Ns 2.01 - Balanced?
Beast
Armonkyi Join Date: 2003-04-21 Member: 15731Members, Constellation
Armonkyi Join Date: 2003-04-21 Member: 15731Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Discussion on a few issues..</div> <span style='color:red'>**Disclaimer: This is subject to change in 2.1, where many of these points/ideas could be made inaccurate. I am asking questions here basically, not starting a flamewar.**</span>
I’ll make this clear. I am not a veteran or playtester. I am merely a peon in the NS community wanting to work out what is going on.
The past few days in ns2.01 pub play I’ve noticed a change in the usual team winnings, on the lunixmonster server in particular, I’ve seen a drastic increase in marine wins, then recently, a decrease. Some moments did have me worried though – two particular parts of tactics I have seen so far:
#1 Marine Resnode rushing:
Quite similar to early 2.0, only with marines capping nodes like mad instead of the aliens. Basically the marines usually get about 5 nodes very quickly, and then soon electrify them. By the time aliens have anything to stop them, from my experience, it’s already too late and the marines have 5+nodes. I’d say 4 is the “minimum” amount of nodes for a successful marine attack. You may say early fades and defence first, but that again goes into the problem of forced DMS. I’ve yet to see a good counter to this, but then again I have only just seen this start to happen, opinions here would be usefull.
#2 jetpacks, shotguns.
This is slightly more worrying, and on the increase. In simple math, a level 0 shotgun, if it were to fire all of its ammo, could do 8160 damage in total, theoretically. Hives have 6000 hp. With level 3 weapons, that shotgun can do 10560 damage.
Now lets assume this shotgun is given to a single vanilla rine, he could probably do a lot of damage, but he’s still a vanilla rine, on his own, he will be sniped by ocs or eaten by a stray skulk, so he’s fairly useless.
So what if we equip 5 vanilla rines with shotguns? Well they will usually rush in, and by the time they get to the hive, they will have likely lost a lot of ammo and health, and possibly marines. If they mange to break through, well, alien’s fault. Hive goes down very quickly though, with each shotgun clip doing 1360 (level 0) to 1760 (level 3) damage. With 5 rines that hive might as well be made of tissue paper.
However, this is not the problem. I see no problem with that, as it’s a considerable investment and it can easily go wrong. The problem is if you give said rines a jetpack.
With a jetpack, those rines could get to the hive with minimal damage, and avoid anything pretty much. Still, investment done, investment paid off. 25 res per rine.
But what if we go back to the single rine, and give him a jetpack and a shotgun? That’s only 25 res. And what he could do is take down the hive by himself. Now, this may take a while, but bare in mind that oc’s have been nerfed so not as to track jps very well, so he could probably damage the hive considerably - if not actuallt take it down. This is bad, but it isn’t the problem. If the rine has any degree of skill, it’s most likely going to take a fair amount of alien force to kill – in the form of a fade or several skulks. All this for a single marine. So while the aliens are now “OMOGMGOM SHOTTY AT HIVE KILL HIM” with possibly most of their team focused on taking this rine out – (catch 22 – if they don’t kill him, he could kill the hive), the comm could send another jp/shotty to another hive, and then the aliens have two hives under attack at once… and on pub play, this would cause utter chaos. And this is only with level 0 weapons, if they had level 3 those hives are going to be hurting a lot.
The problem here is like 1.04 – despite the lone Rambo not being able to obliterate the hive ala 1.04 jp/hmg, it still distracts nearly all of the alien team to kill him, and he's only one marine. Where is the rest of the team?
I don’t know if there is a counter to these, that’s partly why I made this thread, to discuss it. I wrote this seeking the opinion of the ns community concerning both of these so I could better understand what is going on. I could have just misunderstood the whole thing, but hey. So I make a request that this thread not be turned into a flame war. The mods ARE watching this thread, let’s not get it locked.
