I think the main reason aliens are getting chewed up is because people arent playing them right. You cant go rush the hell out and expect to take on a whole squad.... like in avp.. if you rushed at a marine in a straight line.. you would be dead end of story....
Here are a few things Ive seen noobs do.. and things ive done that worked much better...
1. Noob Skulk sees too marines.. and runs to them while strafing and still gets chewed up. Me camped in a longhallway in a crevace on the top... waited for 4 marines to pass... then crept down slowly... and took 2 of them out... ran ahead on the ceiling (it was a dark area).. they layed down suppressng fire behind them where i just was.. i dropped and ate the other 2.
2. Newbie fade trys to take on a squad of marines ..even though it was close quarters with claws... good for doing damage.. but not if there are 5 marines. When I saw this.. it was also a darkened corrodor... they saw me and opened fire... I blinked to the wall behind them and before they knew it I had 2 of their guys down and then another one by the time they had turned... blinked again. (moved to a d pod i had set up previously) then came back out and bombed the last 2.
Its all a matter of HOW you play. An experianced skulk can be better than an unexperianced onos in my opinion.
I fully understand how the aliens work. I understand all of thier abilities. They are all I play because I actually give a damn about playing a fair game (the marines are always stacked).
They suck.
First off, there is no way to kill turrets. The most effective way to do it (that I have found) is to run in, as a skulk, bite a few times, run out, regenerate, repeat. Needless to say this takes forever and actually dosnt work. It is just the best way I have found. I have never seen less than 4 turrets gaurding a resourse node. If there are less then 4 turrets then there are marines.
A way to fix this: Give one building or alien (lerk or lower) some kind of siege ability. The inability to take out buildings is just devistating.
___________
Secondly HA is either to powerful or to cheap. Once marines start getting HA the game is over. HA and HMG combination along with a grenade launcher is unstopable. I was once attacking a HA as a skulk and I was litterally on his face biting him, and he killed me... WITH A WELDER.
A way to fix this: Make HA more expensive or less powerful.
___________
Alien attacks are just weak. I can not think of a single alien attack that is as powerful as it should be.
The way to fix this should be obvious.
___________
Do you honestly think that this many people would be upset about imbalances if all they need to do is learn how to play the aliens?
There is a very obvious difference between needing practice and needing balance. This needs balance.
I realize just as much as anyone else that the devs worked hard on this game. But that doesnt mean that they can say "here's the game, it's perfenctly balanced, you can't tell us otherwise" because that is crap.
what i want to know is how an onos can not do instakill.
the thing is nearly 3 times as big as a marine, and he bites the marine.
that should bite the guys fucking head off, just the teeth alone are big enough to remove the entire midsection.
and the fucking resource patch wont fix everything. aliens are still way under in nearly all aspects.
the marines can have a home base ANYWHERE, the aliens have 3 set places that are easily attacked and hard to defend.
the marines can be anywhere, and can drop turrets.
also, why is it that the alien heal spray is useless? that welder repaired the command chair from 1 health dot left all the way to green before i, as a skulk, could leap from the engine room through the vent and back.
and why is it that the web limit is 4 webs, and the turret limit is 3 turrets, but the marines can have unlimited turrets?
and why do they have instant access to all there resources while aliens have to wait forever.
why ar eall the maps in the marines favor?
as a marine, i was able to single handedly take out 3 onos with carapace and adrenaline using only my default machinegun.
how is that fucking possible?
the armor on that thing is thicker than a gargs skin, how do bullets even harm it?
i have an idea guys.. lets take all the newbies who are complaining about this FREE mod, and, i dont know, kick them all in the balls or something, this cannot go unpunished.. since this is my first post since being unglued from HL besides bathroom breaks, which werent all that common either.. id like to say its BETTER then what i expected. im sure this goes for everyone else too. yay flayra!! i hope those PTs i talked to did their jobs and told you we all loved you, not just you, BUT ALL THE DEV TEAM AND PTs.. yay!! but yea.. must.. flame....
and another thign.. stay on topic, now that we've got all these noobies, its gonna be hard for the MODs to keep track, so .. yea.. LONG LIVE NS!!!!
geez, another edit... DONT SWEAR... i guess we dont have the filters up.. i think thats on the board rules right?? cmon guys, keep it civil..
ThansalThe New ScumJoin Date: 2002-08-22Member: 1215Members, Constellation
ok, first off, I will preface this with saying that I OBLY play alienms due to the fact that I believe in fair play (I have taken a deep seated grudge against all marines due to multiple 12 on 4 games that were just fsking wastes of my time) ok
now, alot of problems that yals are talking about come about from alien players acting like idiots
1) off chmas suck, yes we know, thats why we build 5 of them to cover one door, then back them up with 3 deff chams, and atleast one healing gorge, and assinine amounts of webs
2) webs : gorge: hehe, I am going to web this entire doorway shut, wow it looks just like a spiders web Marine1: wow, look at what that pudgy little bas'td did Marine2: here I got a welder 1 sec latter Marine1 killed Gorge with LMG
moral? WEBS ARE VISABLE! put them on the floor, in bright areas (they show up better in the dark), place them so that they wont trip em till your turrets cant fire, and when they are triped have a skulk ready to bite their kneacaps off
3) look, deff chambers are the best ones out ther, build em first, they heal you obceanly fast, as well as the fact that crapace and redemption are REALY FUN
4) don't let marines out of their FN base admitidaly this will take a while to learn, but you MUST know the maps (especialy ussing vents) get the fasts way to marine start memorized from each hive, then CHARGE it, pis em off from the get go AND DON'T LET UP
oh no, you died, whoo hoo, you also still have them stuck in their base un able to go cap recources ::EG::
bah, I can't wait for the patch, untill then I am just working on setting this up in the CompSci Lab at my school so I don't have to worry about CS newbs who don't know how to play fair!
oh, and for all of yalls wh think PTs and DEVs are over reacting when they get exasperated with yalls bitching, well thats b/c the Devs have put LARGE amounts of work into this, and the PTs have spent the past few months making sure that all of what you are bitching about WASN'T TRUE
With the exception of the resource bug and its effects, I think the game is balanced. What the resource bug does is that it doesn't let the aliens ever make a comeback should they make a single mistake. Whereas marines, once they research heavy firepower can make quite a few mistakes and still win.
Aliens on the other hand, if they lose a room, there's not much of a chance of them taking it back unless the marines aren't very observant. This is mainly due to the turret farms that the resource bug allows. I expect that the tide of battle will actually swing back and forth once we see rooms secured with less turrets as the marines must carefully use precious resources.
Right now, however, the best way to win as aliens is to press hard and make those marines use up all their resources equipping marines that die before they can achieve their objectives. The best way to do this is to team up with another alien and follow him everywhere. Make sure you find someone who know what he's doing to follow, though. If you do that, not only can you learn some great tactics, but you're basically assured some form of victory, even if short term. This is especially useful for destroying structures where aliens bites, while strong, are too slow (and noisy) and a marine patrol could kill you while you're biting.
The only good thing about the resource bug is that some new commanders sit back behind walls of turrets, wasting their resources while we aliens get 3 hives up and waltz in with Onos, which is the highly resistant to turret attacks. I've destroyed entire marine bases with MANY turrets as a single Onos.
What I don't like is that they weren't very open about that resource bug. The mind would start to believe that after all their talk of saying everything is balanced, they find a bug that makes things unbalanced and are forced to take it back. Still, I don't doubt that the devs and playtesters on the alien team could wipe the floor with a marine team regardless of resource bug, but that's because they won't make the mistake of losing an important room to the marines, whereas, with the diversity in skill of the general gaming populous, alien players will probably make one or two mistakes throughout the course of the game.
I could just give the devs and PTs a BIG HUG for leaving the aliens where they are right now....
Even when I lose, I have fun.
Isnt that what the game is about? To have fun?
To match wits with a commander that uses good (not planting turret fields) strategies? Playing the aliens vs marines is like USA vs North Vietnam.
The aliens are the guerillas.
Who won Vietnam anyways?
Not to be unpatriotic or anything <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Recently I've been playing nothing but Aliens because of unbalanced teams, and that's probably my only complaint (which is good because the patch should fix that). I've played so many games today where there were 17 marines against 6 aliens or some other ridiculous number. I mean, it seems funny in theory, but when you then finish up the round and then go to two more servers who are running 12 vs. 4 and 11 vs 5... maybe they don't know how to get back to the Ready room? Through that sense of keeping even teams, I've found that the Kharaa (?) are my favourite to play, and I don't think that there's much unbalancing besides the resource bug but I don't need to go there. Sure, it's fun to run around with a few marines and tear up incoming Skulks (who always come head on... not good), but waiting in the weeds; hanging overhead for that perfect moment to drop... brings back the good ol' days of Aliens Online. Even alone you can get those ambushes that just go beautifully... anyway...
<!--QuoteBegin--Version135b+Nov 5 2002, 01:16 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Version135b @ Nov 5 2002, 01:16 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->i have an idea guys.. lets take all the newbies who are complaining about this FREE mod, and, i dont know, kick them all in the balls or something, this cannot go unpunished.. since this is my first post since being unglued from HL besides bathroom breaks, which werent all that common either.. id like to say its BETTER then what i expected. im sure this goes for everyone else too. yay flayra!! i hope those PTs i talked to did their jobs and told you we all loved you, not just you, BUT ALL THE DEV TEAM AND PTs.. yay!! but yea.. must.. flame....
and another thign.. stay on topic, now that we've got all these noobies, its gonna be hard for the MODs to keep track, so .. yea.. LONG LIVE NS!!!!<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> wow....
