1. Skulk would not 1bite kill a0 marines. 160 hp (100+30x2) > 150 (75x2)damage.
If you don't parasite a marine as you close to attack then you're only gimping your damage output. There's no reason to not grab the extra 10 damage if you are outside of melee range.
you forgot to point out that skulks and fade both have glancing attacks so many times the damage wouldn't be what you worked out.
I didn't 'forget' it, I am looking at a person who can land direct bites. Can a person hit with only a glancing bite? Sure. They could miss entirely too. However, that wasn't the example I was making.
1. Skulk would not 1bite kill a0 marines. 160 hp (100+30x2) > 150 (75x2)damage.
If you don't parasite a marine as you close to attack then you're only gimping your damage output. There's no reason to not grab the extra 10 damage if you are outside of melee range.
Parasite or bite its still 2 attacks required not one...but hey lets not let the facts get in the way of a good story.
you forgot to point out that skulks and fade both have glancing attacks so many times the damage wouldn't be what you worked out.
I didn't 'forget' it, I am looking at a person who can land direct bites. Can a person hit with only a glancing bite? Sure. They could miss entirely too. However, that wasn't the example I was making.
That's like making examples with the shotgun and saying "I was talking a person who always hits with all pellets" when that was not mentioned. Not all of us have i5/i7 running at 4.3+ and great connections to servers so what we see as a direct attack doesn't equate to full damage.
My question is... why would aliens NOT get focus. Shade would essentially be THE hive tech to get. It'd be the noob-killer hive AND the higher-level skill prefered hive. We're talking about a hive ability designed to kill late game marines... at tier 1. It'd give skulks better superiority in early game when marines are normally split up. Fades would eat marine groups less than 3 (or 4 if they're bad) alive with ease using hit and run (they still do but at least we don't die to one swipe and we'd have time to aim at the fade). It'd be like the marine question all over again. Why would I get Exos first when I could get SG/JP and actually win the game.
LOL! Oh man... Hey if you want to disagree for the sake of disagreeing, that's fine.
All I know is that with focus a skulk could hop in and once he connects with ONE BITE the marine is DEAD. If you want to call that "2 attacks" be my guest. That doesn't change how dead the marine is after ONE BITE.
If it's so strenuous to parasite then attack why don't we just increase the marine's armor by 1 point. I mean, the parasite is another whole attack so there should be no difference. Afterall, parasite is equivalent to biting a marine again.
Actually most of the time you can't even get two swipes in a row before being killed, so basically you are just scratching a marine and running away.
And the marine just runs back to the Armory to be on full Health+Armor again without even needing a welder mate around.
Focus was just perfect.
Been wanting Focus since Exos came into this game.
More so with the Instagib Exo. It's absolutely dreadful to be a Skulk late-game.
I'd trade Vortex as a 3rd Hive ability for Focus-Fade any day. You can't even escape on a timely manner after using Vortex due to some delay afterwards.
Parasite or bite its still 2 attacks required not one...
Don't play semantic games. The skulk kills the marine in one BITE. The parasite is a formality.
Sorry if you feel acurate claims on number of attack is semantics....I would say it was rather pertinent to be accurate.
Can we start saying how a fade can be 1 shotted by a SG'er (he has to axe him a few times first...but its still only 1 shot)?
See how stupid the argument looks the other way?
Parasite or bite its still 2 attacks required not one...
Don't play semantic games. The skulk kills the marine in one BITE. The parasite is a formality.
Sorry if you feel acurate claims on number of attack is semantics....I would say it was rather pertinent to be accurate.
Can we start saying how a fade can be 1 shotted by a SG'er (he has to axe him a few times first...but its still only 1 shot)?
See how stupid the argument looks the other way?
But back on topic... would you say a parasite/focus bite is then bad for skulks? Is the fact you have to parasite them first THEN bite weaker than getting carapace or celerity?? I would think the ability to para-then 1 shot to be a VERY powerful early game ability. Are you saying it's not?
Does focus have to higher damage by x2 and lower attack rate by x3?
Why not just increase damage by 33%, effectively reducing the number of attacks needed by just 1 attack (3 bite/swipes at armor 3), then increase attack rate accordingly?
