250 problems and possible solutions for 251
piratedave
Join Date: 2012-03-10 Member: 148561Members
Join Date: 2012-03-10 Member: 148561Members
250 brought many changes, many of which i like, some i even love 
There are however, some problems, which are immediately apparent that don't require weeks of playing to get a good grasp of.
Marines
1) GL : Using it like a shotgun at point blank range and surviving the blast yet doing devastating damage to aliens. Even if you die from your own grenade, someone can just pick up your GL making it cost effective if you take out a higher lifeform in the process.
possible solution : Make detonate on impact activate at a certain distance, if the grenades hit an alien within that distance then the grenades will just bounce.
2) FL : This weapon is no longer merely a support weapon, it melts skulks in 3 seconds flat, this weapons is now extremely powerful and its most noticeable on combat servers were its obvious to everyone that its overpowered
possible solutions : Give the Flamethrower a weakness, maybe make skulks immune to flames, or make flamethrowers do damage to only life not cara, or only cara not life. Maybe remove the energy zapping, or lower cost to 15 like the GL and give it a nerf. (either way something needs to be done, i hope we can have a debate about this rather than sweep the issue under the rug)
3) early GL + FL : This compounds issues 1) and 2). GL and FL no longer get any benefit from weapon upgrades, so as a result they inherently do alot of damage so they remain relevant late game. These weapons do far too much damage for early game. Possible strategies that could become popular is to ignore weapon upgrades entirely, and rush JP and FL/GL. This way you can do a strong timing attack with 3 marines (3 buy JP, 3 buy GL/FL and drop the weapons for the JPers) This problem has the potential of becoming alot worse as the meta catches up.
Possible solutions : If the FL has been rebalanced (say for instance that skulks were immune to flames) then you could keep FL at 1 CC and GL at 2 cc ? maybe increase research time/cost of advanced armory ?
4) JP on 1 cc : I can understand why we have this, its for comebacks, however aliens struggle against early jetpacks as they dont have fades/leap yet. Early JP also compound early GL/FL
possible solution : Make the initial jetpack a jumppack instead, then make a new upgrade at the protolab for full on jetpacks ?
5) EXO : Can we have a debate on this ? i dont really like the new EXO and its hard to describe what it is. (i also didnt like the old exo's either) Maybe its the fact they do so much damage when marines already have alot of stuff that does alot of damage ? Its like they step on the toes of other marine tech. Currently we see pain trains that are really hard for aliens to stop because the damage output is just insane, onos just melt in a head on clash with EXO's for example.
possible solution : either EXO's need an overhaul (perhaps make them more like heavy armor from NS1 ? with the minigun/railguns as purchasable upgrades that would reduce tank as a tradeoff ? ) or aliens need some more counters (ONOS Bone Shield anyone ?
) im sure others would come up with some better ideas though.
6) Weapon/equiment drops : These need to be brought in line similar to lifeform drops in terms of cost. Also .... it just kinda bugs me how EXO's ... this huge mech thats bigger than most marine structures .... can instantly appear, yet everything else has to be slowly built ? It may just be a plot hole, but it does seem a little unfair that aliens have to wait alot for egg drops and evolving yet marines have EXO's instantly.
Aliens
7) Crags : HEAL SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SLOOOOOWWWW
possible solutions : come on, up the healing rate, they no longer stack after all
8) Cara : compounds issue 7) .... why get cara if it will take you longer to heal up ?
Possible solutions : fix issue 7) and maybe make crags heal carapace Before HP ? or both at the same time ?
9) Shadowstep : am i a noob or does shadowstep seem like a waste ? it seems like it removes all momentum to me ? or am i doing it wrong ? Ive gotten pretty good with the new movement mechanics and i find with blink its just far superior to shadowstep. So im a bit perplexed about shadowstep, what situations would you use it for where blink isnt suitable ? For a fade upgrade do you guys think shadowstep is in a good place ?
