriction would just make it feel more fair, without actually being a big restriction.
I do not care for a "end game" mechanic that relies on invulnerability, is almost unstoppable and requires no input or coordination from the the alien team. IMO that is piss poor design. The fact that it has a clear model, and yet is unkillable also seems like inconsistent design.
I was all foot the idea of contaminate, something to break turtles. But in practice it is absolutely devastating. Was playing a game with 3 hives vs 2 comm stations. Was pretty close to a stalemate. Until the kham dripped contaminate. Then it was over in less than a minute. Maybe a little overpowered.
Should it be toned down some what?
The question here is whether contaminate won you the game, or the actual teamwork that followed. I can take an educated guess that the comm announced his plan, and several people were on board. Maybe the teamwork won? Just a thought (lots of speculation mind you)
I was all foot the idea of contaminate, something to break turtles. But in practice it is absolutely devastating. Was playing a game with 3 hives vs 2 comm stations. Was pretty close to a stalemate. Until the kham dripped contaminate. Then it was over in less than a minute. Maybe a little overpowered.
Should it be toned down some what?
The question here is whether contaminate won you the game, or the actual teamwork that followed. I can take an educated guess that the comm announced his plan, and several people were on board. Maybe the teamwork won? Just a thought (lots of speculation mind you)
No way. It's hard enough to get pub players do what you want without anything else
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE CONTAMINATION, it's JUST THE THING a khamm wants and needs to end a game. It costs ridiculous amounts of res to get biomass 9 and the whips, but after that it's just rollin'.
Before contamination you didn't even need a comm. You could just as well abandon playing with drifters and just go Onos yourself and help the team, hopping in chair to drop eggs sometimes. Boooooriiing. Now you can finish a game fast. Love it.
The thing that needs to be determined here is what the "equilibrium condition" is in a game of NS2. When are the two teams in control of an equal amount of fire power?
Is it 2 tech points vs 2?
2 vs 3?
3 vs 2?
If we consider 3 hives vs 2 comm stations to be equal, then I think that something like contaminate can only damage gameplay. If there are full out battle occurring somewhere, in a back and forth, balanced fashion, then what good does a sudden attack from 5 whips on a tech points power node do for gameplay? All instigated by 4 or 5 clicks from the alien commander? Never before has the commander been able to single handedly, and instantly, bring such a key structure down. Those advocating for "just in case" ARCs to be stationed at every key point are essentially advocating nothing better than the turret farms of yesteryear. Clumps of resources allocated statically in a way that doesn't enhance a teams ability to fight, nor does it make the fight more enjoyable.
In my opinion, if you want to attack a marine base, then you do it with players. The commander is not meant to have such a direct impact on an area.
Eh, placing 2-3 ARCs to cover your base isn't exactly turret farm equivalent. Splash damage might be an issue tho - is it still in the game? I can't remember a patch removing it. Would have to try and see.
Contamination is just alien ARCs, but a lot better. (Costs more too, tho.)
3 hives isn't winning game for aliens btw. Having ALL the harvesters except 2 in marine bases and MAYBE 1 in between is.
If you just dump whips into a base with no support unless the marine team is literally asleep or they have zero GLs/flamers/exos/arcs it's not going to achieve much.
Yeah, i've tried it against decent teams and it had no effect. It requires a coordinated attack by the team or it won't do anything at all. And then if you spam it your whips wont be mature.
Wait for the free weekend rookie spam the the lag/bugs to clear before making any balance decisions about this. I think its just what aliens needed as a turtle breaker.
Contamination is just the alien counterpart to ARC's. The TSF have exo trains and ARCs to clear out alien hives quickly. The Aliens have the Onos, but that's hardly the siege weapon it used to be. It's very expensive to do a contamination whip rush. Probably at least as expensive as using ARCs
I've so far managed to do a contamination whip rush TWICE. Both times were when I held 90% of the RT's on the map. One of them, it took me at LEAST 50 whips being echo'd in numerous times while sending onos and lerks and fades at the base. Breaking a marine exo turtle is still hard, even with contamination. It probably just feels overpowered because of the free weekend rookies.
