3.2 balance and gameplay feedback topic.
puzl
The Old Firm Join Date: 2003-02-26 Member: 14029Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
The Old Firm Join Date: 2003-02-26 Member: 14029Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">A call for comprehensive analysis.</div>I think it's now safe to assume that most of you are getting to grips with the changes in 3.2, so we'd like you to post your feedback here. This topic isn't for discussing the pros and cons of individual features, unless of course, that feature has relevance to your point on overall balance. Also, map feedback doesn't belong in this topic.
Please refrain from taking the time to argue against other people's posts. The topic will not be very useful to us if it turns into a long and drawn out pedantic disputes. Try to limit your feedback to a single post if possible. Editing your existing feedback to amend it is more useful than adding mutliple replies as the topic will be reviewed as a whole in a few days. The results of our decisions will be contained in the upcoming 3.2 beta 2 patch.
Please refrain from taking the time to argue against other people's posts. The topic will not be very useful to us if it turns into a long and drawn out pedantic disputes. Try to limit your feedback to a single post if possible. Editing your existing feedback to amend it is more useful than adding mutliple replies as the topic will be reviewed as a whole in a few days. The results of our decisions will be contained in the upcoming 3.2 beta 2 patch.
Comments
Fades are now much more common, and formidable in the hands of the unexperienced, wich is a welcome change.
However, i agree upon the fact that after mid-game marines get overpowered, with cheap jetpacks, and somewhat too powerful hmg for its cost. Hmg's cost could be bumped up a little, 5 res or so, and jetpack research needs a bit more cost, or research time.
Otherwise, i'm not seeing too big imbalances, except 1 gorge shouldn't really be able to take out whole outposts of stuff with just bilebomb, just cause marines can't kill him cause he avoids all the nades in the vent, and keeps bilebombing pg's to oblivion. This problem exists on several maps, Machina for example has bad problem with the Tau Ceti hive, where a lone gorge can hide in a vent, without marines being able to retaliate even with a grenade, and bilebomb a gateway + tf + res + turrets to oblivion, repeadately.
Many other maps also have these problems, but elsewhere than hives. Siege spots, res nodes, all of them have a problem with 1 gorge being able to annoy heck out of the marine team cause hand nades just can't get to them, or they just don't hurt em enough so they can just heal themselves.
Holding 1 hive and 4/5 RTs using 2 PGs is currently highly effective in all game sizes.
I think it is partly that alien round attitudes have not changed to reflect the loss of hive armour.
I think the aliens need to realise that the marines are constantly teching up whilst the aliens recieve no armour boost, and are therefore becoming relatively stronger as the round timer ticks on.
So aliens need to be much more aggresive right from the start in order to secure victory, both interms of chewing RTs and constantly attacking MS. Where as previously they may have sat back a little until the second hive was up.
There was a mentality that once the second hive was up aliens had all but won, but the number of dead fades in this beta tells a different story.
Aliens need more teamwork in order to break the marine res control in this middle game stage.
Once HA is upgraded it things start to slide towards marine, as the effectiveness of the powerful/fade lerk combination is greatly diminshed.
Usually this is were the Onos would come in to even the score, but it is currently very weak due to the loss of hive armour, and is really getting the worst of it vs 3 marines.
Also it is quite ineffective without celerity, which sort of detracts from this idea of any chamber combination.
There is also the issue with carapace where you die with H:0 A:200.
I would like to see a increase in the base speed (a la lerk) and a small health buff to fix the carapace issue (there is a decent discussion in the Consti forum about this).
A few HA can easily hold the gates and its only a minute and a bit until JP are ready, at which point any marine team who can use a welder will very hard be hard to defeat especially without focus.
Marine RTs have also become stronger relative to Alien RTs due to the minmap and hitbox improvements, I think the HP of the RTs should be tweaked, possibly an increase for the alien, as they don't tend to be replaced as vigouressly as the marine RTs.
I've noticed that it can be extremely tricky to take down a hive which has 3 or more DCs covering it, the rate of healing may need to be looked at. Although, I've only been in this situation two or three times <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
And what is up with SC not countering MT anymore? Bug?