10) vortex : i still think vortex is useless ... anyone with me ?
edit:
Possible solution: maybe make vortex work on alien lifeforms and structures, thus we can have vortex used defensively to save hives/structures under heavy attack, or save an onos trying to escape ... the possibilities are endless
11) egg drops : i think these were nerfed far too much, not only do they cost alot more, they now take ages to construct and evolve into.
possible solutions : make the egg drop deploy time instant and just keep the normal evolving (as in as if you would evolve into a lifeform with p res)
Well thats all the things that bug me so far. I m sure others will come up with better solutions than me, and perhaps not all the issues i brought up even need to be fixed, maybe they will resolve themselves from other fixes.
There are however, some problems, which are immediately apparent that don't require weeks of playing to get a good grasp of.
Marines
1) GL : Using it like a shotgun at point blank range and surviving the blast yet doing devastating damage to aliens. Even if you die from your own grenade, someone can just pick up your GL making it cost effective if you take out a higher lifeform in the process.
possible solution : Make detonate on impact activate at a certain distance, if the grenades hit an alien within that distance then the grenades will just bounce.
2) FL : This weapon is no longer merely a support weapon, it melts skulks in 3 seconds flat, this weapons is now extremely powerful and its most noticeable on combat servers were its obvious to everyone that its overpowered
possible solutions : Give the Flamethrower a weakness, maybe make skulks immune to flames, or make flamethrowers do damage to only life not cara, or only cara not life. Maybe remove the energy zapping, or lower cost to 15 like the GL and give it a nerf. (either way something needs to be done, i hope we can have a debate about this rather than sweep the issue under the rug)
3) early GL + FL : This compounds issues 1) and 2). GL and FL no longer get any benefit from weapon upgrades, so as a result they inherently do alot of damage so they remain relevant late game. These weapons do far too much damage for early game. Possible strategies that could become popular is to ignore weapon upgrades entirely, and rush JP and FL/GL. This way you can do a strong timing attack with 3 marines (3 buy JP, 3 buy GL/FL and drop the weapons for the JPers) This problem has the potential of becoming alot worse as the meta catches up.
Possible solutions : If the FL has been rebalanced (say for instance that skulks were immune to flames) then you could keep FL at 1 CC and GL at 2 cc ? maybe increase research time/cost of advanced armory ?
4) JP on 1 cc : I can understand why we have this, its for comebacks, however aliens struggle against early jetpacks as they dont have fades/leap yet. Early JP also compound early GL/FL
possible solution : Make the initial jetpack a jumppack instead, then make a new upgrade at the protolab for full on jetpacks ?
5) EXO : Can we have a debate on this ? i dont really like the new EXO and its hard to describe what it is. (i also didnt like the old exo's either) Maybe its the fact they do so much damage when marines already have alot of stuff that does alot of damage ? Its like they step on the toes of other marine tech. Currently we see pain trains that are really hard for aliens to stop because the damage output is just insane, onos just melt in a head on clash with EXO's for example.
possible solution : either EXO's need an overhaul (perhaps make them more like heavy armor from NS1 ? with the minigun/railguns as purchasable upgrades that would reduce tank as a tradeoff ? ) or aliens need some more counters (ONOS Bone Shield anyone ?
) im sure others would come up with some better ideas though.6) Weapon/equiment drops : These need to be brought in line similar to lifeform drops in terms of cost. Also .... it just kinda bugs me how EXO's ... this huge mech thats bigger than most marine structures .... can instantly appear, yet everything else has to be slowly built ? It may just be a plot hole, but it does seem a little unfair that aliens have to wait alot for egg drops and evolving yet marines have EXO's instantly.
Aliens
7) Crags : HEAL SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SLOOOOOWWWW
possible solutions : come on, up the healing rate, they no longer stack after all
8) Cara : compounds issue 7) .... why get cara if it will take you longer to heal up ?
Possible solutions : fix issue 7) and maybe make crags heal carapace Before HP ? or both at the same time ?
9) Shadowstep : am i a noob or does shadowstep seem like a waste ? it seems like it removes all momentum to me ? or am i doing it wrong ? Ive gotten pretty good with the new movement mechanics and i find with blink its just far superior to shadowstep. So im a bit perplexed about shadowstep, what situations would you use it for where blink isnt suitable ? For a fade upgrade do you guys think shadowstep is in a good place ?