You know, in light of railgun exosuits, what about a Focus-like charge attack? Drain a bit of energy for a stronger bite, scaled to charge-up length. I imagine the most necessary threshold would be to ensure that a skulk killed a marine without armor in a single bite. Maybe not necessarily a glancing blow, but a direct focused strike.
The alien lifeform could make an audible noise while charging up, especially assuming the proposed focus were in the Shade hive branch of upgrades, to provide a balance against the silence upgrade. How the 'focus' upgrade would fit in with the 'shade' logic, I dunno. It would also sort of follow that a third option for crag and shift hives would need to find their way into the game. (I always did like scent of fear... redemption was a little wonky...)
Although if the focus upgrade came as a skulk specific upgrade from the hive, perhaps in replacement of the woefully underutilized xenocide, that could work too. It seems the drive for the focus upgrade is to provide a lategame method to prevent skulks from being 'obsolete'. Although it would be interesting to have a lifeform-wide upgrade that's done from the hive. (It's rather marine-y though.)
I think fades could manage just fine without any sort of focus upgrade, I just miss acid rockets. Lerks have their spikes so they can thrive without a focus upgrade. Gorges are glorious as they are now, and onos don't necessarily need focus either.
Parasite or bite its still 2 attacks required not one...
Don't play semantic games. The skulk kills the marine in one BITE. The parasite is a formality.
Sorry if you feel acurate claims on number of attack is semantics....I would say it was rather pertinent to be accurate.
Can we start saying how a fade can be 1 shotted by a SG'er (he has to axe him a few times first...but its still only 1 shot)?
See how stupid the argument looks the other way?
But back on topic... would you say a parasite/focus bite is then bad for skulks? Is the fact you have to parasite them first THEN bite weaker than getting carapace or celerity?? I would think the ability to para-then 1 shot to be a VERY powerful early game ability. Are you saying it's not?
Nope parasite is not great at all..its hit reg is part of its issue....whilst it was never as bad as gorge spit it has been often critiscized as para's that should hit seem to miss and vice versa.
I would like to see some implementation of Focus to deal with high-armor marines, but I also feel that 2x damage / 3x cooldown is a recipe for disaster. Tweaking the values would require extensive playtesting, as would the ramifications of combining silence and camouflage into a single stealth upgrade. Adding a corrode-damage-over-time effect at the cost of rate-of-fire could be a viable solution to balancing shade hive.
From one of my older posts about focus:
*Disclaimer: May be dated**
====
Damage increase based on movement
The premise behind this idea is to make fades more deadly at higher skill levels.
There has been a great call for focus to come back in order to make the fade more viable, and since i believe that focus is kind of a bland upgrade I propose an alternate way to make the fade more deadly, without sacrificing an upgrade slot or forcing a certain hive choice just for fade
Basically, attacking while using movement abilities does more damage per hit, up to 50%.
I would like to see this primarily used with shadowstep so that it is viable on 1 hive. If a fade shadowsteps at a marine and swipes at the very end, that is when the fade is moving the fastest, he gets 50% bonus damage meaning he could 2 shot an armor 3 marine with 2 shadowsteps (iirc). Also, it requires more timing and actually using the fades abilities in a certain way, so the more skilled a player is with gauging where the marine is going to be, and the better they are with timing, they can actually stand a chance against SG marines.
I would also like to see this work with blink, but only get 25% bonus damage (100 dmg) so that a blinking fade can only 1 shot an un-armored marine (which isn't too much of a problem with armories healing armor). This way fades dont just blink in and out, rinse and repeat, but have it aas an option.
A side effect of this would be that the fade requires more energy management since each high-power attack would also require additional energy
Using this model, the fade would have enough killing power to justify how squishy he is, and would hopefully be seen more in the game, and become the terrifying assassin that he is supposed to be, as well as a very strong mid-game lifeform that is viable late game.
As a side note, the same can be done for the skulk with leap. After all, if aliens have these amazing movement mechanics, why not integrate them into their combat to scale late into the game?
====
Well, parasite does count as an additiinal attack.
It may be rwnged and thus allow you to prepare your bite kill before you reach the marine, BUT:
If you ambush a marine, the parasite will warn the marine if he recognizes it in time. It may only be a split second, but he can manage to already turn around and try an evasive jump.
