Basically, what Swiftspear said, the situation can be resolved by addressing third hive abilities.
The situation is this: Marines clustered with a lot of buildings, and nowhere to go, yet still powerful due to W3/A3 and being able to pick up weapons with no loss of res. So the abilities need to be very punishing in this specific situation, while being useful (maybe), but not overpowered in other situations. Here's a couple of ideas:
1. An ability that shuts down buildings (vortex perhaps), which is more powerful when there are closely clustered buildings, sort of like a feedback loop. So, for example, this may be able to knock out a single extractor for 2 seconds, but would take out a group of 3 sentries, plus a battery for 8 seconds. This could have significant impact on the alien's ability to base rush once they have 3 hives however, especially if there is a close clustering of the obs and phase gate with a couple other buildings. I would put this at having a good chance at solving the problem, but in too much of a sledgehammer sort of way.
2. And ability that causes building to damage marines, and/or disable their weapons/armor, say by electrifying them (sort of the opposite of NS1, no?). This would Punish the marines for being holed up in their base, sitting on the armory, but could cause some issues with phase gates in that marines would be screwed trying to phase through to a location hit by this ability. Obviously you could just make this not apply to phase gates, but then it just lacks any sort of elegance. I would put this at potentially solving the problem, but potentially being overpowered in other situations.
The other way to approach this would be to provide a secondary dump for res other than the onos, since if the aliens own 90% of the map they will have plenty of expendable res. Perhaps a gorge building or commander ability? I'll think more about this.
Just my thoughts, anyone got ideas on how to fix these to work a little better?
This is by design. The marines needs to help their commander out to expand, while the skulks can already camp right outside the marines' two extractors stopping them from pushing any further, while the khammander can freely expand to the double harvesters or go for a super early hive. You see this in almost every pro matches. Not to mention that aliens got much lower resource costs than marines.
It takes only an Onos and two Fades or two Onos and a Gorge to take down the very last CC, depending on how long the game has been going on. This isn't all that possible with random players playing for fun, not communicating and no team work whatsoever. You can't balance around that. This game revolves around 6 vs. 6 with great communication and team work.
<!--quoteo(post=2012230:date=Nov 6 2012, 03:33 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Nov 6 2012, 03:33 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2012230"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Weapons 3 and Armor 3 even when they are down to 1 base Weapon recycling infinite times GL player damage
I believe if those 3 things were addressed turtling would no longer exist.
I recommend W2/A2 & W3/A3 @ 2nd chair, Weapons Recycle once or not at all, GL player damage or radius cut in half.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Definately need atleast one of the three, I think try w2a2 and greater needing 2 CC's is going to force marines to take and hold more than RT's as well as shorten end game on marine turtles.
GL player damage, not structure, reduced would also help...3 solid sounding ideas there.
Wow and I thought you hated aliens ironhorse ;) ehehehe
<!--quoteo(post=2012468:date=Nov 6 2012, 03:27 AM:name=Safewood)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Safewood @ Nov 6 2012, 03:27 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2012468"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It takes only an Onos and two Fades or two Onos and a Gorge to take down the very last CC, depending on how long the game has been going on. This isn't all that possible with random players playing for fun, not communicating and no team work whatsoever. You can't balance around that. This game revolves around 6 vs. 6 with great communication and team work.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then this game is bound to die within the next 5-10 months first the pubs then the die-hard competetive scene (if there will be one). If you alienate every new player until the vast majority of players are 'professionals' then the future looks grim. There are people out there who just don't have the time or talent to quickly get good enough to enjoy a competetive game enviroment.
You totally can create games who are easy to pick up, fun to play and still hard to master it's all about creative gameplay.
<!--quoteo(post=2012500:date=Nov 6 2012, 12:08 PM:name=Madrawn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Madrawn @ Nov 6 2012, 12:08 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2012500"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You totally can create games who are easy to pick up, fun to play and still hard to master it's all about creative gameplay.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And I think it's in just that state. It <i>is</i> easy to pick up, heck, I've only played for almost 27 hours and I've already learned so much. I understand the basic of how both factions are supposed to play. Counter-Strike and League of Legends are both considered casual games, easy to learn and hard to master, however, without team work and communication in these games, it's blatantly a chaotic mess in there. You just can't balance a <i>multiplayer</i> game based on no communication or team work, it simply just don't work.