10) vortex : i still think vortex is useless ... anyone with me ?
edit:
Possible solution: maybe make vortex work on alien lifeforms and structures, thus we can have vortex used defensively to save hives/structures under heavy attack, or save an onos trying to escape ... the possibilities are endless
11) egg drops : i think these were nerfed far too much, not only do they cost alot more, they now take ages to construct and evolve into.
possible solutions : make the egg drop deploy time instant and just keep the normal evolving (as in as if you would evolve into a lifeform with p res)
Well thats all the things that bug me so far. I m sure others will come up with better solutions than me, and perhaps not all the issues i brought up even need to be fixed, maybe they will resolve themselves from other fixes.
Comments
YESSSSS
Make arms labs only 1 upgrade per entity ( only 1 weapons and armor upgrade per arms lab)
Nerf FT and GL
Buff Onos by 25 health.
Make more things require a second chair again.
Tweak Biomass to be more dynamic
Those are things I think may help.
And flamers. Oh man, flamers... the real problem is that they don't require fine aiming to be devastating, thus a low skill-to-damage ratio (it's a thing I just made up, hope it gets the point across).
-Can deny spawning and phasing indefinitely
-Can stop a beacon-in-progress while costing marines the resources
-Can make an exo useless while his welders die
Though it could become way more useful if it temporarily disabled upgrades by vortexing arms lab.
Someone I regularly play with came up with the idea to make flames invisible in alien vision. A problem atm is, that the flame thrower obscures the vision of attacking aliens.
So, it's not only got ridiculous damage output (especially early game), kills structures and cysts fast, burns spores and bile, disables structures but it even servers as a mean to disorient aliens in close quarters.
At least making the flames invisible, so a Skulk can aim his bites, is a small, but imo much needed change.
Concerning exos:
The only thing that i feel needs a nerf is the speed. A railgun exo is insanely fast now (not tested but it feels like it could outrun a regular marine) and dual exos are still much too fast. One of the trade offs of the exo, not being to get beaconed has been nearly nullified as they can now easily retread or very quikly shift their position to a contested area.
It might be a good idea to have some "checks" though. Maybe you wouldnt be able to airblast Fades that are blinking. Or there is a 5 second cooldown between aliens getting airblasted. Idk.
As was stated in the other "250 sucks" thread, it's too early to be judging this stuff. I can see where people want to jump all over FT's but honestly, if they nerfed them they'd just be useless again, you all know it. You can still kill a FT if you actually attack him as a group instead of all the dueling crap that tends to go on, and it's 25 res gone if you keep it out of their hands. That's a pretty significant p-res loss.
Vortex usefulness is very situational, and at 8 biomass its expensive, especially when its uses can easily be achieved by other tactics (like focusing the powernode in a surprise rush before the marines can react, or taking the obs 1st). It also only lasts 3 seconds, meaning you need alot of teamwork and communication to make the best of that time window, something we dont see much of in pubs
Maybe if vortex also worked on aliens ... we could see some interesting tactics, for instance, vortex an ONOS then have him charge an EXO, the ONOS will take no damage on the way in. Or vortex a hive thats about to go down, keeping it alive.
Shadowstep itself doesnt remove momentum. Its the GROUND friction that does that. If you use SS in the air you can transfer all that speed right along because the AIR friction is way less. But this would mean that would have to use the new fade movement.
Also, I believe that the sweetspot for the GL and FT has yet to be found. If rushed, they are almost always devastating to the alien side- what with the hilarious clip size on the flamethrower and the new and improved grenade predictions.
Then there's the crag, which is nigh useless now unless the Khamm pays enough attention to use heal wave (which hasn't happened yet for me). As per the time it takes to heal back up, it's often more worthwhile to go back to a hive unless you're right on their doorstep.
Before Exos were too tanky, now they are easier to kill, yet able to retreat if careful, due to agility, but that requires effort. And I like a lot the froward thrust. Now they are more fun for both sides as to my taste. Maybe we could have a Plating Upgrade for like 10 pres that would add the armor but slow you down, so you get your classy Exo.
GLs now finally allow to deal damage without ammo backup, grenades bounce, it's all good. I could suggest the grenade to just bounce even on hit with alien within first 1-3 meters of flight first. Still if it hits an alien it could hurt for like 50 damage an then bounce. Also still it may kill the user pretty much. Extra downgrade would be GL destruction upon very close explosion, but I think it's overkill.