Can't think of anything else... <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/nerd-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::nerdy::" border="0" alt="nerd-fix.gif" />
2 minor things with almost no real data to back it up and relying on my own personal experience:
1) From a marine and fade view, the early strait cara fade seems to be a bit too much of a tank.
2) Sensory 1st is still a bit hard to combat.
All I can think of as a solution to #2 would be:
a. With field obs playing such a crucial role in overcoming sensory 1st the build time is a bit too long.
b. Increasing regen rate of energy
We can get down to the nitty gritty of each part of the game but if you take a Black Box approach and look at the round results it seems to be fine.
Gameplay wise both teams are having to be more flexible in their approaches where constant accurate information is crucial to success, naturally this is more fun and challenging the only drawback being cause of the pace of the game it can seem like a lot of work. Most classes seem to take some level of skill to use as opposed to the brick wall no brainers theyve been in the past, which just feels nice <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
Balancewise id really hate to see JPs being at 15res again due to how fragile they can be against some builds, Ive not really played enough serious games to comment on balance but again, its been fun <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
Early game seems more or less the same, though lerks are having a rough time adjusting to new playstyles, but that should fade away soon.
In 3.1, mid-game was the strongest period for the alien team, with the second hive just built, marines often did not have the tech to compete anymore, and second hive usually meant gg. No longer the case, which is a good thing, however:
Since aliens got a little weaker across the board (particularly removal of hive armor and fade blink are pretty rough, changed bunnyhop animation doesn't help, and neither does the marine minimap showing RT's under attack and improved rt hitboxes), marines can keep up a lot better.
Now, end-game has always been in the marines' favour. In 3.1, if you managed to keep a decent resource situation for long enough, you could eventually overwhelm the aliens with HA, HMGs, JPs etc. This is still the case, but since the aliens can't push hard enough to deny the marines end-game tech even with the second hive, it's a lot easier for the marines to 'hold out' and tech up.
I think the balance shifted like this:
3.1
Slight marine advantage early game, early lerks gave a slight alien advantage for a minute or so, then the marines would have the advantage again until second hive. Fades had to be careful to not die to avoid the aliens from getting completely slaughtered.
Second hive goes up, and so do leap, metabolize, more chambers, bilebomb, umbra, and added armor. This combined would usually overwhelm whatever tech marines had for a few minutes.
If marines survived the second hive, it was possible to slowly tech up and get back in the game, eventually becoming more powerful than the aliens with the exception of hive 3.
3.2
Slight marine advantage early game, early lerks help balance it out, then the marines have an advantage until second hive. Fades have an even harder time due to the new blink (which is in my opinion, extremely unforgiving when making mistakes).
Second hive goes up, so does all the other shabang, but there is no more hive2 armour. The slightly stronger marine early game also made it possible to get a little more tech to prepare for second hives, making it easier to not get overwhelmed and enter endgame, eventually becoming more powerful than the aliens who are stuck with the same armour all game. hive3 will still make aliens win, but not completely destroy marines within a minute.
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So my summary is, early game is slightly in favour for the marines, but this has been the case for a long time now, and it's not a huge deal. Marines need the early-game advantage to set up and get into mid/endgame.
2hives mid-game is pretty balanced, slightly in the alien favour, not surprising considering how powerful the hive2 abilities are.
But aliens lose big-time post-second hive. Now don't get me wrong, I like the fact 2 hives is not a "gg" straight away, but I think there's something missing for the aliens between the timeline in hive 2 and 3. Aliens just can't keep up after their initial spike in power when the second hive goes up.
Edit - I noticed my post isn't the most coherent or well-written, but I hope my points come across.
Edit 2 - I like the suggestion others are giving to reduce marine resource tower health points a little bit. taking down nodes always was very important, but the current situation of handgrenades, new rt hitbox, and under attack stuff blinking on minimap is quite unfair on skulks, not to mention it always was sort of tedious biting a node down from full hp anyway, since you run out of adren as it turns red.
Slightly offtopic:
Adding to edit 2, toning down the "sit here and hold a button" game mechanics (building base, building rt's, killing rt's, etc) would imo improve the overall fun factor of NS. It takes a special kind of person that likes to run around and hold E for the majority of the game. Most players don't mind building or killing rt's of course, but they don't to these tasks because they're fun themselves.
