Marine Vulerability
Looseshooter
Join Date: 2010-04-25 Member: 71533Members
Join Date: 2010-04-25 Member: 71533Members
WHAT'S UP PEOPLE
I just wanted to voice my concerns after playing a few hours this morning about marines early in the game. Sure in build 156 the flamethrower/grenade launcher guarantee victory but in later versions I'm concerned about survivability. Skulks one shot marines after one upgrade I'm pretty sure, and if there are 2 or 3 lurkers in one corridor it's impossible to get through if they launch spores. I was just thinking that perhaps instead of having tons of different abilities on all the classes that one shot each other there could be heavy hitters and damage over time classes. The thing is skulks 1-2 shot marines at the start which swings the map in their favor because they also are more mobile. Then, once lurkers pop out buildings and players start dropping like flies.
I really enjoyed playing even though there were some big balance issues, and I look forward to playing in the future versions!
P.S. There's a bug I discovered where if you pull up your menu and go to the server list and then die you cannot do anything in game or the menu other than look around. (I'll have to confirm this one later)
I just wanted to voice my concerns after playing a few hours this morning about marines early in the game. Sure in build 156 the flamethrower/grenade launcher guarantee victory but in later versions I'm concerned about survivability. Skulks one shot marines after one upgrade I'm pretty sure, and if there are 2 or 3 lurkers in one corridor it's impossible to get through if they launch spores. I was just thinking that perhaps instead of having tons of different abilities on all the classes that one shot each other there could be heavy hitters and damage over time classes. The thing is skulks 1-2 shot marines at the start which swings the map in their favor because they also are more mobile. Then, once lurkers pop out buildings and players start dropping like flies.
I really enjoyed playing even though there were some big balance issues, and I look forward to playing in the future versions!
P.S. There's a bug I discovered where if you pull up your menu and go to the server list and then die you cannot do anything in game or the menu other than look around. (I'll have to confirm this one later)
Comments
I do think marines could use some other way of beating spore gas than only HA, maybe a timed gas mask upgrade or something? Gives you an oxygen meter in gassed area, not so useful when your base is being gassed but good if you just need to move through some.
Skulks do need to stay powerful though, they are sort of all or nothing so they need to be lethal close in, and by the time you get one hive upgrade the marines should have an armor upgrade as well, tiered upgrades generally are supposed to balance each other out.
Once fixed, that should help survivability by quite a bit, especially with the later armor upgrades (marines end up with a ton of armor... like 80 or something?).
I don't think skulks currently one shot marines (but two-shot sounds about right). It's probably a bit too powerful, but I think 3 bites really should be enough considering that it doesn't take much to kill skulks. Also, don't forget that max alien upgrades does require three hives (and one upgraded twice), so by the time they are maxed out, marines should at least have grenade launchers (and armor upgrades of their own). The alien upgrades themselves are a bit broken right now (they are instant and free to research once you have the prerequisites), but I'm sure they will fix that later on.
I know it early days but I must question if Flayra and co actually PLAYED the game, I mean not analysing the depth of the bump mapping on the crusty rim of the ######, I mean PLAY ?
The grenades and flame unit are so OP'd you dont need a hax to cheat , you get flamed and you die that respawn and the next one... it goes right through walls and structures.
The nades have a ludicrous range , I was in the Alien hive as a Lerk in the roof there and a guy was bombing a whip in the corner of the hive room, I was no where near the thing and way above it but each nade took a third of my Lerk health away.
At the moment the game goes early game is Alien OP'd .... if they can prevent the GL and Flamer upgrades, Aliens win... GL and Flamer is GG Marines win.
I came in as a Alien late game where Marines had GL and Flamers and it was near immpossible to survive a encounter with a marine, let alone get a kill... the flames not only blind you completely, they persist to your next life and it seems if the eggs get flamed before you spawn into one ... you take flame damage spawing out a flaming egg. Flamer is basically 1 lick of flame and enjoy your spawning wait.
But on the other hand when I went marine after that game, the aliens went seriously for the marine equipment and marines couldnt do nothing... a Lerk spore spam kept marines stuck near the armory, a quick fade slaughtered anyone trying to hunt down the Lerk and when the crag + whips appeared it was basically GG, cant kill the whip with the crag heals, cant get to the crag with the whip.
On the bright side... least we have progressed to the point of complaining about the balance :P
Game held up decently during a match with at least 10 players with variable ping ( why isnt there many UK servers up :( ).
Its early beta, devs are busy fixing whats broken, the tweaking comes afterwards.
However, without any upgrade I think Skulks should 3 shot marines not 2 shot. Once the lag lessens and skulks are able to effectively hit their target, and vice versa. Two shots would be quicker than a marine could turn around once he spawned to kill a possible spawn camping skulk, Three however would give enough time for the marine being attacked to respond, however if the marines alone the skulk should still have no problem finishing him off with a 3rd bite. With the 1st melee upgrade I think it would be fair to go back to the 2 shot though if the marines are still not upgraded. Currently, lag may have a small role in this, a skulk rush, atleast on rockdown is almost an instawin because of the two shot.
Flamethrower and GL need nerfs. GL would be fair I think if they reduced the explosion range and made it do some friendly fire. Having a marine shoot a grenade launcher at you five feet away its really annoying when you die and he is unscathed. Flamethrower I believe should be more focused on providing long term burning damage then instant burning death. Like more of a small but constant DOT, also please remove the blind on the flamethrower, currently flamethrower owns every single alien except for ranged Lerk because once you get hit by fire you can't do anything because you can not see.
On Sentries/Hydras Make them more expensive and more powerful, I'd rather have 5 really powerful sentries guarding the main base and not lagging the server then 20 mediocre sentries in the main base and causing lag. Ditto with hydras.
Just my Opinions criticize/approve of them if you want.