FT. Was it really any useful before? Anyone really bought it?
And now it's still 25 and it doesn't make you beefier when you buy it(unlike Kharaa stuff)! Need something to justify the price.
Early FT means weaker marine. Maybe you're not supposed to just blindly rush a FT directly and stealth? It's not that much offenisve gun if you're not "smart" to just be spotted and then try wrestle with a flamer. Try stealth. You usually die to FT only if you just try kill wielder after being spotted: retreat if ambush failed. Or overwhelm the opponent. Or even outrange with spikes, seriously. Thus flamethrower is a support gun, and a good one only since now. Also they don't benefit from weapon upgrades. Please leave it as it is, it's very fine at its cost.
Better range and nice fuel finally make it feel like a FT, and it's visual effects are best I've ever seen. Please don't ruin the feel!
Shadowstep is actually pretty awesome, it helped a ton more in combat rather than Blink that I only used for retreats. Now I see why Shadowstep is higher level.
Vortex. Not sure about efficiency, but now it's much more fun to use. Shorter effect, but greater range and lower cost. See no reason to undo the change.
And Kharaa got invisibility+silence merged, also they got awesome thing as Aura which I enjoy a ton of and always wanted exactly such thing(except for showing exact health numbers, but that would be overkill). And Kharaa are cheaper now, + skulks don't get to pay for passive evolutions at all. So leave marines as it is for now as to the things above.
I'd even lower SG price to 17 and maybe lowered the shells to 6(would also match original 6 indicator idea). And maybe added purchasable armor weld for 1 pres that repairs you for 1.5 seconds. And remove self weld since it feels bit strange. I don't get why people don't weld each other, they rather fix power node in an empty room or riflebutt in the face.
Also I have some suggestions for Onos to make it more fun, to me he's the only one remaining not entertaining. But doubt it's the place to post these.
We need to emphasize how ridiculous flamethrowers have become...
Damage Output:
1) They do tremendous damage
2) They do lasting damage (you burn for a while)
3) They nearly insta drain your energy.
Name one other weapon that has 3 abilities.
Beyond that:
1) They are great defense
2) They blind skulks
3) They easily kill structures.
The only technique needed is to hold the fire button and sweep back and forth. To many times do I see 1 flamethrower killing 3-4 aliens in less then 5 seconds.
Shadowstep is the difference between a decent fade and a godlike fade. Can't really use it myself but used properly it makes the fade MUCH harder to track, predict, and hit in combat.
Perhaps look to other games for ideas on how to introduce a fun and skilled element to these weapons.
Exos received HUGE buffs...Onos received HUGE nerfs. Fades are more expensive than single exos and are significantly more powerful in a base push or base defense.
Just played a game on refinery where we constantly took turbine or pipeworks out completely while we retained flow and smelting nearly all game without even a marine stepping in. COULD NOT take the two bases locations for longer than a couple of minutes because another big exo push was on its way. We would eventually kill it, take down exos in one of their other bases and destroy that base. As soon as we got a destroyed the base, ANOTHER exo push. They were down to 4 RTs most of the game while we were at 5-6 and we just could not do a damn thing. It was absolutely impossible to take a 3rd hive for longer than a few minutes. Onos are not the answer anymore and bile is only decent at holding them off. You simply can't trade an onos for a dual minigun.
To cut it short, we outplayed the marine team so many times to their one base with 4 exos huddled in the room annihilating anything that step into the room that it was impossible to maintain a stranglehold or a solid defense. This wasn't a marine team with godlike players, our K/D and communication was exemplary and that if it was the exo from 249, we would have won 5-6 times over in that game. The frustration was just echoing throughout the server. Killing an exosuit felt like it meant that you were inching closer to a win now it just prolongs the inevitable. You seriously have to outplay the marine team in so many ways that it's just brutally unfair. Onos really need their hp back to at least 1300 700 cara, the 1150 550 cara onos on 2 hives is almost 1000hp down from where it was.
TL;DR - EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO EXO THATS ALL IT IS, MORE COMMON THAN MARINES NOW.
Every game I've had where it gets to the late game and marines have at least 4 RTs, it just becomes "how many exosuits can you kill before you lose the game".
