<!--QuoteBegin--ZERG!!+Jul 20 2003, 10:23 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (ZERG!! @ Jul 20 2003, 10:23 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--Wither+Jul 20 2003, 10:08 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wither @ Jul 20 2003, 10:08 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Look, no offense to the non vets-pt's, but we really can't say much about what it's like since we just haven't played it yet.
I've read over all the arguements and I, like stated just now, can't back it up, but what he says sounds valid. Marines *should* move in groups, and a single rambo marine should, of course, be able to take a skulk now and then, but NOT be able to take out multiple skulks and get to where he's going, then build an rt or tf, and pick off more skulks. Marines are <b>supposed</b> to work together in NS, a single marine should <i>not</i> be able to destroy 8 skulks, build a tf, build turrets, then siege, without dying.
Thanks for your time <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> IN 1.04 the multi-kills occured because the skulks usually come at you one by one. GG alien teamwork <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo-->
EDIT/NOTE: Notice I'm talking about 1.04 so my opinion is 100% valid. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Exactly. That's what always makes me itchy in 1.04, when you try to organize a rush in a pub game over the mic and you're screaming MEET UP IN MESS HALL, maybe half of the team actually shows up and rushes with you. But still, aliens should be able to kill a marine 1 on 1 without always dying, and it sounds like a single skulk is easily picked off by a lone marine. NOTE: I'm saying 'sounds', I would have no idea at all <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
It sounds like if Flayra was to readd the 10 extra health, marines would be promoted even more to work together rather then rush out of the start soon as the game starts screaming OMG KILLZ!1
I've been tracking the 2.0 changes very carefully, as best I can from the position of not being able to play with the changes, and for the last bunch of builds I've seen a steady creep in favour of the marines. I'm beginning to think that what we'll see is as Savant predicts: the game will be balanced for tournament play by people who do nothing but play NS all day, and not for public play, in which marines will own with the consistency they do in 1.04. I remind the devs and vets that public play is both the majority of games played and also the source for new players, which we're expecting to see more of once 2.0 is out. If the new players, and the returning players from 1.04, come to the game and see that there is a simple way to kill the aliens almost every time, that's exactly what they'll do. There will be one strat, and every game will be the same: boring.
I like 1.04 despite its issues, but if 2.0 ends up being just as wonky for public play, I'm probably going to find myself playing something else more often.
Since when has skulk vs. marine 1v1 supposed to have been a fair fight? Skulks are intended to be able to kill lone marines so long as they can close to a reasonable distance before being spotted, then need to go heal before they do it again...to encourage teamwork among the marines so that they will work as a group. As was pointed out, marines aren't supposed to be running around alone, and aliens are supposed to be able to.
I also keep seeing people completely missing the point about hive health, hive umbra, etc. Here's a sample scenario: Let's say you've got a 2nd hive with 8 ocs, 4 at each door. The hive contains a skulk and a gorge, being defense. At a point outside the hive, 10 seconds away, someone spots a group of 4 marines that have charged the hive with hmgs on a quick mission to kill it (let's say, for argument that the hive is Maintenance in Eclipse, and the marines are spotted coming out of horseshoe). The scout who spots them attacks, and dies almost instantly to hmg fire, perhaps wounding a marine (who gets health immediately). Then 10 seconds later, the marines find the ocs. The skulk and gorge have tried to get ready the only way they can, taking up defensive positions. A lerk in eclipse command is rushing to the site, but will take another 10-15 seconds to get there. Some other skulks, fades, or whatever, are dealing with a couple other marines somewhere else, or are rushing to the hive. The marines chew the ocs in about 4 seconds. They enter the hive. Let's be generous and say that one goes down to the skulk, who is fragged by the others. The gorge is fragged, because his OCs are down and he can't run fast enough to escape the HMG fire, else he did it out the back door a few seconds ago. The hive goes down in 6 seconds max to HMG fire, assuming the marines stop for a smoke halfway through, less time if they don't. The lerk arrives, with nothing left to umbra. At this point as well, all the other aliens arrive to try to kill off the marines, and the comm sends a second group to kill the other hive, which has no scout to alert the other aliens. Rinse, repeat.
I omit the effect of movement chambers, because in many cases you can't use them to move to the hive under attack, until that hive is being attacked. And if it's attacked, it's dead, so there's no point in even being able to go there. Say there is a movement chamber, what if the marines are going to the middle hive? Or what if you haven't quite got the second hive built yet and it'll be done in like 20 seconds? That's plenty of time for it to go down. What if the lerk is scouting near marine base where there aren't any movement chambers? Movements are great when they're in the right places and so are you. They're useless if they're not. They're too damn unreliable to base fundamental strategy on.
Now, the responses to this argument have been in the past "You need more defense," or "if you're not scouting you deserve to die." These have already been addressed in the past. Static defense is difficult to set up, moreso if you already know that the defense is ineffective against HMG marines. Period. And with the reduced skulk health of late plus all the recent upgrades to marine weapons, it seems ridiculously easy to kill the roving defense unless they attack you perfectly. Marine static defenses can't be touched by skulks at all. Sure 20 rps of OCs should be less powerful than a more expensive electric TF, but they also shouldn't be made of paper. I'd rather have expensive OCs that can slow down a marine team (or kill them instantly like elec TFs do!). There's too much focus on the resource cost of things rather than on gameplay. It's like people think that resources are worth the same amount to marines and aliens or something? Maybe they're not. Maybe this thread is evidence for that. It seems to me that alien wins are going to rely on luck rather than skill: the luck to have a scout spot the marines soon enough, and for the other aliens to be able to get into position to kill them soon enough, plus the luck to get the res to build that second hive and all those OCs in the first place. Marine wins will also depend on luck, but less: the luck to get enough res to get hmgs to a hive before the second hive goes up. And if the second hive does go up, they can make a pretty good go at it anyway. The aliens simply can't be everywhere at once, and if the marines happen to find an opening by sheer dumb luck (and the comm can now ping for free to scout a route for them), no amount of skill is going to stop them.
The best proposal I've seen so far is the health-based hive umbra. If it takes 1000 damage, it umbras for 2-3 seconds. At the next 1000 damage it umbras for 2-3 seconds. So the marines fire short bursts, wait a sec, burst, wait a sec, burst, etc. They can still own an undefended hive. Just not instantly. And if the defense was standing at the other door thinking that's where the marines were going, they have the chance to go "oops, wrong door" before the hive is dead. Also this way OCs will still keep out lone marines and go down to HMG fire quickly.
Or perhaps lower hive build times to make it easier to put them back up when they get destroyed?
Marines are given the ability to make mistakes, while aliens are being demanded to be super-perfect. Why? The marine tech process is linear: upgrade armoury, build proto, get hmgs ASAP, pwn. Once the public gamers figure this out, there will be one strat. At least in 1.04 we had the odd mine rush or shotty rush rather than the JP/HMG rushes. Now you don't even need a JP. Aliens were supposed to be designed to be independent and mobile. Marines were supposed to have to work as a team. Marines have a central coordinator to facilitate that. Aliens don't. But they're supposed to work like a well-oiled machine anyway? In public play? How often did that happen in 1.04? Why do you expect it will begin to happen now just because it's required in order to win? People in pub servers will not take the time to perfect their skillz just so they can play a decent game. They'll leave. Or all rush for the marine door in the ready room, like they do already in 1.04. Whee. You might also notice that when there was a similar problem with aliens (bile-bombing gorge rushes) it was fixed without a bunch of people whining that the marines just weren't working as a team, or needed more defense, or whatever.
I hope that I end up being wrong and that NS 2.0 will be an improvement over 1.04. But the longer I follow the changelogs, the more it looks like the gameplay is being edged back toward 1.04. Back toward single-strat play, identical games, and aliens being owned a disproportionate amount of the time by marine tech rushes. The initial changes made by the dev team set up 2.0 to be a different game, but it looks from here like pressure from some of the vets has overruled the dev team's initial instincts, and pushed the game in a backward direction.
Looking forward to July 31st, so I can find out whether I'll be playing this game past August.
This is all funny because aliens still win three outta every five games(2.0) I play, and I play daily <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--MrMojo+Jul 20 2003, 10:35 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (MrMojo @ Jul 20 2003, 10:35 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Wither, did you play on Cofr yesterday organizing a rush in mess? Because that's exactly what I did D:. They relocated to mother. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Nope, but I've seen it happen plenty on pubs. Organize a rush, half the team goes huhuhuh noe we need 2 kill teh rambo rines solo!11 and the others actually listen. It's even more annoying when you're a gorge and need protection with a team of nubs going U GOT 2 BUILD OC IN HIVE!11 NUB GURGE!1
I'm just going to have to say I think i have agreed with every post Savant has ever made in the Beta Discussion Forum, lol <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> And i definatly agree with him here...... 1v1 Marine should die hands down. if both at lvl0
First of all: to TeoH, I would hardly call the com a "lost" marine. I firmly beleive the commander is the single most powerful asset the marines have (yes, even more powerful the a lev3 JP/HMG marine!!) Second: Does carapace still slow down aliens? havent heard this come up much. Seems to me thats a pretty serouse balence issue in the 1 on 1 marine Vs Skulk debate. Thirdly: Its looking to me that maby Flayra should see if the clannies want him to just rename the game to Naturaly for Clanners. Seems that the play testers of NS.2 only care about whats good for clan compitition anyways. Forth: why do so many ppl seem to want marines to not just continue having a advantage, but be a divinitivly better race? Fith: Savent, 2 questions, do you work for microsoft? I recieved a tech support email that shared sevral sentece strutures to your posts. Have you ever taken rhetoric? you seem pretty good at it.