*this thread will be corrected/revised as neccessary for clarity*
I’ll make this clear. I am not a veteran or playtester. I am merely a peon in the NS community wanting to work out what is going on.
The past few days in ns2.01 pub play I’ve noticed a change in the usual team winnings, on the lunixmonster server in particular, I’ve seen a drastic increase in marine wins, then recently, a decrease. Some moments did have me worried though – two particular parts of tactics I have seen so far:
#1 Marine Resnode rushing:
Quite similar to early 2.0, only with marines capping nodes like mad instead of the aliens. Basically the marines usually get about 5 nodes very quickly, and then soon electrify them. By the time aliens have anything to stop them, from my experience, it’s already too late and the marines have 5+nodes. I’d say 4 is the “minimum” amount of nodes for a successful marine attack. You may say early fades and defence first, but that again goes into the problem of forced DMS. I’ve yet to see a good counter to this, but then again I have only just seen this start to happen, opinions here would be usefull.
#2 jetpacks, shotguns.
This is slightly more worrying, and on the increase. In simple math, a level 0 shotgun, if it were to fire all of its ammo, could do 8160 damage in total, theoretically. Hives have 6000 hp. With level 3 weapons, that shotgun can do 10560 damage.
Now lets assume this shotgun is given to a single vanilla rine, he could probably do a lot of damage, but he’s still a vanilla rine, on his own, he will be sniped by ocs or eaten by a stray skulk, so he’s fairly useless.
So what if we equip 5 vanilla rines with shotguns? Well they will usually rush in, and by the time they get to the hive, they will have likely lost a lot of ammo and health, and possibly marines. If they mange to break through, well, alien’s fault. Hive goes down very quickly though, with each shotgun clip doing 1360 (level 0) to 1760 (level 3) damage. With 5 rines that hive might as well be made of tissue paper.
However, this is not the problem. I see no problem with that, as it’s a considerable investment and it can easily go wrong. The problem is if you give said rines a jetpack.
With a jetpack, those rines could get to the hive with minimal damage, and avoid anything pretty much. Still, investment done, investment paid off. 25 res per rine.
But what if we go back to the single rine, and give him a jetpack and a shotgun? That’s only 25 res. And what he could do is take down the hive by himself. Now, this may take a while, but bare in mind that oc’s have been nerfed so not as to track jps very well, so he could probably damage the hive considerably - if not actuallt take it down. This is bad, but it isn’t the problem. If the rine has any degree of skill, it’s most likely going to take a fair amount of alien force to kill – in the form of a fade or several skulks. All this for a single marine. So while the aliens are now “OMOGMGOM SHOTTY AT HIVE KILL HIM” with possibly most of their team focused on taking this rine out – (catch 22 – if they don’t kill him, he could kill the hive), the comm could send another jp/shotty to another hive, and then the aliens have two hives under attack at once… and on pub play, this would cause utter chaos. And this is only with level 0 weapons, if they had level 3 those hives are going to be hurting a lot.
The problem here is like 1.04 – despite the lone Rambo not being able to obliterate the hive ala 1.04 jp/hmg, it still distracts nearly all of the alien team to kill him, and he's only one marine. Where is the rest of the team?
I don’t know if there is a counter to these, that’s partly why I made this thread, to discuss it. I wrote this seeking the opinion of the ns community concerning both of these so I could better understand what is going on. I could have just misunderstood the whole thing, but hey. So I make a request that this thread not be turned into a flame war. The mods ARE watching this thread, let’s not get it locked.
*this thread will be corrected/revised as neccessary for clarity*
Comments
AND 1 JP/SHOTGUNNER WONT TAKE DOWN A HIVE. It will take ages for the JP'er to take down the hive and the aliens wont sit down on their flat ****.
So that means a lvl0 marine can kill a hive, without interference, in approximately 48 seconds while a lvl3 will take only about 37 seconds.
