Marine Rambos: Why They Hurt Ns...
Teioh
Canadia Join Date: 2002-11-20 Member: 9453Members, Constellation
Canadia Join Date: 2002-11-20 Member: 9453Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">and a potential solution</div> If you havn't played a pub in a while, let me tell you how it goes. The majority of games these days are stacked on the marines favour. The reason it's stacked to the marines is because playing and alien <b>is just not fun</b>.
The reason they are not fun can't be narrowed down to just a few things. It's a culmination of many factors which leads to frustration of being any alien other than onos or fade. One of these factors however is the fact that one lone marine, at almost any point in the game but especially at early stages can take on large numbers of aliens whether it be the bunny hopping vet or the foolishly run in a straight line player who has been playing for three days. This is because one marine is practically a walking fortress, self sufficient and with a medpack here and there can last quite a while utilizing strategic points or just plain tank them. While it is acceptable to expect someone of decent skill to mow down the former of the two, it's not acceptable for one lone marine to take out waves of moderate and adeptly skilled players (skulks).
This is one of the sticking points I believe why marines seem to be so stacked in most games that we see today. The solution shouldn't be to play on a select few servers. Instead, something should be done to:
a) reduce the devastating impact that one marine can have on the alien
and
b) encourage more team work
A simple seemingly obvious way to do this is to nerf the basic marine but in doing this, the fade and the onos become quite a bit more powerful. Another seemingly obvious one is to boost the skulk slightly both speed and health wise. Now this would work but I think there is a better alternative.
<span style='color:blue'><u>Teioh's idea!</span></u>: What I propose is sort of a decay system to the lmg that happens when a marine is alone and is accumulating a lot of kills. What I mean is that a marine who wanders off and kills a bunch skulks will notice a progressive decline in damage as he gains more and more kills (not including structures). From a technical realistic point, I can't explain it other than outsourcing has made shoddy weapons but all I can say is that if the marine is in the area of say 1 or 2 other marines, the wear and tear or reduction in dmg won't happen. Giving the ability for a marine to repair another marines weapon with a single push of a button would also create interdependance among marines and help curve the game breaking rambos that become more and more common. That's my idea and I thought I'd throw it out there. Thanks for reading.
The reason they are not fun can't be narrowed down to just a few things. It's a culmination of many factors which leads to frustration of being any alien other than onos or fade. One of these factors however is the fact that one lone marine, at almost any point in the game but especially at early stages can take on large numbers of aliens whether it be the bunny hopping vet or the foolishly run in a straight line player who has been playing for three days. This is because one marine is practically a walking fortress, self sufficient and with a medpack here and there can last quite a while utilizing strategic points or just plain tank them. While it is acceptable to expect someone of decent skill to mow down the former of the two, it's not acceptable for one lone marine to take out waves of moderate and adeptly skilled players (skulks).
This is one of the sticking points I believe why marines seem to be so stacked in most games that we see today. The solution shouldn't be to play on a select few servers. Instead, something should be done to:
a) reduce the devastating impact that one marine can have on the alien
and
b) encourage more team work
A simple seemingly obvious way to do this is to nerf the basic marine but in doing this, the fade and the onos become quite a bit more powerful. Another seemingly obvious one is to boost the skulk slightly both speed and health wise. Now this would work but I think there is a better alternative.
<span style='color:blue'><u>Teioh's idea!</span></u>: What I propose is sort of a decay system to the lmg that happens when a marine is alone and is accumulating a lot of kills. What I mean is that a marine who wanders off and kills a bunch skulks will notice a progressive decline in damage as he gains more and more kills (not including structures). From a technical realistic point, I can't explain it other than outsourcing has made shoddy weapons but all I can say is that if the marine is in the area of say 1 or 2 other marines, the wear and tear or reduction in dmg won't happen. Giving the ability for a marine to repair another marines weapon with a single push of a button would also create interdependance among marines and help curve the game breaking rambos that become more and more common. That's my idea and I thought I'd throw it out there. Thanks for reading.
Comments
People should not go after the rambo but let him come to you, it's called ambushing.
The way to stop people from ramboing is to change the game so that ramboing is no longer a good tactic. Slightly stronger skulks might help, but as mentioned, you can also just hide around a corner and wait for that marine to come to you.