If you engage an enemy directly you may also prepare your bite with a parasite, but hitting a marine wildly evading and jumping around plus itchy hitreg for parasites makes it difficult for you to hit that marine. You also get distracted from your own evasive movement by having to keep your corsshair on that marine.
In both cases, a parasite+ kill requires more effort than just one bite.
Focus-Increasing damage of primary attack whilst decreasing attack rate. Only effective against focused target. Target is focused by holding them in one's cross-hairs for a predetermined period of time, probably ranging from 1/2 to 1 second. Focused target then becomes surrounded by an alternate color halo (blue might be nice). Focused target becomes unfocused if one leaves their immediate area, requiring target to be refocused. Would require fade or skulk to remain relatively still to initiate, presenting marines an initial opportunity to attack. Would force them to accurately concentrate attack on a single target. Would become less effective for aliens to make hit and run attacks.
i would also like focus, but i think we should fix one problem at a time starting with adrenaline, make adren 70% capacity upgrade and 30% regen rate upgrade. its adrenaline, not stamina
Focus-Increasing damage of primary attack whilst decreasing attack rate. Only effective against focused target. Target is focused by holding them in one's cross-hairs for a predetermined period of time, probably ranging from 1/2 to 1 second. Focused target then becomes surrounded by an alternate color halo (blue might be nice). Focused target becomes unfocused if one leaves their immediate area, requiring target to be refocused. Would require fade or skulk to remain relatively still to initiate, presenting marines an initial opportunity to attack. Would force them to accurately concentrate attack on a single target. Would become less effective for aliens to make hit and run attacks.
Thoughts?
Don't really like it. Aliens are supposed to stay mobile, not sit around for 1/2 - 1 second going, "come on, come on, lock on!"... Aliens are ALL ABOUT hit and run...
You mean like when a skilled player arrives on a server and all the alien players leave after 10 minutes of 50-0 SG or SG/JP?
And talking about balance based on a rookie server... *facepalm*
First, my mistake speaking of rookie server. I meant to talk about "regular" serv. As in "not competive" serv. The servs where you don't have half the players beeing Div1 players.
Ok, it seems people disagree with me and agree with you. I can understand that. I do not do high-level competitve matchs, and mainly play in ENSL Division 5 or in pubs. I've played this game and it's predecessor for an extremely long time, but I still suck at it, so I will probably never see the kind of matchs you guys are talking about.
This said, I am convinced that, as hard as it may sound, the devs should not (and so far they did not) balance the game for high skilled play only. The danger of this is to go where NS1 was: a niche game. The concept of a mixed FPS/RTS game is extremely hard for new players to understand. 3 friends of mine bought NS2 and don't play it because they do not have the patience to go through the first two/three weeks of sucking at the game before actually understanding what's going on. This will be even worst if they get raped every game by a skilled fade/focus. "I don't understand, we are four marines, and he still kills us with no real problem just by hit and run. This game sucks." People play games for fun, not to get gang-bang by the same guy over and over again.
I do think the advantage a skilled player gains by getting JP/SG is less important that the one that is gained through Fade/Focus. First, the JP/SG comes later in game (in pubs) than the fade/focus. Second, the JP/SG can by put down after killing three/four skulks. I'm not talking 6v6 here. A skilled fade/focus can get a whole marine team down easily, just coming after the skulks/lerk and no one has armor any more.
Yes, implementing focus will help regular players understand the need to weld more that it is actually. Yes, it comes with a downside, and I guess it'd be a fair tradeoff in competitive, because the guy would loose his cara or adren.
But I'm still convinced you'd loose a good chunk of noobs who could become regular players in the process, and end-up with another niche game. Fun to play for regular players who understand it, yet extremely annoying in the end because you end up playing with the same people over and over again. At the end of NS1, one could go on any serv of his region and play with the same guys than last night. I wouldn't like that very much.
Even now, a good Fade player playing on rookie/low-skill pub server can easily go something like 40/3 K/D. Yes with Focus he would probably achieve 50/2 K/D ratio just as easily, but does it really matter? Either way he completely shut-down marine team without them having any way to defend themselves and single-handedly won the game for aliens. Likewise, a good marine player can go something like 30/1 K/D with just LMG, long before shotgun (or even jetpack) is researched and will again singlehandedly win the game without the noobie alien team being able to do something against it. Should we nerf the basic LMG in some way to prevent those occurrences?