<!--QuoteBegin--ZERG!!+Jul 20 2003, 11:23 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (ZERG!! @ Jul 20 2003, 11:23 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--Wither+Jul 20 2003, 10:08 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wither @ Jul 20 2003, 10:08 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Look, no offense to the non vets-pt's, but we really can't say much about what it's like since we just haven't played it yet.
I've read over all the arguements and I, like stated just now, can't back it up, but what he says sounds valid. Marines *should* move in groups, and a single rambo marine should, of course, be able to take a skulk now and then, but NOT be able to take out multiple skulks and get to where he's going, then build an rt or tf, and pick off more skulks. Marines are <b>supposed</b> to work together in NS, a single marine should <i>not</i> be able to destroy 8 skulks, build a tf, build turrets, then siege, without dying.
Thanks for your time <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> IN 1.04 the multi-kills occured because the skulks usually come at you one by one. GG alien teamwork <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo-->
EDIT/NOTE: Notice I'm talking about 1.04 so my opinion is 100% valid. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> More like GG marine teamwork.
On another happy note:
<b><i>Excellent</i></b> post there, Dr. Akward.
On a vet note:
Some of them, think about everything to a large scale, offer good critism, and contribute. I'd like to point out Archaven as my favorite vet for that.
While others, constantly pick on others idea, give negetive crtisism, do little to help with overall gameplay, and seemed concerned about how much they can 'own'. Just why the hell should a lone marine own a lone skulk? It makes no sense. In addition to that, now rambo's can just focus on killing things knowing they will help their teammates out a ton. That is bullsh!t. If res for kills will be implemented, then marines <b>must</b> be owned(in other words, if a skulk and a marine both of equal skill meet, then the skulk wins in 70% of the cases) 1v1 in order for them to still require teamwork.
I would like to point you to the post that Mouse put up here. It's not as simple as 1 marine owning 1 skulk or 1 skulk owning 1 marine or even neither being the common victor.
Mouse's post explains it best.
The point is, midgame, marines can't own ANYTHING unless they have extreme teamwork. The root of the issue is how teir one abilities and races affect the so called balance. If you look at as marine vs skulk only, you've already lost the big picture. If you look at it as skulk with higher hp owning marines constantly, limiting marine expansion, scoring additional res for kills, allowing gorges to freely roam, and then having enough res to fade before marines have their first upgrade.... then you start to see the big picture.
The point is, with the two competing economies, the marines economy get pwned before they have a chance to really expand because of the power of the skulk. Take a re-read of that topic. Take a view of the big picture.
Also, don't dis the vets because you don't agree with them. They did get their playtesting position because they happen to already know a bit about the game. It was the clans that first broke it. Now they're trying to make sure it isn't broken.
In addition, while you worry about pub games, realize that both parties are not going to be the most experienced players, and simply put, the kill, the resources and the win goes to the people who are better players, more experienced, and STILL have better teamwork. If you don't have some of the most skilled players playing other most skilled players reaching a balance, you'll never reach a point of reference for pub balance.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> If res for kills will be implemented, then marines must be owned(in other words, if a skulk and a marine both of equal skill meet, then the skulk wins in 70% of the cases) 1v1 in order for them to still require teamwork.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The fatal flaw in this theory is that your skulk can now fade within the first 2 or 3 minutes because they've racked up enough kills because he can't be killed by a marine short of 30% of the time. If that skulk runs in packs, they'll be able to afford a 2nd hive, upgrades, and eventually onos faster than marines can afford the tech to even destroy a hive. In addition to that, a skulk runs faster, and has more diverse upgrades available to him in the early game while the marines are still building their economy. *Note that skulk moving speed is FASTER than it is in 1.04. Read up on dem 2.0 changelogs.
You can't let 1 marine = 1 skulk in power of kills because you're comparing apples and oranges here. Skulks don't get ripped like the paper they are in 1.04, and they don't rip through marines like level 3 carapace skulks did in 1.04. Believe me, when I say you'll be happy with the updates.
I'll update more to refute my statements if required. Read that skulk thread in the beta forums again, and get a feeling for what we're facing when we attempt to balance the game.
[EDIT] Fixing some nouns and verbs I've got crossed...
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Marines are given the ability to make mistakes, while aliens are being demanded to be super-perfect. Why? The marine tech process is linear: upgrade armoury, build proto, get hmgs ASAP, pwn. Once the public gamers figure this out, there will be one strat. At least in 1.04 we had the odd mine rush or shotty rush rather than the JP/HMG rushes. Now you don't even need a JP. Aliens were supposed to be designed to be independent and mobile. Marines were supposed to have to work as a team. Marines have a central coordinator to facilitate that. Aliens don't. But they're supposed to work like a well-oiled machine anyway? In public play? How often did that happen in 1.04? Why do you expect it will begin to happen now just because it's required in order to win? People in pub servers will not take the time to perfect their skillz just so they can play a decent game. They'll leave. Or all rush for the marine door in the ready room, like they do already in 1.04. Whee. You might also notice that when there was a similar problem with aliens (bile-bombing gorge rushes) it was fixed without a bunch of people whining that the marines just weren't working as a team, or needed more defense, or whatever.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm very sure this isn't the case. Marines have to be just as "super-perfect." Forget to repair that TF? Well there goes the base. That assault that drained all your resources failed? Well you're screwed. There are so many scenarios where the marines can screw up.
If aliens lost their hive, it's not as serious anymore for 2 reasons: hives are cheaper and hives are less important.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I also keep seeing people completely missing the point about hive health, hive umbra, etc. Here's a sample scenario: Let's say you've got a 2nd hive with 8 ocs, 4 at each door. The hive contains a skulk and a gorge, being defense. At a point outside the hive, 10 seconds away, someone spots a group of 4 marines that have charged the hive with hmgs on a quick mission to kill it (let's say, for argument that the hive is Maintenance in Eclipse, and the marines are spotted coming out of horseshoe). The scout who spots them attacks, and dies almost instantly to hmg fire, perhaps wounding a marine (who gets health immediately). Then 10 seconds later, the marines find the ocs. The skulk and gorge have tried to get ready the only way they can, taking up defensive positions. A lerk in eclipse command is rushing to the site, but will take another 10-15 seconds to get there. Some other skulks, fades, or whatever, are dealing with a couple other marines somewhere else, or are rushing to the hive. The marines chew the ocs in about 4 seconds. They enter the hive. Let's be generous and say that one goes down to the skulk, who is fragged by the others. The gorge is fragged, because his OCs are down and he can't run fast enough to escape the HMG fire, else he did it out the back door a few seconds ago. The hive goes down in 6 seconds max to HMG fire, assuming the marines stop for a smoke halfway through, less time if they don't. The lerk arrives, with nothing left to umbra. At this point as well, all the other aliens arrive to try to kill off the marines, and the comm sends a second group to kill the other hive, which has no scout to alert the other aliens. Rinse, repeat.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In this scenario, it really is the aliens fault for not scouting. With skulks parasiting, skulks and lerks wandering throughout the map, and some aliens opting for the scent of fear upgrade (if they have sensory first), they really don't much an excuse. A clever gorge may also put a single OC in a doorway that the marines have to get past - this OC would serve as the warning signal if the marines attack it. Basically, there's a lot of ways for aliens to scout.
Even in the event that their scouting fails, they are not screwed. The scenario above sounds like a 2-hive situation. If the aliens had 3 hives, the gorge would be webbing the marines. This means there are 2 hives. A network of movement chambers isn't hard to put up. Suppose a gorge sets up an emergency movement chamber that teleports you to the wrong hive. No problem - use the movement chamber there to get to the hive that's about to be attacked. Lerks are also just about as fast as they are in 1.04, so I really don't think there's a problem.
Of course, I may be wrong with all this analysis, but then most analysis, even by the PTs themselves is rather premature considering that the 2.0x has been out for only 2 days...
Right now, I'm inclined to agree with TeoH. Savant does have a point that the game needs to be geared to public games as well, but I don't see anything concrete in his reasoning that states that the game would be unbalanced in public games. TeoH is also correct in saying that only comparing damage is silly.
EDIT: This is about the only thing I agree with Savant:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->If aliens are too strong as a team, then let's figure out why and address THOSE issues. Skulk health never won aliens any games, it's the fades/onos that do that. So there are other factors at play here that need looking at.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I kind of agree. However, each race needs there specific strengths and weaknesses, but they can't be too obvious. I'll need to play 2.0 before commenting more on this.
Maian, for not even playing 2.0 yet, you seem to have nailed everything on the head exactly as I and many other players see it.