XeerO
Evangelion
Tyrnemesis
X-S-Z
and Necrosis
all jps + shottys
I think the outcomm will definetely be either domination or win
#2: Jetpacks are top-tier marine tech. Aliens have decent tools against them at 2 hives, and excellent counters at 3 hives. If a few OCs could kill 4 JP/SGs, that would be like a few turrets killing an Onos. If the aliens don't respond until the marines are actually hitting the hive, then somebody should have scouted.
AND 1 JP/SHOTGUNNER WONT TAKE DOWN A HIVE. It will take ages for the JP'er to take down the hive and the aliens wont sit down on their flat ****. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think Xzlien would agree with me that its possible for a single jp/shotgun rine to take down a hive when it has 3 oc's, two dc's, a fade, an onos, and skulks jumping around trying to kill him while having two hive abilities. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
AND 1 JP/SHOTGUNNER WONT TAKE DOWN A HIVE. It will take ages for the JP'er to take down the hive and the aliens wont sit down on their flat ****. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think Xzlien would agree with me that its possible for a single jp/shotgun rine to take down a hive when it has 3 oc's, two dc's, a fade, an onos, and skulks jumping around trying to kill him while having two hive abilities. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
OMG, an Onos couldn't take down a jetpacker? *GASP!* Try having a lerk and a gorge next time.
Many of the "balance issues" only appear in games of 10v10 or greater. As Aliens ALWAYS lack that essential group hit tactic unless freeing a hive, HA trains of 8 are nigh unstopable many times. In smaller games of NS however you'll be dealing with about 5 HA's and an Onos with Fade can rip them to part pretty good, but the Marines still have a good chance of dealing with em.
Likewise with JP rushes. In 10v10 games you can deal with 8 JPers and 8 JP HMGs are pretty hard to kill flying around your hive with 2 lerks a fade and a ton of skulks, like what Alien teams usually seem to have (at least on the servers Im playing on). But in smaller games 1 Lerk can take out the 4 JPers easy with a single Skulk/Fade for help.
This is double sided as well. In 12v12 games we end up with 4 or 5 Oni (plural of Onos is Oni isnt it? or is it Onoses.... hmmm.... never said it or typed it before....dont know why....) rushing in at a time. Even with everyone with HMGs and GL's in HA it is nearly impossible to stop this rush with minimal Umbra/Spore cover not to mention the 4-6 skulks that might be jumpin in the fray.
3 early Fades in a larger game can rip marines to shreds as the Aliens can get the majority of their res faster, but the marine's have to wait till just over 10 minutes in your average game to get anything better than LMGs. That gives you 7 minutes (takes 3 for a decent Alien skulk to get to 50 res with a few deaths thrown in) of Fade vs Light rine action, and when you got 3 hitting together it can be nearly impoosbile to hold anything.
For me these 4 reasons, 2 per species, is enough to question whether or not NS should be rebalanced for larger games sense most people play on 20+ player Pubs. Only reason really I can think of changing this is to get the more newbie like players (not necessarily in game skill as in maturity; maturity as in realising you cant get what you want and respecting why) will just stop whining about soemthing thats unfair to me and other people like we had the ability or wishes to fix it.
Anyways thats pretty much my 2 cents on the matter.
-Red
In 12v12 games we end up with 4 or 5 Oni (plural of Onos is Oni isnt it? or is it Onoses.... hmmm.... never said it or typed it before....dont know why....) rushing in at a time. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
You were correct in your first asumption...
6v 6 and 7v7 are really the only ballenced games.
anything less then 6v6, becomes a easy alien win.... the marines simply cant keep up with the aliens over fast expantion rate , cus gorges are getting more res then they should
the flip side, anything over 8v8, gives marines a huge advantage in many ways, 1 they get exponential res rates for each marine they have more, then each marine brings his own income in (RFK)
and most importantly, marines can out spawn any marine team aliens can never spawn fast enough on 8v8 + games...
your 12vs 12 serio is totaly skewied, the marines would have to blunder huge to not be able to dominate the entire map with 11 marines aprox 8(rambos, just camping the hive)
-Impy <!--emo&::lerk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/lerk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='lerk.gif'><!--endemo-->
Tried, done. Umbraing Hive like mad. The rine can still at least bring the hive to half health. Now, if there were two jp shottys, which seems very common, one lerk isn't going to stop them. 2 aliens won't. THIS in my opinion is the problem - yes they can be stopped - but why does it take upwards of 4 aliens to stop 2 shotties fast eough that the hive isn't wounded heavily?