I just want to add to this! Right now End-game for Aliens (On most maps) is very tough. I've been in games where Marines managed to push out from being surrounded by Chambers at each exit and then managing to take down 1 or 2 Hives (This is with 3 Hives for Aliens and 1 RT for Marines for a period of 10-20 minutes). The only real counter is by having almost everyone go Onos, which sounds reasonable but it's tough when you have dumb people on your team. Otherwise I absolutely love all the other changes! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/nerd-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::nerdy::" border="0" alt="nerd-fix.gif" />
That's my only real complaint. The overall feel of everything seems just fine. I'll need a few hundred more hours to be sure of that though.
Oh, and I should mention again, that being unable to FF a hive makes my soul bleed.
The new web is a good idea, but need to be more difficult to see for marine.
Also, unhardened web may disable only the jump (or jet), but not the weapon. This can help against JP.
I like the new change for minimap, except that marines can now see that a structure is under attack. Only commander must see that a structure is under attack.
Lerk may need a little more speed to counter JP, or JP need to be slowed.
I don't get the bilebomb change. Gorges are vulnerable anyway when they are close to the marines to bilebomb their buildings. Other issues like safe biling from vent or higher spots is more map related.
The addition of hive teleport is great and I've played a lot more games without mc first since then.
It takes some time to get used to the movement changes of lerk and especially fade but overall I think it's good because of the hitbox issues, the tough fade blink for new players and the fact that a fade was too much of lone fighter.
Onos is too weak now due to the removal of hive armor bonus. Charge is too slow or takes too much adrenaline. Increased HP for the onos would also solve the problem with carapace and its remaining armor while the hp drops to zero.
[ Edit: Is Charge supposed to work when you are crouching? It may look kinda odd, but I like the fact that the onos can move fast and narrow his hit-/collisionbox to avoid blocking of aliens.]
Alien end game is boring. It takes them too long to finish off the marines, especially due to the weak onos.
Things like buffing xenocide vs. buildings (Imagine a Xeno rush on the arms lab) or a more powerful primal scream could help, imho.
It's tougher to eat marine rts now due to the new rt hitboxes and the alert on the minimap. Prehaps this could be a great opportunity to decrease hp of the marine rt because biting rts is sure essential but also boring as hell.
Ghost buildings are awesome. Comms still have to get used to the fact, that they can't drop a lot of buildings at once without risking to loose some of them and thus res.
Think about it when its reaching the apex and one person has enough to go onos it can die really easily. Multiple oni is another thing.
I suggest you lower the hitpoints of marine rts abit since you have to focus alot more on biting res in this version.
The fade altho being balanced its not viable anymore for a fade to use upgrades like scent of fear, regen and adrenaline youre pretty much forced to use focus, celerity and carapace the fade wasnt overpowered in 3.1 focus and carapace was.
This is mostly based on competative matches.
Thanks.
I think that reducing marine rt health like 10 percent could help aliens out as well. Skulks are having a rough time in the node game.
It seems to be popular opinion that all three chambers are viable first chambers, and is often being decided on the whim of the gorge dropping them without complaint from the team.
Defense chambers are really really effective at combating seiges. I've seen some situations turn into super seiges, with about 7 cannons firing, and it still being a significant struggle.
Sensory chambers are not taking over as the first chamber as was feared by the PT's. This I think is due to there being no good way to heal the second hive. Gorges don't have adren, and there aren't any dc's to back them up. Marines, with some extra obs work, can establish to fight the second hive, and the aliens have a tough time doing anything about it. the focus fades are too slow, cant stay for 2 hits, and can't heal well with sc gorges backing them up.
NS has become much more fun with this patch.
When the teams are balanced, the game seems a lot more balanced except for the mid-late game where aliens seem a bit underpowered as many others pointed out.
I love the new fade blink. Before i was worthless as a fade flying all over the place wasting all my adrenaline because I couldn't use blink properly. Now i can actually get to places without using up all of my adren and kill a few 'rines. I keep forgetting to try out +movement because i have the back button on my mouse binded to last weapon fast switch and i'm used to that although sometimes it seems to forget the last weapon used.