In 1.04, the aliens had to be VERY perfect and marines generally suck or have a slow commander for the aliens to win. In 2.0, that story is out the door. The alien's economy is kickstarted by the resources for kills as well as the ability to instantly drop resource nodes. (each person starts with enough res to gorge and build 1 node). Same for the marines, but your aliens aren't so killable now. A dead gorge won't set you back 2 minutes in the game as 1.04 did. Aliens have much more leniency and don't have to be perfect in strategy as well as variety with all chambers being very viable. If this this hasn't been impressed upon the people enough, I'm at a loss.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Of course, I may be wrong with all this analysis, but then most analysis, even by the PTs themselves is rather premature considering that the 2.0x has been out for only 2 days...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yeah, but we've been toying with different skulk health values for quite a while. I happen to like the new health value as it is. Also... skulks still have more armor. I believe it's 25 right now, as opposed to the 10 armor in 1.04. <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
If aliens are too strong as a team, then let's figure out why and address THOSE issues. Skulk health never won aliens any games, it's the fades/onos that do that. So there are other factors at play here that need looking at.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I kind of agree. However, each race needs there specific strengths and weaknesses, but they can't be too obvious. I'll need to play 2.0 before commenting more on this. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Savant said the skulk health never won any aliens any games and it's because the skulks didn't have the power to finish the marines... But they won the resource economy battle early game, which is more important to do, especially in 2.0. We don't need toned down fades or onos, but you need to keep the fades and onos for mid to late game. The skulk's power to enhance the alien res economy early game was the root of the issue. With a defeated resource economy, the marines can't counter fades or onos without massive teamwork and focusfire on 1 creature.
Let me reiterate that the issue that needs addressing is the resource economy. The marines in 1.04 had a major advantage because they could start building res towers before the aliens could build 1. Now, the aliens often drop multiple resource towers (both sides have a 90 second activations time - read them changelogs <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> ). But, you count the resources for kills, the fact that your fighters are ALSO your builders on the marine team, as well as the inability to kill a FASTER skulk with more hp and more armor in 2.0... ... you end up with the aliens controlling the battle of the economies in the first minute of the game. The marine have to fight an uphill battle from the start. The skulk should be killable, but not so much to the extent it was slaughtered in 1.04 without carapace.
It's not the kills and the battles that are what need to be balanced, it's the rate and potential growth of the team's resource economy.
The fatal flaw with Mouse's theory is that you cannot balance out one or two things and expect all the other things to become balanced. I'm sorry, but games just aren't that simple. However, what is important is that the skulk vs. marine is balanced.
You start by balancing things at the lower levels, and iron things out later. <b>You do <i>not</i> leave something unbalanced just to balance out a couple of other things at later levels. This is a terrible thought process to hold.</b> You balance each issue as you adress it, you do not leave something unbalanced here and something unbalanced here and say: "Oh looky here, the two imbalances balance each other out!"
Now, onto the idea of balancing out the skulk so he can pretty much kill a marine 1v1 up close, but get killed easily at a distance:
Perhaps skulk hp levels should remain low like they are now, however, if a skulk hits the back of a marine, he deals 2 times as much damage? This would keep it so skulks cannot rush a marine down a hallway expecting to win due to superior health values, but if he jumped a marine the marine is dead meat. If a marine meets a skulk head on and sees the skulk pop out of some vent and is in close range of the skulk but keeps his back away from the skulk, then it should be slightly in favor of the marine.
<!--QuoteBegin--Dr. Awkward+Jul 20 2003, 10:34 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dr. Awkward @ Jul 20 2003, 10:34 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I've been tracking the 2.0 changes very carefully, as best I can from the position of not being able to play with the changes, and for the last bunch of builds I've seen a steady creep in favour of the marines. I'm beginning to think that what we'll see is as Savant predicts: the game will be balanced for tournament play by people who do nothing but play NS all day, and not for public play, in which marines will own with the consistency they do in 1.04. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I feel opposite in this issue. In 1.04 start days, while 1.04 is now declared as the ultimate marine-ownage version, aliens owned in all public games that were smaller than 20 players (most servers are 14 or 16). Server ops posted statistics which showed about 70-80% alien victories while in 20+ games it was 70-80% marine victories. When marines noticed their extreme strenghts (and players generally learned to play the game better) in the early game, win percentages gradually changed to favor marines lead by the infamous JP/HMG strategies and early rushes. Many people quit, because the game was clearly not balanced. Now, however, there shouldn't be unbalance in early game or any super-techs, but a higher demand for marine teamwork. Teamwork, which is severely lacking in many publics, is a major factor in marine gameplay. Thus I believe that aliens, not marines, will be highly dominant in publics once 2.0 is released. Even more than in 1.04 release days. The games will eventually balance out to 50-50 wins once everyone learns the game and marines start working as an efficient team. I believe public games always become more and more similar to clan games when time passes and people get to know the game better. Opposite to what you say, there is a danger that it will be the marine side that will lack in victories in publics, since only "veterans" will know efficient teamwork, while aliens will win more due to promoted individualism. This way it could be that it will take several months before joining marines in publics will give you the pleasure of victory, while in tournaments and clan games marines will enjoy as many victories as aliens. It really depends on how many new players 2.0 will bring and how quickly people will learn the importance of teamwork.
HAMBoneProbably the best CommanderJoin Date: 2003-04-02Member: 15139Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
<!--QuoteBegin--Dr. Awkward+Jul 20 2003, 10:34 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Dr. Awkward @ Jul 20 2003, 10:34 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I'm beginning to think that what we'll see is as Savant predicts: the game will be balanced for tournament play by people who do nothing but play NS all day, and not for public play, in which marines will own with the consistency they do in 1.04. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Wow, calm down <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> Its coming along pretty nicely and I think youre going to be very happy with the release. A few things to mention
- Our job is to try and find things that we think is "broken", to abuse stuff thats too good and let flayra decide what he wants to do. We arent in charge of making changes and a majority of balance rants are ignored. - Its to the point where flayra can easily change almost anything with a server side patch, of which he plans to release several shortly after release. - What savant is arguing conflicts with your point - he believes that marines should NEED to have really good teamwork skills to win. The current level of teamwork on marines by vets is already much higher than the average 1.04 pub, yet marines still lose a majority. - Trust me, it is much easier to win on aliens than it is on marines
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Now, onto the idea of balancing out the skulk so he can pretty much kill a marine 1v1 up close, but get killed easily at a distance:<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You said it EXACTLY right. Problem with higher hp skulks is they could still kill marines from a distance because they could close the distance with the added hp and new speed in 2.0. The skulks are a melee fighter, and when they can negate range that easily, they're that powerful.
Forlorn, I think we've found common ground here. Also, I believe the point of Mouse's theory is how you can't adjust a few things and fix all the balance.
I don't feel the skulks should get a bonus for back hits, as with the advent of all chambers being viable, they become very wikkid killers enough with various upgrades as well as in vanilla form.
But for the rest, I completely agree with you.
[EDIT] Lastly, I'll attempt to not bring threads off into balance issues anymore as we all have our theories. Savant's looking out for the pubber. I feel that the pubber will be very happy with the 2.0 skulk, if not moreso. Our basis of ideas don't exactly mesh, but I gotta respect him for trying.
Wow, so many good posts I can't attempt to address them all. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
However, I do want to make a few comments.
We MUST take the public into account in making these kinds of changes, but no one does. Sure a VET may not be bothered by lower skulk health, but all of the public who have a hard enough time playing skulk now will suffer even more for the sake of 'ideal clan balance'. Sorry, no disrespect intended, but I just don't think it's fair.
In a 1on1 situation in CLOSE quarters, the skulk should own a marine. Flayra has always felt that way. However, we also have the problem with the marine hitbox, while even though we have atempted to fix it many times, still remains an issue and as of Flayra's last comment on this he was going to leave it until after 2.0 releases. (of course he could have changed his mind.)
The marine team has been made more and more 'idiot proof' in 2.0, and you will see FAR fewer early alien wins as a result. All the marines need to do is set up an electrified TF and 4 turrrets in base and they will NOT lose their base until well after the second hive is up. No more skulks sneaking in and taking out the IP before the marines know what hit them. No more skulks finding a blind spot on the TF and taking it out. Anyway, back on topic...
I seem to hear the following from those who object to higher skulk health:
-Aliens win more often than marines -Aliens expand faster than marines
As I said, I don't feel changing skulk health is the best way to address this problem. If you want a simple way to address alien expansion, then consider the following:
Aliens would have to WAIT until a res node activates before building another res node. In other words it would be like the hive system. You can't build multiple hives at once. So aliens would be able to progressively build nodes, but wouldn't be able to build a large number of nodes early in the game.
That would allow the alien economy to ramp up while not nerfing the skulk. It would be a FAR better solution than nerfing the skulk in a blunt atempt to balance something that isn't directly related to the problem at hand.
Like i said, I'm not adverse to making the marine more competitive, I'm just adverse to making sweeping unrelated balance changes in the hopes it will impact the game in the way you hope it will. This is on top of the fact that marines were not even using the bloody arms lab most of the time! That alone would have made marines as tough as this skulk health change did. Now I see early solo marines close quarter killing 2-3 skulks at a time again. That's just not right, I don't care how you justify it.
The sad part is that it's the public players that will suffer. <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--Savant+Jul 20 2003, 02:10 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Savant @ Jul 20 2003, 02:10 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> In a 1on1 situation in CLOSE quarters, the skulk should own a marine. Flayra has always felt that way. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Sorry, I mean no disrespect, I agree with everything else you have said, but how can you be sure of this? Especially if you consider how this never really seemed to be the case in-game? I think Flay does everything he intends to do, and everything he does is intentional, to a degree. What has to be done is to make this the case (convince Flayra that Skulks should be CQB animals that are superior to rines when close enough.