Anyway, I'm going to school now. I'll write some more stuff here in a bit.
As for the marine res node rush, the best counter is a well cordinated alien team. Gorges build an OC or two (which protect the future RT hopefully) and HS the attacking skulks, not to mention that a lerk helps too. Get three lerks on a res node, and it goes down pretty fast, at least to the point where a few skulks can munch it to hell. Or if all else fails, have a group of five regen skulks rush the res nodes. They go down pretty quick.
The base rushing idea would work, but that's assuming the base is not that defended. If there are enough turrets skulks will be turned into yellow/green puddles at marine spawn.
Keep up the intelligent posts, it's helping <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
[edit]stupid school keyboards with broken keys...[/edit]
Quite similar to early 2.0, only with marines capping nodes like mad instead of the aliens. Basically the marines usually get about 5 nodes very quickly, and then soon electrify them. By the time aliens have anything to stop them, from my experience, it’s already too late and the marines have 5+nodes. I’d say 4 is the “minimum” amount of nodes for a successful marine attack. You may say early fades and defence first, but that again goes into the problem of forced DMS. I’ve yet to see a good counter to this, but then again I have only just seen this start to happen, opinions here would be usefull.
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Aliens dont have anything to stop them? so, what are the skulks doing? just sitting in the hive waiting for the end.....? the way to defeat a marine res rush is to not let them get the nodes, they have to build the nodes, then they have to wait for 30 res to electrify them, then they moove onto the next one, well i would hope your skulks are even bothering to try and stop them, cos thats the counter to it.
As for 'problem' of 'forced' DMS, well, if the alien team was stupid (or n00bish) enough to let them get 5 electric res nodes then you probably would need a fade with regen to kill them, thats another 'counter' and not a 'problem'. the aliens could also go sensory and ambush at the res nodes before the marines even get the first one up.
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#2 jetpacks, shotguns.
This is slightly more worrying, and on the increase. In simple math, a level 0 shotgun, if it were to fire all of its ammo, could do 8160 damage in total, theoretically. Hives have 6000 hp. With level 3 weapons, that shotgun can do 10560 damage.
Now lets assume this shotgun is given to a single vanilla rine, he could probably do a lot of damage, but he’s still a vanilla rine, on his own, he will be sniped by ocs or eaten by a stray skulk, so he’s fairly useless.
So what if we equip 5 vanilla rines with shotguns? Well they will usually rush in, and by the time they get to the hive, they will have likely lost a lot of ammo and health, and possibly marines. If they mange to break through, well, alien’s fault. Hive goes down very quickly though, with each shotgun clip doing 1360 (level 0) to 1760 (level 3) damage. With 5 rines that hive might as well be made of tissue paper.
However, this is not the problem. I see no problem with that, as it’s a considerable investment and it can easily go wrong. The problem is if you give said rines a jetpack.
With a jetpack, those rines could get to the hive with minimal damage, and avoid anything pretty much. Still, investment done, investment paid off. 25 res per rine.
But what if we go back to the single rine, and give him a jetpack and a shotgun? That’s only 25 res. And what he could do is take down the hive by himself. Now, this may take a while, but bare in mind that oc’s have been nerfed so not as to track jps very well, so he could probably damage the hive considerably - if not actuallt take it down. This is bad, but it isn’t the problem. If the rine has any degree of skill, it’s most likely going to take a fair amount of alien force to kill – in the form of a fade or several skulks. All this for a single marine. So while the aliens are now “OMOGMGOM SHOTTY AT HIVE KILL HIM” with possibly most of their team focused on taking this rine out – (catch 22 – if they don’t kill him, he could kill the hive), the comm could send another jp/shotty to another hive, and then the aliens have two hives under attack at once… and on pub play, this would cause utter chaos. And this is only with level 0 weapons, if they had level 3 those hives are going to be hurting a lot.
