Long Post On Why Aliens Are Underpowered!
Ganav
Join Date: 2002-11-03 Member: 6770Members
Join Date: 2002-11-03 Member: 6770Members
<div class="IPBDescription">LONG post on why aliens are underpowered</div> Why the NS aliens are REALLY underpowered, and should be better-quotes from the manual-
Quotes -Skulk-
-Bite- “It can attack with these, and its powerful jaws. If it cannot be stopped before reaching its target, its target is in serious trouble”
Wrong-a heavily armored marine has NOTHING to fear from a skulk(even if it xenocides), the biting damage takes 7 or 8 connections with the teeth(ignoring you wont hit every time) to kill a heavily armored marine-they turn around and blast it in 1 shot.
-Xenocide
“A well placed, well timed xenocide can obliterate an entire squad.”
“Though the force of the explosion is itself enough to kill even a heavily armored marine”
Wrong-xenocide cannot kill a heavily armored marine at full health, it damages him, he runs and gets a health pack, and has someone weld him and hes fine.
Lerk-
-Bite-“. It punctures TSA nano-plate with disturbing ease.”
Wrong-Does 50 damage, a heavily armored marine has 350 damage to go through, that’s actual hits to kill, and keeping in mind that a lerk has to fly around to not be killed, its impossible to get that many, even if you attack one who dosent see you, they will just turn around and kill you in 1 hit.
Fade- “Its primary attacks are also more powerful than those of the lerk gorge or skulk”
Wrong-its claws are at best marginally better, its 5 damage more then a skulks, which is 75, in practice it is little more effective against a heavily armored marine then a skulk.
I’d also like to add that if the marines get a turret factory into an alien hive early on, the game is essentially over. Aliens have NO effective way to combat turrets without a third hive, OR to defend against heavy armor. To defend against heavy armor you need the 3-hive weapons for lerk, fades and skulks, they simply cannot effectively combat them without them. To actually TAKE OUT an enemy base of any size you need onos and acid bomb, which you cannot get without a third hive. The humans put all their important buildings in their main base, SO if they loose resource outposts they don’t actually LOOSE their ability to make war, they can still get their weapons armor etc….just a bit slower. If the aliens loose a hive, they loose their ability to make war, they loose important weapons. Aliens can easily have their combat effectiveness decreased, though marines don’t loose their combat effectiveness unless their main base is destroyed, in which case they loose anyway-in effect the marines only become more powerful until they loose-in which case it doesn’t matter.
My solution to these problems?
If an alien makes close quarters with a marine, the marine should have a 95% chance of being dead, that is why they have these ridiculously powerful grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. Unfortunately their armor is MUCH to high, and basic alien attacks are MUCH to weak, so the aliens have no effective way of fighting unless they have 3 hives. Give aliens stronger melee attacks, or weaken marines, and at the same time weaken turrets dramatically.
One thin that REALLY irks me:
Why are aliens given such HORRIBLE defenses?
The marines can put down a limitless number of turrets, which are very hard to kill even with 3 hives.
The aliens have offensive towers, which do little damage in comparison, have a slower rate of fire and have a limited ## per area!!!
Most main marine bases have at least 2 dozen turrets by the end of a game-Your limited to 6-8 offensive towers, which are easy to kill with marine weapons. A turret takes 4 onos bites to kill…….2 grenades or a clip of heavy machine gun ammo will take out a turret.
Also the number of webs are limited….
WHAT was the rational reason for limiting the number of webs in an area, let alone setting a max # of webs you can have, while marines have no limit to their turrets, which are more effective then webs anyway? Even worse you cant destroy your own webs if you need to re-organize them. Webs can be taken out easily enough by marines, 1 grenade or a welder can take em out-its only effective against solo marines
The aliens have horrible offenses, and even with a third hive pretty bad attacks.
Marines have FANTASTIC defenses, and offense which is just as powerful.
I love NS, I think it’s a FANTASTIC mod and I want it to succeed but it HAS to have some major balance changes if it is going to succeed long term.