I think that if you balance for the highest skill level/teamwork level that the game will be balanced on pubs. What is balance on a pub really? Either team having an equal chance to win at the start of the game, or about 50/50 win loss for each race. Pubs have such a drastic range of skill/expirience that I don't think anyone will be able to tell if it's balanced on pubs, teams can be drastically uneven at the start with alot of good players on 1 team and not so great players on another side.
I guess this is sorta like the republicans trickle down theory.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Sorry, I mean no disrespect, I agree with everything else you have said, but how can you be sure of this? Especially if you consider how this never really seemed to be the case in-game? I think Flay does everything he intends to do, and everything he does is intentional, to a degree. What has to be done is to make this the case (convince Flayra that Skulks should be CQB animals that are superior to rines when close enough. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We know the skulk is suppose to be a close quarter combat animal because its main weapon is it's teeth and pretty much all their attacks are melee orientated. That would be my guess anyway...Unless you always use the parasite..?
<!--QuoteBegin--Frogg2+Jul 20 2003, 06:39 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Frogg2 @ Jul 20 2003, 06:39 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I think that if you balance for the highest skill level/teamwork level that the game will be balanced on pubs. What is balance on a pub really? Either team having an equal chance to win at the start of the game, or about 50/50 win loss for each race. Pubs have such a drastic range of skill/expirience that I don't think anyone will be able to tell if it's balanced on pubs, teams can be drastically uneven at the start with alot of good players on 1 team and not so great players on another side.
I guess this is sorta like the republicans trickle down theory. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> LOL, I was thinking of that. Needless to say, no matter how you feel about that real life example I doubt that will be exactly the case (not that I care about true public games). Of couse, if things are like what they sound like from the beta forum, the game will be decided on skill, which is good. My only problem is how is skill gauged? In 1.04 I would expect my self to kill a skulk in 1 vs. 1, even if it is very close to me. Gauging skill can be pretty arbritary.
I'll comment on Savant's main (and most valid) point. In dialogue form:
2.0x: Yar! Me nerf skulk health!
Savant: But that would make skulking hard in public games!
Vets: But the game is more balanced with this skulk change. The high skulk health made it too hard for marines to stop fast alien expansion.
Flayra: (Silent)
Savant: But that's not the point! If expanding is overpowered, let's address that directly instead. Instead making skulks weaker, let's make it so aliens can build one RT at a time.
Vets: I don't like that solution...and skulks were still beating marines 1-on-1 from afar. Plus, 2.0x skulks aren't as weak as you portray them to be.
2.0x: (Nods sagely)
Most of Savant's other arguments I find rather weak so I won't comment on them.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that Savant is right in saying that skulk health is fine. He offers an apparently unpopular solution to alien expanding. So let's put our thinking caps on and think up some better solutions <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
i love reading savants posts becuase they go in depth BUT i rarly see him requesting things for marines, usually hes doing mostly aliens, so does that mean the rine part of equality is almsot finished? OR finished? but there is one problem (no offense to Savant AT all) i like his posts but sometimes he never tries to seek another conclusion, he always wants the fix to be the way he posted the topic with. but other than that savant is teh l337 P test0r
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Lastly, I'll attempt to not bring threads off into balance issues anymore as we all have our theories. Savant's looking out for the pubber. I feel that the pubber will be very happy with the 2.0 skulk, if not moreso. Our basis of ideas don't exactly mesh, but I gotta respect him for trying. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i also agree there, he is looknig out for the puibber and not the veteran, thanks Savant <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->We MUST take the public into account in making these kinds of changes, but no one does. Sure a VET may not be bothered by lower skulk health, but all of the public who have a hard enough time playing skulk now will suffer even more for the sake of 'ideal clan balance'. Sorry, no disrespect intended, but I just don't think it's fair.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not either, I'm not a Vet, not a clanner and am one of the mentioned random pub players.
I have always viewed the marine vs skulk issue as a matter of speed. The skulk in 1.04 was NOT fast enough to close short gaps to kill marines definitively. At long distances the skulk SHOULD be annihilated by a marine, guns should have a reason. If the skulk is faster my complaint will be gone because you'll close those distances much faster than in 1.04 and I'll kill more marines than I do now with carapace.
I think the only person you aren't giving any respect to is the people who play on PUBs. Not all of us are idiot n00bs who don't have a clue how to play CS. I personally want to see this change for myself because speed can be everything in a 1vs1 Skulk/Marine. If the skulks wall walking has been improved (Still no rotating camera annoyingly <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo--> ) then maneuverability should be the skulks weapon. If a suitable way of cancelling motion tracking is in then I have no real problems with the health being lowered-yet.
The other thing that has been pointed out is that aliens don't spend 90% of the game as a skulk anymore. Other evolutions come quicker and are easier to get. I fail to see how tier 1 vs tier 1 marine/skulk is overly important if both teams can advance to tier 2 MUCH faster now than they did in 1.04. Fades tear marines to pieces 1 on 1 so rambos aren't going to get too far eventually.
Personally, I'm willing to wait and see the effect of this for myself.
I want to allow more people to reply before I post rebuttals, however there are a couple off topic items I want to address. <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->i love reading savants posts becuase they go in depth BUT i rarly see him requesting things for marines, usually hes doing mostly aliens, so does that mean the rine part of equality is almsot finished? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Actually I tend to give fair play to BOTH sides as is needed. While people may see me as favouring aliens, that's not the case at all. I'm just trying to look at balance OVERALL which includes pub play so we can avoid the problems that plague 1.04 now.
Examples of a few recent suggestions I made to improve marines (that were implemented): -Limit hives so that you MUST finish building a hive before you can start a new one -Spores should not stack -Increase turret effeciency so they are more effective killing skulks (they are liquid death now)
Examples of a few recent suggestions I made to improve marines (that were not implemented): -Make distress beacon part of COMM chair so that when base is almost gone you can still distress the team in. (since the obs is usually the first to die) -Make an IP part of the COMM chair assembly so that marines can still spawn until CC is killed -Free shotties to marines in an effort to encourage teamwork (long story on this - not as simple as it sounds)
So yes I DO consider both sides in my suggestions, but most people only see the aliens suggestions since I seem to be one of the few making them.
BTW: I love this line in another post...
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Not all of us are idiot n00bs who don't have a clue how to play CS.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Freudian slip?!? <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> Gotta be... <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
I really don't understand why you keep repeating that pub players will get owned as skulks. We had the new skulk health for only like 2 builds, about 2 weeks. Since 31st of October 2002 skulk had always low health. Now with 2.0 he has even <i>more</i> health and <i>more</i> armour than in 1.04. Yet you say pub players will get owned. Skulking is much easier in 2.0 than it was in 1.04. Of course skulking was <i>even easier</i> with 85/25, but it's still not even closely as bad as you present it.
Hm, your D-M-S concerns are out of place, completely, because aliens are completely different as to what they used to be. Yet, let us test a bit more and only <i>then</i> discuss possible measures. If we see only Ds as a viable 1st chamber in the next days, well then we might consider changes. As for now, it's completely pointless to proclaim prophecies.
I am quite sure that public will be quite balanced, seeing that both teams have tons of possibilities now. Less restrictions mean more diversity which means that each team can better adapt to the other one. And the possibility of adaptation is balance.
It's quite frustrating to see some individuals in here trying to 'take sides'. This building of illusionary barriers is just plain rediculous and doesn't serve the NS community well. As if even <i>one</i> of the vets isn't concerned about balance...
First let me say that I didn't read the majority of this thread; I've already read Savant's take on the issue on the beta forums and I don't need to see it rehashed with everyone else.
Anyway, Savant, you say you're interested in keeping the game balanced for the average player, yes? And in order to do that you want to make it so marines lose every game unless they act flawlessly as a team? Simply put, this idea is incredibly flawed. Everyone should know by now that the only way marines act so well as a team on a regular basis is in clan matches. You can't possibly deny that, right? Keeping skulks so extremely powerful in comparison to lone marines or small groups is completely the opposite of your intended result.
I play on pub games almost exclusively, for various reasons that I won't get into right now. As a playtester yourself who plays with a select handful of PTs and Veterans(supposedly the best of the best), perhaps you're out of touch with how an actual pub game usually goes. In a pub, marine have a tendency to rambo. A lot. Rarely will they travel in packs of larger than 2-3, with the exception of relocates(sometimes) and organized assaults(surprisingly rare). Sometimes they rambo with the comm's permission to gorge hunt or whatever, sometimes they're just the only one building or defending a res node, sometimes just no one really feels like communicating with the other players to coordinate their movement. Not everybody who hops in the chair is a good commander, and if they are they simply are not capable of totally controlling the marines on their team. Even if you're playing entirely with regulars who all know eachother, pub games simply are not well organized. Even when faced with the challenge of a superior alien team, they usually just lose the game rather than rise to the occasion. Can we agree on that much? Often times it's actually easier to coordinate attacks with aliens, the "rambo team." It is common belief that marines have an advantage in 1.04, but aliens win the majority of the time on most every server I frequent. Clan games and Pub games are completely different ball parks.