The problem here is like 1.04 – despite the lone Rambo not being able to obliterate the hive ala 1.04 jp/hmg, it still distracts nearly all of the alien team to kill him, and he's only one marine. Where is the rest of the team?
I don’t know if there is a counter to these, that’s partly why I made this thread, to discuss it. I wrote this seeking the opinion of the ns community concerning both of these so I could better understand what is going on. I could have just misunderstood the whole thing, but hey. So I make a request that this thread not be turned into a flame war. The mods ARE watching this thread, let’s not get it locked.
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A single jetpack/shotgun marine is only a threat to the most inept and incompotent alien teams, he has a shotgun and a jetpack, now im assuming that most alien teams will have a 2nd hive by the time the marines have a proto and jetpacks ect... it really is not hard to kill a jetpacker when you have leap, also if you have some fades blink is great for getting to them, now if the marines have a squad of jetpack shotguns, thats harder to take down, but again if the aliens use teamwork and get a lot of players to the hive (like the marines did to get 4-5 people to the hive with equipment) then there should be no problem.
99% of people on publics have no clue how to play this game, its just a sad fact and the reason those strats work so effectivly is because its a lot easyer to send some newbie rine with a waypoint than shout at an alien who is saving for his first onos.
As for shotgun/JP rushes, why shouldn't half the alien team be dedicated to saving the hive. Just as if there was a fade or onos in base, I betcha half the marine team would come back and try kill the onos. If the whole marine team, or a significant portion has JP/SG, and they rush a hive and take it out, why is that unfair? Hell I've seen two skulks force relocations (or losses) when the marine team was winning. One or two JP/SG marines aren't gonna do bullhockey to a hive, unless the aliens have NO fades, NO lerks, or NO gorges near the hive. Two lone JP/SG <b>might</b> take down the hive if there are no aliens nearby, or the marines are so far ahead that it really just doesn't matter.
I don't see how you can consider certain tactics by the marines unfair when I've seen ONE (1) fade blinking around the marine start distracting 8 marines. Yes, nothing get's done because the fade pretty much is unhittable. He might take some damage and leave for a few minutes, but rest assured he'll be back.
IMHO things are fine right now, at least from the marine's perspective.
EDIT: I think mythr1l said it better than I did.
Next, allow me to point out why marines have such a huge advantage in large games:
<!--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 Arms Lab Unproportionality(Is that even a word? Heh.)
This one is simple.
Lets say, for arguments sake, the most balanced size of an NS game is 6v6. This is clan standard.
Now the arms lab currently (as of 2.01b) is 20/30/40. This is all fine and dandy.
Lets say the game is now 12v12. Arms lab is still 20/30/40. Anyone here see the imbalance? It’s not hard to spot out.
On larger games(8v8 or more), the arms lab is more than worth it’s cost. You upgrade all of your marines for a fraction of the cost of what buying them all equipment would be, and it’s much more effective as there are more guns that get the upgrades. In smaller games(4v4 or less), the arms lab is crap compared to outfitting your 3-4 marines with some good equipment. Arms lab will still be important in small games, however, it comes second to equipment. And the opposite is true in large games.
The Arms Lab, believe it or not, is what causes a lot of unbalancing on large and small games right now, it’s either too good or too bad. On large games, you see stalemates quite often because aliens can’t hope to compete with marines that come out of spawn that shred them to pieces easily, even with an LMG, as there is such a high volume of it all. That is why large games almost never end early, as marines get their arms lab upgrades for too good of a cost, and they get them all very quickly, resulting in marines that generally cannot do well on attack, but pretty much own on defense, forcing aliens to get their third hive for some uber powerful abilities (or if the aliens chose sensory first so they can get Def or Move chambers).
