Did Exos get indirectly overbuffed recently?
CrushaK
Join Date: 2012-11-05 Member: 167195Members, NS2 Playtester
Join Date: 2012-11-05 Member: 167195Members, NS2 Playtester
While they were in a too bad place before, I feel like Exos are in a too good place now.
Their buffed movement speed adds a bit to that, but the main shift in balance came indirectly from the recent introduction of Weld & Follow MACs. The commander can basically pay 5 res to give an Exo a constant mid-combat healing aura that can only be countered by Bile Bomb. And those 5 res can be stacked as the commander desires.
Some thoughts in that regard:
-Before this feature was introduced, it actually took a dedicated management from the commander to provide this kind of healing buff, preventing him from performing other supportive duties at the same time such as medpack spamming somewhere else.
-Alternatively it was tying up marines to weld the Exo, shifting some combat power to supporting power, similar to how a Gorge can't participate in a fight while it is actively healing an Onos.
-The Bile Bomb nerf bat also hit the only counter to excessive MAC spam hard by getting the range so low that a Gorge can't reliably support his team by taking the MACs out because it will be dead before it even gets into range.
There is nothing wrong with having a comfort feature like Weld & Follow in place, it was somewhat needed. But other things might need to be looked at now in terms of balance because the power of that feature might have been underestimated. You can basically double the life expectancy of any marine unit just by investing those 5 res into a MAC.
Some suggestions:
-Buff Bile Bomb range and splash range again. The damage nerf can remain to prevent the easy base takedowns, but the ability should retain it's aspect of countering everything related to a Robotics Factory.
-Reduce the number of MACs that can be built per CC to 3 instead of the current 5. Currently they can be mindlessly spammed, even on 1 CC already. It would also make it more attractive for marines to actually take a third CC if they really want that kind of support from MACs.
-Give the khammander a similar automated buff for his troops by allowing a "Follow & Enzyme" command for Drifters that will make the Drifter buff aliens in fixed intervals with Enzyme as soon as the followed alien starts an attack. (Only problem with that is that Enzyme costs tres and could drain the bank account unwillingly, so it should maybe rather be a free ability on a longer cooldown then).
Opinions?
Their buffed movement speed adds a bit to that, but the main shift in balance came indirectly from the recent introduction of Weld & Follow MACs. The commander can basically pay 5 res to give an Exo a constant mid-combat healing aura that can only be countered by Bile Bomb. And those 5 res can be stacked as the commander desires.
Some thoughts in that regard:
-Before this feature was introduced, it actually took a dedicated management from the commander to provide this kind of healing buff, preventing him from performing other supportive duties at the same time such as medpack spamming somewhere else.
-Alternatively it was tying up marines to weld the Exo, shifting some combat power to supporting power, similar to how a Gorge can't participate in a fight while it is actively healing an Onos.
-The Bile Bomb nerf bat also hit the only counter to excessive MAC spam hard by getting the range so low that a Gorge can't reliably support his team by taking the MACs out because it will be dead before it even gets into range.
There is nothing wrong with having a comfort feature like Weld & Follow in place, it was somewhat needed. But other things might need to be looked at now in terms of balance because the power of that feature might have been underestimated. You can basically double the life expectancy of any marine unit just by investing those 5 res into a MAC.
Some suggestions:
-Buff Bile Bomb range and splash range again. The damage nerf can remain to prevent the easy base takedowns, but the ability should retain it's aspect of countering everything related to a Robotics Factory.
-Reduce the number of MACs that can be built per CC to 3 instead of the current 5. Currently they can be mindlessly spammed, even on 1 CC already. It would also make it more attractive for marines to actually take a third CC if they really want that kind of support from MACs.
-Give the khammander a similar automated buff for his troops by allowing a "Follow & Enzyme" command for Drifters that will make the Drifter buff aliens in fixed intervals with Enzyme as soon as the followed alien starts an attack. (Only problem with that is that Enzyme costs tres and could drain the bank account unwillingly, so it should maybe rather be a free ability on a longer cooldown then).