I agree with the rest who say that onos needs to get a boost. It dies way too easily in end game. I think a little increase in speed and hp would be nice.
Only issue is it can be extremely difficult as aliens to finish off the marines when rines are spawn camping.
My only concern with 3.2 is the change of fade blink and lerk speed. Now normally I wouldnt have minded these changes but in conjunction with the removal if the hive-based armor bonus the fade blink and lerk speed make the aliens very weak. I can understand the reasoning behind the fade blink change but in practical gameplay it is actually a hinderance, and if you actually look at the energy consumption you find you run out faster in 3.2 if you are trying to maintain maximum speed unless you can blink bhop which isn't exactly a kill everyone can do. If you had blink revert to the previous build but then just cut energy use in half or by 1/4 it would still be more noob friendly while remaining useful in entering and escaping combat. And as for the lerk, why take speed away from something that <i>relies</i> on speed to create distractions and stay alive. The lerk isnt supposed to be easy to kill or have to take cara just so it can tank some lmgs. The speed change just ends up detracting from the role of the lerk.
--Lerk speed--Celerity Lerks in 3.1 were insanely hard to hit, and I think they probably needed a bit of a nerf, but the new speed makes dodging extremely difficult. Actually, Celerity doesn't even feel like it makes that much difference anymore--non-celerity lerks can dodge almost the same amount as Celerity lerks.
--Onos can't properly use Carapace without the higher hive armor, and loses a lot of its base effectiveness as well. It needs a little boost. Adding 100 HP would solve the Carapace issue, and someone suggested increasing the base speed slightly, which also sounds good. Something like +25 units base speed, -15 units boost from Celerity.
--Alien early game and midgame feel about right, but alien endgame feels very weak. They have a terrible time breaking a well defended 1-Hive lockdown, and will usually lose to a Hive-relocate. Even in a 3-Hives vs just Marine Start situation, aliens will usually win EVENTUALLY, but require high levels of coordination and lots of time to break through the seige. Newer players especially have an extremely difficult time acheiving the necessary coordination to break a Marine Turtle, even against mediocre marines. Lots of games are effectively over by 10 minutes, with aliens gaining complete map control, but then the endgame seige of marine start drags on another 10 to 30 minutes all on its own. This is Not Fun™. (At least, not frequently--every once in a while its ok.)
Someone suggested giving Xenocide back its Blast Damage (2x vs buildings) which it used to have way back when, and that seems like an idea worth considering.
--Marine RTs: Fixing the Hitboxes is definately a good thing overall, but between that and blinking on the minimap, node control becomes much more difficult for aliens at exactly the time they need it the most. I second Routerbox's suggestion of a small HP nerf for 'rine RTs.
Alternately, blinking structures could be removed for Marines and only given to Commanders. More information isnt always a good thing (example: your reluctance to put Parasites on the minimap), and while I love the information as a Marine, I hate it as an alien. Its almost pseudo-motiontracking for free.
--Onos Charge isnt effective for dealing extra damage anymore. The addition of Knockback improves its use as another method of running away, but makes it useless as a method of attacking, as anyone you get close to gets pushed back out of range before you can do any damage. Aiming against buildings is not impossible but feels much harder than in 3.1 due to the change in the way it affects your movement.
<u>The Good</u>
- Loving the new +movement, blinking and metabolizing while getting around the map is a dream come true.
- Liking the new lerk changes. It always seemed fairly unrealistic to me that a fragile lerk in the hands of a pro could slaughter an entire mid skill level marine team. Really they should be primarily working from the vents as a support role, and occasionally picking off the reloading marine or one or two that's low on armor or in a vunerable position.
- The new blink is fine IMO, and I've gotten use to it enough where I can still do just as well as I do in 3.1, although now you need to be a little more observant of room conditions before entering.
- New JP cost makes it a lot more viable, even on general pubs where people with low-medium skill can still get some use out of them coupled with the flight change, and reduced cost for the commander. I don't think I'd like it at all if the price was increased back to 15.
- I like it how aliens almost *need* to secure and get the 3rd hive to be able to finally overpower the marines. As it is in 3.1, if you have a skilled fade or two the marines can be dead a minute or so after the second hive goes up, even if they are playing an okay game. Once that second hive finishes you are almost immediately pushed on the defensive and losing ground. Even if you manage to secure the third hive in 3.1, aliens were still very strong.