Now answer this: do you honestly believe that every single time marines are faced with issues like this, they should lose the game? Do you really think that forcing marines to go EVERYWHERE together will cater to the average pub gamer as much as it does to the clanners? Is it your opinion that aliens deserve to win 90% of the pub games simply because the marines are not usually capable of being that organized?
If the answer is yes, then perhaps you should rethink your self-appointed position as the spokesman for the "average" gamer. Otherwise I encourage you to try playing on a pub again, and ask yourself what your ideas will do to these games if implemented. Perfect teamwork cannot be forced on a public game: the majority of the time, it simply does not exist. If it is required(as it often is in 1.04), the team will lose. Repeatedly. You claim to be arguing for the sake of the average pub gamers, but your ideas of <u>required</u> marine teamwork is the surefire way to destroy NS pub gameplay and turn it into a game that will never be balanced except in clan matches.
Now don't get me wrong. According to the ideals of the game, Marines are the team that have to work together to accomplish their goals, while Aliens are the rambo team that work towards a common purpose. However, the only way to truly balance NS for both pub and clan games(as is Flayra's intention) is to achieve an equilibrium that allows a relatively poorly organized Marine team to be an even match for an equally competent alien team, as well as highly organized marines to be even with experienced aliens. Not an easy task at all, to be sure. But it has to be done. There should be no absolute level of coordination that is required for Marines to win the game; it has to remain relative to the skill of the aliens as a team. Allowing a single skulk to annihilate a single marine(despite the distance advantage) with regularity throws off this balance and tips the pub scale heavily towards aliens.
Skulks are not meant to be greater in every way than marines. They are melee specialists; once they get up close the marine should be toast. But if they charge from a long distance they should be dead before they reach their target, even if it is just a lone stock marine. That's what puts the emphasis on alien surprise and ambush. Is it really so bad for a marine to be able to kill a skulk who doesn't know any better than not to charge out in front of their gun?
nice post Zek, i completely agree with you there. Making the aliens the rambo species while enforcing teamplay on the marine team will just lead to a situation worse than already: aliens win on pubs all the time, marines win clan matches all the time.
The game must be balanced if both teams are badly organized (public), and if both teams are highly organized (clans).
Yeah, same last letter and I misplaced my acronym. Normally I re-read my posts as well to catch silly things like that but didn't have enough time today (In fact, today has been one of my worst on record for all sorts of screw ups. My poor bacteria sigh). I stand by my post whorage however!
savant i wish you'd stop repeating the same drivel ON AND ON. <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The marine team has been made more and more 'idiot proof' in 2.0, and you will see FAR fewer early alien wins as a result<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> If this is the case then can you explain why every bloody game on the vets servers goes to an alien win. In the last 30 games I've played the marines won 8 rounds. But wait... THINK ABOUT THE PUBLIC!!! Yes the public games will have half the teamwork which goes on in vets games. They won't be commanded by Jojosh, arguably one of the best comms, 90% of the marines wont use voice comms as they do here. YET THEY WILL BE BETTER THAN THE VETS?
drivel, utter drivel, and now you're going to repeat your original point without taking into note the 15+ posts in this thread all saying, 'yeah ok savant nice idea but no one else agrees with you'.
So in conclusion, Savant is happy that the aliens win 4/5 of mid games, he also feels that its not fair that the aliens cant destroy the marines whilst they're teching up to save them the hassle of waiting for their inevitable victory. All I can say is thank god that Flayra takes everything you say with a pinch of salt and all the latest additions to 2.0x have been easing the marine game. fwd-chills
Comments
I've read over all the arguements and I, like stated just now, can't back it up, but what he says sounds valid. Marines *should* move in groups, and a single rambo marine should, of course, be able to take a skulk now and then, but NOT be able to take out multiple skulks and get to where he's going, then build an rt or tf, and pick off more skulks. Marines are <b>supposed</b> to work together in NS, a single marine should <i>not</i> be able to destroy 8 skulks, build a tf, build turrets, then siege, without dying.
Thanks for your time <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
IN 1.04 the multi-kills occured because the skulks usually come at you one by one. GG alien teamwork <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo-->
EDIT/NOTE: Notice I'm talking about 1.04 so my opinion is 100% valid. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Exactly. That's what always makes me itchy in 1.04, when you try to organize a rush in a pub game over the mic and you're screaming MEET UP IN MESS HALL, maybe half of the team actually shows up and rushes with you. But still, aliens should be able to kill a marine 1 on 1 without always dying, and it sounds like a single skulk is easily picked off by a lone marine. NOTE: I'm saying 'sounds', I would have no idea at all <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
It sounds like if Flayra was to readd the 10 extra health, marines would be promoted even more to work together rather then rush out of the start soon as the game starts screaming OMG KILLZ!1
My 2 cents.
I like 1.04 despite its issues, but if 2.0 ends up being just as wonky for public play, I'm probably going to find myself playing something else more often.
Since when has skulk vs. marine 1v1 supposed to have been a fair fight? Skulks are intended to be able to kill lone marines so long as they can close to a reasonable distance before being spotted, then need to go heal before they do it again...to encourage teamwork among the marines so that they will work as a group. As was pointed out, marines aren't supposed to be running around alone, and aliens are supposed to be able to.
I also keep seeing people completely missing the point about hive health, hive umbra, etc. Here's a sample scenario: Let's say you've got a 2nd hive with 8 ocs, 4 at each door. The hive contains a skulk and a gorge, being defense. At a point outside the hive, 10 seconds away, someone spots a group of 4 marines that have charged the hive with hmgs on a quick mission to kill it (let's say, for argument that the hive is Maintenance in Eclipse, and the marines are spotted coming out of horseshoe). The scout who spots them attacks, and dies almost instantly to hmg fire, perhaps wounding a marine (who gets health immediately). Then 10 seconds later, the marines find the ocs. The skulk and gorge have tried to get ready the only way they can, taking up defensive positions. A lerk in eclipse command is rushing to the site, but will take another 10-15 seconds to get there. Some other skulks, fades, or whatever, are dealing with a couple other marines somewhere else, or are rushing to the hive. The marines chew the ocs in about 4 seconds. They enter the hive. Let's be generous and say that one goes down to the skulk, who is fragged by the others. The gorge is fragged, because his OCs are down and he can't run fast enough to escape the HMG fire, else he did it out the back door a few seconds ago. The hive goes down in 6 seconds max to HMG fire, assuming the marines stop for a smoke halfway through, less time if they don't. The lerk arrives, with nothing left to umbra. At this point as well, all the other aliens arrive to try to kill off the marines, and the comm sends a second group to kill the other hive, which has no scout to alert the other aliens. Rinse, repeat.
I omit the effect of movement chambers, because in many cases you can't use them to move to the hive under attack, until that hive is being attacked. And if it's attacked, it's dead, so there's no point in even being able to go there. Say there is a movement chamber, what if the marines are going to the middle hive? Or what if you haven't quite got the second hive built yet and it'll be done in like 20 seconds? That's plenty of time for it to go down. What if the lerk is scouting near marine base where there aren't any movement chambers? Movements are great when they're in the right places and so are you. They're useless if they're not. They're too damn unreliable to base fundamental strategy on.
Now, the responses to this argument have been in the past "You need more defense," or "if you're not scouting you deserve to die." These have already been addressed in the past. Static defense is difficult to set up, moreso if you already know that the defense is ineffective against HMG marines. Period. And with the reduced skulk health of late plus all the recent upgrades to marine weapons, it seems ridiculously easy to kill the roving defense unless they attack you perfectly. Marine static defenses can't be touched by skulks at all. Sure 20 rps of OCs should be less powerful than a more expensive electric TF, but they also shouldn't be made of paper. I'd rather have expensive OCs that can slow down a marine team (or kill them instantly like elec TFs do!). There's too much focus on the resource cost of things rather than on gameplay. It's like people think that resources are worth the same amount to marines and aliens or something? Maybe they're not. Maybe this thread is evidence for that. It seems to me that alien wins are going to rely on luck rather than skill: the luck to have a scout spot the marines soon enough, and for the other aliens to be able to get into position to kill them soon enough, plus the luck to get the res to build that second hive and all those OCs in the first place. Marine wins will also depend on luck, but less: the luck to get enough res to get hmgs to a hive before the second hive goes up. And if the second hive does go up, they can make a pretty good go at it anyway. The aliens simply can't be everywhere at once, and if the marines happen to find an opening by sheer dumb luck (and the comm can now ping for free to scout a route for them), no amount of skill is going to stop them.
The best proposal I've seen so far is the health-based hive umbra. If it takes 1000 damage, it umbras for 2-3 seconds. At the next 1000 damage it umbras for 2-3 seconds. So the marines fire short bursts, wait a sec, burst, wait a sec, burst, etc. They can still own an undefended hive. Just not instantly. And if the defense was standing at the other door thinking that's where the marines were going, they have the chance to go "oops, wrong door" before the hive is dead. Also this way OCs will still keep out lone marines and go down to HMG fire quickly.
Or perhaps lower hive build times to make it easier to put them back up when they get destroyed?