Quotes -Skulk-
-Bite- “It can attack with these, and its powerful jaws. If it cannot be stopped before reaching its target, its target is in serious trouble”
Wrong-a heavily armored marine has NOTHING to fear from a skulk(even if it xenocides), the biting damage takes 7 or 8 connections with the teeth(ignoring you wont hit every time) to kill a heavily armored marine-they turn around and blast it in 1 shot.
-Xenocide
“A well placed, well timed xenocide can obliterate an entire squad.”
“Though the force of the explosion is itself enough to kill even a heavily armored marine”
Wrong-xenocide cannot kill a heavily armored marine at full health, it damages him, he runs and gets a health pack, and has someone weld him and hes fine.
Lerk-
-Bite-“. It punctures TSA nano-plate with disturbing ease.”
Wrong-Does 50 damage, a heavily armored marine has 350 damage to go through, that’s actual hits to kill, and keeping in mind that a lerk has to fly around to not be killed, its impossible to get that many, even if you attack one who dosent see you, they will just turn around and kill you in 1 hit.
Fade- “Its primary attacks are also more powerful than those of the lerk gorge or skulk”
Wrong-its claws are at best marginally better, its 5 damage more then a skulks, which is 75, in practice it is little more effective against a heavily armored marine then a skulk.
I’d also like to add that if the marines get a turret factory into an alien hive early on, the game is essentially over. Aliens have NO effective way to combat turrets without a third hive, OR to defend against heavy armor. To defend against heavy armor you need the 3-hive weapons for lerk, fades and skulks, they simply cannot effectively combat them without them. To actually TAKE OUT an enemy base of any size you need onos and acid bomb, which you cannot get without a third hive. The humans put all their important buildings in their main base, SO if they loose resource outposts they don’t actually LOOSE their ability to make war, they can still get their weapons armor etc….just a bit slower. If the aliens loose a hive, they loose their ability to make war, they loose important weapons. Aliens can easily have their combat effectiveness decreased, though marines don’t loose their combat effectiveness unless their main base is destroyed, in which case they loose anyway-in effect the marines only become more powerful until they loose-in which case it doesn’t matter.
My solution to these problems?
If an alien makes close quarters with a marine, the marine should have a 95% chance of being dead, that is why they have these ridiculously powerful grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. Unfortunately their armor is MUCH to high, and basic alien attacks are MUCH to weak, so the aliens have no effective way of fighting unless they have 3 hives. Give aliens stronger melee attacks, or weaken marines, and at the same time weaken turrets dramatically.
One thin that REALLY irks me:
Why are aliens given such HORRIBLE defenses?
The marines can put down a limitless number of turrets, which are very hard to kill even with 3 hives.
The aliens have offensive towers, which do little damage in comparison, have a slower rate of fire and have a limited ## per area!!!
Most main marine bases have at least 2 dozen turrets by the end of a game-Your limited to 6-8 offensive towers, which are easy to kill with marine weapons. A turret takes 4 onos bites to kill…….2 grenades or a clip of heavy machine gun ammo will take out a turret.
Also the number of webs are limited….
WHAT was the rational reason for limiting the number of webs in an area, let alone setting a max # of webs you can have, while marines have no limit to their turrets, which are more effective then webs anyway? Even worse you cant destroy your own webs if you need to re-organize them. Webs can be taken out easily enough by marines, 1 grenade or a welder can take em out-its only effective against solo marines
The aliens have horrible offenses, and even with a third hive pretty bad attacks.
Marines have FANTASTIC defenses, and offense which is just as powerful.
I love NS, I think it’s a FANTASTIC mod and I want it to succeed but it HAS to have some major balance changes if it is going to succeed long term.
Comments
Heavy armored marines are not designed to be easy to kill. Unfortunately, there is a resource bug, and marines are overflowing with turrets/HA/heavy weapons. It should not be this way. Wait for the patch.
(Jarhedz) where the economy was right, and turrets were not everywhere.
It was just too expensive to be anything like what you're probably seeing.
However, i don't think it makes sense to make turrets (like 16 rp) less expensive than a HMG (20 rp). Ask any Alien out there, and he'd prefer to fight someone with a HMG than a turret.