Edit: Every game I play as Aliens, and it's come to the point where the Marines are turtling at their last CC, me and my friends communicate with the other random players on what they should pick and where we meet up. Most players actually listens to us, and when we tell them to go in, we also tell them what they should focus on doing whilst destroying the Marines' base. This works in almost every case, except from where players are just too stubborn to listen, and that's when Marines can turtle forever. Use your microphone and you will win the game, trust me.
Edit2: Players don't need to have great team work or communication in public games, because the opposite team lacks of this aswell. As long as players follow simple orders as "Player A and player B go back to base and pick a Gorge each, and meet up with us at System Waypointing.", "When I say go in, we go in.", "Focus the grenade launcher. Destroy the respawn points/power node. Now finish the CC, quickly!". That's all you need. If you want it any more simpler than this, then you're dumbing down the game to the point where it just isn't fun anymore.
What imbalanxd and others said. It is not a problem of the game. Not anymore. It is a problem of an alien team that may have skill, but near to no teamplay. Suicide gorges, 2 or 3 onos or just the complete alien team (no matter what life forms) pushing into the base together at the same time will end every game.
This is not a task that is difficult to achieve. Communicating with your team is important in this game anyway and a very easy task. Even a player with the worst aim you have ever seen, could win a game of NS2. Just because he is coordinating his team (preferable as commander) so they can effectively attack together. Try it out. It has nothing to do with competitive. It is like a complete new game-genre. You play Social-StarCraft with real humans. Just get over your ego and use your mic.
TBH tho - who cares? I have been on both sides of the game. Ive been an onos racking up silly kills but still cannot kill the power or all the IPs. Ive also been both a commander and a player with a "last stand" and held till timeout.
The thing is - it has been fun. Damn good fun. I was lucky enough to be in the only exo (single barrel too!) we had left (with MACs and a personal welder half blinded by bile most of the time. In the ready room afterwards *noone* was moaning, everyone enjoyed it as it was FUN. Games where marines are sick of turtling the last stand simply F4 - it ends very quickly when you dont have lots of IPS spamming marines every few seconds.
The balance does work. Aliens have no place turtling whereas it is a perfectly valid marine tactic. In fact if the marines turtle on 2 CCs then the aliens deserve to lose when a bunch of dual exos hoover the hives.
Something people might be doing is practicing the not-so-effective life-forms like lerk and fade in those scenarios, when they can easily buy new ones if they die. I know I do this sometimes when we have the marines in a really bad spot.
last night we had a new comm. Over general chat I asked the aliens could they just "play" with us for a while whilst we let the comm train up. This was also good fun as the aliens were also experimenting with range of floaters and xeno etc.
Eventually someone killed a gorge and the oni (onoses? onos?) took offence and flattened the base. Apart from that, again good fun.
<!--quoteo(post=2011952:date=Nov 6 2012, 01:45 AM:name=Katana314)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Katana314 @ Nov 6 2012, 01:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2011952"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->tarquin, I'm fine with the game having some depth to it such that anything we decide here hardly affects competitive play.
What we're trying to think through is things that will mostly benefit newer players, without providing an unfair advantage to aliens, and without changing the game noticably for veteran players.
For instance, what if there were some alien ability that was super-effective against marine entrenchments, but only marines who DON'T know a good strategy to protect against it, and aren't coordinating with each other? Just something that would force both teams to up their game (Marines form a counter-strategy to X ability, aliens stop using it, then it's a legitimate standoff). Right now, I guess it just feels like if Marines are idiots, and Aliens are idiots, then Marines will still be able to live a very long time.<b> I don't see that issue with any other strategy games; a Protoss team with 3 dozen carriers will have no issue crushing whatever is being put out by the enemy's 3 remaining Barracks, and I consider that an issue in NS2.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
no, imo your analogy is wrong. a 1-2 base carrier build can still totally pwn almost any terran build if the terran didn't understand the game - i.e. didn't pressure to punish the tech greedy 1-2 base play.
also, say the terran is turtling on 1-2 base with loads of siege tanks, bunkers, turrets etc (1 base in sc2 != 1 base in ns2). if the protoss doesn't know what he's doing, then it's likely that he doesn't know that he should get carriers etc. he'll continue to build stalkers and a-move into a million siege tanks.
in terran v zerg on any muta favourable map (which i was really struggling with in low masters back when i played sc2), i would spend resources like crazy and expand correctly but still had seemingly no chance because mutalisks would force me to keep my army struggling to defend my 3 bases - then even if i killed the entire flock of mutas (massive resource lost for zerg) the damage had already been done (i had to break apart my army to defend the ground attack + mutas) and then i can never get a big enough army to stop zerg mass expanding and overrunning me.
does that mean terran are underpowered? well at the time i felt yes, because i know for certain that i played better than the zerg - just his winning strategy was slightly easier to achieve than my winning strategy. the metagame is all about learning the best strategy to beat an 'unbalanced' (easier) strategy. it will never be at equilibrium unless you have a symmetrical game.