So, the fix for the arms lab is to make it proportional to the amount of marines playing.
For 6 marines, the cost is 20/30/40.
For 12 marines, you have double the marines, and thus, the upgrades should cost 40/60/80.
For 3 marines, you have half the marines, and thus, the upgrades should cost 10/15/20.
However, just by looking at the numbers presented here I’m sure all the commanders must be dropping their Jaw’s onto the floor screaming: “NO WAY! 40 res for the first set of upgrades? TOO MUCH!” Or… “10 res on a 3 man server? It’s practically free ffs!” And, for the most part, they are right.
So, a small modification to the above said proposal: Only add/subtract 50% additional cost for every 100% increase/decrease in marines.
12 marines: 30/45/60
3 marines: 15/23/30
This is a formula that needs to be calculated, one that figures out the cost of the arms labs upgrades based on how many marines there are.
An easy way to calculate the costs of these upgrades if you are without a calculator is:
For every 3 marines lost/gained over 6, add/subtract 5 res for the first upgrade, add/subtract 7 res for the second upgrade, and add/subtract 10 res for the third upgrade.
Very simple, and this would balance out the arms lab completely, no matter the teamsize.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Taken from <a href='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=41573' target='_blank'>this thread.</a>
exactly.
but making this game `idiots friendly` would be nice =)
exactly.
but making this game `idiots friendly` would be nice =) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Neg. Thats what NS:C is for.
AND 1 JP/SHOTGUNNER WONT TAKE DOWN A HIVE. It will take ages for the JP'er to take down the hive and the aliens wont sit down on their flat ****. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think Xzlien would agree with me that its possible for a single jp/shotgun rine to take down a hive when it has 3 oc's, two dc's, a fade, an onos, and skulks jumping around trying to kill him while having two hive abilities. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
tee hee, yes, Rennex is THAT sexy =)
The marines simply guard the hallways... 2-3 to a hallway, and cap the res... the move forward... as soon as electrification is started..
Anyone who dies follows the "path of rt's" to make sure all electrified ok...
Ive even seen variations that keep the bulk of the aliens busy while 2-3 who die re-spawn and make 3 turrets at base, then get shotties and go crushing all the alien rt with little resistance, then camp the hive till eventually dying..
Marine dominance in hallways is the main reason for this..
2.0 caused mariens to stick together under all circumstances, and its finally paying off, as 3 marines shooting down a 50 foot hallway kill all 12 skulks rushing down it....
~Jason
In 12v12 games we end up with 4 or 5 Oni (plural of Onos is Oni isnt it? or is it Onoses.... hmmm.... never said it or typed it before....dont know why....) rushing in at a time. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You were correct in your first asumption...
6v 6 and 7v7 are really the only ballenced games.
anything less then 6v6, becomes a easy alien win.... the marines simply cant keep up with the aliens over fast expantion rate , cus gorges are getting more res then they should
the flip side, anything over 8v8, gives marines a huge advantage in many ways, 1 they get exponential res rates for each marine they have more, then each marine brings his own income in (RFK)
and most importantly, marines can out spawn any marine team aliens can never spawn fast enough on 8v8 + games...
your 12vs 12 serio is totaly skewied, the marines would have to blunder huge to not be able to dominate the entire map with 11 marines aprox 8(rambos, just camping the hive)
-Impy <!--emo&::lerk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/lerk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='lerk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree with you nearly entirely. Nearly.
I play NS about 4 hrs a day at least because it is the only game that is almost always diffrent each time I play. Gotta love that. Marines win maybe 45-55% of the time in larger games in my experience for several reasons.
If the aliens communicate just a little and have 3 players that work together marines need to have guards or farms at every RT in order to keep it for more than 30 seconds. At 1 res every 4 seconds they arent paying for themselves. This happens in MOST games.