Marines are given the ability to make mistakes, while aliens are being demanded to be super-perfect. Why? The marine tech process is linear: upgrade armoury, build proto, get hmgs ASAP, pwn. Once the public gamers figure this out, there will be one strat. At least in 1.04 we had the odd mine rush or shotty rush rather than the JP/HMG rushes. Now you don't even need a JP. Aliens were supposed to be designed to be independent and mobile. Marines were supposed to have to work as a team. Marines have a central coordinator to facilitate that. Aliens don't. But they're supposed to work like a well-oiled machine anyway? In public play? How often did that happen in 1.04? Why do you expect it will begin to happen now just because it's required in order to win? People in pub servers will not take the time to perfect their skillz just so they can play a decent game. They'll leave. Or all rush for the marine door in the ready room, like they do already in 1.04. Whee. You might also notice that when there was a similar problem with aliens (bile-bombing gorge rushes) it was fixed without a bunch of people whining that the marines just weren't working as a team, or needed more defense, or whatever.
I hope that I end up being wrong and that NS 2.0 will be an improvement over 1.04. But the longer I follow the changelogs, the more it looks like the gameplay is being edged back toward 1.04. Back toward single-strat play, identical games, and aliens being owned a disproportionate amount of the time by marine tech rushes. The initial changes made by the dev team set up 2.0 to be a different game, but it looks from here like pressure from some of the vets has overruled the dev team's initial instincts, and pushed the game in a backward direction.
Looking forward to July 31st, so I can find out whether I'll be playing this game past August.
Nope, but I've seen it happen plenty on pubs. Organize a rush, half the team goes huhuhuh noe we need 2 kill teh rambo rines solo!11 and the others actually listen. It's even more annoying when you're a gorge and need protection with a team of nubs going U GOT 2 BUILD OC IN HIVE!11 NUB GURGE!1
Rar <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
And i definatly agree with him here...... 1v1 Marine should die hands down. if both at lvl0
Second: Does carapace still slow down aliens? havent heard this come up much. Seems to me thats a pretty serouse balence issue in the 1 on 1 marine Vs Skulk debate.
Thirdly: Its looking to me that maby Flayra should see if the clannies want him to just rename the game to Naturaly for Clanners. Seems that the play testers of NS.2 only care about whats good for clan compitition anyways.
Forth: why do so many ppl seem to want marines to not just continue having a advantage, but be a divinitivly better race?
Fith: Savent, 2 questions, do you work for microsoft? I recieved a tech support email that shared sevral sentece strutures to your posts. Have you ever taken rhetoric? you seem pretty good at it.
I've read over all the arguements and I, like stated just now, can't back it up, but what he says sounds valid. Marines *should* move in groups, and a single rambo marine should, of course, be able to take a skulk now and then, but NOT be able to take out multiple skulks and get to where he's going, then build an rt or tf, and pick off more skulks. Marines are <b>supposed</b> to work together in NS, a single marine should <i>not</i> be able to destroy 8 skulks, build a tf, build turrets, then siege, without dying.
Thanks for your time <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
IN 1.04 the multi-kills occured because the skulks usually come at you one by one. GG alien teamwork <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo-->
EDIT/NOTE: Notice I'm talking about 1.04 so my opinion is 100% valid. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
More like GG marine teamwork.
On another happy note:
<b><i>Excellent</i></b> post there, Dr. Akward.
On a vet note:
Some of them, think about everything to a large scale, offer good critism, and contribute. I'd like to point out Archaven as my favorite vet for that.
While others, constantly pick on others idea, give negetive crtisism, do little to help with overall gameplay, and seemed concerned about how much they can 'own'. Just why the hell should a lone marine own a lone skulk? It makes no sense. In addition to that, now rambo's can just focus on killing things knowing they will help their teammates out a ton. That is bullsh!t. If res for kills will be implemented, then marines <b>must</b> be owned(in other words, if a skulk and a marine both of equal skill meet, then the skulk wins in 70% of the cases) 1v1 in order for them to still require teamwork.
I would like to point you to the post that Mouse put up here. It's not as simple as 1 marine owning 1 skulk or 1 skulk owning 1 marine or even neither being the common victor.
Mouse's post explains it best.
The point is, midgame, marines can't own ANYTHING unless they have extreme teamwork. The root of the issue is how teir one abilities and races affect the so called balance.
If you look at as marine vs skulk only, you've already lost the big picture.
If you look at it as skulk with higher hp owning marines constantly, limiting marine expansion, scoring additional res for kills, allowing gorges to freely roam, and then having enough res to fade before marines have their first upgrade.... then you start to see the big picture.
The point is, with the two competing economies, the marines economy get pwned before they have a chance to really expand because of the power of the skulk. Take a re-read of that topic. Take a view of the big picture.
Also, don't dis the vets because you don't agree with them. They did get their playtesting position because they happen to already know a bit about the game. It was the clans that first broke it. Now they're trying to make sure it isn't broken.
In addition, while you worry about pub games, realize that both parties are not going to be the most experienced players, and simply put, the kill, the resources and the win goes to the people who are better players, more experienced, and STILL have better teamwork. If you don't have some of the most skilled players playing other most skilled players reaching a balance, you'll never reach a point of reference for pub balance.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> If res for kills will be implemented, then marines must be owned(in other words, if a skulk and a marine both of equal skill meet, then the skulk wins in 70% of the cases) 1v1 in order for them to still require teamwork.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The fatal flaw in this theory is that your skulk can now fade within the first 2 or 3 minutes because they've racked up enough kills because he can't be killed by a marine short of 30% of the time. If that skulk runs in packs, they'll be able to afford a 2nd hive, upgrades, and eventually onos faster than marines can afford the tech to even destroy a hive.
In addition to that, a skulk runs faster, and has more diverse upgrades available to him in the early game while the marines are still building their economy. *Note that skulk moving speed is FASTER than it is in 1.04. Read up on dem 2.0 changelogs.
You can't let 1 marine = 1 skulk in power of kills because you're comparing apples and oranges here.
Skulks don't get ripped like the paper they are in 1.04, and they don't rip through marines like level 3 carapace skulks did in 1.04. Believe me, when I say you'll be happy with the updates.
I'll update more to refute my statements if required. Read that skulk thread in the beta forums again, and get a feeling for what we're facing when we attempt to balance the game.
[EDIT]
Fixing some nouns and verbs I've got crossed...
I'm very sure this isn't the case. Marines have to be just as "super-perfect." Forget to repair that TF? Well there goes the base. That assault that drained all your resources failed? Well you're screwed. There are so many scenarios where the marines can screw up.
If aliens lost their hive, it's not as serious anymore for 2 reasons: hives are cheaper and hives are less important.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I also keep seeing people completely missing the point about hive health, hive umbra, etc. Here's a sample scenario: Let's say you've got a 2nd hive with 8 ocs, 4 at each door. The hive contains a skulk and a gorge, being defense. At a point outside the hive, 10 seconds away, someone spots a group of 4 marines that have charged the hive with hmgs on a quick mission to kill it (let's say, for argument that the hive is Maintenance in Eclipse, and the marines are spotted coming out of horseshoe). The scout who spots them attacks, and dies almost instantly to hmg fire, perhaps wounding a marine (who gets health immediately). Then 10 seconds later, the marines find the ocs. The skulk and gorge have tried to get ready the only way they can, taking up defensive positions. A lerk in eclipse command is rushing to the site, but will take another 10-15 seconds to get there. Some other skulks, fades, or whatever, are dealing with a couple other marines somewhere else, or are rushing to the hive. The marines chew the ocs in about 4 seconds. They enter the hive. Let's be generous and say that one goes down to the skulk, who is fragged by the others. The gorge is fragged, because his OCs are down and he can't run fast enough to escape the HMG fire, else he did it out the back door a few seconds ago. The hive goes down in 6 seconds max to HMG fire, assuming the marines stop for a smoke halfway through, less time if they don't. The lerk arrives, with nothing left to umbra. At this point as well, all the other aliens arrive to try to kill off the marines, and the comm sends a second group to kill the other hive, which has no scout to alert the other aliens. Rinse, repeat.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In this scenario, it really is the aliens fault for not scouting. With skulks parasiting, skulks and lerks wandering throughout the map, and some aliens opting for the scent of fear upgrade (if they have sensory first), they really don't much an excuse. A clever gorge may also put a single OC in a doorway that the marines have to get past - this OC would serve as the warning signal if the marines attack it. Basically, there's a lot of ways for aliens to scout.
Even in the event that their scouting fails, they are not screwed. The scenario above sounds like a 2-hive situation. If the aliens had 3 hives, the gorge would be webbing the marines. This means there are 2 hives. A network of movement chambers isn't hard to put up. Suppose a gorge sets up an emergency movement chamber that teleports you to the wrong hive. No problem - use the movement chamber there to get to the hive that's about to be attacked. Lerks are also just about as fast as they are in 1.04, so I really don't think there's a problem.
Of course, I may be wrong with all this analysis, but then most analysis, even by the PTs themselves is rather premature considering that the 2.0x has been out for only 2 days...
Right now, I'm inclined to agree with TeoH. Savant does have a point that the game needs to be geared to public games as well, but I don't see anything concrete in his reasoning that states that the game would be unbalanced in public games. TeoH is also correct in saying that only comparing damage is silly.
EDIT: This is about the only thing I agree with Savant:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->If aliens are too strong as a team, then let's figure out why and address THOSE issues. Skulk health never won aliens any games, it's the fades/onos that do that. So there are other factors at play here that need looking at.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I kind of agree. However, each race needs there specific strengths and weaknesses, but they can't be too obvious. I'll need to play 2.0 before commenting more on this.