<!--quoteo(post=2011666:date=Nov 5 2012, 11:01 PM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Nov 5 2012, 11:01 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2011666"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well, take a look at the situation. Say its an 8v8 in the scenario you described, aliens holding 90% of the map. In 2 minutes, essentially the entire alien team will be able to go Onos and just pile all 8 into marine base. Marines will have no chance in hell of stopping that. None. Nada. Hilariously outmatched. No amount of upgrades will stop it. I would be surprised if more than one Onos died.
Do the aliens do this? No, typically they don't. They mess around doing god knows what, and then complain when they can't finish the game. I agree that the solution and execution to taking out turtling aliens is far simpler, but honestly that is just a symptom of the asymmetry of the late game, and I wouldn't describe it as an issue.
As a counter point, compare base rushing. Can marines base rush the aliens? Not really, the only thing they can rush is the hive, which aint that easy to take down. The power node or comm chair, on the other hand, can be dispatched in a matter of second by a few skulks. Do people call that imbalanced? Well, actually they do, yes.
So I look at the one imbalance, and I look at the other imbalance, and you place them on either side of the scale and voila, it balances! In theory anyway.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A marine comm has more means of breaking a base imho, PG + beacon to rally marines and ARCs as support does alot, that and scanning or dropping a prototype outside the alien base and getting exos + macs. Alien com can only place onos eggs and talk the alien through to rally at some point + use enzyme. But yes if everybody works together and is experienced enough, bases can be broken easily.
Marines tired of it? Salvage all their stuff / Go to ready room. Aliens tired of it? They just need to push as a team.
But usually the push happens after 10 minutes of goofing around! Servers should be tagged with [SERIOUS SERVER] [ Fun server ] To let players know wich behavious is expected.
All these changes screams for change are about making alien lategame so OP that 3/3 marines couldn't possible survive the first uncoordinated wave of attack. Wich is totally crazy
They should implement something that costs a good amount of resource for aliens. Which is, some sort of power-hungry cyst that attaches itself to a power node, and if aliens get over (lets say) 75% of the power nodes in the map, all power should be drained by those power-hungry cysts which effectively ends the game for marines. ALSO, bile bombs should cause a malfunction in welders, aswell as destroying any weapons dropped on the ground if not picked up fast.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Last night, I had a game lasted over one and a half hours I think. Marine commander was experienced in my opinion, they had near-total map control at the 10-15min mark. We weren't able to drop a 2nd hive even, they got Cafeteria covered and they expanded to Generator directly - and we were sitting in the middle, at Locker Rooms. They had mines and welders early aswell, making any skulk rush attempts a total and utter failure. Around the first Onos mark, we had 3 Oni, but 2 of them died prematurely, leaving the remaining one to defend and push slowly when it can.
Eventually, we cleaned generator, bit by bit. Then they dropped 2-3 armories at Departures, making any attempt to go inside Departures from SM impossible for the bigger lifeforms. While we were busy defending over there, as big skirmishes were going on at SM, they eventually sneaked some ARC inside locker rooms, as no one was scouting around. After losing a hive, but recapturing the area, we changed our plan, directly went for Terminal power, and got rid of their upgrades. We assaulted Cafeteria too, but Departures was heavily defended & blocked by their structures.
Even though we did some damage, we weren't able to capture a third hive for a long time, as they'd swarm back and rebuild what they had. However, this plan proved to be fruitful, eventually wearing out the marine focus, and resources slowly. With one big attack, we were able to clean Cafeteria and Terminal for good, immediately getting a third hive and investing our accumulated resources to fortify the map.