Now marines get LOTS of res from rfks. Personally I think this should be toned down a bit because even in 6v6 games they tend to get a LOT more res than Aliens, and they tend to dominate with 4 HA and 1 JP as the assault force in smaller games. In bigger games rfk is how they get the majority of their res. But without 6-8 turrets and a PG at every location they want to hold they will not hold it unless the Aliens let them.
8 marines vs 9 aliens of any skill (for some reason 3 usually decide to be perma gorges. And although I play on only 2 servers usually, its always diffrent people) without special gear of any kind almost always get owned. The only time I see a Marine team win is when the Aliens dont kill their RTs. Marines can get 4-6 RTs in about 2 minutes easy and electrify them shortly after. If the Aliens arent paying attention or are too worried about dying to bother killing an elec RT the Aliens lose. Otherwise its almost a 50% chance as Marines dont need more than 2 RTs to be able to win, and on most maps they hvae easy access to 3.
So yes Marines have a good chance at winning, but the Aliens pretty much are the ones that decide who wins because Marine teams that completley suck can win against a team of good alien players if the aliens dont just work together to take out their RTs and keep two hives.
The problem with some games lie in the maps themselves though, not NS. ns_veil is 100% marine biased. Dual Res is siegeable from Marine Stat, they got 2 Rts right around the corner from their base that take OC walls to stop their movement, and if they take one hive they get 2 more RTs and we all know how easy that is. 3 RTs in a 12v12 game give the Marines more than enough chance to win, and seeing as on ths map they can get 5 with ease, 7 once they take Nano and place 2 TFs there and a PG with 10 turrets. AND that gives em a easy way to get to Cargo. Its the most anti-Alien map I've ever seen.
Then it flips sides. ns_bast is totally anti marine. The only times I see marines win latley is when they take Atmospheric Processing and relocate there with at leats 8 turrets and everythign really cloes the the 2 RTs and a TF inbetween all electrified, making Onosthe only thing capable of killing anything, AND them taking TWO hives. usually Feed water with either a quick run to engine, or a quick swim to refinery. The trick for Aliens is to put 2 OCs in the water to refinery, and to have 2 skulks adn 4 ocs near engine/refinery (the junction area near both) which they almost always do. The weldable vent in MS is broken and a slit can be opend, and the vent can be opend from inside. This allows Fades and Skulks to rushin from the vent, and gives Gorges and Lerks a BUNKER in MS basically. Its better to not weld that at all!
ns_lost is worse for marines. Their Marine Start completley sucks and relocating or massive farms are the only way to win against only DECENT alien teams. If aliens start out in ER they win all the time, if they dont mariens take it and win ALL the time if they hold it for 15 minutes succesfully. They can easily take cargo from ER, and have easy access to 3 RTs. Most of the hallways are short and cramped givign skulks a complete advantage for defending Cargo, and a pretty decent one for keping marines out of [RT in the middle of map cant belive I forgot the name] and Alpha hive.
ns_nothing is biased against Aliens usually. If the marines take cargo well enough they can hold 3 RTs, and get another 2 easy. Generator gives them easy access to 2 hives and 1 RT. Holding generator and Marine Start nearly completley cuts of Cargo Hive, giving the marines 4 RTs right there. And if the aliens are in cargo they can still easily take Generator and pin them in good, and take Power Silo. I've seen some nasty tactics for takign Power Silo. Only good thing is it takes JPs to make it work right. But most hallways are wide and tall and long, giving marines the advantage. Viaduct is the ONLY hard hive for them to hold and even then they *can* lock it down good. Aliens have to try to keep generator clear and if they dont they almost always lose.
