Balance Prob

uttirokk

<div class="IPBDescription">dsa</div> Ok then. This topic is just to discuss about the problem I've had and NOT to tell you that it certainly is like this. Here's the deal: marine's keep losing every game if the aliens have proper upgrades. It's true that the marines are quite strong with their long range weapons but they're still attacking, right? So the aliens just keep camping and waiting for the marines who have to attack. Ok, the marines decide to attack and get through the aliens with 6 dead one's out of 8. Aliens quickly kill rest of the marines and half of the team has now leap. Leap is two hive upgrade which is indeed a very powerful weapon. So this already is quite major balance problem since the marines can't have really many lvls if the teams are quite balanced. But then there comes focus and xenocides: with such spawn rate aliens could block quite a huge attack with even one higher lifeform (even a web gorge can be the death of those few leveled nubcakes). Some focus, xeno, web and leaps is such a combination that is hard to resist even with nice upgraded HA's or JP's or Anything. Is the idea to win in the first minutes or is there some point in this topic?

Nuub

Combat issues... hmm. I dont really care about the combat balance but I think its fine. On the other hand about this, if marines break through the camping aliens, they get shotguns quite fast and spawn camping begins. So its lose-lose situation most of the time. To me it seems that marines win the most "face-offs" in combat. Couple marines (or all) quickly rush to hive while few either guard base or go in slower than others, so they're still close to CC just in case if some skulk sneaks and starts biting it. And even if both get to attack the hive/cc, in that case marines win. 6 shotguns > 6 skulks. Its hard to balance, mostly its about the players.

uttirokk

Yeah that's what I've seen in most co_ puplics. Surftown seems to be different: a few good players wont make any difference unless they get the spawn camp on right away. You know, there's always someone who gets some levels and kills a few of those camping marines, and then voila its a focus. Focus+leap > Shotgun easily unless most of the players playing on the server are better than most of the puplic players.

Bluee

Yes there is a tendency in most co_ games that when marines get near the alien hive in the early game, they dominate the skulks, but once they actually get in the hive I find that sometimes the alien will respawn really fast, and sometimes they just won't respawn until forever.

Usually they respawn fast and the marines get slaughtered because they didn't even have time to reload from killing the previous 8 skulks and now have 5 new ones down their throats. But so is co_.

Diablo_fx

It's actully true, marines only have the upperhand in early game. They have to rush, grab a sg and pump that hive down before focus and fades start appearing.

Jaml

I think aliens have too many advantages once they have the right upgrades. The marine advantage is range but they loose it the instant leap,focus and fades show up. Add web to the mix and maybe stomp+devour and you know marines have no chance. How are you supposed to defeat the aliens if you´re without weapons half the time because of combat gorges/stomp, or instagibbed with 290 armor and 100 health cause of devour or have a skulk/fade in your face in 0.2 seconds. Marine weaponery just can´t kill as fast as it would need to compete with the mobility and the ability to disable entire squads that the aliens have. Imagine giving the marines a stun effect for the grenade launcher. That would be horrible and very frustrating for alien players but the marines have to suffer through endless stomp / web / devour cycles all the time. In my eyes this kills the fun of combat against only moderately skilled players. Most of the time you can´t even defend yourself cause you´re immobilized. And dont come with crap like teamwork. Teamwork makes it even worse. Onos like nothing more than a big group of marines cramped in a narrow corridors so they can stomp rape the entire team at once. But hey maybe its just me and all the others like to be eaten with both hands webbed to their back over and over again.

TOmekki

true that the 3-hive abilities are lame in combat, and according to the nem0 interview, they're gonna make 3-hive abilities stronger than now (which i agree with), so i suppose its a bit of a problem.

in my opinion marines SHOULD have some challenge in combat, because that's what makes you better. getting spammed at with stomp, web and xeno is usually too much for even the more organised pub marine teams, and hardly teaches anyone anything, so there lies the problem.

and range is not the only marine advantage, moving in groups is another. as is combined arms. gl will clear any webs, and the gler should also get mt, so he can react to possible xeno skulks. i know that having a co marine team with a heavy train and 2-3 jp's is utopia but thats the way it should go, and really the only way to win the game if you've failed to start up the spawncamp within the first 2 minutes.

which brings us to the next point: true that leap+focus skulks and fades are strong, but they cost 3 points right? thats the same as armor1+shotty.

combat does have issues, but i really doubt the unbalance is that big.

cookman

Ok, this is how i view it.
One marine strafes into the hive room and kills the skulks in the obvius camper spot... then he dies by the other 3 skulks. Second marine strafes in and kill one of the already hurt skulk with a spray of 10 bullets, then he kills the other skulk with the last bullets, pulls out his pistol, strafes, and kill the last skulk with 7 bullets. Then skulks spawn again and marine fires 3 bullets into a skulk which immediatly leaps at marine, but the skulks which now only have 30 HP left gets stabbed and dies. Marine is now lvl 4 and pulls out a shotgun and begins the massacre.

Perdition

Eh, i'm not too fond of Marine co_ just because aliens can rape the game once they get a couple of higher life forms rockin.

I really hate it when the onos is spawn camping, and just spams stomp...over and over and over and over, then eats on of you, runs out, waits to digest the marine he's eaten, then repeats. It gets annoying. Same goes for little gorges who web the **** out of your spawn, and everyone spawns webbed.

k1ndred

welcome to the real world neo...

the combat balance is almost OK, since GL is now overpowered for spawn camping.

About the fact mentioned... it's solved with minimal teamplay, and teamplay is the thing that you don't expect in a combat game...

btw, play classic...

Recoup

We need one big topic devoted to crying your eyes out about unbalances.

d0omie

I think they should make stomp make a marine drop all his weapons and slow them to 50% speed rather then artifically hold him in place. Would be more fun for the marines as they would have something to do (get their guns back) and could affect JPers again without preventing them from taking off, just mean they would need to land to get their guns back.

What do you think?