However, the game lasted more than 30+ minutes after that mark. We weren't able to go into the Departures, as there were only 3 entrances to that particular area, and each one of them was covered with marine buildings. And we weren't able to destroy them fast enough, since all of their team was busy welding stuff (hence the suggestion about the bile bombs). It was a great game, except for the last part.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=2012751:date=Nov 6 2012, 04:36 PM:name=BorisVolkov)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (BorisVolkov @ Nov 6 2012, 04:36 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2012751"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->They should implement something that costs a good amount of resource for aliens.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They just need to add ridiculously expensive units/upgrades/evolutions to both teams that are so powerful they are nearly invincible, but they are so expensive they aren't really available unless one team just owns the entire map.
I experienced a game lasting 20 minutes longer than it should have last night. Upgraded marines, using proper coordination can take down anything but an all out attack from the late game aliens even if they own 90% of the map.
Back in StarCraft, Terran and Zerg had obvious ways to break a turtle (Guardians, Nukes, Battlecruisers, Siege Tanks). It didn't matter how many Photon Cannons the enemy had if they couldn't reach your tanks anyway. In NS2, the Marines have similar obvious ways to destroy defenses. The Aliens on the other hand are more like the Protoss, lacking that clear-cut ability to just nullify heavy base defences. Asymmetry. Nice. Too bad it makes games drag on for ages.
Maybe when it comes to ending games that are already over, achieving asymmetry isn't so very, very important anymore? Maybe the Aliens needs a really late-game answer to turtling Marines as suggested? My own suggestion: Expensive, upgraded drifters that are huge and can be made to explode, spreading an acidic goo over an entire room that destroys structures and eats armor. That's not something the Marine team would want to see go off in their last base.
I dont know why this is even an issue, easy ways to end the game when marines sit on one base consist of the following. Spam onos eggs. Game over. or 1 or 2 onos whole team goes in comm spams cysts and whips in marine base and everything gets wrecked. I've never had a problem with turtle marines, especially when i comm aliens. If you're gonna throw skulks in marine base all day, no you wont win. With those end game strats i have never had an issue "ending it"
When the alien commander knows what hes doing and walls the entrances to the marine base with shades,shifts,crags and whips the marines go down pretty quickly.
That is when atleast one person with voip gets the bright idea to yell "Focus the powernode!!!"
Comments
Weapon recycling infinite times
GL player damage
I believe if those 3 things were addressed turtling would no longer exist.
I recommend W2/A2 & W3/A3 @ 2nd chair, Weapons Recycle once or not at all, GL player damage or radius cut in half.
The situation is this: Marines clustered with a lot of buildings, and nowhere to go, yet still powerful due to W3/A3 and being able to pick up weapons with no loss of res.
So the abilities need to be very punishing in this specific situation, while being useful (maybe), but not overpowered in other situations. Here's a couple of ideas:
1. An ability that shuts down buildings (vortex perhaps), which is more powerful when there are closely clustered buildings, sort of like a feedback loop. So, for example, this may be able to knock out a single extractor for 2 seconds, but would take out a group of 3 sentries, plus a battery for 8 seconds. This could have significant impact on the alien's ability to base rush once they have 3 hives however, especially if there is a close clustering of the obs and phase gate with a couple other buildings. I would put this at having a good chance at solving the problem, but in too much of a sledgehammer sort of way.
2. And ability that causes building to damage marines, and/or disable their weapons/armor, say by electrifying them (sort of the opposite of NS1, no?). This would Punish the marines for being holed up in their base, sitting on the armory, but could cause some issues with phase gates in that marines would be screwed trying to phase through to a location hit by this ability. Obviously you could just make this not apply to phase gates, but then it just lacks any sort of elegance. I would put this at potentially solving the problem, but potentially being overpowered in other situations.
The other way to approach this would be to provide a secondary dump for res other than the onos, since if the aliens own 90% of the map they will have plenty of expendable res. Perhaps a gorge building or commander ability? I'll think more about this.
Just my thoughts, anyone got ideas on how to fix these to work a little better?
It takes only an Onos and two Fades or two Onos and a Gorge to take down the very last CC, depending on how long the game has been going on. This isn't all that possible with random players playing for fun, not communicating and no team work whatsoever. You can't balance around that. This game revolves around 6 vs. 6 with great communication and team work.
Weapon recycling infinite times
GL player damage
I believe if those 3 things were addressed turtling would no longer exist.
I recommend W2/A2 & W3/A3 @ 2nd chair, Weapons Recycle once or not at all, GL player damage or radius cut in half.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Definately need atleast one of the three, I think try w2a2 and greater needing 2 CC's is going to force marines to take and hold more than RT's as well as shorten end game on marine turtles.