Medpacks is another source of the LA marine > Vanilla Skulk problem. There is NO WAY aliens can actively use resources during a battle other then dropping buildings (which is usually a BAD idea). A commander can drop medpacks and catpacks... the 0 res skulk | 0 res LA marine fight instantly switches to the 0 Res Skulk | 2-4 res LA marine fight. Using logic it is easy to figure out which one should statisticly win. This allows the marine team to deny RFK easily by applying the smallest amount of res you can spend in this game. a drop in the proverbial bucket. Best thing is... Marine RFK usually foots the bill half the time. Then there are the arms lab upgrades. Cheap, effective, permanent (mostly), cost effective at bigger games.
is easy to see that the com can dump alot of res into the basic LA/LMG marine. 90 res W + 90 res Armor (which cant be taken away easily, and when they are, they are easily replaced) + medpacks compared to Aliens with a maximum of 6 res in upgrades for a skulk (which still goes down in one shotty blast BTW)? and thats when you have 3 hives, where you usually have BIGGER creatures and you dont need a powerful base unit in the first place.
perhaps allowing the alien team to put more res in their basic unit (skulk) could fix the problem? Multipul upgrades ala Combat is a idea. This allows the skulk to chose to make the fight start out with the skulk holding the advantage res wise.
You also run across the problem of a perfect marine ALWAYS trumping a perfect skulk. 9 LMG bullets compared to 2 bites... the 9 LMG bullets happens faster then the 2 bites, and this is the unit with the long range advantage.
Marines will always have the advantage over vannilla skulks usually because of the range disadvantage. the really only way to take out a LA is either by ambush (negated by MT) or the marine making a mistake as Trevelyan pointed out. then theres the good'ol 3 skulks rush him which the LA will prolly still take out 2 of them and badly injure the 3rd.
the problem is lone rambos win the game will always be a tactic within NS while the rest of the rine team are engaging at a hive a lone rambo will be at the other hive getting a pg in position and the rest is history.
atm aliens require alot more team work than marines compared to the stand alone hunters they are in the manual.
the only alien life form that doesn't require team work is fade which is why alot of people think that it is over powered.
Honestly I disagree with your initial assesment, it IS fun to play aliens if you know how to play aliens. I play aliens a lot, I like the challenge involved and using what I know about aliens against overconfident marines. The only reason I don't like playing aliens on some servers is because you have a large contingent of people who don't know how to play aliens, and a lack of teamwork overall in pub servers that usually matters less on the marines if the commander is good. There's a lot of work going on with #nslearn so i hope they help some people be better aliens because really there's a lot more people can do with aliens then they do do. I see a lot of skulks just running in a straight line towards marines, instead of ambushing. Sure ambushing is hard with knockback but very few marines can knockback if they have no idea you were there to ambush them. Ambushing is really important in the first 5-6 minutes of the game until you get some lerks and fades out there and a second hive going up where the skulks can go on concentrate on something more productive like killing enemy rts that aren't electrified or patrolling for sneaky marines to parasite.
I think it isn't really skill the aliens require so much as applied thought. Understanding the map, knowing where to ambush, understanding the mindset of a rambo marine, parasiting him, setting up an ambush.. these are all examples of iniative and applied teamwork that the aliens need and that I don't see your idea giving them. It's not really a fix to limit the capabilities of the marines because aliens don't like to think and use teamwork. Remember the name of the game.. natural selection <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif' /><!--endemo-->
A Skulk running up to a marine in a long-hallway deserve's to die.
Fix maps and you have way more leeway for skulks.
Next, again aliens are getting boosts all around next version, including! but not limited to:
- Removed 100 foot knockback (this is huge)
- Regen flows over from hp to armor (huge)
- And maybe unchained chambers (huge++?)
Anyway, ramboing is common on marines now because it's an effective, even necessary tactic. Skulks are weak enough that the marine team can split up into small groups or individual marines and cover the map faster. It's not difficult to fight off a skulk or two and build nodes by yourself. Ambushing is irrelevant here, the point is that skulks aren't durable enough to attack marines that are camping node spots and thus marine expansion usually goes uninhibited. This also makes aliens significantly less fun because early game skulking is frustrating to say the least, thus contributing to team stacking on marines. Marines should be forced to move in groups of 2-3 or more, IMHO; squad-based teamwork is the entire concept behind marines, and sending them out alone should be a very dangerous tactic. A lone rambo who is discovered and/or parasited shouldn't have a chance against skulks. Maybe the only way to accomplish this is with a feature that weakens lone marines, though I don't like the idea of punishing them for getting kills.
I also think that the common rambo tactic contributes heavily to poor teamwork in marine pubs. Even highly competent players are prone to just go off and rambo for most of the game, because that's what they would do in an organized team as well. This emphasis on the individual creates an "I know best" attitude when people become accustomed to deciding things for themselves and just telling the comm to drop something(I admit that uncommunicative comms don't help either). If marines who rambo get their **** kicked repeatedly it's only a matter of time before they adapt and learn to stick with a team.