Do you think that we come here to flame the mod because we get off on it? Because we are trying to sabatoge it? Because we got a broom-stick up our ass and we want to take out our anger on someone?
I am giving my opinion because I see a good game under these problems. I just tried the Red Justice beta. That game is so worthless that I would never take a second look at it. I would never go to the RJ forums and say anything critical because it would be pointless. The only advice I could ever give it is to start over and make a different game.
I critasize because I want this game to get better. Not for s**** and grins.
GrendelAll that is fear...Join Date: 2002-07-19Member: 970Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, NS2 Playtester
<!--QuoteBegin--Messenjah+Nov 5 2002, 12:47 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Messenjah @ Nov 5 2002, 12:47 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I fully understand how the aliens work. I understand all of thier abilities. They are all I play because I actually give a damn about playing a fair game (the marines are always stacked).
They suck.
First off, there is no way to kill turrets. The most effective way to do it (that I have found) is to run in, as a skulk, bite a few times, run out, regenerate, repeat. Needless to say this takes forever and actually dosnt work. It is just the best way I have found. I have never seen less than 4 turrets gaurding a resourse node. If there are less then 4 turrets then there are marines.
A way to fix this: Give one building or alien (lerk or lower) some kind of siege ability. The inability to take out buildings is just devistating.
___________
Secondly HA is either to powerful or to cheap. Once marines start getting HA the game is over. HA and HMG combination along with a grenade launcher is unstopable. I was once attacking a HA as a skulk and I was litterally on his face biting him, and he killed me... WITH A WELDER.
A way to fix this: Make HA more expensive or less powerful.
___________
Alien attacks are just weak. I can not think of a single alien attack that is as powerful as it should be.
The way to fix this should be obvious.
___________
Do you honestly think that this many people would be upset about imbalances if all they need to do is learn how to play the aliens?
There is a very obvious difference between needing practice and needing balance. This needs balance.
I realize just as much as anyone else that the devs worked hard on this game. But that doesnt mean that they can say "here's the game, it's perfenctly balanced, you can't tell us otherwise" because that is crap.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> LOL
If you understood the game, you'd:
a) Realise that many servers have a bug which causes marines to get more resources &
b) Be able to take out turrets without damage. They track aliens slower than a level 1 can move. You can circle strafe round a turret and chew it to death in about 3 seconds without taking a single hit.
Even an ONOS can strafe around a turret quicker than it can track.
When you have 10-20 turrrets in an area it's because either:
a) Marines are getting too many resources or
b) You've left them alone. Aliens are meant to atatck marines, not wander around aimlessly until the heavys come marching in.
If you want to play on a server with the correct resource model and generally competent players, try:
First off let me say I think this game kicks ass, second, I see how much work and in turn love was put into it. (Are those beeps on the main menus from Armored Core?)
Having said that I see a few potential problems.
1, Aliens inherently require more skill to win as. Marines are easy to learn and easy to win as, Aliens are ninjas and have more potential in the hands of the uber1337. I've played in over 70 games already playing half as Aliens and only seen them win 3. Two wins by rushing the Command Center and one win by playing against n00bs who didn't know what they were doing. The main reason for Alien downfall is the main Marine tactic, secure a Hive location.
I've played in games where the Marines secure 1 Hive, set up 6 Turrets a Portal and an Armory. (A large inventment to be sure) They then had 4 Marines, (out of 8 on their team vs our 9 Aliens) 3 in heavy armor with hmgs, 1 jetpack grenadier, just guard that base. For 30 minutes 5 of us Aliens tried to get that base while the other 4 guarded and rebuilt against the constant grenade runs against our resources. We had every good tactic you can imagine, Defence and Offence chambers with a Gorge just away from the corner to the hive, 2 Fades, and a Lerk. We had the Lerk use it's Umbra and then we Fades would acid the hell out of them with our lvl 3 Adrenaline, no luck, we might kill 1 turret but that would be replaced easyly. We tried having the Lerk fly out and around drawing the turrets fire so we could rush or Blink over , it was working for 5 seconds before 2 heavy armor heavy mgs showed up and sent us all back to the hives. We tried coming from the back, we tried just peaking around the corner strafing in and out while firing acid rockets, the jetpack grenadier put an end to that. They would just lob 6 grenades to the corner and have 2 of the heavy armor hmg marines go around the corner when they started going off knowing we could only run.
The fact is patient skilled Marines with a good commander are unbeatable without a third Hive (not because we failed in one game, but because I have never heard of it being done unless the Marines were noobs who didn't have grenade launchers or who didn't portal reinforce it and weld it) Second hive Aliens are just too underpowerd vs camping Marines without their exploding Skulks, Bile Bombs, and Onos'.
The second problem is the uber commander. I've dropped about 20 health packs on a marine for over 7 seconds to keep him alive while be wasn't even looking the right way vs a ninja skulk and had him win because of it, I do this a lot. I can only image how that Alien player felt knowing he should have killed that n00b 10 times over by then. One thing we haven't seen yet in the game is the god type commander who drops health on the marines while placing dummy building infront of them to protect them from Alien turrets. I mean I can drop health and ammo on jet packing marines mid flight over a hive. I think there should be a radius for dropable goods created by Marine buildings and counter-acted by Alien ones (with all neutral ground buildable upon for either side) to prevent this sort of abuse and other commander abuse we haven't even thought up (Like that command center trick in the enemy hive)
I love this game, and I love the Republic, but for the love of god make Alien turrets poisionus or something. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Oh and if anyone has any ideas on how to capture that third hive vs skilled camping marines, I and everyone else would love to hear it (then laugh at you)
It hasn't been that long, but I've only seen one hive room taken back from the marines, who not only had active marines there with HMGs (no heavy armor for some reason), but had many turrets.
The only way we did it was by having almost the entire team attacking the hive. Most of us were skilled players on the team, who knew the importance of having that third hive. In fact, that battle raged back and forth for nearly an hour with the rest of the map ignored.
While the rest of the team was dealing with the marines and distracting the turrets, I was building offensive and defensive chambers in view of the turrets, once I had enough up, these tied the turrets up in attacking the chambers, long enough for the entire team to push back the marines, and sap them of enough resources to make them wait a bit before attacking again (we even ambushed those trying to get their guns back). Someone had already started on the hive during the fight.
With the turrets weakened, the team made short work of everything else, and by the time the marines came back with heavy armor and hmgs. We had some pretty nasty ambushes waiting for them.
In the end, it came down to marines holding off onos charges before losing their CC.
The most common mistake of alien players is: They don't use teamwork!
Aliens rely on teamwork even more than marines do. While marines just run in groups, weld each other and spam their commander for ammo and health, the aliens have to use tactics. Most aliens I see on servers are CS like rambos. Sure, marines aren't much better, but they are forced to work together, while aliens are not. A single marine won't last long outside the safety of his comrades or base defense, an alien can wander around freely to feast on lonely marines. That's not bad, because it will hamper enemy expansion, but if some marines start to join up in groups and start to take over resource points and hives, you can't do much about it as a single alien.
An example: I was playing alien yesterday and we had a good start, me and a fellow alien decided to go gorge and take over the hives, while the rest should distract the marines. I went to the maintenance hive, evolved to gorge and set up a resource tower. Then two marines showed up and started attacking my resource tower. I jumped behind cover and asked everyone to assist at the maintenance hive. Then I started a fight to buy some time for my resource tower. Well, I was a gorge, they were two marines, short: I died pretty quick. Again I asked everyone to save that resource tower. Again, no one responded. I respawned and went for the maintenance hive myself. Until I arrived a third marine joined them and they've set up their own resource tower and were busy building it. I attacked them and were able to kill 2 before I've got killed by the last one. I yelled at my team why they don't assist me, but no response. I went for the hive again and finally someone seemed to have noticed the enemy and attacked with me. The marines now had 4 marines in the hive and already built some turrets. My fellow skulk got killed by a turret and I was able to kill 3 marines using their resource tower as cover, before one of those turrets popped me, too. The hive was lost. I knew that, with such a team of headless chickens, the round was already lost. Normally I would stay and fight until the end, but I didn't feel like it and left the server. If my teammates had attacked when I asked them to, the marines would have only wasted resources trying to secure the hive.
Turret killing is easy, when done right. Always remember that turrets are dumb. They always aim for the closest thing to them. You can take out a single turret by circlestrafing it. The problem are multiple turrets that can backup each other. To take these out you'll need teamwork. Just get some other skulks to distract the turrets by running around them while you start to chomp at one. This way the other turrets won't shoot you too much and you can take them out one after another. This is a risky tactic and needs coordination and skill, but considering you can take out a lot of RP's without investing your own it's worth the effort.
You can also solo clusters of turrets.
1) You've got 2 hives, 3 movement chambers. Evolve to lerk and upgrade to adrenaline (also carapace or redemption if available). You can now use umbra to make you invulnarable to turret fire (They'll only hurt [although not much] you when standing still or you're really close to them) and chomp them. Just keep up umbra all the time. If a marine shows up, or you're running low on health, dust of to the nearest def chamber or hive. This works fantastic with teammates (fades do wonders), you can just concentrate on umbra while they're getting their claws dirty, even heavy marine squads can be taken out by this tactic (use ranged attacks, take out grenadiers first).
2) 3 Hives up. Evolve to fade and use bile bomb to take them out (try to fire it indirectly). Works well with umbra.
3) 3 Hives up. Evolve to Onos. Just pull back when things are getting hot, regenerate (means def chambers or hives, not the upgrade, which is not as good as the other choices IMO), return. Also works well with umbra.