If sufficiently skilled player is in a mood for noob-stomp he can already easily accomplish things you present as examples against focus, and with ease. A skilled fade is a skilled fade, with or without additional tool to play with and he will kill dozens of lower-skilled marines either way.
In short, the problem is not in focus, it is with a player playing on server that is far below his skill-level. Focus, or any other tool has no relevance here, only skill of players does. Thus your argument of "focus will allow skilled players to stomp newbies" is misguided and not really applicable.
Even now, a good Fade player playing on rookie/low-skill pub server can easily go something like 40/3 K/D. Yes with Focus he would probably achieve 50/2 K/D ratio just as easily, but does it really matter? Either way he completely shut-down marine team without them having any way to defend themselves and single-handedly won the game for aliens. Likewise, a good marine player can go something like 30/1 K/D with just LMG, long before shotgun (or even jetpack) is researched and will again singlehandedly win the game without the noobie alien team being able to do something against it. Should we nerf the basic LMG in some way to prevent those occurrences?
If sufficiently skilled player is in a mood for noob-stomp he can already easily accomplish things you present as examples against focus, and with ease. A skilled fade is a skilled fade, with or without additional tool to play with and he will kill dozens of lower-skilled marines either way.
In short, the problem is not in focus, it is with a player playing on server that is far below his skill-level. Focus, or any other tool has no relevance here, only skill of players does. Thus your argument of "focus will allow skilled players to stomp newbies" is misguided and not really applicable.
Still, focus makes it worse. There are situations where average marines can hold off a good fade simply because they have too much combined dps so the fade can't kill them before he has to run. Focus changes that because now it makes alot of sense to hit and run just for 1 hit.
What youre saying is "It's bad already so let's make it worse." I really dont think that makes alot of sense
Well then bring back devour and return arcs to the siege cannon.
I don't know if that was sarcastic, but if so, I gotta say:
I don't want NS1 back. I love NS2 and how it works out so far. The point is, that Focus was not only a good upgrade, I think it was ingenious to even think of that upgrade in a melee vs. range game.
There are things that just worked and thse are the things I want to come back. Me and other people have been talking about bringing Hive teleport back for years - and they seem to actually have realized that the game is more awesome with aliens being able to teleport (or make tunnels at least).
Again, it's not about bringing NS2 back, it's about not forgetting what lead to awesome battles in NS1.
Well, if focus is left this way, Fades become unstoppable killing machines. While marines won't be able to be one-shot by a fade so long as they have armor 1 or higher, it will be easy to jump in, swipe, blink around to kill the 2 seconds, and then hit again. I can't see any possible way to kill a Fade in that situation - unless you had a shottie pointed in the exact direction that the fade came from when it came in for the first hit. They'll never stay around long enough after the first hit to get enough damage on them, so barring medpack spam, after the first hit the marine is a dead man walking.
You can easily balance Focus in NS2, why shouldn't you, it was balanced in NS1. Right now I'm happy to see Fades when I have a shotgun, they are laughable easy to kill.
And when I'm fade, I'm more blinking/stepping around than I'm doing damage.
And last but not least, it was just fun. People are talking about nerfing marine armor in this thread. So it's nerfing again ^^
Focus was perfect. Anyone who played NS1 Aliens for more tan 2 months will agree. It wasn't a good upgrade like carapace, it was perfect. With some adjustments it could be transferred to NS2 without making a fade 'a killing machine'. Right now we have a 50 Res lifeform that becomes almost obsolete in late game.
EDIT: Now that I'm thinking about it, glancing hits make Focus even more skill-dependant, which could be interesting. You'd fight like a surgeon.
Comments
Parasite or bite its still 2 attacks required not one...but hey lets not let the facts get in the way of a good story.
That's like making examples with the shotgun and saying "I was talking a person who always hits with all pellets" when that was not mentioned. Not all of us have i5/i7 running at 4.3+ and great connections to servers so what we see as a direct attack doesn't equate to full damage.
All I know is that with focus a skulk could hop in and once he connects with ONE BITE the marine is DEAD. If you want to call that "2 attacks" be my guest. That doesn't change how dead the marine is after ONE BITE.
More so with the Instagib Exo. It's absolutely dreadful to be a Skulk late-game.