In 1.04, the aliens had to be VERY perfect and marines generally suck or have a slow commander for the aliens to win.
In 2.0, that story is out the door. The alien's economy is kickstarted by the resources for kills as well as the ability to instantly drop resource nodes. (each person starts with enough res to gorge and build 1 node). Same for the marines, but your aliens aren't so killable now. A dead gorge won't set you back 2 minutes in the game as 1.04 did.
Aliens have much more leniency and don't have to be perfect in strategy as well as variety with all chambers being very viable. If this this hasn't been impressed upon the people enough, I'm at a loss.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Of course, I may be wrong with all this analysis, but then most analysis, even by the PTs themselves is rather premature considering that the 2.0x has been out for only 2 days...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, but we've been toying with different skulk health values for quite a while. I happen to like the new health value as it is. Also... skulks still have more armor. I believe it's 25 right now, as opposed to the 10 armor in 1.04.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
If aliens are too strong as a team, then let's figure out why and address THOSE issues. Skulk health never won aliens any games, it's the fades/onos that do that. So there are other factors at play here that need looking at.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I kind of agree. However, each race needs there specific strengths and weaknesses, but they can't be too obvious. I'll need to play 2.0 before commenting more on this.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Savant said the skulk health never won any aliens any games and it's because the skulks didn't have the power to finish the marines... But they won the resource economy battle early game, which is more important to do, especially in 2.0. We don't need toned down fades or onos, but you need to keep the fades and onos for mid to late game. The skulk's power to enhance the alien res economy early game was the root of the issue. With a defeated resource economy, the marines can't counter fades or onos without massive teamwork and focusfire on 1 creature.
Let me reiterate that the issue that needs addressing is the resource economy. The marines in 1.04 had a major advantage because they could start building res towers before the aliens could build 1. Now, the aliens often drop multiple resource towers (both sides have a 90 second activations time - read them changelogs <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> ).
But, you count the resources for kills, the fact that your fighters are ALSO your builders on the marine team, as well as the inability to kill a FASTER skulk with more hp and more armor in 2.0...
... you end up with the aliens controlling the battle of the economies in the first minute of the game. The marine have to fight an uphill battle from the start.
The skulk should be killable, but not so much to the extent it was slaughtered in 1.04 without carapace.
It's not the kills and the battles that are what need to be balanced, it's the rate and potential growth of the team's resource economy.
The fatal flaw with Mouse's theory is that you cannot balance out one or two things and expect all the other things to become balanced. I'm sorry, but games just aren't that simple. However, what is important is that the skulk vs. marine is balanced.
You start by balancing things at the lower levels, and iron things out later. <b>You do <i>not</i> leave something unbalanced just to balance out a couple of other things at later levels. This is a terrible thought process to hold.</b> You balance each issue as you adress it, you do not leave something unbalanced here and something unbalanced here and say: "Oh looky here, the two imbalances balance each other out!"
Now, onto the idea of balancing out the skulk so he can pretty much kill a marine 1v1 up close, but get killed easily at a distance:
Perhaps skulk hp levels should remain low like they are now, however, if a skulk hits the back of a marine, he deals 2 times as much damage? This would keep it so skulks cannot rush a marine down a hallway expecting to win due to superior health values, but if he jumped a marine the marine is dead meat. If a marine meets a skulk head on and sees the skulk pop out of some vent and is in close range of the skulk but keeps his back away from the skulk, then it should be slightly in favor of the marine.
I feel opposite in this issue. In 1.04 start days, while 1.04 is now declared as the ultimate marine-ownage version, aliens owned in all public games that were smaller than 20 players (most servers are 14 or 16). Server ops posted statistics which showed about 70-80% alien victories while in 20+ games it was 70-80% marine victories. When marines noticed their extreme strenghts (and players generally learned to play the game better) in the early game, win percentages gradually changed to favor marines lead by the infamous JP/HMG strategies and early rushes. Many people quit, because the game was clearly not balanced. Now, however, there shouldn't be unbalance in early game or any super-techs, but a higher demand for marine teamwork. Teamwork, which is severely lacking in many publics, is a major factor in marine gameplay. Thus I believe that aliens, not marines, will be highly dominant in publics once 2.0 is released. Even more than in 1.04 release days. The games will eventually balance out to 50-50 wins once everyone learns the game and marines start working as an efficient team. I believe public games always become more and more similar to clan games when time passes and people get to know the game better. Opposite to what you say, there is a danger that it will be the marine side that will lack in victories in publics, since only "veterans" will know efficient teamwork, while aliens will win more due to promoted individualism. This way it could be that it will take several months before joining marines in publics will give you the pleasure of victory, while in tournaments and clan games marines will enjoy as many victories as aliens. It really depends on how many new players 2.0 will bring and how quickly people will learn the importance of teamwork.
Wow, calm down <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> Its coming along pretty nicely and I think youre going to be very happy with the release. A few things to mention
- Our job is to try and find things that we think is "broken", to abuse stuff thats too good and let flayra decide what he wants to do. We arent in charge of making changes and a majority of balance rants are ignored.
- Its to the point where flayra can easily change almost anything with a server side patch, of which he plans to release several shortly after release.
- What savant is arguing conflicts with your point - he believes that marines should NEED to have really good teamwork skills to win. The current level of teamwork on marines by vets is already much higher than the average 1.04 pub, yet marines still lose a majority.
- Trust me, it is much easier to win on aliens than it is on marines
You said it EXACTLY right. Problem with higher hp skulks is they could still kill marines from a distance because they could close the distance with the added hp and new speed in 2.0. The skulks are a melee fighter, and when they can negate range that easily, they're that powerful.
Forlorn, I think we've found common ground here. Also, I believe the point of Mouse's theory is how you can't
adjust a few things and fix all the balance.
I don't feel the skulks should get a bonus for back hits, as with the advent of all chambers being viable, they become very wikkid killers enough with various upgrades as well as in vanilla form.
But for the rest, I completely agree with you.
[EDIT]
Lastly, I'll attempt to not bring threads off into balance issues anymore as we all have our theories.
Savant's looking out for the pubber. I feel that the pubber will be very happy with the 2.0 skulk, if not moreso. Our basis of ideas don't exactly mesh, but I gotta respect him for trying.
However, I do want to make a few comments.
We MUST take the public into account in making these kinds of changes, but no one does. Sure a VET may not be bothered by lower skulk health, but all of the public who have a hard enough time playing skulk now will suffer even more for the sake of 'ideal clan balance'. Sorry, no disrespect intended, but I just don't think it's fair.
In a 1on1 situation in CLOSE quarters, the skulk should own a marine. Flayra has always felt that way. However, we also have the problem with the marine hitbox, while even though we have atempted to fix it many times, still remains an issue and as of Flayra's last comment on this he was going to leave it until after 2.0 releases. (of course he could have changed his mind.)
The marine team has been made more and more 'idiot proof' in 2.0, and you will see FAR fewer early alien wins as a result. All the marines need to do is set up an electrified TF and 4 turrrets in base and they will NOT lose their base until well after the second hive is up. No more skulks sneaking in and taking out the IP before the marines know what hit them. No more skulks finding a blind spot on the TF and taking it out. Anyway, back on topic...
I seem to hear the following from those who object to higher skulk health:
-Aliens win more often than marines
-Aliens expand faster than marines
As I said, I don't feel changing skulk health is the best way to address this problem. If you want a simple way to address alien expansion, then consider the following:
Aliens would have to WAIT until a res node activates before building another res node. In other words it would be like the hive system. You can't build multiple hives at once. So aliens would be able to progressively build nodes, but wouldn't be able to build a large number of nodes early in the game.
That would allow the alien economy to ramp up while not nerfing the skulk. It would be a FAR better solution than nerfing the skulk in a blunt atempt to balance something that isn't directly related to the problem at hand.
Like i said, I'm not adverse to making the marine more competitive, I'm just adverse to making sweeping unrelated balance changes in the hopes it will impact the game in the way you hope it will. This is on top of the fact that marines were not even using the bloody arms lab most of the time! That alone would have made marines as tough as this skulk health change did. Now I see early solo marines close quarter killing 2-3 skulks at a time again. That's just not right, I don't care how you justify it.
The sad part is that it's the public players that will suffer. <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
Regards,
Savant
Perhaps the marine should be remodeled/recoded?
Sorry, I mean no disrespect, I agree with everything else you have said, but how can you be sure of this? Especially if you consider how this never really seemed to be the case in-game? I think Flay does everything he intends to do, and everything he does is intentional, to a degree. What has to be done is to make this the case (convince Flayra that Skulks should be CQB animals that are superior to rines when close enough.
I guess this is sorta like the republicans trickle down theory.
We know the skulk is suppose to be a close quarter combat animal because its main weapon is it's teeth and pretty much all their attacks are melee orientated. That would be my guess anyway...Unless you always use the parasite..?
I guess this is sorta like the republicans trickle down theory. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
LOL, I was thinking of that. Needless to say, no matter how you feel about that real life example I doubt that will be exactly the case (not that I care about true public games). Of couse, if things are like what they sound like from the beta forum, the game will be decided on skill, which is good. My only problem is how is skill gauged? In 1.04 I would expect my self to kill a skulk in 1 vs. 1, even if it is very close to me. Gauging skill can be pretty arbritary.