Contamination is just the alien counterpart to ARC's. The TSF have exo trains and ARCs to clear out alien hives quickly. The Aliens have the Onos, but that's hardly the siege weapon it used to be. It's very expensive to do a contamination whip rush. Probably at least as expensive as using ARCs
100% agree with this. Make contaminate like ARCs. As in, echoing a whip in takes at least 3-4 minutes, just like the length of time it takes to move an ARC anywhere.
Ye just dropping it like derp in marine base does nothing, whip damage isn't exactly huge. But when your team is rushing into a base and causing imminent beacon, having a bunch of whips whacking power in the 2nd base becomes an issue.
This is a strategy game about taking territory and denying it to the enemy, I think it was total nonsense that marines used to be to just sit on two tech points and then push out with exos. You want to win the game? Control the map.
Contamination is just the alien counterpart to ARC's. The TSF have exo trains and ARCs to clear out alien hives quickly. The Aliens have the Onos, but that's hardly the siege weapon it used to be. It's very expensive to do a contamination whip rush. Probably at least as expensive as using ARCs
100% agree with this. Make contaminate like ARCs. As in, echoing a whip in takes at least 3-4 minutes, just like the length of time it takes to move an ARC anywhere.
You shouldn't be moving your arcs in from anywhere... you take a position near the alien base with a phase gate, an armory set up where it can heal your troops and also block onii, and you just build your arcs right there. That way you don't have to send them all the way across the map and worry about them getting ambushed. The farthest I would EVER risk moving an arc is from hub to north tunnels on tram, or from control to west junction on veil.
I was going to make another sarcastic comment, but this actually gives me an idea.
What if contaminate was an active ability that had a range? So no more dropping it anywhere on the map you like, but still being able to do it provided you were within, I don't know, 15-20 meters of the target location? It would basically become the exact alien equivalent of the ARC then.
I don't know if this should simply be within 20 meters of infestation, or within 20 meters of a specific structure. I think I would prefer if it was a structure. Maybe an active ability of the gorge tunnel?
It's not a nuke, contaminate in it's own doesn't do much. You need to spend a lot of tres on whips, bonewalls, ruptures. Your team still needs higer lifeforms, and they still need to coordinate their attack. And even then, marines still have a chance to fend them off. In any case, when used correctly it can end games quickly, but it's not unfair in any way.
Aliens don't coordinate anything...alien comm just drops whips out of no where and the marine base is gone before marines have a chance to counter... And who puts arcs unused in the middle of base... If the game is a stailmate the marines are pushing out to take down this third hive but end up losing the game because the alien comm has the ability to make this game a pve instead of the pvp that was intended... Stupid mechanic that breaks marines chance of comebacks in one easy step...
It's not a nuke, contaminate in it's own doesn't do much. You need to spend a lot of tres on whips, bonewalls, ruptures. Your team still needs higer lifeforms, and they still need to coordinate their attack. And even then, marines still have a chance to fend them off. In any case, when used correctly it can end games quickly, but it's not unfair in any way.
Aliens don't coordinate anything...alien comm just drops whips out of no where and the marine base is gone before marines have a chance to counter... And who puts arcs unused in the middle of base... If the game is a stailmate the marines are pushing out to take down this third hive but end up losing the game because the alien comm has the ability to make this game a pve instead of the pvp that was intended... Stupid mechanic that breaks marines chance of comebacks in one easy step...
Have you actually done a successful whip rush with contaminate? You're looking at spending:
20 res for shift
40x3 res for hives
20x3 + 30x 3 for biomass
10x5 (AT LEAST) for whips.
=340 team res in order to do this.
Plus whatever Contaminate costs, if it costs anything. I can't really remember because the only times I've ever used this strategy, resources were no object.
The marine counterpart? I think it's something like 50 team res. for a robo, the robo upgrade, and 3 arcs. You can add 50 more for the armory, obs, phase tech, and phase gate, and it's still not even coming close to what the aliens have to spend to accomplish the same thing.
*edit* calculated that wrong, you don't have to buy the first hive xD so that brings it down to 300
If the game is a stailmate the marines are pushing out to take down this third hive...