I'd trade Vortex as a 3rd Hive ability for Focus-Fade any day. You can't even escape on a timely manner after using Vortex due to some delay afterwards.
Sorry if you feel acurate claims on number of attack is semantics....I would say it was rather pertinent to be accurate.
Can we start saying how a fade can be 1 shotted by a SG'er (he has to axe him a few times first...but its still only 1 shot)?
See how stupid the argument looks the other way?
But back on topic... would you say a parasite/focus bite is then bad for skulks? Is the fact you have to parasite them first THEN bite weaker than getting carapace or celerity?? I would think the ability to para-then 1 shot to be a VERY powerful early game ability. Are you saying it's not?
The average pubber would probably still whine for celerity.
Why not just increase damage by 33%, effectively reducing the number of attacks needed by just 1 attack (3 bite/swipes at armor 3), then increase attack rate accordingly?
The alien lifeform could make an audible noise while charging up, especially assuming the proposed focus were in the Shade hive branch of upgrades, to provide a balance against the silence upgrade. How the 'focus' upgrade would fit in with the 'shade' logic, I dunno.
Although if the focus upgrade came as a skulk specific upgrade from the hive, perhaps in replacement of the woefully underutilized xenocide, that could work too. It seems the drive for the focus upgrade is to provide a lategame method to prevent skulks from being 'obsolete'. Although it would be interesting to have a lifeform-wide upgrade that's done from the hive. (It's rather marine-y though.)
I think fades could manage just fine without any sort of focus upgrade, I just miss acid rockets.
Nope parasite is not great at all..its hit reg is part of its issue....whilst it was never as bad as gorge spit it has been often critiscized as para's that should hit seem to miss and vice versa.
*Disclaimer: May be dated**
====
Damage increase based on movement
The premise behind this idea is to make fades more deadly at higher skill levels.
There has been a great call for focus to come back in order to make the fade more viable, and since i believe that focus is kind of a bland upgrade I propose an alternate way to make the fade more deadly, without sacrificing an upgrade slot or forcing a certain hive choice just for fade
Basically, attacking while using movement abilities does more damage per hit, up to 50%.
I would like to see this primarily used with shadowstep so that it is viable on 1 hive. If a fade shadowsteps at a marine and swipes at the very end, that is when the fade is moving the fastest, he gets 50% bonus damage meaning he could 2 shot an armor 3 marine with 2 shadowsteps (iirc). Also, it requires more timing and actually using the fades abilities in a certain way, so the more skilled a player is with gauging where the marine is going to be, and the better they are with timing, they can actually stand a chance against SG marines.
I would also like to see this work with blink, but only get 25% bonus damage (100 dmg) so that a blinking fade can only 1 shot an un-armored marine (which isn't too much of a problem with armories healing armor). This way fades dont just blink in and out, rinse and repeat, but have it aas an option.
A side effect of this would be that the fade requires more energy management since each high-power attack would also require additional energy
Using this model, the fade would have enough killing power to justify how squishy he is, and would hopefully be seen more in the game, and become the terrifying assassin that he is supposed to be, as well as a very strong mid-game lifeform that is viable late game.
As a side note, the same can be done for the skulk with leap. After all, if aliens have these amazing movement mechanics, why not integrate them into their combat to scale late into the game?
====
How about we give fades railguns instead?
I'm pretty sure the devs would not consider this to be a passive ability, thus doesn't work for a chamber upgrade.
That didn't stop the new camo. Just throwing that one out there.
It may be rwnged and thus allow you to prepare your bite kill before you reach the marine, BUT:
If you ambush a marine, the parasite will warn the marine if he recognizes it in time. It may only be a split second, but he can manage to already turn around and try an evasive jump.
If you engage an enemy directly you may also prepare your bite with a parasite, but hitting a marine wildly evading and jumping around plus itchy hitreg for parasites makes it difficult for you to hit that marine. You also get distracted from your own evasive movement by having to keep your corsshair on that marine.
In both cases, a parasite+ kill requires more effort than just one bite.
Thoughts?
First, my mistake speaking of rookie server. I meant to talk about "regular" serv. As in "not competive" serv. The servs where you don't have half the players beeing Div1 players.