2.0x: Yar! Me nerf skulk health!
Savant: But that would make skulking hard in public games!
Vets: But the game is more balanced with this skulk change. The high skulk health made it too hard for marines to stop fast alien expansion.
Flayra: (Silent)
Savant: But that's not the point! If expanding is overpowered, let's address that directly instead. Instead making skulks weaker, let's make it so aliens can build one RT at a time.
Vets: I don't like that solution...and skulks were still beating marines 1-on-1 from afar. Plus, 2.0x skulks aren't as weak as you portray them to be.
2.0x: (Nods sagely)
Most of Savant's other arguments I find rather weak so I won't comment on them.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that Savant is right in saying that skulk health is fine. He offers an apparently unpopular solution to alien expanding. So let's put our thinking caps on and think up some better solutions <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
but there is one problem (no offense to Savant AT all) i like his posts but sometimes he never tries to seek another conclusion, he always wants the fix to be the way he posted the topic with. but other than that savant is teh l337 P test0r
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Lastly, I'll attempt to not bring threads off into balance issues anymore as we all have our theories.
Savant's looking out for the pubber. I feel that the pubber will be very happy with the 2.0 skulk, if not moreso. Our basis of ideas don't exactly mesh, but I gotta respect him for trying. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i also agree there, he is looknig out for the puibber and not the veteran, thanks Savant <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I'm not either, I'm not a Vet, not a clanner and am one of the mentioned random pub players.
I have always viewed the marine vs skulk issue as a matter of speed. The skulk in 1.04 was NOT fast enough to close short gaps to kill marines definitively. At long distances the skulk SHOULD be annihilated by a marine, guns should have a reason. If the skulk is faster my complaint will be gone because you'll close those distances much faster than in 1.04 and I'll kill more marines than I do now with carapace.
I think the only person you aren't giving any respect to is the people who play on PUBs. Not all of us are idiot n00bs who don't have a clue how to play CS. I personally want to see this change for myself because speed can be everything in a 1vs1 Skulk/Marine. If the skulks wall walking has been improved (Still no rotating camera annoyingly <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo--> ) then maneuverability should be the skulks weapon. If a suitable way of cancelling motion tracking is in then I have no real problems with the health being lowered-yet.
The other thing that has been pointed out is that aliens don't spend 90% of the game as a skulk anymore. Other evolutions come quicker and are easier to get. I fail to see how tier 1 vs tier 1 marine/skulk is overly important if both teams can advance to tier 2 MUCH faster now than they did in 1.04. Fades tear marines to pieces 1 on 1 so rambos aren't going to get too far eventually.
Personally, I'm willing to wait and see the effect of this for myself.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->i love reading savants posts becuase they go in depth BUT i rarly see him requesting things for marines, usually hes doing mostly aliens, so does that mean the rine part of equality is almsot finished? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually I tend to give fair play to BOTH sides as is needed. While people may see me as favouring aliens, that's not the case at all. I'm just trying to look at balance OVERALL which includes pub play so we can avoid the problems that plague 1.04 now.
Examples of a few recent suggestions I made to improve marines (that were implemented):
-Limit hives so that you MUST finish building a hive before you can start a new one
-Spores should not stack
-Increase turret effeciency so they are more effective killing skulks (they are liquid death now)
Examples of a few recent suggestions I made to improve marines (that were not implemented):
-Make distress beacon part of COMM chair so that when base is almost gone you can still distress the team in. (since the obs is usually the first to die)
-Make an IP part of the COMM chair assembly so that marines can still spawn until CC is killed
-Free shotties to marines in an effort to encourage teamwork (long story on this - not as simple as it sounds)
So yes I DO consider both sides in my suggestions, but most people only see the aliens suggestions since I seem to be one of the few making them.
BTW: I love this line in another post...
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Not all of us are idiot n00bs who don't have a clue how to play CS.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Freudian slip?!? <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> Gotta be... <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Regards,
Savant
Hm, your D-M-S concerns are out of place, completely, because aliens are completely different as to what they used to be. Yet, let us test a bit more and only <i>then</i> discuss possible measures. If we see only Ds as a viable 1st chamber in the next days, well then we might consider changes. As for now, it's completely pointless to proclaim prophecies.
I am quite sure that public will be quite balanced, seeing that both teams have tons of possibilities now. Less restrictions mean more diversity which means that each team can better adapt to the other one. And the possibility of adaptation is balance.
It's quite frustrating to see some individuals in here trying to 'take sides'. This building of illusionary barriers is just plain rediculous and doesn't serve the NS community well.
As if even <i>one</i> of the vets isn't concerned about balance...
Anyway, Savant, you say you're interested in keeping the game balanced for the average player, yes? And in order to do that you want to make it so marines lose every game unless they act flawlessly as a team? Simply put, this idea is incredibly flawed. Everyone should know by now that the only way marines act so well as a team on a regular basis is in clan matches. You can't possibly deny that, right? Keeping skulks so extremely powerful in comparison to lone marines or small groups is completely the opposite of your intended result.
I play on pub games almost exclusively, for various reasons that I won't get into right now. As a playtester yourself who plays with a select handful of PTs and Veterans(supposedly the best of the best), perhaps you're out of touch with how an actual pub game usually goes. In a pub, marine have a tendency to rambo. A lot. Rarely will they travel in packs of larger than 2-3, with the exception of relocates(sometimes) and organized assaults(surprisingly rare). Sometimes they rambo with the comm's permission to gorge hunt or whatever, sometimes they're just the only one building or defending a res node, sometimes just no one really feels like communicating with the other players to coordinate their movement. Not everybody who hops in the chair is a good commander, and if they are they simply are not capable of totally controlling the marines on their team. Even if you're playing entirely with regulars who all know eachother, pub games simply are not well organized. Even when faced with the challenge of a superior alien team, they usually just lose the game rather than rise to the occasion. Can we agree on that much? Often times it's actually easier to coordinate attacks with aliens, the "rambo team." It is common belief that marines have an advantage in 1.04, but aliens win the majority of the time on most every server I frequent. Clan games and Pub games are completely different ball parks.
Now answer this: do you honestly believe that every single time marines are faced with issues like this, they should lose the game? Do you really think that forcing marines to go EVERYWHERE together will cater to the average pub gamer as much as it does to the clanners? Is it your opinion that aliens deserve to win 90% of the pub games simply because the marines are not usually capable of being that organized?
If the answer is yes, then perhaps you should rethink your self-appointed position as the spokesman for the "average" gamer. Otherwise I encourage you to try playing on a pub again, and ask yourself what your ideas will do to these games if implemented. Perfect teamwork cannot be forced on a public game: the majority of the time, it simply does not exist. If it is required(as it often is in 1.04), the team will lose. Repeatedly. You claim to be arguing for the sake of the average pub gamers, but your ideas of <u>required</u> marine teamwork is the surefire way to destroy NS pub gameplay and turn it into a game that will never be balanced except in clan matches.
Now don't get me wrong. According to the ideals of the game, Marines are the team that have to work together to accomplish their goals, while Aliens are the rambo team that work towards a common purpose. However, the only way to truly balance NS for both pub and clan games(as is Flayra's intention) is to achieve an equilibrium that allows a relatively poorly organized Marine team to be an even match for an equally competent alien team, as well as highly organized marines to be even with experienced aliens. Not an easy task at all, to be sure. But it has to be done. There should be no absolute level of coordination that is required for Marines to win the game; it has to remain relative to the skill of the aliens as a team. Allowing a single skulk to annihilate a single marine(despite the distance advantage) with regularity throws off this balance and tips the pub scale heavily towards aliens.
Skulks are not meant to be greater in every way than marines. They are melee specialists; once they get up close the marine should be toast. But if they charge from a long distance they should be dead before they reach their target, even if it is just a lone stock marine. That's what puts the emphasis on alien surprise and ambush. Is it really so bad for a marine to be able to kill a skulk who doesn't know any better than not to charge out in front of their gun?
The game must be balanced if both teams are badly organized (public), and if both teams are highly organized (clans).
Yeah, same last letter and I misplaced my acronym. Normally I re-read my posts as well to catch silly things like that but didn't have enough time today (In fact, today has been one of my worst on record for all sorts of screw ups. My poor bacteria sigh). I stand by my post whorage however!
If this is the case then can you explain why every bloody game on the vets servers goes to an alien win. In the last 30 games I've played the marines won 8 rounds. But wait...
THINK ABOUT THE PUBLIC!!!
Yes the public games will have half the teamwork which goes on in vets games. They won't be commanded by Jojosh, arguably one of the best comms, 90% of the marines wont use voice comms as they do here. YET THEY WILL BE BETTER THAN THE VETS?
drivel, utter drivel, and now you're going to repeat your original point without taking into note the 15+ posts in this thread all saying, 'yeah ok savant nice idea but no one else agrees with you'.
So in conclusion, Savant is happy that the aliens win 4/5 of mid games, he also feels that its not fair that the aliens cant destroy the marines whilst they're teching up to save them the hassle of waiting for their inevitable victory. All I can say is thank god that Flayra takes everything you say with a pinch of salt and all the latest additions to 2.0x have been easing the marine game.
fwd-chills