Opinions?
Comments
For instance, making the exo vulnerable enough so it has to move out with at least one marine welder creates a bit of teamwork, and compensates for their DPS strength. Being able to build a MAC train and ordering it to follow around an exo undermines that. It also clutters up everything.
I think your 2nd solution (reduced number of MACs) is a valid suggestion because
- MACs are not as vital as Drifters (now with foresight removed) and you don't really need that many
- MACs are more versatile than Drifters (weld, build, emp)
When I think about it, another solution would be to increase the price of MACs to 7 or 10.
The other 2 suggestions seem not as good: buffed bilebomb would be op in many other situations (ninja gorge, stuff like that) and the khammander can easily follow aliens with 1 drifter and enzyme them because he doesn't have to support them in any other way (except bonewall)
That said the MAC change does give a considerable boost to the marines and I've seen a few games now where getting one or two MACs even fairly early on to serve as support units was surprisingly effective. It's definitely something to keep an eye on but given that the change is fairly recent and that an awful lot of the games over the past week have been chock full of inexperienced players I think it's a little early to call a verdict on it. If it does seem to be a big issue then reducing the maximum number of MACs may be in order; AI units tend to put a huge strain on both the server and client performance as well so any excuse to lower the total number of AI things is kinda nice.
I definitely don't think that the problems are the exos themselves, and they sorely needed the mobility boosts. The railgun in particular was downright useless before it got its hitscan width and speed boosted in early tests.
However, before an increase in cost (please for the love of God forget about limits...) I'd like to see bilebomb back in its former glory. Previously you could just bile the MACs from a mile away, 2 biles would mean ALL dead MACs, which drastically reduced their effectivity. Why is my effectivity red. Is it not a word? Pffprptpft. Anyway, keeping your MACs repairing a frontline exo basically meant you'd likely lose them all.
Before bile bomb is restored to its former glory, I would like to see commander warnings about attacked powernodes repaired. Nothing is more exploity than a single gorge ninja bile bombing mainbase power node, immediately ending the game.
What exactly happened to bile bomb? I noticed when I was in an exo it barely did as much damage and they had A LOT of trouble hitting me from the distance even though they were pretty close. Seems useless now though I never go Gorge unless the team is rushing. I sort of agree with Kamamura in notifications because the power nodes (a disliked mechanic) ruined the best ability of the Gorge because of how fast it could take out a base when the problem was with the node itself.
Although it is fun to watch a winning marine team all buy exos and march away from there base only to lose it to a few skulks.
I hate exos.
Now you can balance the weld rate, price, and prevent op trains where anything but bile bomb can't realistically kill all Macs without dying first.
Effectiveness is the word you meant. Effectivity may technically be a word, but it is a wanky psuedo word made up by someone who forgot that the word effectiveness existed.
Basically every aspect that made alien game fun becomes pointless suddenly:
-No more sneaky, you appear as white circle in the Exo HUD for whatever reason ("screw gameplay, it just looks cool").
-Most of the lifeforms that you saved a long time for die in an instant as soon as an Exo looks at them and they can't do much about it.
-No more jumping around the enemy, taking a few shots and catching him in a defenseless moment while he reloads or runs out of ammo: Exo has infinite ammo and is with his fist far from vulnerable while he is on cooldown, if that is ever going to be the case.
-As said above, you can essentially lock an entire Hive down with a single Exo just by walking over the eggs (which may be worth several tres from Shift Hatching), all the while continuing to shoot stuff without any impact. The closest thing aliens have as similar spawn lockdown ability is using Vortex on an IP as Fade, but that does not only require one Fade per IP to be effective but also binds the Fade actively to that duty, so it can't attack anything else while vortexing.