/Wants v2 back. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Or then a big buff for aliens, after all that nerfing. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Fix maps and you have way more leeway for skulks.
Next, again aliens are getting boosts all around next version, including! but not limited to:
- Removed 100 foot knockback (this is huge)
- Regen flows over from hp to armor (huge)
- And maybe unchained chambers (huge++?) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
If the knockback is being teken away then I agree that is huge. I forgot completely about how the effectiveness of these lone marines can be credited to the knockback in signifigant way.
My intent was never to punish the marines but it was merely to bring some balance to the vanilla units. A marine should not be punished for doing good but on the other hand, he shouldn't be rewarded for playing the vanilla rine unit which is far more suited for both ranged and melee combat over the vanilla alien unit.
As for "knockback" (marines flying 100 feet in the air), that's a BUG, and they're fixing the bug. Knockback is an intended part of the game (bites/swipes/gores move marines a little, knife hits move aliens a little) but the flying through the air like that isn't. So yeah maybe people should save their complaints about skulks being weak until that bug is fixed because we've all lost count of how many times that bug has saved a marine's **** when we were trying to kill them as a skulk.
That's the thing, though. They really aren't that vulnerable. Most of the nodes in the game have a sufficient distance between the nearest entrance and the node that a marine who's paying attention can pull out his gun and kill a skulk or two(obviously there are some exceptions, like say Power Sub Juction in ns_eclipse). With MT it's pathetically easy, they watch the minimap and you can't sneak up on them. Sure you can theoretically organize a gigantic skulk rush, but that's a lot of skulks to counter ONE rambo marine. If that's really necessary then we <u>know</u> there's a problem. And please don't tell me that you actually consider parasite kills to be a valid counter to camping marines.
Fans of paper-thin skulks like to talk about ambushing and stealth, but in actual games that doesn't always work out so well. You can only ambush marines inbetween key areas(namely nodes); once they get there, you're forced to attack them. And quietly setting up an ambush is made rather difficult when walking makes sounds if you strafe, turn a little bit too fast or sometimes just for no reason. There's no way to ambush a marine who's sitting still and knifing/building a node, and any competent marine is aware of all the entrances to the area. There just aren't enough aliens on the map to be able to wait in ambush for every marine before he gets where he's going. And of course, even if you catch a marine at point blank you aren't guaranteed to kill him, what with jump-dodging and all. Skulks have to be able to attack marines head-on over short distances or their assets will be undefendable.
My normal suggestion is to add a very small amount of knockback to the marine weapons. Not enough so that one has any significant effect, but enough so that when two or three marines are concentrating fire, they can signifcantly slow that alien's advance.
Weapon decay over solo kills though? Not a good route to go. No sense in punishing a skilled marine, especially when that punishment can be negated just by grouping up at a choke point before ramboing off again.
Secondly, the ambush tactic is largely only effective in the early to early-mid game. After this the upgrades that a marine will have will more often than not counter out any element of surprise you might have had.... the exception being if you are just a really friggin good skulk (something i believe is more of a natural knack than a developed skill). To further qualify the success of the ambush tactic is to say that it works well against rambos, though only marginally well.... large groups of 2-5 marines are only rarely defeated by an ambushing skulk... or even a set of 2-3 ambushing skulks.
I have to say that in my personal experience the ambush tactic only really works against the unexperienced marine who makes the "mistakes" earlier mentioned. The only way I have been equally effective is to be a more frontal, yet evasive attacker. Obviously I have to admit that running in straight lines is a death sentence, but to say that you have to hide in corners to be successful is ludicrous... if not a downright bad idea in most cases. Again, I have to say that I come to these conclusions based on my own experiences... on both sides of the table. I have been very ineffective as an ambushing skulk compared to a rampaging skulk, and as a marine I very rarely die against an ambushing skulk compared to the number of times i die to cleverly evasive skulks.
In this regard I think the issues still stands that the rambo marine still has too much power packed into one single package. My solution is to simply lower the damage of the LMG to make it take say 13-14 hits to kill a skulk. This makes a lone marine much more likely to die in a 1v1 situation and still preserves a group of marines the tactical advantages they have now. It would also give added incentive to investments into shotguns early on.
Of course there is the down side to that equation... especially in Combat this lowered ability to kill skulks makes it that much easier for the skulks to over run the marines VERY early in the game. It would also suggest that if the marines do end up surviving early on then it is likely the alien team simply isn't skilled enough and would turn into a very depressing game for the aliens knowing that they will inevitably die if the marines don't make some increadibly fatal mistakes in the near future.