GL player damage, not structure, reduced would also help...3 solid sounding ideas there.
Wow and I thought you hated aliens ironhorse ;) ehehehe
Then this game is bound to die within the next 5-10 months first the pubs then the die-hard competetive scene (if there will be one). If you alienate every new player until the vast majority of players are 'professionals' then the future looks grim.
There are people out there who just don't have the time or talent to quickly get good enough to enjoy a competetive game enviroment.
You totally can create games who are easy to pick up, fun to play and still hard to master it's all about creative gameplay.
And I think it's in just that state. It <i>is</i> easy to pick up, heck, I've only played for almost 27 hours and I've already learned so much. I understand the basic of how both factions are supposed to play.
Counter-Strike and League of Legends are both considered casual games, easy to learn and hard to master, however, without team work and communication in these games, it's blatantly a chaotic mess in there.
You just can't balance a <i>multiplayer</i> game based on no communication or team work, it simply just don't work.
Edit: Every game I play as Aliens, and it's come to the point where the Marines are turtling at their last CC, me and my friends communicate with the other random players on what they should pick and where we meet up. Most players actually listens to us, and when we tell them to go in, we also tell them what they should focus on doing whilst destroying the Marines' base. This works in almost every case, except from where players are just too stubborn to listen, and that's when Marines can turtle forever. Use your microphone and you will win the game, trust me.
Edit2: Players don't need to have great team work or communication in public games, because the opposite team lacks of this aswell. As long as players follow simple orders as "Player A and player B go back to base and pick a Gorge each, and meet up with us at System Waypointing.", "When I say go in, we go in.", "Focus the grenade launcher. Destroy the respawn points/power node. Now finish the CC, quickly!". That's all you need. If you want it any more simpler than this, then you're dumbing down the game to the point where it just isn't fun anymore.
This is not a task that is difficult to achieve. Communicating with your team is important in this game anyway and a very easy task. Even a player with the worst aim you have ever seen, could win a game of NS2. Just because he is coordinating his team (preferable as commander) so they can effectively attack together. Try it out. It has nothing to do with competitive. It is like a complete new game-genre. You play Social-StarCraft with real humans. Just get over your ego and use your mic.
The thing is - it has been fun. Damn good fun. I was lucky enough to be in the only exo (single barrel too!) we had left (with MACs and a personal welder half blinded by bile most of the time. In the ready room afterwards *noone* was moaning, everyone enjoyed it as it was FUN. Games where marines are sick of turtling the last stand simply F4 - it ends very quickly when you dont have lots of IPS spamming marines every few seconds.
The balance does work. Aliens have no place turtling whereas it is a perfectly valid marine tactic. In fact if the marines turtle on 2 CCs then the aliens deserve to lose when a bunch of dual exos hoover the hives.
Eventually someone killed a gorge and the oni (onoses? onos?) took offence and flattened the base. Apart from that, again good fun.
What we're trying to think through is things that will mostly benefit newer players, without providing an unfair advantage to aliens, and without changing the game noticably for veteran players.
For instance, what if there were some alien ability that was super-effective against marine entrenchments, but only marines who DON'T know a good strategy to protect against it, and aren't coordinating with each other? Just something that would force both teams to up their game (Marines form a counter-strategy to X ability, aliens stop using it, then it's a legitimate standoff). Right now, I guess it just feels like if Marines are idiots, and Aliens are idiots, then Marines will still be able to live a very long time.<b> I don't see that issue with any other strategy games; a Protoss team with 3 dozen carriers will have no issue crushing whatever is being put out by the enemy's 3 remaining Barracks, and I consider that an issue in NS2.</b><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
no, imo your analogy is wrong. a 1-2 base carrier build can still totally pwn almost any terran build if the terran didn't understand the game - i.e. didn't pressure to punish the tech greedy 1-2 base play.
also, say the terran is turtling on 1-2 base with loads of siege tanks, bunkers, turrets etc (1 base in sc2 != 1 base in ns2). if the protoss doesn't know what he's doing, then it's likely that he doesn't know that he should get carriers etc. he'll continue to build stalkers and a-move into a million siege tanks.