- Loving the DC changes, it really makes a second or first hive a LOT more formidable against a siege vs. 3 DCs healing. This is something the aliens can use to their advantage since they have lvl1 hive armor now, although players will need to learn how to place DCs out of typical siege ranges.
- Webs are great, although I see this primarily as a combat issue and NS as secondary.
<u>The Things that may need to be looked at</u>
- I honestly don't have a problem with the loss of hive 2-3 armor generally speaking, as now it helps give the marines a chance when the second hive goes up.
- Although, as others have mentioned, the Onos might need a little buff to work with the loss of the hive armor. Increased hitpoints \ base speed could help to offset this. Although I still think Onos can be a pivotal factor in the hands of a skilled player who understands their weaknesses and strengths.
- Take a look at 3rd hive abilities to make them more damaging to marines. Prime candidate would be adding an amount of damage to marine buildings for xeno, as well as adding more damage itself to xeno. It always seemed silly to me that a large explosion directly as chest level wouldn't kill a light marine. IMO, only heavies should be able to stand up to that kind of punishment.
- Marine RTs might be made a little weaker (able to be taken out with a full bar of adren and maybe 3-4 slow bites. Now that the hitbox has been fixed, along with the marine minimap update, response time has increased significantly to RTs under attack. If nothing less, it could be something to test out.
EDIT: Even if Marine RTs health is reduced, it might have to be incremental to determine the best fit. As SpaceJesus mentioned, A full bar of adren and a few bites might be a little much. Assuming that is an option under consideration.
Even with all of these things in mind, the alien team can put up a good fight until you start getting a team full of heavy suits racking up rfk with hmgs. That is of course assuming your able to continuously hold the 3rd hive (which we did although we lost it and had to rush it 3 times after they kept trying to put it back up). It seems seems to me that marines are on a more even keel with aliens now, as if I was playing that game in 3.1, it most likely would have ended with aliens winning. Although once that third hive goes up, the aliens should be finishing up marine base in relatively short order.
An hour to break the 'rines is extreme, but it's what happened this afternoon :/ Took something like 5 consecutive onos rushes to finally win.
I'm actually seeing more cases of win-via-F4 lately than anything else. Very unsatisfying.
Stepping in on the 'Aliens endgame is too weak' side. Time after time I've seen aliens push marines into MS in the first ten minutes, then spend up to the next hour trying to end it.
An hour to break the 'rines is extreme, but it's what happened this afternoon :/ Took something like 5 consecutive onos rushes to finally win.
I'm actually seeing more cases of win-via-F4 lately than anything else. Very unsatisfying.
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Heh I think I know what game you're talking about.
And yeah I agree, we need to do <i>something</i> about aliens ending the game faster. 3rd hive should be game over, but apparently in 3.2 it means another 30+ minutes of 3 hives aliens vs marines turtling. I made a thread in I&S about replacing lerk primal scream with a relatively strong AOE damage which should definitely help to speed up the game more.
Now the big 2: the hive and the fade.
Blinking will never be easy. Not many people were skilled at fade before and this change just makes it harder. I DO like how fades are killable, but I don't like playing as them now. Get rid of blink because so much of the game depends on it and it's hard for players of all skill levels to use. Give the fade more meat and a support ability as all the other classes have.
The hive thing is nice, but MC is still the dominant chamber, because celerity is too good. An onos or gorge without celerity is dead. Don't make the game have staples.
The post second hive game seems to be somewhat unforgiving to aliens. JPs have a higher startup cost, but the reduced cost of each one makes it easier for marines to just keep popping them out. With increased mobility and phase gates, marines are able to JP all over the map, recap lost nodes, and make hit-and-run attacks before the aliens can respond as a team. One alien RT is significantly more important than one marine RT. Furthermore, JPs are lifeform killers - a dead JP's welder and weapons can still potentially be recovered, while a fade is 50 res gone, instantly.
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Yeah, I think aliens were really hit with the hive nerf.