4) 1 Hive, def chambers. Evolve to gorge, build an off chamber in front of the enemy turrets, then build a def chamber behind it. Use your healing spray if necessary and continue building a typical alien chamber wall (you can also put turrets on top of each other or drop them from cliffs, if positioned right). Umbra can help, especially against defending marines (although nade launchers or siege cannons are the death of this tactic).
You can't kill Heavy Armor as a skulk? Of course you can! But what's the use of spending RP's for giving your marines HA and HMG's, if a single skulk, who doesn't cost a single RP, can take them out easily? Next time, try not to attack the side where he can fire back. A marines rear is wonderfully unarmed.
Alien attacks are not powerfull enough? A bite of a skulk does 75 damage. An LMG does 10. The ROF of the LMG is about 5 times higher than the bite, so the marine deals less damage than the skulk. A marine can fight at range and is a bit tougher, the skulk is faster, smaller and walks on walls.
Alien ranged attacks are weak? I've killed a lot of marines with acid rockets, spikes, bile bombs, spore clouds and even spit, who would say otherwise. I even killed a marine with a parasite! Sure, a HMG does a lot more damage in a shorter time than an acid rocket, but it also needs ammo and is heavy. You can bring down a whole HA squad. Just shoot your acid rocket from behind cover, lob a bile bomb from a shaft, cover yourself in umbra and spike them to death or just flyby and shoot a spore cloud. Marine dodges your acid rocket? Aim at his feet! This thing does splash damage for a reason. The dev team or playtesters aren't dumb just because you can't use the aliens right. Aliens, unlike marines, don't play like your ordinary "point, klick and forget" FPS. If both sides would have HMG's, what would be the difference between them?
Shadowe: Why is the healing spray useless because the welder can repair things? Where is the logic behind that? The cc is the most vital thing in the marine base, if you could just kill it that easy, no one would play marines.
Web limit is 4? Turret limit is 3? Maybe some admin changed some configs, but normally you can have much more than that.
Onos can't kill a marine with one bite? OMG! How about an AWP for the next release to replace that worthless "does-120-damage-per-attack"-bite?
How is it possible to kill 3 Onos with a LMG? Maybe because somebody shot them before you did and you've only just finished them off?
Armor invulnarable to bullets? An ordinary 7,62mm NATO bullet can pierce 2 meters of concrete. You can even pierce a tank with a machine gun, if you keep hitting the same spot!
The maps are in the marines favor? Why? Aliens have a lot of hiding places and shafts everywhere. What kind of architecture is an advantage for a marine?
The marines can set up a homebase everywhere? Only if the aliens allow them to do so. In the beginning of the game aliens dominate all places but the marine spawnplace. If they allow the marines to take over, it's their own fault.
ummm turrets are supposed to cost 40? every server i have played on has been at 16... but besides that, i think that the siege turrets are cheap. shooting thru walls? c'mon.
plus the resource model of the aliens makes the beginning of the game inherently unfair. think about it. resource points are split between all the aliens, correct? so, to build a single resource collector, you have to transform to a gorge (14 pts) then, save up enough energy to build a resource collector (22 pts).. the marines can have 3-5 resource collectors up by the time the aliens get the first one, if their commander is on the ball.
_plus_ the ability of a competent commander to drop health/ammo out of the sky...
when the commander is not in the groove, the aliens can win quite easily. if the commander is doing his job properly, it's all but impossible for the aliens to win. (in my experience)
<!--QuoteBegin--Tenaku+Nov 5 2002, 06:34 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Tenaku @ Nov 5 2002, 06:34 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->the marines can have 3-5 resource collectors up by the time the aliens get the first one, if their commander is on the ball.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> ...and also if there's a resource bug in the game. Oh, wait <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
As an Ohno, don't forget to <b>use Primal Scream</b> or whatever it's called. This litterally doubles your attack speed. Make sure you've got Level 3 <b>Carapace and Adrenaline</b> as your upgrades, and you should have no problem taking out a room full of turrets. This really works, as I use it all the time... so many people forget to use Primal Scream, and they end up taking too long to kill enemy turrets.
As for winning against marines, it takes a lot of effort on the Aliens' part. If you are up against an experienced commander, you're going to have a really tough time. Your best bet is to put all your effort into <b>limiting their expansion</b>. Absolutely do <b>NOT</b> let them out of their base.
You don't need 5 gorgs in the begining! 2 will easily suffice. Let your 2 gorgs get resource towers up, and save for hives... and then everyone else ATTACK, and <b>halt marine expansion</b>. If you have to, use your mic to tell everyone this is the plan. I find that a lot of Alien players <b>want </b>to work together, but noone really wants to take charge and give some tactics.
Using the above tactics, here are some common mid-game scenarios:
<b>1) Total Success</b>:
You've completely stopped Marine expansion. This is pretty rare unless the enemy command is a boob. If you've completely stopped their expansion, all you have left to do is take out their main base. Your team should be getting Ohnos by this point, since it's been able to build-up, unharrased. Use Ohnos and Fades to take out the remainder of the enemy turrets, and just finish the job. Now it's just a matter of time.
<b>2) Success </b>:
You've slowed Marine expansion to maybe only 1, or possibly 2 expansions. This is a common scenario. Expect to be on equal footing at this point. It's mid-game, so you'll start to see the occasional Heavy Armor and HMGs. You probably won't have 3 hives yet, since a lot of effort was put into keep the marines at bay. Whatever you do now... do NOT let them TAKE and HOLD that last Hive expansion point. If they take it in mid-game, you are SCREWED.
Do your very best to get that last hive up and running. You'll probably have to battle for it. Marines will still be trying to expand and get more resources. You'll have to try and prevent this as well, unless you want to deal with Grenade Launchers and Heavy Armor later in the game.
If you get that 3rd Hive up, you're going to have to keep the pressure on the Marines for the remainder of the game. Harrass their expansions and try to limit their income. Don't let the game become a stale-mate, where each side has a wall of turrets just around the corner!! The Marines will win EVERY time because of the EMP Cannons they can get in late-game.
<b>3) Failure</b>
If you failed in stopping the Marine expansion, you're in big trouble. They're going to have HA and HMGs real soon now. And if they've taken ANY of the Hive points, you're pretty much dead. If that's the case, I usually just change to Marines and try to speed the game up by killing the Aliens faster (heheh, yeah yeah, call me a traitor, whatever... I know when we've lost <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->). Press F4 to switch teams.
And that's pretty much it. The key to winning with aliens is coordination (despite what the manual says). You need it at every point in the game... You need it early game, to stop the Marines from expanding. You need it in mid-game, to help set up a 3rd Hive, and harrass enemy expansions. And you need it in late game to take out turret walls and deliver the <i>coup de grace</i> to the enemy command center.
<!--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-->ummm turrets are supposed to cost 40? every server i have played on has been at 16<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A turret factory & 1 turret costs 41 RP, a turret alone costs 16.
<!--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 think that the siege turrets are cheap. shooting thru walls? c'mon. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Are they supposed to be set up in front of some offense chambers instead? I don't think they would be very usefull then. If the aliens allow the enemy to stay so close to their hive for the time it takes to set up siege turrets, they are supposed to lose.
<!--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 marines can have 3-5 resource collectors up by the time the aliens get the first one, if their commander is on the ball.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If they would spent so many resources on resource towers so early in the game, they would not have enough resources for a proper defence in their home base. Do you know what happens to an undefended marine base? It's the same with sharks and blood...
<!--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-->_plus_ the ability of a competent commander to drop health/ammo out of the sky...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A standard marine dies after two bites of a skulk, which takes about 1 second. A commander who can safe this marine with a medpack has to be REALLY quick.
<!--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-->when the commander is not in the groove, the aliens can win quite easily. if the commander is doing his job properly, it's all but impossible for the aliens to win. (in my experience) <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So you mean that a good commander provides all of his troops with an aimbot and invulnarability to any kind of alien attack, while a bad commander steals all skill from his marines and all aliens suddenly evolve to indestructable Onos? I'm sorry to disappoint you, but tactics alone can't win a battle.
What Gallig said <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
okay i think a lot of things and a lot of points have been said already, and i fully agree with some of them. i've played about 15 games, both as aliens and marines (including commander). when i first started playing aliens i didn't really enjoy it, because many times we got owned. it's true that the aliens have a much steeper learning curve than the marines, and that a good knowledge of the map helps a lot. also, contrary to what the manual says, communication and coordination amongst aliens is definitely more impt than when playing marines. all u hear when u play marines are pple asking for hp, for ammo etc etc. with my alien teammates, we actually had to communicate a lot more, asking for backup, referring to locations by name, delegating tasks etc etc - because that was the only way we'd actually manage to survive.
i recently played a few games where aliens won, and basically we used the same strategy. it helped, too, that the marines weren't that experienced =) one problem about aliens is that many players try to play them the same way as marines - slowly expand out and fortify. problem with this is that alien turrets get blown apart easily by grenades - so any alien fortification is at best a temporary affair. a good start is essential. aliens have to rush marines en mass and clam them up using distractive attacks, keep them from expanding, while a few gorges quickly secure resource points. hopefully the marine commander will be set back a bit as he wastes resources on building turrets in base - and even with 4-5 turrets a few skulks can still cause quite a bit of havoc. i was in a game where this guy called reapy managed to keep an entire base of marines huddled inside their base cos he always managed to take one or two down with him every time he charged in.
point is, you can't play the fortified game with marines... cos siege and gres will own you. you have to keep up pressure, prevent them from getting resources, and basically secure all the resource points and hives while ur skulks keep them from expanding. marines cannot be allowed to expand <b>PERIOD</b>, once they expand you have a problem cos they can just play the turtling game with you, become construction workers and build build like crazy. siege is a big problem cos with them marines can just play turtle, build build n siege outwards - that must not happen. i've played marine games where all i seem to do is build - never get to shoot my gun at all. without resources marines can't get their hmgs/armor that fast, so it's much less of a problem if aliens manage to hem them up.