The Exo is basically the noobtube of NS2. You want it in the game because it gives even the worst player a chance to shine and kill some pros. What is problematic is if the weapon with the lowest skill floor becomes the best one available in the game, i.e. when there is no weapon with a higher skill floor that can effectively counter this weapon. Good weapon/game mechanic design in multiplayer games does not only ask "is this weapon fun to use for the player" but also "is this weapon fun for the player that it is being used against". In other words: does the weapon open up some nice new mechanics to counter it (a good example would be the Shock Combo from UT2k4: other players can shoot the enemy Shock Core with their own Shock Rifle to deny that combo or even kill the enemy with it).
Things you could try to balance the Exo more:
-Reduce the cooldown amount of the weapons (i.e. it takes longer for the weapon to cool back to 0, regardless of overheating). By doing that you make the Exo more vulnerable if he keeps his constant fire up and can be caught off guard if aliens decide to close in. Basically it creates a similar reload period that normal marines would have, giving aliens a chance to counter it.
-Remove the egg-squashing ability by walking over them. It's just way too powerful for 50 res. If they want to clear that Hive area they should have to use their weapons like everyone else or wait for Grenade Launcher support. (You might consider to only make it available to the "heavy" dual-minigun Exo, though that might confuse players for consistency and honestly I'd rather prefer to have that feature gone entirely).
If you adjust the egg HP/armor ratio to be the same for normal weapons by reducing the HP but increasing the armor, you can make Exos extra-effective against eggs because they won't see a difference between armor and HP.
Example: If the current egg health/armor ratio was 100/25 = 150 normal damage HP and 125 heavy damage HP, then a new ratio 50/50 = 150 normal damage HP and 100 heavy damage HP would favor Exos (and disadvantage pistols).
Balancing AI by making them act stupid is a terrible method for a RTS interface. Better to make commands work well and balance them in another method. Possible ideas include:
- Increase cost
- Reduce health
- Only one MAC repair by player/structure
- MACs stop repairing when under attack
Any less health and they aren't worth their res - or worse it becomes a binary mechanic and again impacts their usefulness in other areas , which isn't needed.
Best to go with #3
Again, it would have a large enough impact by allowing all lifeforms to disable the often used mac train (that could still happen with only those other options implemented) and finally allow for more fine tuning.
I just so nearly killed a railgun exo as a skulk, while it was in warehouse with 3 light marines all shooting at me. I did about 500 damage to it before I died!
The marines weren't derpy on the whole, it was an awesome close game with some real talent on their team. Just at that point I think the talent was on the other side of the map
(edit for clarity, I've taken down a *lot* of exos 1v1 as skulk, some as fade (I tend to be more cautious) and a couple as lerk with spikes (!), too.)
All the suggestions in them are horrible and reek of "I did X and it didn't beat Y, buff X or nerf Y".
Anything that comes remotely close to buffing gorges makes me want to smash my face into a desk, if anything the fat fucks are still OP and people still temp/perm gorge at all times during comp play.
Saying the exo is the noobtube of NS2 is so incredibly wrong I wouldn't even know where to start, not a day of NS2 goes by that someone either new or extremely arrogant doesn't get solo'd as a single/rail/dual by 3-4 skulks walking in the wrong area alone. I thought this thread was going to complain about exos being able to walk backwards as fast as forwards, I was going to agree there should be a slight speed nerf as it's obvious in game that as an onos attacking an exo you constantly 'walk into' the exo and lose momentum, allowing them to gain precious seconds that can take you out while retreating. Instead this thread went in a whole other direction about MACs and exos being OP pub stompers, which they just aren't.
I'll definitely try assigning one to a jet packer next. Although I assume phase gates will see the Mac running all over the map on its own.
i think you're using solo a bit too liberally there, and gorge got straight up abused by the past few updates.
babblers? really? gorge tunnels? yeah fun to play with, but i don't think i've ever been in a situation where it would have saved much travel time. and spit got nerfed a while back, so did clogs, hydras can hit better, but they now leave trails. also, did i mention clogs? and now I gotta be to be in sentry distance to effectively bile sentries it seems...
yay for nerfing 3 aspects of bile bomb where nerfing one would have sufficed.