A smaller cone
Slightly less ammo per clip
Slightly longer range.
Then go onward from there, it's nice having something that isn't a shotgun that also seems to destroy aliens. However it is slightly too easy with too much ammo per clip.
Onos is necessary for breaking marine turtles. I shudder to think how long those would go on without them.
But if exos were removed from this game nothing of value would be lost. In fact, it would become significantly better.
Arcs would become almost mandatory for every late game.
At the moment, 250 lets Aliens get higher lifeforms out quicker and Marine tech is cheaper and faster to obtain. This basically means there is very little early game, not-much middle game and a prolonged end game that Aliens have a lot of trouble finishing even if they have a solid lead.
That is my biggest problem with the game at the moment.
Another goal of 250 was to increase the skill ceiling while also maintaining the previous skill floor. While I agree there are things that do this I also think there are other features that take away from this.
- Phantom
So far all I've seen from this getting rushed off first hive is marines getting stuck on one or two rt's in public games. I understand that there has been a sale over the weekend but I feel this is too strong in public play. Doesn't take much skill to silently run into position up on a ceiling, sit still and then jump on a marines back as soon as he isn't looking, all the while making no sound at all. (Might need to give it a few more weeks and see how it goes).
- Aura
Giving alien lifeforms an ability that hard counters one of the best advantages a marine has : positioning. Honestly don't understand how giving aliens a wall-hack that also shows a marines current health is a good idea. Trying to trap fades in scrims just seems pointless, as does baiting them into over committing. Good luck sneaking up on that skulk biting your RT. Just leave your flashlight on and your sprint key held down cause that's the only chance you have to catch him.
- GL / FT
The ability to spam nades around multiple corners yet also having them blow up the instant they connect with any alien structure/lifeform. Dealing no friendly fire at all, and limited self-damage unless it goes off in your face.
Flamethrowers that chew through lifeform energy/hp and also manage to completely destroy alien structures. A huge 'ammo' clip doesn't help.
It's not so much these things individually, it's how they get used with the support of other marines and recycled endlessly unless they are dropped near a gorge who has bile.
Other things I feel need work:
Exos - Cheaper, faster, just as deadly. Just a little bit weaker.
Onos - Feels like it's become a hit-and-run lifeform unless backed up by gorges/lerks with umbra/fades and skulks. Basically needs a whole pack of aliens to do anything worthwhile. Dies way too easily.
Alien ability to break marines turtling.
There needs to be some good, up to date tutorials for people. Really feel this is screwing with new player retention so badly. I've been in a fair few rookie servers now where rookies don't ask questions or feel like they can't sit there and keep asking you things for 10 minutes straight. I've also been in rookie servers where rookies get abused for being shit. Good work to the people doing that.
It honestly doesn't need to be a 15 minute video.
Alien basics:
2 minutes covering how to upgrade and evolve
3 minutes covering what the upgrades do
Skulk:
1 minute explaining abilities (bite, parasite, leap, xeno).
30 seconds explaining movement.
Just do that for all alien lifeforms/marine basics and weapons. Even the commander one could be a 5 minute video that just lays the basics down, and informs the player they can practice in their own private server using method X.
Then, raise the green rookie tag from 4 hours to 10 and when they log in if they are still a rookie make a prompt pop up: [Would you like to go over any basic tutorials? - Untick box to stop this popup from appearing in future].
The biggest part is getting it across in an easy to understand manner. (And after reading that sentence I went back and cut out half my post :P).
This is a pretty good overview of all the changes.
so annyoing that you have to be 100% accurate to hit an marine...as skulk or lerky
Personally, I'd start with a slight reduction in damage vs players and clipsize, see where that takes us. But it depends on what role you want the flamethrower to fit. In it's current form though, it's fulfilling an anti-alien, anti-structure and general support role. And that's a bit too much. Either keep it as a multi-purpose all round weapon, but nerf it's effectiveness a bit, or just try to specialize it a bit more.
However, I think it is still way too useful due to all the extra features. Maybe it shouldn't disable structures (they can kill them pretty fast anyway) or clear drifter clouds (which means FTs prevent the comm from helping his team, unless he jumps out of the hive). But let's just have a damage reduction for starters and see where that takes us.