i read that some players have problems assaulting marine bases, basically what we did was we divide the chores. one group take out auxillary marine bases (if we managed to get a good start there shouldn't be too many of these) while the other group attack the main base to distract and keep the pressure up. once they're totally clammed up inside their base and all aux bases are gone, we build a forward base or two with def towers, offense towers, the works just out of siege range. maybe 2 of these bases from different sides. then we do hit n run attacks. charge in, do damage, run back to forward base, heal, rinse n repeat. fades with bilebombs, lerks with spore clouds, onos. if we die, we just come back. they don't have resources anymore, they can't keep it up forever. sooner or later the turrets all go down and we move in for the kill.
so my main point is if you play aliens you must be <b>AGGRESSIVE.</b> really aggressive. you can't sit on your ass waiting for the marines to come to you, cos by the time they come they're gonna have hmgs, gres, armor, the works, and you find your little skulk bite suddenly ain't so effective anymore. you've gotta harass them, scare them, charge into their base n kill a few; make them think twice about stepping out of their base. without their advanced technology the aliens have the edge, but once the marines climb up the tech tree, aliens start biting dust. you don't want that to happen.
i think once the patch comes out a lot of the problems will b fixed; less turrets (right now its turret heaven), a better resource model, n the lag; to name a few. one thing that irks me, though, is that aliens don't have an equivalent to the gre launcher... bile bomb is good, but you don't get it all the time. i think switching bile bomb n blink around is good, cos you sometimes just can't get all 3 hives in time; and it wouldn't hurt to increase the dmg, range n radius of bile bomb too. the main problem is, aliens dont really have a low level response to turrets thats <b>FAST</b>, lerk or acid cannon takes forever to kill em while gres blow alien chambers to bits in seconds. xenocide, bilebomb, onos... all need lvl 3 hive. i mean, i see 6 grenades come in from nowhere and tear my carefully placed defense towers/offense towers up... it kinda hurts. =(
most people are playing marines cos marines win most of the time (for all the reasons that have been posted). hopefully pple will start playing aliens once they see how fun it is.
All I can say is the Aliens have ####### potential. The problem is that they NEED all 3 hives. It would be good, if the ability to build certain chambers does not rely on the hives
(/quote)
i think that's a really great idea. we keep hearing pple complain about marines securing 1 hive location and defending it like crazy. even better, we could expand this idea by letting aliens have all weapons straight off the bat, only pegging the evolutions to number of hives. eg lurk gets umbra/spore cloud with one hive, but you still need 2 hives for fades. if that's too much, maybe we could drop all weapons by one level, eg skulks get leap with 1 hive, xenocide with 2 hives. fades get blink with 1 hive, bile bomb with 2 hives.
the problem as i see it is that so many of the aliens' most powerful and NEEDED weapons require 3 hives. point is aliens should be able to do a viable attack with just 2 hives... hopefully something will be done.
Well I played alien all the time last night, and we won 3 out of six. Even though it took me a lot of threats to start kicking marines unless they evened the teams out. Even had to kick some of them. I have seen a lot of nice tactics in this thread and I cant wait to try them out. The fact is that with such a complex game as the develeopers have managed to create here, there is no way you can know that the aliens suck. The only players I would consider to have interesting output would be the testers, whom I suspect have been playing for a while. This kind of reminds me of when Jedi Outcast was released. The skill of the players, new tricks, new tactics in saber dueling, kept on evolving for months. All the guys who kept whining in the first few weeks, were proven wrong over and over as the game evolved. I believe this mod will keep on evolving for a long time before we will truly know the answer to the balance issues. And when the patch fixing this resource problem is released, I bet things will seem a lot better already then.
I will have to admit though, that the times us aliens won, it was mostly because of really inexperiensed commanders on the marine side. But then again we were not very expereiensed ourselves either. I would say the great fear as an alien would be a really good marine commander, and a competent team listening to his commands. But with a crappy commander\often-switching-commanders the marines will get owned. If a competent commander who know the maps, just decides to secure a hive-location early, I'd say ouch. With more experience as an alien it will still be possible to beat them though.
So to sum it up: Give the game at least a couple of months before jumping to any conclusions, there is still a lot to learn.
i've been playing non-stop NS since the day of the release. 80% of the time as alien, 20% of the time was marines. i'm just going to restate the obvious i guess, maybe the devs would think it's a good idea, or maybe not. these are only opinions to make the game a bit more enjoyable.
ok i'll say it. alien/marine are totally unbalanced. here's just a few ideas that might change it a bit. any one of these changes would be a welcome to all alien players out there... maybe.
1) turrets - way too strong and too much hp. FIX - limit turrets to 2-3 per factory. turret factory goes down=turrets unoperational. turret hp adjustment = 2 fades acid rocketing it should take it down in less than 30 seconds... much like how a single marine with full ammo, even with LMG, can take out an offensive chamber by himself (of course, this also takes into fact that hive-mind will be calling reinforcements, so emptying your clip in alien territory with reinforcements coming up isn't really a good idea without a backup... which balances the need for 2 players to attempt to gain ground in any defense)
2) HAs - 3 skulks should be able to take 1 HA'd marine down in 2-3 chomps, albeit with heavy casualties.
3) HMG - less accurate, definitely needs to have some sort of recoil.
these 2 are just suggestions, in case the correct resource model still allows too much of the turret forrest/ha/hmg death squad syndrome.
4) resources - needs a resource cap, based on the number of resource points captured (good or bad idea?)
5) tech trees - based on the number of resource points captured (again, good or bad?)
6) alien bite - semi-transparent jaws or something plz.also maybe some code to 'auto-fit' skulks on those hiding spots that would reveal your claws if you even looked down. it's pretty hard ambushing marines from above when you have to look sideways and rely on your hearing because if you looked down your alien model would stick those claws out.
7) again, like someone mentioned, better 1 hive recovery abilities. at the moment, lose your second hive and your in deep shit and is practically impossible to recover from aside from suicide rush base techniques. turret fortified bases are invincible to any single hive alien. marines have the ability of playing defense, while gathering up resources, and relying on their few remaining weaponry to take over a resource point or base and mounting a counter attack, while the aliens are shit out of luck anywhere with 2 turrets in range of one another.
8) penalties for marine death. it doesn't have to be on the marine side either. give more of a resource boost for killing marines than marines get when killing aliens. marines should be discouraged to leave rambo style looking to kill 1 or 2 aliens. they should be given more incentive to stay alive. maybe if dying gave the aliens better opportunities to expand, people would stick to their squads more.
9) grenade launchers - doesn't explode on impact with alien, and longer fuse time to explosion. similar to CS grenades maybe. max ammunition 12, and of course make it more expensive. grenade launchers are supposed to be saved for when clearing a heavily guarded area. they shouldn't just be tossing it in random ducts, they should be saving it for clusters of offensive towers (with defensive towers of course). and of course, longer reload time.
while the game is still new, strategies still being ironed out, and the typical pickup group having played it probably less than 10 matches, it's ok to blame most of the imbalance to a higher learning curve. but once marine tactics start getting ironed out, it's going to be more difficult to balance the game. or maybe i'm talking out of my ass, and i haven't played 2 very skilled NS teams yet to comment about it...
pick em apart... if anyone even reads into page 12/13 whatever of this thread ;p
This is an interesting point, but for the sneak attacks of the skulk to be effective the maps have to be much darker, give it less light to make it work.
People who played the alien vs predator (ok screw the predator) will understand me. Ok, how many times in NS you were really forced to use your flashlight - i played on about half of the maps already, and let me tell you - you dont need a flash light in NS at all I mean without the cloaking skill the skulk ability to sneak attack is quite bad, not to say useless (of course it works now and then, but only when the marines play dumb, or run around in singles like headless chickens).
Make the maps darker and it will make so much difference to the usefulness of the skulks. Aliens vs Predator had such a beatiful, dark, scary atmosphere, and sometimes you wasnt even quick enough to understand why you just died (play it on very hard, or whatever that difficulty setting is called and you will see).
Other then that NS is great mod, keep up the good work guys............
I agree that the aliens don't suck but how can you win when you have only one hive left and the marines have armor, HMG's and grenade launchers.
And is there a trick to placing offensive towers because i have noticed once the marines have got the grenade launchers they have pretty much won the game.
*When* you get the third hive, and Babblers become available.... USE THEM!
Get adrenaline, then go into a small area near the Marines base, and let them loose. If you co-ordinate an attack with an Onos or a couple of other Aliens, it can be murder for the poor Marines.
Yesterday, I was in this vent above the enemy base. They knew I was there, and I was letting loose a wave of these Babblers. After a while they didnt bother shooting them, and walked off or ignored them. Thats when I told the 4 real Skulks to run in, which they did, among another swarm of Babblers. The Marines ignored them completely, and they proceeded to chew up the command station unhindered.
<!--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 agree that the aliens don't suck but how can you win when you have only one hive left and the marines have armor, HMG's and grenade launchers.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In that situation the game is lost, just as the game is lost. Thats not a balance problem, thats simply the way of a RTS. What do you do as Zerk in Starcreaft when you just have one base left and its surrounded by siegetanks - you loose. What do the marines do when they are trapped in their base and Onos keeps rushing in, Fades keeps bilebombing and there's sporeclouds all over?