Im starting to belive that maps need to be properly balanced more than the game itself. NS is totally based on economy and if the marines have 4 RTs they win every time unless they really blunder. Nearly half the maps provide marines with too easy an access to 3 or 4 RTs. Personally the best map I can think of is ns_eclipse. That map is simply THE NS map IMO and is well balanced. Very well balanced. It give mariens easy access to 3 or 4 RTs, but it also gives Aliens the advantage for defending most of those RTs. Marines usually have 2-3 RTs and one hive, making the game a near 50-50 chance for winning.
I dont think Im explaining my reasoning very well but Im tired so im gonna go to sleep now.
-Red
Basically it boils down to the entire game hinging on what happens in the first few minutes. In 1.0 the game was generally set in stone between 5-7 minutes. Thats a <i>sort</i> of good amount of time. But in 2.0 I feel that, especially with the faster pace, that entire games are predictable in 3 minutes. 180 fricken seconds and the game is pretty much decided. Granted, there are comebacks allowed, but, if I had to give a ballpark figure I'd say that good 70% of the games are decided in 3 minutes.
It boils down to the first few major skirmishes really, theres about 3 early fights, 1 every minute for convenience sake here, and thats it. Your entire game has now been decided. If marines win them, gg HA Train is stoking its fires now. Aliens win them? gg 3 minute fade 6 minute onos and 8 minute 3 hive.
Thats whats irritating me about the game right now, its great fun but the games are STILL far to hinged on your opening moves. Most strategy games allow for a general recovery if your start was bad, but those are pure strategy games, however NS, being a hybrid, is less forgiving. If you screw up at all in your opening moves it takes a miracle to recover.
In my perspective theres only 3 ways in which NS is played out
A) Marines win the early skirmishes, spread out and take half the maps resnodes and electrify them, aliens, setback from their early losses are unable to muster higher lifeforms until around the 7-9 minute mark, which is when marines are getting to the top of their tech tree, and face an agonizing defeat beneath a hail of HMG fire and grenades.
B) Aliens win the early skirmishes, spread out and take half the maps resnodes, contains the marine team. 4 minute fades take out whatever the marines may have grabbed, & 8 minute onos begin pounding on the door. And a good possibility of a long drawn out battle against a fortified marine start.
C) Neither side gets ahead in the early skirmishes and territory switches back and forth throughout the game, a solid progression takes place with classic 2 hive battles against upper tier marines and the game goes on until a real bad screwup occurs in which the opposing team takes advantage of and moves on to victory.
Unfortunetley the popular choice seems to be A&B. I can essentially count on my one hand how many times I've seen C played out in 2.0. The faster pace of the game didnt little to help this lingering problem from 1.0, in fact it was more salt on the wound than anything, making opening almost entireley game defining.
Has anyone tried the 3 DC early fade counter to the marine node rushing tactic? I would like to know how well this works.
I still, however stand by my opinion that shotguns are in need of a nerf or something. I'd suggest giving them peircing damage ala hmg - still means they are usefull for alien killing, they still do a fair ammount of damage to structures, but they would not be able to drop a hive in 5 seconds...
For your information, numerical statistics on the shotgun:
Max damage per shell = 170 (level 0) up to 220 (level 3)
Total number of shells that can be fired frorm one shotgun: 48
Max theorietical damage per "clip": 1360 (level 0) to 1760 (level 3)
Total max damage per shotgun: 8160 (level 0) to 10560 (level 3)
And to compare (need confirmation on this maybe):
grenade launcher damage: 125 per grenade (double vs structures?) max of 1000 damage per clip (level 0) I think 150 per grenade level 3, so 300 per grenade vs structures, max of 1200 per clip (structures).
Max grenades: 34.
Max total damage: 8500 (level 0) to 10200 (level 3)
Might have made an error somewhere, but some of this doesnt add up, specially as the shotguns costs 10 res, and is available as long as there is an armoury, and gls costing 20 + upgrade costs. I think this could be fixed via reload times (increasing on the shotgun) as assuming the marine is placing the shells into the shotgun manually, that is going to take a reasonable ammount of time.
Needless to say, we all were quite p?ssed off.