Also, while turret forests were rare.. they still had VERY long life spans. Remember
folks, turret forests can't be effectively destroyed without at least ONE Lerk, and 1-2 other aliens, one of which has to be a Fade (because Umbra isn't 100% protective, and a Skulk can't afford to take any hits at all). While they are attacking the turrets, they have to hope and pray no Marines arrive. If a Marine with a GL arrives, it's all over. Time to run. Even a Marine with a welder can screw you over! So we're talking about 3 aliens to destroy some lame turrets, which is usually half of the Alien combatant force. If you get another alien or two to delay marines from getting there... it's almost the whole team. Sheesh.
the first poster... About the Lerk.. you're absolutely right! It has no real combat ability. It's a magic class entirely, and i believe no human should be controlling that thing, because it's such a waste of time. Everything as a Lerk is a chore. Shooting turrets 40 times with darts. Or dropping Umbra. Nothing is fun about the Lerk. It's like being an SCV from Starcraft. Woohoo! The same goes for the Gorge, of course. Sigh. Too bad both classes can't be controlled by AI or something. but then again, on Jarheadz, i didn't use the Lerk much.. perhaps with the lack of HAs everywhere, the darts are a decent fighting attack, and the Lerk could be a lot more fun.
NS is a team game, every class compliments the other, marine HMGs help out people with GLs, shotguns compliment HMGs. The only reason why a lerk could be useless may be because you attack by yourself instead of getting your team to help. If you knew how to use a lerk it could be the deadliest alien of all, think about it, they have spore cloud which i have used MANY times to take out HA marines. It has umbra which is one of the most devastating attacks in the alien team IMHO. Turret forests? 2 lerks can take care of that expesive marine base. Add an onos into the picture and a fade and you got yourself a dream team.
Skulks... How many times will people have to tell you people that skulks are NOT meant to take out a HA marine. True you may do it if the marine is stupid enough, but it is NOT the way its "suppossed to be". It doesnt matter how "1337" you are, the fact that you run into a HA with a skulk is just plain stupid, unless you plan on distracting the marine theres nothing you should try to do around a HA marine with a skulk. Gorge... want to know why theres web limits? Imagine 10000 webs in a room, all placed by a single gorge. Sound pretty? Would it be balanced to have marines be stuck all day in a room full of webs placed by ONE gorge? dint think so. Same goes for all limits placed ingame. If one thing doesnt look balanced, think again because NS isnt balanced by strenght, it is balanced by COST.
How about those fades? Yes... let me spit at your HA a couple of times and we'll see whos useless... Not to mention they can blink right in front of you and use swipe... measly 80 damage you say? yes, but dont forget, that 80 damage is per swipe, you can do around 2 swipes per sec...
Please learn the game before complaining, not to mention the known resource bug. The game isnt balanced due to bugs, not actual weapons being "underpowered"
Thats another idea, each command pod supports AI and tracking for only so many turrets, that way the marines could build another command pod for more turrets.
EDIT: dont forget, too many webs = too many sprites = hl engine crashing
Try this: Have two aliens, say skulk or fade, hiding cloaked outside of the enemy base. You fly through their base, or even in through the vents(trust me, they go <i>everywhere</i>) chuck down some acid spores, and when the humans go rushing out of there, they're mincemeat. 30 damage a second is devastating. If it were useful against buildings we'd have people complaining that it's too good.
I've said this before and I'll say it again: It's not the weapon that sucks; it's the player. Remember, though it's been said countless times in the last two or three days, that the aliens are not made for head on encounters. They're meant for guerilla and harassment <i>tactics</i>. Say it with me: tac-tics. A marine has 100 health, 50 armor, correct? A skulk does 70 a bite, 16 in a leap, 10 in a parasite, and has the ability to scare the pants off the marine. All you have to do is walk your way up into the cieling, and wait for some marine to pass by. Chuckle. He'll get paranoid and probably loose off some shots into the corners. As he reloads, leap down at him, further pissing his armor, and a bite or two and he's out. Oh yes, don't forget also, the marines have head hit boxes. If I'm not mistaken a head bite should be quite fatal.