If the aliens only have one hive left and the marines has enough resources to keep their troops fully upgraded then the marines was better than them and the game is basically over.
aliens are sweet, no doubt about it. I used to prefer marines, but i started playing alien to even the teams after we started getting scenarios of 8 marines - 4 aliens which frankly ****ed me off a lot, even after asking nicely they wouldnt even respond let alone switch sides.
the best game i've had so far was as aliens, when the teams were actually even ( no kidding ) and we had 2 secured hives , thanks to ingenious placement of the so-called 'lame' offense towers. the third hive however, was a big problem as the marines had built lots of turrets there and it was looking grim. after lots of bitching we finally decided that it was gunna take a huge effort to get those pesky marines outta there, so with just half the alien team, as fades , lerks and a gorge to heal, we easily took the base out, set up the hive with lots of defense and well...... can you guys say onos? <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
when u learn aliens, u will love them. all my most memorable kills have been with aliens. marine kills are like.. "uh, i saw it, and i shot it, and it died, cool!". jk. i like them both. but cloaking, sneaking up behind a marauding horde of marines with slience and wiping them out; killing a resource tower WHILE there are marine trying to shoot thru it (then they come in close to get around the tower i circle around and EAT THEM <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->); i mean, these are FUN FUN FUN characters to play.
dont get me wrong, playing cmdr or a good marine with teamwork rox too. just dont' shortchange the KHARAA! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
From my experience ..... the game is fine as it is.
The early game is easily dominated by the aliens with a well coordinated team plan. This is not talk about the Zerg Rush KEKEEKE that you see where the aliens rush the marine spawn and win in a min, but more with a poke and annoy plan.
I feel it is my DUTY as a Skulk inthe beginning of the game to poke and pester the marines as much as possible. Find where they are expanding and distract them. You don't always have to kill them ... a scurry over their heads, parasite them and leap down biting (not even trying to hit them) to draw them out into a hall. Then hide .... or bait them by having friends lie in wait for them. Hive site (especially with parasite) makes it easy to coordinate attacks. Said marine(s) ... dead or at bare minimum distracted.
Yes, the late game can get scary as an alien ... but by then you should have pestered the marines into using all their resources while not expanding very far at all.
For the most part .. I applaud the devs and PT's for such an awesome mod. I find it incredulous that a community can be this hard on a team before they even attempt to get a feel for the game. This mod plays like an RTS ... in that when something isn't working ... maybe you have to change your strategy before whining about balance. In WAR3, you get complaints about orc tower rushes .... a tactic easily stopped by making sure that you explore a bit. The same can be applied here.
As of late, I've been playing as aliens at least 80% of the time ... and having a grand time as well. Get a couple regs that you can meet up and play with. Communicate. Aliens have been winning AT LEAST half of the games we've been playing. the arguments that state that a single marine can decimate a hive are ridiculous. Yes, a single marine CAN do this ... but with movement towers and hive sight and communication ... it simply WON'T be effective.
My hat is off ... best game i've played in years .... and like TFC, it will have life ... due to the easy to pick up/hard to master quality.
Comments
Here are a few things Ive seen noobs do.. and things ive done that worked much better...
1. Noob Skulk sees too marines.. and runs to them while strafing and still gets chewed up.
Me camped in a longhallway in a crevace on the top... waited for 4 marines to pass... then crept down slowly... and took 2 of them out... ran ahead on the ceiling (it was a dark area).. they layed down suppressng fire behind them where i just was.. i dropped and ate the other 2.
2. Newbie fade trys to take on a squad of marines ..even though it was close quarters with claws... good for doing damage.. but not if there are 5 marines.
When I saw this.. it was also a darkened corrodor... they saw me and opened fire... I blinked to the wall behind them and before they knew it I had 2 of their guys down and then another one by the time they had turned... blinked again. (moved to a d pod i had set up previously) then came back out and bombed the last 2.
Its all a matter of HOW you play. An experianced skulk can be better than an unexperianced onos in my opinion.
They suck.
First off, there is no way to kill turrets. The most effective way to do it (that I have found) is to run in, as a skulk, bite a few times, run out, regenerate, repeat. Needless to say this takes forever and actually dosnt work. It is just the best way I have found. I have never seen less than 4 turrets gaurding a resourse node. If there are less then 4 turrets then there are marines.
A way to fix this: Give one building or alien (lerk or lower) some kind of siege ability. The inability to take out buildings is just devistating.
___________
Secondly HA is either to powerful or to cheap. Once marines start getting HA the game is over. HA and HMG combination along with a grenade launcher is unstopable. I was once attacking a HA as a skulk and I was litterally on his face biting him, and he killed me... WITH A WELDER.
A way to fix this: Make HA more expensive or less powerful.
___________
Alien attacks are just weak. I can not think of a single alien attack that is as powerful as it should be.
The way to fix this should be obvious.
___________
Do you honestly think that this many people would be upset about imbalances if all they need to do is learn how to play the aliens?
There is a very obvious difference between needing practice and needing balance. This needs balance.
I realize just as much as anyone else that the devs worked hard on this game. But that doesnt mean that they can say "here's the game, it's perfenctly balanced, you can't tell us otherwise" because that is crap.
the thing is nearly 3 times as big as a marine, and he bites the marine.
that should bite the guys fucking head off, just the teeth alone are big enough to remove the entire midsection.
and the fucking resource patch wont fix everything. aliens are still way under in nearly all aspects.
the marines can have a home base ANYWHERE, the aliens have 3 set places that are easily attacked and hard to defend.
the marines can be anywhere, and can drop turrets.
also, why is it that the alien heal spray is useless? that welder repaired the command chair from 1 health dot left all the way to green before i, as a skulk, could leap from the engine room through the vent and back.
and why is it that the web limit is 4 webs, and the turret limit is 3 turrets, but the marines can have unlimited turrets?
and why do they have instant access to all there resources while aliens have to wait forever.
why ar eall the maps in the marines favor?
as a marine, i was able to single handedly take out 3 onos with carapace and adrenaline using only my default machinegun.
how is that fucking possible?
the armor on that thing is thicker than a gargs skin, how do bullets even harm it?
and another thign.. stay on topic, now that we've got all these noobies, its gonna be hard for the MODs to keep track, so .. yea.. LONG LIVE NS!!!!
geez, another edit... DONT SWEAR... i guess we dont have the filters up.. i think thats on the board rules right?? cmon guys, keep it civil..
ok
now, alot of problems that yals are talking about come about from alien players acting like idiots
1) off chmas suck, yes we know, thats why we build 5 of them to cover one door, then back them up with 3 deff chams, and atleast one healing gorge, and assinine amounts of webs
2) webs :
gorge: hehe, I am going to web this entire doorway shut, wow it looks just like a spiders web
Marine1: wow, look at what that pudgy little bas'td did
Marine2: here I got a welder
1 sec latter
Marine1 killed Gorge with LMG
moral? WEBS ARE VISABLE!
put them on the floor, in bright areas (they show up better in the dark), place them so that they wont trip em till your turrets cant fire, and when they are triped have a skulk ready to bite their kneacaps off
3) look, deff chambers are the best ones out ther, build em first, they heal you obceanly fast, as well as the fact that crapace and redemption are REALY FUN
4) don't let marines out of their FN base
admitidaly this will take a while to learn, but you MUST know the maps (especialy ussing vents)
get the fasts way to marine start memorized from each hive, then CHARGE it, pis em off from the get go AND DON'T LET UP
oh no, you died, whoo hoo, you also still have them stuck in their base un able to go cap recources ::EG::
bah, I can't wait for the patch, untill then I am just working on setting this up in the CompSci Lab at my school so I don't have to worry about CS newbs who don't know how to play fair!
oh, and for all of yalls wh think PTs and DEVs are over reacting when they get exasperated with yalls bitching, well thats b/c the Devs have put LARGE amounts of work into this, and the PTs have spent the past few months making sure that all of what you are bitching about WASN'T TRUE
[/rant]
Aliens on the other hand, if they lose a room, there's not much of a chance of them taking it back unless the marines aren't very observant. This is mainly due to the turret farms that the resource bug allows. I expect that the tide of battle will actually swing back and forth once we see rooms secured with less turrets as the marines must carefully use precious resources.
Right now, however, the best way to win as aliens is to press hard and make those marines use up all their resources equipping marines that die before they can achieve their objectives. The best way to do this is to team up with another alien and follow him everywhere. Make sure you find someone who know what he's doing to follow, though. If you do that, not only can you learn some great tactics, but you're basically assured some form of victory, even if short term. This is especially useful for destroying structures where aliens bites, while strong, are too slow (and noisy) and a marine patrol could kill you while you're biting.
The only good thing about the resource bug is that some new commanders sit back behind walls of turrets, wasting their resources while we aliens get 3 hives up and waltz in with Onos, which is the highly resistant to turret attacks. I've destroyed entire marine bases with MANY turrets as a single Onos.
What I don't like is that they weren't very open about that resource bug. The mind would start to believe that after all their talk of saying everything is balanced, they find a bug that makes things unbalanced and are forced to take it back. Still, I don't doubt that the devs and playtesters on the alien team could wipe the floor with a marine team regardless of resource bug, but that's because they won't make the mistake of losing an important room to the marines, whereas, with the diversity in skill of the general gaming populous, alien players will probably make one or two mistakes throughout the course of the game.
Even when I lose, I have fun.
Isnt that what the game is about? To have fun?
To match wits with a commander that uses good (not planting turret fields) strategies? Playing the aliens vs marines is like USA vs North Vietnam.
The aliens are the guerillas.
Who won Vietnam anyways?
Not to be unpatriotic or anything <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Kotau
Through that sense of keeping even teams, I've found that the Kharaa (?) are my favourite to play, and I don't think that there's much unbalancing besides the resource bug but I don't need to go there. Sure, it's fun to run around with a few marines and tear up incoming Skulks (who always come head on... not good), but waiting in the weeds; hanging overhead for that perfect moment to drop... brings back the good ol' days of Aliens Online. Even alone you can get those ambushes that just go beautifully... anyway...