In the meantime the only solution I can see is for aliens simply to become better at what they do. It IS more difficult to play well as a skulk than to play well as a marine, but that's because playing a melee class in an FPS is largely unprecented... i mean most of us have had years and years of practice shooting our guns. It only makes sense that it might take a lot of practice to learn this new style of fighting in an effective way. I hate using that argument though, because I also know that there are a multitude of people who could care less about or are simply incapable of "just getting better" in many circumstances. It just can't be avoided at this point in time though.
Fix maps and you have way more leeway for skulks.
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Agreed, look at ns_mineshaft. Aliens own that map!
Maps make more of a balance impact than anything else.
You can destroy the hive from Uturn with almost complete impunity.
Lowering the damage of the LMG is a nerf that accomplishes nothing. If the goal is to increase the amount of bullets the skulk can take... why not just give it more starting armor?
1) marien not moveing from a good location is hard to remove (exspected and you know he will not move untill he has the uper hand)
2) marien is in a location near hive for a pg but has the time to stop building and kill you before you can kill him (a pain but you must get him out of there)
3) marien in hive killing people as they spawn (big pain as most of the team is all over the map looking for the big push and a few may die in route to the hive + more when they get there. dont foreget more mariens are comeing to his aid because the damage is done and they now have a real advantage. many games lost due to spawn camping).
4) pg is up, tf building = must rush them.
5)mt. it can be had at the very start and you can still get armor 1 and rt's in short order. mt = the end of ambushes because now as a marein i can see everything that moves (even turns a tiny bit) long before i there. they may get one ambush if they are ready before mt is done up-grading.
the problem is the health has been lowered which lowers the distance you can travel before you die when attacking.
the hit box may be smaller but the method for killing skulks has not changed. we all aim at the model because it is the only thing we can see. therefore the shots will land in the same place as before (for the most part).
if the gorge enters into the fight to heal or bb the gorge finds him self dead real fast. is laughable to say skulks should come to the gorge for healing as most will never make it out in time (even when they had more hp).
i sugest raiseing the hp/ap to the 2.0 lvl (gorge/skulk) but only alow 3 gorges at any one time.
this takes care of the rambo being as powerful as it is now. and it brings the gorge back to being a suport unit as before with out the gorge gang problem.
as for the spawn camping. umbra from hive when you spawn or people spawn in twos (even if you spawn unevenly the marien will not have time to reload at some point).
or cheaper oc's so we can have some deffence/mid range fire support.
or if the chambers are unlocked return the cloaking time from sc's to 2.0 lvl.
edit...
just want to add that nerf is not the answer to a problem most of the time. i know it may seem to be the right way most of the time but nerf only causes more problems.
it is an attrative thing to have the idea that X gun is too powerful so we'll just lower its damage (simple right?) but now you find it is no good for what it was intended for. leading to a cycle of nerf to try and rebalence the game ending in uselessness in all things (i've seen it happen before in other mods. most exstrem was FA).
take the gorge: builder, support and base wrecker (with back-up).
2.0 all can gorge with no consequence. lead to gorge gang of 5+ gorges all healing and moveing forward killing all in their path (even mid game with sg's it was possable).
the RC 3.0x fix. lowered the ap (maybe the hp to. i dont remember). now we have; gorge: builder and not much elce because it does not have the health to stay in combat long enough to do any good.
the hit box may be smaller but the method for killing skulks has not changed. we all aim at the model because it is the only thing we can see. therefore the shots will land in the same place as before (for the most part).
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While i totally agree that ambushing half the time is not an option... I'm thinking you should rethink your skulking stratigies if you believe that your health determines how far you go before you die. The main goal as a skulk is to keep the distance between itself and marines as minimal as possible... not to run at them and hope your health holds up.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->if the gorge enters into the fight to heal or bb the gorge finds him self dead real fast. is laughable to say skulks should come to the gorge for healing as most will never make it out in time (even when they had more hp).
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You know... battle gorges would be viable if they only cost 2 res.
and the less distance travel part. i ment, take 4/5 steps and just before you get to hit him your dead. half the fight alot of the time is just trying to get one bite in so someone can finsh him off.
i see your point though.
i.e. a 70/10 skulk can take 90 damage at hive 1, 95 at hive 2 and 100 at hive 3; a 40/25 skulk could take 90 damage at hive 1, 102.5 at hive 2 and 115 at hive 3.
This is still a much lower increase in overall effectiveness than given by marine arms lab upgrades, but it does at least give skulks a better chance later in the game against la/lmg marines with upgrades.
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Thats a great idea... but the problem lies around the early game marine expansion. Rambos are free RFK when fades are around, and late game the alien team can finally afford to put up some OCs to keep the single rines out.