in terran v zerg on any muta favourable map (which i was really struggling with in low masters back when i played sc2), i would spend resources like crazy and expand correctly but still had seemingly no chance because mutalisks would force me to keep my army struggling to defend my 3 bases - then even if i killed the entire flock of mutas (massive resource lost for zerg) the damage had already been done (i had to break apart my army to defend the ground attack + mutas) and then i can never get a big enough army to stop zerg mass expanding and overrunning me.
does that mean terran are underpowered? well at the time i felt yes, because i know for certain that i played better than the zerg - just his winning strategy was slightly easier to achieve than my winning strategy. the metagame is all about learning the best strategy to beat an 'unbalanced' (easier) strategy. it will never be at equilibrium unless you have a symmetrical game.
it's a l2p issue, not a game balance issue.
rofl i like it
Do the aliens do this? No, typically they don't. They mess around doing god knows what, and then complain when they can't finish the game. I agree that the solution and execution to taking out turtling aliens is far simpler, but honestly that is just a symptom of the asymmetry of the late game, and I wouldn't describe it as an issue.
As a counter point, compare base rushing. Can marines base rush the aliens? Not really, the only thing they can rush is the hive, which aint that easy to take down. The power node or comm chair, on the other hand, can be dispatched in a matter of second by a few skulks. Do people call that imbalanced? Well, actually they do, yes.
So I look at the one imbalance, and I look at the other imbalance, and you place them on either side of the scale and voila, it balances! In theory anyway.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A marine comm has more means of breaking a base imho, PG + beacon to rally marines and ARCs as support does alot, that and scanning or dropping a prototype outside the alien base and getting exos + macs. Alien com can only place onos eggs and talk the alien through to rally at some point + use enzyme. But yes if everybody works together and is experienced enough, bases can be broken easily.
Marines tired of it? Salvage all their stuff / Go to ready room.
Aliens tired of it? They just need to push as a team.
But usually the push happens after 10 minutes of goofing around!
Servers should be tagged with [SERIOUS SERVER] [ Fun server ] To let players know wich behavious is expected.
All these changes screams for change are about making alien lategame so OP that 3/3 marines couldn't possible survive the first uncoordinated wave of attack. Wich is totally crazy
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Last night, I had a game lasted over one and a half hours I think. Marine commander was experienced in my opinion, they had near-total map control at the 10-15min mark. We weren't able to drop a 2nd hive even, they got Cafeteria covered and they expanded to Generator directly - and we were sitting in the middle, at Locker Rooms. They had mines and welders early aswell, making any skulk rush attempts a total and utter failure. Around the first Onos mark, we had 3 Oni, but 2 of them died prematurely, leaving the remaining one to defend and push slowly when it can.
Eventually, we cleaned generator, bit by bit. Then they dropped 2-3 armories at Departures, making any attempt to go inside Departures from SM impossible for the bigger lifeforms. While we were busy defending over there, as big skirmishes were going on at SM, they eventually sneaked some ARC inside locker rooms, as no one was scouting around. After losing a hive, but recapturing the area, we changed our plan, directly went for Terminal power, and got rid of their upgrades. We assaulted Cafeteria too, but Departures was heavily defended & blocked by their structures.
Even though we did some damage, we weren't able to capture a third hive for a long time, as they'd swarm back and rebuild what they had. However, this plan proved to be fruitful, eventually wearing out the marine focus, and resources slowly. With one big attack, we were able to clean Cafeteria and Terminal for good, immediately getting a third hive and investing our accumulated resources to fortify the map.
However, the game lasted more than 30+ minutes after that mark. We weren't able to go into the Departures, as there were only 3 entrances to that particular area, and each one of them was covered with marine buildings. And we weren't able to destroy them fast enough, since all of their team was busy welding stuff (hence the suggestion about the bile bombs). It was a great game, except for the last part.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
225 tres is quite a lot.
Maybe when it comes to ending games that are already over, achieving asymmetry isn't so very, very important anymore? Maybe the Aliens needs a really late-game answer to turtling Marines as suggested? My own suggestion: Expensive, upgraded drifters that are huge and can be made to explode, spreading an acidic goo over an entire room that destroys structures and eats armor. That's not something the Marine team would want to see go off in their last base.
EDIT: It's <i>break</i> damnit...
When the alien commander knows what hes doing and walls the entrances to the marine base with shades,shifts,crags and whips the marines go down pretty quickly.
That is when atleast one person with voip gets the bright idea to yell "Focus the powernode!!!"