Taurus
and another thign.. stay on topic, now that we've got all these noobies, its gonna be hard for the MODs to keep track, so .. yea.. LONG LIVE NS!!!!<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
wow....
Do you think that we come here to flame the mod because we get off on it? Because we are trying to sabatoge it? Because we got a broom-stick up our ass and we want to take out our anger on someone?
I am giving my opinion because I see a good game under these problems. I just tried the Red Justice beta. That game is so worthless that I would never take a second look at it. I would never go to the RJ forums and say anything critical because it would be pointless. The only advice I could ever give it is to start over and make a different game.
I critasize because I want this game to get better. Not for s**** and grins.
They suck.
First off, there is no way to kill turrets. The most effective way to do it (that I have found) is to run in, as a skulk, bite a few times, run out, regenerate, repeat. Needless to say this takes forever and actually dosnt work. It is just the best way I have found. I have never seen less than 4 turrets gaurding a resourse node. If there are less then 4 turrets then there are marines.
A way to fix this: Give one building or alien (lerk or lower) some kind of siege ability. The inability to take out buildings is just devistating.
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Secondly HA is either to powerful or to cheap. Once marines start getting HA the game is over. HA and HMG combination along with a grenade launcher is unstopable. I was once attacking a HA as a skulk and I was litterally on his face biting him, and he killed me... WITH A WELDER.
A way to fix this: Make HA more expensive or less powerful.
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Alien attacks are just weak. I can not think of a single alien attack that is as powerful as it should be.
The way to fix this should be obvious.
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Do you honestly think that this many people would be upset about imbalances if all they need to do is learn how to play the aliens?
There is a very obvious difference between needing practice and needing balance. This needs balance.
I realize just as much as anyone else that the devs worked hard on this game. But that doesnt mean that they can say "here's the game, it's perfenctly balanced, you can't tell us otherwise" because that is crap.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
LOL
If you understood the game, you'd:
a) Realise that many servers have a bug which causes marines to get more resources &
b) Be able to take out turrets without damage. They track aliens slower than a level 1 can move. You can circle strafe round a turret and chew it to death in about 3 seconds without taking a single hit.
Even an ONOS can strafe around a turret quicker than it can track.
When you have 10-20 turrrets in an area it's because either:
a) Marines are getting too many resources or
b) You've left them alone. Aliens are meant to atatck marines, not wander around aimlessly until the heavys come marching in.
If you want to play on a server with the correct resource model and generally competent players, try:
JarHedz (Linux Playtest server): 193.120.211.34:27015
[FoR] (Win32 Playtest server): 65.120.118.134:27016
Having said that I see a few potential problems.
1, Aliens inherently require more skill to win as. Marines are easy to learn and easy to win as, Aliens are ninjas and have more potential in the hands of the uber1337. I've played in over 70 games already playing half as Aliens and only seen them win 3. Two wins by rushing the Command Center and one win by playing against n00bs who didn't know what they were doing. The main reason for Alien downfall is the main Marine tactic, secure a Hive location.
I've played in games where the Marines secure 1 Hive, set up 6 Turrets a Portal and an Armory. (A large inventment to be sure) They then had 4 Marines, (out of 8 on their team vs our 9 Aliens) 3 in heavy armor with hmgs, 1 jetpack grenadier, just guard that base. For 30 minutes 5 of us Aliens tried to get that base while the other 4 guarded and rebuilt against the constant grenade runs against our resources. We had every good tactic you can imagine, Defence and Offence chambers with a Gorge just away from the corner to the hive, 2 Fades, and a Lerk. We had the Lerk use it's Umbra and then we Fades would acid the hell out of them with our lvl 3 Adrenaline, no luck, we might kill 1 turret but that would be replaced easyly. We tried having the Lerk fly out and around drawing the turrets fire so we could rush or Blink over , it was working for 5 seconds before 2 heavy armor heavy mgs showed up and sent us all back to the hives. We tried coming from the back, we tried just peaking around the corner strafing in and out while firing acid rockets, the jetpack grenadier put an end to that. They would just lob 6 grenades to the corner and have 2 of the heavy armor hmg marines go around the corner when they started going off knowing we could only run.
The fact is patient skilled Marines with a good commander are unbeatable without a third Hive (not because we failed in one game, but because I have never heard of it being done unless the Marines were noobs who didn't have grenade launchers or who didn't portal reinforce it and weld it) Second hive Aliens are just too underpowerd vs camping
Marines without their exploding Skulks, Bile Bombs, and Onos'.
The second problem is the uber commander. I've dropped about 20 health packs on a marine for over 7 seconds to keep him alive while be wasn't even looking the right way vs a ninja skulk and had him win because of it, I do this a lot. I can only image how that Alien player felt knowing he should have killed that n00b 10 times over by then. One thing we haven't seen yet in the game is the god type commander who drops health on the marines while placing dummy building infront of them to protect them from Alien turrets. I mean I can drop health and ammo on jet packing marines mid flight over a hive. I think there should be a radius for dropable goods created by Marine buildings and counter-acted by Alien ones (with all neutral ground buildable upon for either side) to prevent this sort of abuse and other commander abuse we haven't even thought up (Like that command center trick in the enemy hive)
I love this game, and I love the Republic, but for the love of god make Alien turrets poisionus or something. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Oh and if anyone has any ideas on how to capture that third hive vs skilled camping marines, I and everyone else would love to hear it (then laugh at you)
The only way we did it was by having almost the entire team attacking the hive. Most of us were skilled players on the team, who knew the importance of having that third hive. In fact, that battle raged back and forth for nearly an hour with the rest of the map ignored.
While the rest of the team was dealing with the marines and distracting the turrets, I was building offensive and defensive chambers in view of the turrets, once I had enough up, these tied the turrets up in attacking the chambers, long enough for the entire team to push back the marines, and sap them of enough resources to make them wait a bit before attacking again (we even ambushed those trying to get their guns back). Someone had already started on the hive during the fight.
With the turrets weakened, the team made short work of everything else, and by the time the marines came back with heavy armor and hmgs. We had some pretty nasty ambushes waiting for them.
In the end, it came down to marines holding off onos charges before losing their CC.
Aliens rely on teamwork even more than marines do. While marines just run in groups, weld each other and spam their commander for ammo and health, the aliens have to use tactics. Most aliens I see on servers are CS like rambos. Sure, marines aren't much better, but they are forced to work together, while aliens are not. A single marine won't last long outside the safety of his comrades or base defense, an alien can wander around freely to feast on lonely marines. That's not bad, because it will hamper enemy expansion, but if some marines start to join up in groups and start to take over resource points and hives, you can't do much about it as a single alien.
An example:
I was playing alien yesterday and we had a good start, me and a fellow alien decided to go gorge and take over the hives, while the rest should distract the marines. I went to the maintenance hive, evolved to gorge and set up a resource tower. Then two marines showed up and started attacking my resource tower. I jumped behind cover and asked everyone to assist at the maintenance hive. Then I started a fight to buy some time for my resource tower. Well, I was a gorge, they were two marines, short: I died pretty quick.
Again I asked everyone to save that resource tower. Again, no one responded. I respawned and went for the maintenance hive myself. Until I arrived a third marine joined them and they've set up their own resource tower and were busy building it. I attacked them and were able to kill 2 before I've got killed by the last one.
I yelled at my team why they don't assist me, but no response. I went for the hive again and finally someone seemed to have noticed the enemy and attacked with me. The marines now had 4 marines in the hive and already built some turrets. My fellow skulk got killed by a turret and I was able to kill 3 marines using their resource tower as cover, before one of those turrets popped me, too. The hive was lost. I knew that, with such a team of headless chickens, the round was already lost. Normally I would stay and fight until the end, but I didn't feel like it and left the server.
If my teammates had attacked when I asked them to, the marines would have only wasted resources trying to secure the hive.
Turret killing is easy, when done right. Always remember that turrets are dumb. They always aim for the closest thing to them. You can take out a single turret by circlestrafing it. The problem are multiple turrets that can backup each other. To take these out you'll need teamwork. Just get some other skulks to distract the turrets by running around them while you start to chomp at one. This way the other turrets won't shoot you too much and you can take them out one after another. This is a risky tactic and needs coordination and skill, but considering you can take out a lot of RP's without investing your own it's worth the effort.
You can also solo clusters of turrets.
1) You've got 2 hives, 3 movement chambers. Evolve to lerk and upgrade to adrenaline (also carapace or redemption if available). You can now use umbra to make you invulnarable to turret fire (They'll only hurt [although not much] you when standing still or you're really close to them) and chomp them. Just keep up umbra all the time. If a marine shows up, or you're running low on health, dust of to the nearest def chamber or hive. This works fantastic with teammates (fades do wonders), you can just concentrate on umbra while they're getting their claws dirty, even heavy marine squads can be taken out by this tactic (use ranged attacks, take out grenadiers first).
2) 3 Hives up. Evolve to fade and use bile bomb to take them out (try to fire it indirectly). Works well with umbra.
3) 3 Hives up. Evolve to Onos. Just pull back when things are getting hot, regenerate (means def chambers or hives, not the upgrade, which is not as good as the other choices IMO), return. Also works well with umbra.
4) 1 Hive, def chambers. Evolve to gorge, build an off chamber in front of the enemy turrets, then build a def chamber behind it. Use your healing spray if necessary and continue building a typical alien chamber wall (you can also put turrets on top of each other or drop them from cliffs, if positioned right). Umbra can help, especially against defending marines (although nade launchers or siege cannons are the death of this tactic).