After that, I like the idea of changing the skulk health/armor distribution. I would put it at 60/20, with 60/35 or 60/40 with carapace. This would make them more viable for a little longer after the game gets rolling (where the multiple-hive armor bonuses take effect), where otherwise they leap onto a marine and just get potted by a shotgun.
Also, maybe extend the armor bonuses a bit more, to make fades and onos more powerful in NS without making them kings of the planet in CO.
Fix maps and you have way more leeway for skulks.
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Agreed, look at ns_mineshaft. Aliens own that map!
Maps make more of a balance impact than anything else. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
And another Example is Veil.
There is no Chance to win this Map as Alien.
Some one should tell me where i could lay ambushes on this Map ?
also the existing Locations (there are some <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo--> ) are checked by a good Marine team
But the most worse thing about Veil is that many Clans choose this Map for Clanwars. How i hate Veil !!!!! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Fix maps and you have way more leeway for skulks.
Next, again aliens are getting boosts all around next version, including! but not limited to:
- Removed 100 foot knockback (this is huge)
- Regen flows over from hp to armor (huge)
- And maybe unchained chambers (huge++?) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Do you have a link to the post about the regen overflow Forlorn? I'm curious if this just affects the upgrade Regeneration, or if it affects healing from Hives, Defense Chambers, Gorges, and Metabolize.
I hate playing aliens for the sole reason that I hate having to depend on my team which, as mentioned above, is primarily composed of idiots who don't know how to play the game and have no intentions of ever learning. They are the ones that cry hacks every time someone can whoop their **** because they don't know how to dodge. Because round after round after round I get stuck with the same crap, a team full of children who I feel like I need to baby sit for them to accomplish anything. Now tell me something, how fun is that? Not very.
<b>Not</b> simply because skulks suck.
Now to address the rambo-ing: 95% of the time I play, I rambo. Why? Because I can accomplish more by myself, than having to baby sit 2 or 3 marines who wish to stalk me around the map. All they do is get in the way. Ever time I try to dodge, BOOM! there's a teammate in my way. So I die. Every time I call for ammo, there's another marine there to take it even though he's one clip short of being full. Or taking a medpack even though he has 92 health after being parasited. And don't you just love trying to bite a marine only to have another skulk who couldn't aim to save his life tries desperately to get in your way and get the kill, only to block you from killing that marine, and inevitably get both of you killed? This list could go on forever.
Yes, some can argue that NS is a "team" based game. I say that's a crock, especially on pubs. There <i>is</i> no "team". There is no team when 75% of the players don't know jack about jack. If you really want to solve this problem -- <b>EDUCATE THE AVERAGE NS PLAYER!!!!!!!!! </b>
Sorry to have to break this to you, but the average NSPlayer doesn't know a hive under attack from a chair turned upside down with the legs high in the air that he sat on to help himself get off. They don't know how to ambush; they don't know how to dodge; hell... they don't even know not to get upgrades every time they die as a skulk, but they do it anyway.
That is the reason a single rambo can do so much damage to a team. None of the aliens know what's going on. And to a new or semi-new player in ns... "wow, those aliens look mighty interesting. Hey, I'ma give 'em a try." I'ts like a giant nub fest. Even in cs, the average player can grasp the basics of the game. Yes there are a few stray hairs here and there. But the majority know what's going on. CS: plant the bomb as t, try to defuse the bomb as ct, don't use dualies if you don't want to get your **** beat, etc... NS: kill the marines, protect the hives/cc, put up hives/res/structures, kill the cc/hive. There are positives and negatives to all classes and weapons in NS. That is why it's a RTS. People need to learn how to play the game.
Maybe I'm just the loan ranger here and am the only one who feels this way... but I doubt it.
And as Forlorn mentioned, much of it also has to do with the current maps in rotation. Half of them are complete jokes, both for competitive play and pubs.
*There are plenty of dead ends and redundant sentences in this thread... don't strain yourself in trying to figure them out. Just skip past them.
Unrelated to the main subject, however: This attitude is exactly the sort that makes certain that no pubbers will ever want to move into competitive play. I try to get long time pubbing friends of mine to join up a clan and play competitively, and they say no, because they don't want to play with people with more pride and attitude than tact. All I'm saying is, kindly consider your words and their effect on people next time, perhaps?
On the topic: If marine vs. skulk is an uneven battle, it seems the thing to do would be what everyone has been saying all along. Buff up skulks a bit. Up their armor by a few points. Make them slightly faster, perhaps. Make them slightly smaller to make it easier to hide and harder to aim at them. But balance should always be attained by buffing up one team rather than nerfing down the other. That keeps people happy and adds to the challenge of the game.