If aliens have a third hive then they are winning, unless the marines have two tech points with 5 or 6 RTs but then aliens probably wouldn't have the res for whip spam.
20 res for shift
40x3 res for hives
20x3 + 30x 3 for biomass
10x5 (AT LEAST) for whips.
=340 team res in order to do this.
Plus whatever Contaminate costs, if it costs anything. I can't really remember because the only times I've ever used this strategy, resources were no object.
Only include the cost of objects that are solely involved in the contaminate.
Hives don't count, shifts don't count, whips don't count if you do it right, but I'll give you those.
WTF? The hives, shifts, and whips are all 100% needed to do this.. you do have to factor it in. I factored in literally every cost associated with using ARC's too. Its not like dropping 3 hives is really necessary to win the game.. I get Bile Bomb way before that. You can basically end the game with bilebomb whenever you want.
I do not care for a "end game" mechanic that relies on invulnerability, is almost unstoppable and requires no input or coordination from the the alien team. IMO that is piss poor design. The fact that it has a clear model, and yet is unkillable also seems like inconsistent design.
Stop whining. Contamination is fine. We all wanted a turtle breaker for the aliens. Now it's here. It may need some tweaks, but the concept is solid.
Now that's it, talk over, go, return to your homes. Disperse, nothing to see here. You don't want to be arrested for disturbing the peace, do you?
You, papers, please!
The only question is whether or not its breaking turtles. A 3v2 techpoint advantage is not necessarily a turtle, and if it is, does that mean that aliens are turtling when marines have 3 tech points? Or do aliens have a domineering lead with 3 or 4 tech points, and are evenly powered with 2?
What we have is a pve game winning move which is not fun... If you want a turtle breaking move give it to the players not the whips... Arcs are complete bullshit compared to this whip echo strat with contamination... Aliens have a semi insta game win move while the marine still need to protect the arcs and push the hive... Marine must end with pvp but aliens can win with only pve...
Comments
If aliens are echoing whips then they have...
3 lvl 3 hives 270res
6 upgrade chambers 120res
1 of each chamber 55res
Skulk gorge fade upgrade 105res
4+ whips 40+res
570+ res later aliens are echoing whips.... This assumes ni healing bases, lifegorm drops, or lost structures...
Comebacks should be a matter of surprise/skill for the losing team or carelessness/poor team work for the winning.... Rines should not be able to turtle for a chance to win..
Take mineshaft, for example. I've seen quite a few games where Aliens held Cave, Sorting and Deposit, while Marines had Operations, Repair and Central.
Fairly balanced games, I dare say. A lot of back and forth.
No need for a turtle breaker.
I don't like the idea of marines and aliens having an all out battle, and then the commander being able to have such a massive impact somewhere that nobody from either team is applying pressure. I prefer commanders to act through other players, not independently.
I would love it if this ability was somehow combined with gorge tunnels to make a nidus worm type attack for the commander.
Yup, except for the moment while the hordes of hapless greens infest all servers!
If you can't afford arcs at base or regular scans to spot threat before it happens, you probably are not winning and therefore should die to whips.
Keep track of game time of judge by abilities lifeforms have. If you think/know biomass level is 'critical', start do thing that will prevent you from losing to whips.
There are some things that bother me, tho. Cost might be a little higher or there could be restriction on where you can use ability (like, only within 2x-5x range of grown cyst). Just dropping it anywhere seems to be too OP. Then again, if you have 3 hives, you will surely have some cysts not far from enemy base. This restriction would just make it feel more fair, without actually being a big restriction.
The question here is whether contaminate won you the game, or the actual teamwork that followed. I can take an educated guess that the comm announced his plan, and several people were on board. Maybe the teamwork won? Just a thought (lots of speculation mind you)
No way. It's hard enough to get pub players do what you want without anything else
Before contamination you didn't even need a comm. You could just as well abandon playing with drifters and just go Onos yourself and help the team, hopping in chair to drop eggs sometimes. Boooooriiing. Now you can finish a game fast. Love it.
Is it 2 tech points vs 2?
2 vs 3?
3 vs 2?