You can't kill Heavy Armor as a skulk? Of course you can! But what's the use of spending RP's for giving your marines HA and HMG's, if a single skulk, who doesn't cost a single RP, can take them out easily? Next time, try not to attack the side where he can fire back. A marines rear is wonderfully unarmed.
Alien attacks are not powerfull enough? A bite of a skulk does 75 damage. An LMG does 10. The ROF of the LMG is about 5 times higher than the bite, so the marine deals less damage than the skulk. A marine can fight at range and is a bit tougher, the skulk is faster, smaller and walks on walls.
Alien ranged attacks are weak? I've killed a lot of marines with acid rockets, spikes, bile bombs, spore clouds and even spit, who would say otherwise. I even killed a marine with a parasite! Sure, a HMG does a lot more damage in a shorter time than an acid rocket, but it also needs ammo and is heavy. You can bring down a whole HA squad. Just shoot your acid rocket from behind cover, lob a bile bomb from a shaft, cover yourself in umbra and spike them to death or just flyby and shoot a spore cloud. Marine dodges your acid rocket? Aim at his feet! This thing does splash damage for a reason.
The dev team or playtesters aren't dumb just because you can't use the aliens right. Aliens, unlike marines, don't play like your ordinary "point, klick and forget" FPS. If both sides would have HMG's, what would be the difference between them?
Shadowe:
Why is the healing spray useless because the welder can repair things? Where is the logic behind that? The cc is the most vital thing in the marine base, if you could just kill it that easy, no one would play marines.
Web limit is 4? Turret limit is 3? Maybe some admin changed some configs, but normally you can have much more than that.
Onos can't kill a marine with one bite? OMG! How about an AWP for the next release to replace that worthless "does-120-damage-per-attack"-bite?
How is it possible to kill 3 Onos with a LMG? Maybe because somebody shot them before you did and you've only just finished them off?
Armor invulnarable to bullets? An ordinary 7,62mm NATO bullet can pierce 2 meters of concrete. You can even pierce a tank with a machine gun, if you keep hitting the same spot!
The maps are in the marines favor? Why? Aliens have a lot of hiding places and shafts everywhere. What kind of architecture is an advantage for a marine?
The marines can set up a homebase everywhere? Only if the aliens allow them to do so. In the beginning of the game aliens dominate all places but the marine spawnplace. If they allow the marines to take over, it's their own fault.
plus the resource model of the aliens makes the beginning of the game inherently unfair. think about it. resource points are split between all the aliens, correct? so, to build a single resource collector, you have to transform to a gorge (14 pts) then, save up enough energy to build a resource collector (22 pts).. the marines can have 3-5 resource collectors up by the time the aliens get the first one, if their commander is on the ball.
_plus_ the ability of a competent commander to drop health/ammo out of the sky...
when the commander is not in the groove, the aliens can win quite easily. if the commander is doing his job properly, it's all but impossible for the aliens to win. (in my experience)
...and also if there's a resource bug in the game. Oh, wait <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
QED
As for winning against marines, it takes a lot of effort on the Aliens' part. If you are up against an experienced commander, you're going to have a really tough time. Your best bet is to put all your effort into <b>limiting their expansion</b>. Absolutely do <b>NOT</b> let them out of their base.
You don't need 5 gorgs in the begining! 2 will easily suffice. Let your 2 gorgs get resource towers up, and save for hives... and then everyone else ATTACK, and <b>halt marine expansion</b>. If you have to, use your mic to tell everyone this is the plan. I find that a lot of Alien players <b>want </b>to work together, but noone really wants to take charge and give some tactics.
Using the above tactics, here are some common mid-game scenarios:
<b>1) Total Success</b>:
You've completely stopped Marine expansion. This is pretty rare unless the enemy command is a boob. If you've completely stopped their expansion, all you have left to do is take out their main base. Your team should be getting Ohnos by this point, since it's been able to build-up, unharrased. Use Ohnos and Fades to take out the remainder of the enemy turrets, and just finish the job. Now it's just a matter of time.
<b>2) Success </b>:
You've slowed Marine expansion to maybe only 1, or possibly 2 expansions. This is a common scenario. Expect to be on equal footing at this point. It's mid-game, so you'll start to see the occasional Heavy Armor and HMGs. You probably won't have 3 hives yet, since a lot of effort was put into keep the marines at bay. Whatever you do now... do NOT let them TAKE and HOLD that last Hive expansion point. If they take it in mid-game, you are SCREWED.
Do your very best to get that last hive up and running. You'll probably have to battle for it. Marines will still be trying to expand and get more resources. You'll have to try and prevent this as well, unless you want to deal with Grenade Launchers and Heavy Armor later in the game.
If you get that 3rd Hive up, you're going to have to keep the pressure on the Marines for the remainder of the game. Harrass their expansions and try to limit their income. Don't let the game become a stale-mate, where each side has a wall of turrets just around the corner!! The Marines will win EVERY time because of the EMP Cannons they can get in late-game.
<b>3) Failure</b>
If you failed in stopping the Marine expansion, you're in big trouble. They're going to have HA and HMGs real soon now. And if they've taken ANY of the Hive points, you're pretty much dead. If that's the case, I usually just change to Marines and try to speed the game up by killing the Aliens faster (heheh, yeah yeah, call me a traitor, whatever... I know when we've lost <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->). Press F4 to switch teams.
And that's pretty much it. The key to winning with aliens is coordination (despite what the manual says). You need it at every point in the game... You need it early game, to stop the Marines from expanding. You need it in mid-game, to help set up a 3rd Hive, and harrass enemy expansions. And you need it in late game to take out turret walls and deliver the <i>coup de grace</i> to the enemy command center.
-----
Nullzero
<!--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-->ummm turrets are supposed to cost 40? every server i have played on has been at 16<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A turret factory & 1 turret costs 41 RP, a turret alone costs 16.
<!--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 think that the siege turrets are cheap. shooting thru walls? c'mon.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Are they supposed to be set up in front of some offense chambers instead? I don't think they would be very usefull then. If the aliens allow the enemy to stay so close to their hive for the time it takes to set up siege turrets, they are supposed to lose.
<!--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 marines can have 3-5 resource collectors up by the time the aliens get the first one, if their commander is on the ball.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If they would spent so many resources on resource towers so early in the game, they would not have enough resources for a proper defence in their home base. Do you know what happens to an undefended marine base? It's the same with sharks and blood...
<!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.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-->_plus_ the ability of a competent commander to drop health/ammo out of the sky...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A standard marine dies after two bites of a skulk, which takes about 1 second. A commander who can safe this marine with a medpack has to be REALLY quick.
<!--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-->when the commander is not in the groove, the aliens can win quite easily. if the commander is doing his job properly, it's all but impossible for the aliens to win. (in my experience) <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So you mean that a good commander provides all of his troops with an aimbot and invulnarability to any kind of alien attack, while a bad commander steals all skill from his marines and all aliens suddenly evolve to indestructable Onos? I'm sorry to disappoint you, but tactics alone can't win a battle.
What Gallig said <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
i recently played a few games where aliens won, and basically we used the same strategy. it helped, too, that the marines weren't that experienced =) one problem about aliens is that many players try to play them the same way as marines - slowly expand out and fortify. problem with this is that alien turrets get blown apart easily by grenades - so any alien fortification is at best a temporary affair. a good start is essential. aliens have to rush marines en mass and clam them up using distractive attacks, keep them from expanding, while a few gorges quickly secure resource points. hopefully the marine commander will be set back a bit as he wastes resources on building turrets in base - and even with 4-5 turrets a few skulks can still cause quite a bit of havoc. i was in a game where this guy called reapy managed to keep an entire base of marines huddled inside their base cos he always managed to take one or two down with him every time he charged in.
point is, you can't play the fortified game with marines... cos siege and gres will own you. you have to keep up pressure, prevent them from getting resources, and basically secure all the resource points and hives while ur skulks keep them from expanding. marines cannot be allowed to expand <b>PERIOD</b>, once they expand you have a problem cos they can just play the turtling game with you, become construction workers and build build like crazy. siege is a big problem cos with them marines can just play turtle, build build n siege outwards - that must not happen. i've played marine games where all i seem to do is build - never get to shoot my gun at all. without resources marines can't get their hmgs/armor that fast, so it's much less of a problem if aliens manage to hem them up.
i read that some players have problems assaulting marine bases, basically what we did was we divide the chores. one group take out auxillary marine bases (if we managed to get a good start there shouldn't be too many of these) while the other group attack the main base to distract and keep the pressure up. once they're totally clammed up inside their base and all aux bases are gone, we build a forward base or two with def towers, offense towers, the works just out of siege range. maybe 2 of these bases from different sides. then we do hit n run attacks. charge in, do damage, run back to forward base, heal, rinse n repeat. fades with bilebombs, lerks with spore clouds, onos. if we die, we just come back. they don't have resources anymore, they can't keep it up forever. sooner or later the turrets all go down and we move in for the kill.
so my main point is if you play aliens you must be <b>AGGRESSIVE.</b> really aggressive. you can't sit on your ass waiting for the marines to come to you, cos by the time they come they're gonna have hmgs, gres, armor, the works, and you find your little skulk bite suddenly ain't so effective anymore. you've gotta harass them, scare them, charge into their base n kill a few; make them think twice about stepping out of their base. without their advanced technology the aliens have the edge, but once the marines climb up the tech tree, aliens start biting dust. you don't want that to happen.
i think once the patch comes out a lot of the problems will b fixed; less turrets (right now its turret heaven), a better resource model, n the lag; to name a few. one thing that irks me, though, is that aliens don't have an equivalent to the gre launcher... bile bomb is good, but you don't get it all the time. i think switching bile bomb n blink around is good, cos you sometimes just can't get all 3 hives in time; and it wouldn't hurt to increase the dmg, range n radius of bile bomb too. the main problem is, aliens dont really have a low level response to turrets thats <b>FAST</b>, lerk or acid cannon takes forever to kill em while gres blow alien chambers to bits in seconds. xenocide, bilebomb, onos... all need lvl 3 hive. i mean, i see 6 grenades come in from nowhere and tear my carefully placed defense towers/offense towers up... it kinda hurts. =(
most people are playing marines cos marines win most of the time (for all the reasons that have been posted). hopefully pple will start playing aliens once they see how fun it is.