Ok, it seems people disagree with me and agree with you. I can understand that. I do not do high-level competitve matchs, and mainly play in ENSL Division 5 or in pubs. I've played this game and it's predecessor for an extremely long time, but I still suck at it, so I will probably never see the kind of matchs you guys are talking about.
This said, I am convinced that, as hard as it may sound, the devs should not (and so far they did not) balance the game for high skilled play only. The danger of this is to go where NS1 was: a niche game. The concept of a mixed FPS/RTS game is extremely hard for new players to understand. 3 friends of mine bought NS2 and don't play it because they do not have the patience to go through the first two/three weeks of sucking at the game before actually understanding what's going on. This will be even worst if they get raped every game by a skilled fade/focus. "I don't understand, we are four marines, and he still kills us with no real problem just by hit and run. This game sucks." People play games for fun, not to get gang-bang by the same guy over and over again.
I do think the advantage a skilled player gains by getting JP/SG is less important that the one that is gained through Fade/Focus. First, the JP/SG comes later in game (in pubs) than the fade/focus. Second, the JP/SG can by put down after killing three/four skulks. I'm not talking 6v6 here. A skilled fade/focus can get a whole marine team down easily, just coming after the skulks/lerk and no one has armor any more.
Yes, implementing focus will help regular players understand the need to weld more that it is actually. Yes, it comes with a downside, and I guess it'd be a fair tradeoff in competitive, because the guy would loose his cara or adren.
But I'm still convinced you'd loose a good chunk of noobs who could become regular players in the process, and end-up with another niche game. Fun to play for regular players who understand it, yet extremely annoying in the end because you end up playing with the same people over and over again. At the end of NS1, one could go on any serv of his region and play with the same guys than last night. I wouldn't like that very much.
Even now, a good Fade player playing on rookie/low-skill pub server can easily go something like 40/3 K/D. Yes with Focus he would probably achieve 50/2 K/D ratio just as easily, but does it really matter? Either way he completely shut-down marine team without them having any way to defend themselves and single-handedly won the game for aliens. Likewise, a good marine player can go something like 30/1 K/D with just LMG, long before shotgun (or even jetpack) is researched and will again singlehandedly win the game without the noobie alien team being able to do something against it. Should we nerf the basic LMG in some way to prevent those occurrences?
If sufficiently skilled player is in a mood for noob-stomp he can already easily accomplish things you present as examples against focus, and with ease. A skilled fade is a skilled fade, with or without additional tool to play with and he will kill dozens of lower-skilled marines either way.
In short, the problem is not in focus, it is with a player playing on server that is far below his skill-level. Focus, or any other tool has no relevance here, only skill of players does. Thus your argument of "focus will allow skilled players to stomp newbies" is misguided and not really applicable.
Still, focus makes it worse. There are situations where average marines can hold off a good fade simply because they have too much combined dps so the fade can't kill them before he has to run. Focus changes that because now it makes alot of sense to hit and run just for 1 hit.
What youre saying is "It's bad already so let's make it worse." I really dont think that makes alot of sense
I don't want NS1 back. I love NS2 and how it works out so far. The point is, that Focus was not only a good upgrade, I think it was ingenious to even think of that upgrade in a melee vs. range game.
There are things that just worked and thse are the things I want to come back. Me and other people have been talking about bringing Hive teleport back for years - and they seem to actually have realized that the game is more awesome with aliens being able to teleport (or make tunnels at least).
Again, it's not about bringing NS2 back, it's about not forgetting what lead to awesome battles in NS1.
You can easily balance Focus in NS2, why shouldn't you, it was balanced in NS1. Right now I'm happy to see Fades when I have a shotgun, they are laughable easy to kill.
And when I'm fade, I'm more blinking/stepping around than I'm doing damage.
And last but not least, it was just fun. People are talking about nerfing marine armor in this thread. So it's nerfing again ^^
Focus was perfect. Anyone who played NS1 Aliens for more tan 2 months will agree. It wasn't a good upgrade like carapace, it was perfect. With some adjustments it could be transferred to NS2 without making a fade 'a killing machine'. Right now we have a 50 Res lifeform that becomes almost obsolete in late game.
EDIT: Now that I'm thinking about it, glancing hits make Focus even more skill-dependant, which could be interesting. You'd fight like a surgeon.