If we consider 3 hives vs 2 comm stations to be equal, then I think that something like contaminate can only damage gameplay. If there are full out battle occurring somewhere, in a back and forth, balanced fashion, then what good does a sudden attack from 5 whips on a tech points power node do for gameplay? All instigated by 4 or 5 clicks from the alien commander? Never before has the commander been able to single handedly, and instantly, bring such a key structure down. Those advocating for "just in case" ARCs to be stationed at every key point are essentially advocating nothing better than the turret farms of yesteryear. Clumps of resources allocated statically in a way that doesn't enhance a teams ability to fight, nor does it make the fight more enjoyable.
In my opinion, if you want to attack a marine base, then you do it with players. The commander is not meant to have such a direct impact on an area.
Contamination is just alien ARCs, but a lot better. (Costs more too, tho.)
3 hives isn't winning game for aliens btw. Having ALL the harvesters except 2 in marine bases and MAYBE 1 in between is.
Wait for the free weekend rookie spam the the lag/bugs to clear before making any balance decisions about this. I think its just what aliens needed as a turtle breaker.
I've so far managed to do a contamination whip rush TWICE. Both times were when I held 90% of the RT's on the map. One of them, it took me at LEAST 50 whips being echo'd in numerous times while sending onos and lerks and fades at the base. Breaking a marine exo turtle is still hard, even with contamination. It probably just feels overpowered because of the free weekend rookies.
100% agree with this. Make contaminate like ARCs. As in, echoing a whip in takes at least 3-4 minutes, just like the length of time it takes to move an ARC anywhere.
You shouldn't be moving your arcs in from anywhere... you take a position near the alien base with a phase gate, an armory set up where it can heal your troops and also block onii, and you just build your arcs right there. That way you don't have to send them all the way across the map and worry about them getting ambushed. The farthest I would EVER risk moving an arc is from hub to north tunnels on tram, or from control to west junction on veil.
What if contaminate was an active ability that had a range? So no more dropping it anywhere on the map you like, but still being able to do it provided you were within, I don't know, 15-20 meters of the target location? It would basically become the exact alien equivalent of the ARC then.
I don't know if this should simply be within 20 meters of infestation, or within 20 meters of a specific structure. I think I would prefer if it was a structure. Maybe an active ability of the gorge tunnel?
Aliens don't coordinate anything...alien comm just drops whips out of no where and the marine base is gone before marines have a chance to counter... And who puts arcs unused in the middle of base... If the game is a stailmate the marines are pushing out to take down this third hive but end up losing the game because the alien comm has the ability to make this game a pve instead of the pvp that was intended... Stupid mechanic that breaks marines chance of comebacks in one easy step...
Since the update? Lots of ppl. Me for example.
Have you actually done a successful whip rush with contaminate? You're looking at spending:
20 res for shift
40x3 res for hives
20x3 + 30x 3 for biomass
10x5 (AT LEAST) for whips.
=340 team res in order to do this.
Plus whatever Contaminate costs, if it costs anything. I can't really remember because the only times I've ever used this strategy, resources were no object.
The marine counterpart? I think it's something like 50 team res. for a robo, the robo upgrade, and 3 arcs. You can add 50 more for the armory, obs, phase tech, and phase gate, and it's still not even coming close to what the aliens have to spend to accomplish the same thing.
*edit* calculated that wrong, you don't have to buy the first hive xD so that brings it down to 300
If aliens have a third hive then they are winning, unless the marines have two tech points with 5 or 6 RTs but then aliens probably wouldn't have the res for whip spam.
Only include the cost of objects that are solely involved in the contaminate.
Hives don't count, shifts don't count, whips don't count if you do it right, but I'll give you those.
Now that's it, talk over, go, return to your homes. Disperse, nothing to see here. You don't want to be arrested for disturbing the peace, do you?
You, papers, please!
The model is not unkillable so there you go
The only question is whether or not its breaking turtles. A 3v2 techpoint advantage is not necessarily a turtle, and if it is, does that mean that aliens are turtling when marines have 3 tech points? Or do aliens have a domineering lead with 3 or 4 tech points, and are evenly powered with 2?