All I can say is the Aliens have ####### potential. The problem is that they NEED all 3 hives. It would be
good, if the ability to build certain chambers does not rely on the hives
(/quote)
i think that's a really great idea. we keep hearing pple complain about marines securing 1 hive location and defending it like crazy. even better, we could expand this idea by letting aliens have all weapons straight off the bat, only pegging the evolutions to number of hives. eg lurk gets umbra/spore cloud with one hive, but you still need 2 hives for fades. if that's too much, maybe we could drop all weapons by one level, eg skulks get leap with 1 hive, xenocide with 2 hives. fades get blink with 1 hive, bile bomb with 2 hives.
the problem as i see it is that so many of the aliens' most powerful and NEEDED weapons require 3 hives. point is aliens should be able to do a viable attack with just 2 hives... hopefully something will be done.
This kind of reminds me of when Jedi Outcast was released. The skill of the players, new tricks, new tactics in saber dueling, kept on evolving for months. All the guys who kept whining in the first few weeks, were proven wrong over and over as the game evolved. I believe this mod will keep on evolving for a long time before we will truly know the answer to the balance issues. And when the patch fixing this resource problem is released, I bet things will seem a lot better already then.
I will have to admit though, that the times us aliens won, it was mostly because of really inexperiensed commanders on the marine side. But then again we were not very expereiensed ourselves either. I would say the great fear as an alien would be a really good marine commander, and a competent team listening to his commands. But with a crappy commander\often-switching-commanders the marines will get owned. If a competent commander who know the maps, just decides to secure a hive-location early, I'd say ouch. With more experience as an alien it will still be possible to beat them though.
So to sum it up: Give the game at least a couple of months before jumping to any conclusions, there is still a lot to learn.
ok i'll say it. alien/marine are totally unbalanced. here's just a few ideas that might change it a bit. any one of these changes would be a welcome to all alien players out there... maybe.
1) turrets - way too strong and too much hp.
FIX - limit turrets to 2-3 per factory. turret factory goes down=turrets unoperational.
turret hp adjustment = 2 fades acid rocketing it should take it down in less than 30 seconds... much like how a single marine with full ammo, even with LMG, can take out an offensive chamber by himself (of course, this also takes into fact that hive-mind will be calling reinforcements, so emptying your clip in alien territory with reinforcements coming up isn't really a good idea without a backup... which balances the need for 2 players to attempt to gain ground in any defense)
2) HAs - 3 skulks should be able to take 1 HA'd marine down in 2-3 chomps, albeit with heavy casualties.
3) HMG - less accurate, definitely needs to have some sort of recoil.
these 2 are just suggestions, in case the correct resource model still allows too much of the turret forrest/ha/hmg death squad syndrome.
4) resources - needs a resource cap, based on the number of resource points captured (good or bad idea?)
5) tech trees - based on the number of resource points captured (again, good or bad?)
6) alien bite - semi-transparent jaws or something plz.also maybe some code to 'auto-fit' skulks on those hiding spots that would reveal your claws if you even looked down. it's pretty hard ambushing marines from above when you have to look sideways and rely on your hearing because if you looked down your alien model would stick those claws out.
7) again, like someone mentioned, better 1 hive recovery abilities. at the moment, lose your second hive and your in deep shit and is practically impossible to recover from aside from suicide rush base techniques. turret fortified bases are invincible to any single hive alien. marines have the ability of playing defense, while gathering up resources, and relying on their few remaining weaponry to take over a resource point or base and mounting a counter attack, while the aliens are shit out of luck anywhere with 2 turrets in range of one another.
8) penalties for marine death. it doesn't have to be on the marine side either. give more of a resource boost for killing marines than marines get when killing aliens. marines should be discouraged to leave rambo style looking to kill 1 or 2 aliens. they should be given more incentive to stay alive. maybe if dying gave the aliens better opportunities to expand, people would stick to their squads more.
9) grenade launchers - doesn't explode on impact with alien, and longer fuse time to explosion. similar to CS grenades maybe. max ammunition 12, and of course make it more expensive. grenade launchers are supposed to be saved for when clearing a heavily guarded area. they shouldn't just be tossing it in random ducts, they should be saving it for clusters of offensive towers (with defensive towers of course). and of course, longer reload time.
while the game is still new, strategies still being ironed out, and the typical pickup group having played it probably less than 10 matches, it's ok to blame most of the imbalance to a higher learning curve. but once marine tactics start getting ironed out, it's going to be more difficult to balance the game. or maybe i'm talking out of my ass, and i haven't played 2 very skilled NS teams yet to comment about it...
pick em apart... if anyone even reads into page 12/13 whatever of this thread ;p
People who played the alien vs predator (ok screw the predator) will understand me. Ok, how many times in NS you were really forced to use your flashlight - i played on about half of the maps already, and let me tell you - you dont need a flash light in NS at all I mean without the cloaking skill the skulk ability to sneak attack is quite bad, not to say useless (of course it works now and then, but only when the marines play dumb, or run around in singles like headless chickens).
Make the maps darker and it will make so much difference to the usefulness of the skulks. Aliens vs Predator had such a beatiful, dark, scary atmosphere, and sometimes you wasnt even quick enough to understand why you just died (play it on very hard, or whatever that difficulty setting is called and you will see).
Other then that NS is great mod, keep up the good work guys............
And is there a trick to placing offensive towers because i have noticed once the marines have got the grenade launchers they have pretty much won the game.
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*When* you get the third hive, and Babblers become available.... USE THEM!
Get adrenaline, then go into a small area near the Marines base, and let them loose.
If you co-ordinate an attack with an Onos or a couple of other Aliens, it can be murder for the poor Marines.
Yesterday, I was in this vent above the enemy base. They knew I was there, and I was letting loose a wave of these Babblers. After a while they didnt bother shooting them, and walked off or ignored them. Thats when I told the 4 real Skulks to run in, which they did, among another swarm of Babblers. The Marines ignored them completely, and they proceeded to chew up the command station unhindered.
In that situation the game is lost, just as the game is lost. Thats not a balance problem, thats simply the way of a RTS. What do you do as Zerk in Starcreaft when you just have one base left and its surrounded by siegetanks - you loose. What do the marines do when they are trapped in their base and Onos keeps rushing in, Fades keeps bilebombing and there's sporeclouds all over?
If the aliens only have one hive left and the marines has enough resources to keep their troops fully upgraded then the marines was better than them and the game is basically over.
the best game i've had so far was as aliens, when the teams were actually even ( no kidding ) and we had 2 secured hives , thanks to ingenious placement of the so-called 'lame' offense towers. the third hive however, was a big problem as the marines had built lots of turrets there and it was looking grim. after lots of bitching we finally decided that it was gunna take a huge effort to get those pesky marines outta there, so with just half the alien team, as fades , lerks and a gorge to heal, we easily took the base out, set up the hive with lots of defense and well...... can you guys say onos? <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
when u learn aliens, u will love them. all my most memorable kills have been with aliens. marine kills are like.. "uh, i saw it, and i shot it, and it died, cool!". jk. i like them both. but cloaking, sneaking up behind a marauding horde of marines with slience and wiping them out; killing a resource tower WHILE there are marine trying to shoot thru it (then they come in close to get around the tower i circle around and EAT THEM <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->); i mean, these are FUN FUN FUN characters to play.
dont get me wrong, playing cmdr or a good marine with teamwork rox too. just dont' shortchange the KHARAA! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Niteowl
The early game is easily dominated by the aliens with a well coordinated team plan. This is not talk about the Zerg Rush KEKEEKE that you see where the aliens rush the marine spawn and win in a min, but more with a poke and annoy plan.
I feel it is my DUTY as a Skulk inthe beginning of the game to poke and pester the marines as much as possible. Find where they are expanding and distract them. You don't always have to kill them ... a scurry over their heads, parasite them and leap down biting (not even trying to hit them) to draw them out into a hall. Then hide .... or bait them by having friends lie in wait for them. Hive site (especially with parasite) makes it easy to coordinate attacks. Said marine(s) ... dead or at bare minimum distracted.
Yes, the late game can get scary as an alien ... but by then you should have pestered the marines into using all their resources while not expanding very far at all.
For the most part .. I applaud the devs and PT's for such an awesome mod. I find it incredulous that a community can be this hard on a team before they even attempt to get a feel for the game. This mod plays like an RTS ... in that when something isn't working ... maybe you have to change your strategy before whining about balance. In WAR3, you get complaints about orc tower rushes .... a tactic easily stopped by making sure that you explore a bit. The same can be applied here.
As of late, I've been playing as aliens at least 80% of the time ... and having a grand time as well. Get a couple regs that you can meet up and play with. Communicate. Aliens have been winning AT LEAST half of the games we've been playing. the arguments that state that a single marine can decimate a hive are ridiculous. Yes, a single marine CAN do this ... but with movement towers and hive sight and communication ... it simply WON'T be effective.
My hat is off ... best game i've played in years .... and like TFC, it will have life ... due to the easy to pick up/hard to master quality.
tl, dr KTHXBYE