At three hives, it used to be 70% armor absorption rate, and one armor equals 3 hitpoints. Now it's 50% armor absorption rate and one armor equals only 2 hitpoints.
Suggestions: Make it 60-65% armor absorption rate at all times, or at least make carapace at level 3 increase it all the way to 70%. This is because when an onos has carapace, they will die with one hundred armor left over, that really kills the effectiveness of carapace on an onos.
Onos's knockback effect on charge really helps though, mainly when teammates block. Gore had the knockback effect, and marines rarely blocked you anyway, it was usually a structure or the alien team.
Lerks got hit hard in the hit and run department IMO. Lerks are now much less encouraged to get celerity, as it's less effective. Adrenaline was best for lerk IMO, and now adrenaline is really the best for lerk. I don't really think lerks should have bite anymore in 3.2.
They should have a combination of Bite and Spikes, or only bite + spikes in combat(spikes should be on slot 5 or changeable), and in NS:Classic make it so that you can only use Spikes if we don't want them with bite + spikes in NS:Classic.
In combat, I can see why bite may be needed, but in NS:Classic, now that pancaking is now impossible and the overall speed of celerity gain has been decreased, they should get spikes back, lerks in midgame usually just support with spores and umbra anyway.
Does charge do any damage anymore? Sure doesn't feel like it. And the new "charge only while holding the button" really doesn't feel like the freight train it used to be.
(Off tangent)
+movement in the default location is also awkward at best since it requires you to hold it rather than just quickley hit it, which was okay for reloading, and thus, one of the "wasd" fingers is out of commission. (A gripe I can extend to blink and leap.) I intend to move it myself at some point, but I still hope to see changes here because honestly, as it is, I'd rather hit 4 (or whatever) then hold it with my mouse button as I manuever myself around. I can't steer it like a car, I needs me strafes!
But again, going back to general balance. I'd like to see xeno maybe do a bit more damage as well, if nothing else to structures as I suspect the amount of damage to structures is quite low? Not asking for anything huge here, just a bit though. Similarly, acid rocket could be given a little notch maybe, maybe not.
Primal scream is okay. Webs are okay.
Overall, I think the alien mindset of "three hives yay we win" needs to change to "three hives holy crap we're still in this!" Complacency and laziness lost the occaisonal game in 3.1 but now it can lose more of the games. For beta 2, honestly overall, in terms of balance, I wouldn't change too much yet. I honestly expect beta 2 to be the time that overall balance can be judged better as folks will be coming to grips with the new maps and all the other changes introduced thus far. But I bet you already knew that. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
When marines know they've "lost" and resort to the old turtling strategy(?), its pretty much impossible to end the game. (So long as all upgrades are researched) The one res node is enough to supply everyone with HMGs and GLs if they are picked up again after they die. Alternatively, at this point, marines can push back out again and often times come back and win, which makes for some very fun long games not seen since 1.04.
The reverse of that, the biggest problem for aliens is resources. On these big 30 player servers, the resources aren't scaling well, taking much longer to build up res for node/hive/fade, and if the marines take out the first few alien res nodes, they're pretty much screwed. This was probably an issue before, but its very noticeable now.
<u>Skulk</u>
The only changes that really have affect on skulk's role are: Blinking structures on map when attacked, RT hitbox fix and the removal of additional hive armour. I'll explain how these changes affect.
-Blinking structures: This makes comm's job easier, and most importantly makes marine's notice that RT's are under attack and alerting to defend them much faster than before. That's why skulks have less time to munch them.
-RT hitbox fix: Once the marine is there defending the RT skulks have to escape or die. Reducing the effective RT munching time even more.
-Removal of additional hive armour bonus: Between the timeframe of midgame-to-endgame skulks are
having hard time reaching RTs because they are too weak. Without carapace and even with it, it's often too hard to get to RTs without dieing, compared to how easy it is to defend them at the moment. Parasiting might be harder than before due to weaker skulks, but I think it's a good thing. Skulks can't support fades in fights anymore by going in to bite them after fade due to skulks and fade's weakness. This wouldn't be a problem if fades would be slightly stronger, but will explain the details about fade later on. Although I want to emphasize that skulks are closer now to what their job is about. Which is biting RTs, parasiting marines and scouting.
<u>Lerk</u>
-Climb speed:
-Maximum climb speed for non-celerity lerk, straight upwards: 484
-Maximum climb speed for celerity lerk, straight upwards: 529
-Speed is approximately 529 and ground speed around 400 when flying upwards in ~45° compared to 730 and 524 in 3.1 with a non celerity lerk.
-Speed is approximately 565 and ground speed around 430 when fyling upwards in ~45° compared to ~1000 and 750 in 3.1 with a celerity lerk. As you can see from these numbers, the speedgain in 3.2 with celerity over non-celerity is almost non-existent. I tested the speeds approximately by hand, because I couldn't find a way to figure out the heading angle.
-Maximum climb speed is too slow in typical climb angles, the speed is reduced too steeply and it drains too much energy to maintain maximum climb speed in 3.2.
-The slowness of lerk also creates problems in fulfilling lerk's role. Because lerks must be able to spore, umbra and bite the marines occasionally when they are weak after skulk bites. Supporting by biting is too risky and nearly impossible because of slowness and excessive energy consumption. All of these often require flying to -or very near the marines, which is too risky even with celerity because you can't escape from the situation quickly enough. Which means, that anyone can shoot you down with an lmg.
-Removal of additional hive armour bonus:
This reduces greatly the effective support time lerk can provide in a game, combined with the slowness that a lerk currently has. I would say that the effective support time now is somewhere around six-to-eight minutes. After that marines become too powerful compared to lerk's speed and capability to withstand damage, because they get lvl 2 damage, and HMG's. The effective support time should last from start to the very end of the game. This is also one reason why aliens are having hard time countering lvl 2 or even lvl 3 HMG's paired with shotguns; lack of support.
<u>Fade</u>
-Blink:
Slight acceleration would be well welcomed change to fade blink, because now you only have to hit one wall and it's very likely to result in your death. Hard to say how little acceleration would be appropriate, but it really needs a light acceleration.
-Introduction of the +movement command:
This generally makes any movement type action much more beginner friendly to use, such as leap and especially blink.
-Carapace fades in early game:
Straight carapace fades seem to be too strong before W2. They feel like moving walls.
-Capability to withstand damage:
Fades are too weak in the timeframe of mid-->end-game, because after carapace you can't scale further your damage reduction while marines can keep teching.
<u>Onos</u>
-Charge feels clumsy compared to 3.1 charge.
-Too weak.
[<b>GENERAL FEEDBACK</b>]
<u>RT hitbox fix</u>
-Little bit too durable, maybe reduce the health by one or 2 bites to scale better with easier defenceability(?)
-Because it's harder to bite RTs the game has become more competitive oriented, and forcing skulks to do what they should do, bite RTs. I like it.
<u>Chamber/upgrade needs for each life form</u>
-Any upgrade path/combination is suitable for skulks.
-Lerks need MC for celerity as second chamber at the latest if they want to support at all.
-Fades need DC for caraopace as second chamber if they don't want to get shredded like paper by lvl 2 HMG's
-Onos needs both celerity and carapace to stand any chance at all.
-So this will leave SC the least wanted chamber.
<u>Life form based scalable armour value</u>
-Life form based armour value scalability per additional hive would be welcome, but something that would be balanced. Meaning something in between 3.1 and 3.2. Now, i don't have any clue about coding so please don't whip me if this suggestion is just plain impossible to implement. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
Example:
Skulk - 1hive=50% 2hives=55 3hives=60
Lerk - 1hive=50% 2hives=55 3hives=60
Fade - 1hive=50% 2 hives=57,5% 3 hives=65%
Onos - 1hive=50% 2hives=? 3hives=?
<b>Big shout outs to FRP</b>! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/asrifle.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::asrifle::" border="0" alt="asrifle.gif" />
RT hitbox change and blinking structures is a problem, especially because it makes biting res -- the most boring part of alien gameplay -- more difficult and therefore more time consuming. Consider giving RTs less HP.
The new blink is too sluggish, you can still dominate as Fade but it's a lot less forgiving than the old one. Make one mistake and there's a good chance you're dead. Consider changing the "new" blink from 2/4 fire speed to 3/4 of the old fire speed to lessen the problem of slow Fades.
A lot of people have been bringing up early carapace Fades as a problem, but I don't really see it myself. Regen is just as viable, more in my opinion, provided you're a good Fade. Carapace gives you a good crutch, a bit like Celerity, to rely on if your Fading isn't quite there, but regen can increase your Fading efficiency (ie. frags per minute) by a lot more than carapace can if you're a competent Fade.
Hive 2 aliens and marines with one lockdown feel relatively balanced.
-Climb speed:
-Maximum climb speed for non-celerity lerk, straight upwards: 484
-Maximum climb speed for celerity lerk, straight upwards: 529
-Speed is approximately 529 and ground speed around 400 when flying upwards in ~45° compared to 730 and 524 in 3.1 with a non celerity lerk.
-Speed is approximately 565 and ground speed around 430 when fyling upwards in ~45° compared to ~1000 and 750 in 3.1 with a celerity lerk. As you can see from these numbers, the speedgain in 3.2 with celerity over non-celerity is almost non-existent. I tested the speeds approximately by hand, because I couldn't find a way to figure out the heading angle.
-Maximum climb speed is too slow in typical climb angles, the speed is reduced too steeply and it drains too much energy to maintain maximum climb speed in 3.2.
-The slowness of lerk also creates problems in fulfilling lerk's role. Because lerks must be able to spore, umbra and bite the marines occasionally when they are weak after skulk bites. Supporting by biting is too risky and nearly impossible because of slowness and excessive energy consumption. All of these often require flying to -or very near the marines, which is too risky even with celerity because you can't escape from the situation quickly enough. Which means, that anyone can shoot you down with an lmg.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->QFT. Thank you Risme for this statement!
<b>Lifeforms:</b>
<i>Skulk:</i>
Is ok as it is. Its still dangerous at the beginning, and good for scouting.
The only problem occurs while biting RTs. Due to flashing minimap icons of attacked marine rts and the lack of cover provided by the RT itself (which is a good change, however a disadvantage) is making it very difficult to chomp down rts for skulks. As already suggested, reduce health, so that it can be chomped down within 1 energy bar.
<i>Lerk:</i>
As quoted from Riseme. I totaly agree that a lerk shouldnt be able to kill a crowd of marines, but reducing its celerity speed is defenitly the wrong way to go. Removed pancaking is a very good change and you should keep it, but thats already enough. Set the Celerity speed back to 3.1.3 and prevent lerks from pancaking the same way as atm (tough it seems to me as I'm standing still while flying up a 90° vent or the elevator in co_daimos...). This way it won't be the 30-ress-fade but it would be still possible to pick out 1 or 2 weakned marines at the beginning, and maintain support at the end-game.
(marginal note: It's very very difficult to chase a retreating JP'er with lerk, because hes plainly too slow even with celerity, and to make things even worse, marines are able to shoot you while you're trying to reach them).
<i>Fade: </i>
Fades are still pretty good. They need more teamplay and support but still they are good. I have no experience with fading myself but I've seen wall-blinking fades dying immediatly to SG and HMG due to a single mistake. That might need to be looked at.
<i>Onos:</i>
It should be seriously buffed. Onos and the 3rd hive abilitys should be the end for marines (or at least it should end games much easier than now), if they werent able to setup a HA-Train (including 1 or 2 JP) yet. It wouldn't be overpowered, because on marine side we have got the cheaper jetpacks and the lvl3 techs and on the other hand the hive-armor nerf.
<b>General:</b>
<i>- RT:</i>
I'd like to see Alien RT health slightly increased because they are much more viable, compared with marine RTs which are popping out of the ground, with a huge amount of HP, which takes us directly to the reduce of health for those. As already mentioned a skulk should be able to chomp down a Marine RT within one energybar.
<i>- Hive teleportation</i>
I'd like to see a spit from the gorge doing the same as triggering ("use") the hive. A gorge chased by marines can't always run through the whole hive room hoping he will reach it in time to press his usekey under it. Such situation shouldn't end up in a sacrifice for the team only for an "the enemy approaches" warning, he should be able to stay alive, or merely have a chance to.
I'm sure there were a few things left to say, but I can't remember them right now, maybe later.