In reference to balance, according to ns2stats.org, since June 26 it's been 51% aliens to 49% marine wins. In just the last 24 hours it's been 53% aliens to 46% marines. When I polled my server about it (meaning the 24 player one, with many experienced ns2 vets that frequent it), most comments made are that it's 50/50 on wins.
Now, honestly, I'm getting kind of tired of hearing about how getting teamwork on the alien team that's needed to win isn't possible on pubs. This game has been teamwork oriented since the first game, has been, always will be. You all know that, and everyone who's played this game for a good portion of time knows that. Are the games always going to be fair and balanced? Of course not, not one FPS in history has had fair and balanced games all the time. But are the mechanics in this build balanced? Pretty damn close to it, yes.
It is everyone's natural tendency to come up against something they can't beat right off the bat and to think that it must be unfair in some way. That right there is at least 90% of the source of all conversation having to do with this build, and honestly, every build before it. Give it time. If you're quitting this build after 1 week you honestly have NO GROUNDS to say anything about it.
win loss ratios mean nothing, when you have one side thats not fun to play (aliens) it matter not.
I dont care if I win...as long as I have fun.
Playing aliens has become almost totaly devoid of fun.
Even when winning alien gameplay feels like hard work, marine gameplay is the exact opposite....even on those last base turltes you can still have some fun killing skulks and higher lifeforms.
Some of us have played the BTmod so its not simply 1 week that we have been playing with these changes, besides most casual gamers are not going to invest large amounts of time to a game they are not enjoying.
Saying they need to invest weeks to learn to play simply so they can enjoy the game is not going to work.
I have a few hours a week at best to be able to play games...sadly it looks like NS2 will no longer be the game I am playing, I dont play games to get frustrated...I want to relax and have fun.
Its sad that despite having played many hours of this game I am again in a position of not enjoying the gameplay.
I, on the other hand, have found the aliens of 250 to be about 10 times as much fun as 249. It might have something to do with the fact I watched videos on the new movement and figured that out first and I practiced comm'ing a bit to figure out the new tech. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you're not complaining on a game forums.
And not trying to sound too harsh here, but if your time is limited and that's your excuse for not being able to practice the new mechanics, go play a game that doesn't require time and practice to get good at, like CoD. Yeah I know I sound like a royal asshole here, but honestly, what the hell do you want from this game? Everything spoon fed to you like so many other shooters? We all know what we were getting into with this game, and most of us marched into more then willingly. However, there seems to be that persistent crowd that would rather complain that it's not easy enough for them and make up all sorts of excuses as to why, rather then just playing the game or finding another one.
So your response to casual gamers is "go play COD"?
Well dont complain when the community all but vanishes....I think the figures after the first sale and then gorgeuos illustrates the issue the game has in retaining new players.
The skill floor needs to be accesible if you want this game to grow, sadly its heading the opposite direction.
New players are not being retained, undoubtably one of the causes is that one side is unfun to play on aliens.
Sure if you can dedicate enough time you might start to enjoy it...but most ppl are not going to do this.
Most ppl play games for fun....not to spend hours learning out how to move for each different alien lifeforms (5 of them).
The skill floor isn't really that hard to attain. You jump next to a wall, you go faster. You keep jumping after that, you keep going faster. It took me like 30 minutes to figure out and I promise you I'm an average maybe slightly above average player at best.
This is not a racing game, so you need to do more than just achieve a high speed.
Skill floor refers to more than just being able to max out your speed...its about being able to be effective/use with the class.
With the skulk you must first learn how to move, then how to close distance, then when to attack, then you need to learn how to track the jumping marine whilst landing your 3+ bites.
Thats just one class...gorge, lerk, fade and onos all offer new challenges and have their own unique movement and attack nuances.
Ppl find playing as alien hard/un-fun not because they cant move around the map...but because they cant get kills or seemingly have a meaningful impact on the game (other than being a target for marines to kill).
People probably new how to play WoW back in vanilla. Doesn't mean that if they were frozen in time and transported to that pandas expansion that they would still know how to play it. They would have to relearn that too. That's the evolution of a game. Developers try to improve upon it, it's only natural to try to improve a product. Yet people like you blast them for it, and honestly it's just silly.
And no, I'm not mistaking one bit why games like cod are popular. There's a word for "offer some form of satisfaction regardless of skill", it's called EASY. No matter how you try to sexy that up that's effectively what you're saying.
No its called having a well designed game that is accessible to players at all levels.
Offering some form of satisfaction regardless of skill mean ensuring your highly skilled players also find the game fun.
Having a game thats only fun for experienced, skilled or even new players is a badly designed game and you either wont attract or maintain a player base.
No one is saying leave the skill ceiling low...but just make sure the floor is low enough to attract and maintain new players.
This is something that NS2 is struggling to do at present....despite everyones best efforts and intentions.
In reference to balance, according to ns2stats.org, since June 26 it's been 51% aliens to 49% marine wins. In just the last 24 hours it's been 53% aliens to 46% marines. When I polled my server about it (meaning the 24 player one, with many experienced ns2 vets that frequent it), most comments made are that it's 50/50 on wins.
Now, honestly, I'm getting kind of tired of hearing about how getting teamwork on the alien team that's needed to win isn't possible on pubs. This game has been teamwork oriented since the first game, has been, always will be. You all know that, and everyone who's played this game for a good portion of time knows that. Are the games always going to be fair and balanced? Of course not, not one FPS in history has had fair and balanced games all the time. But are the mechanics in this build balanced? Pretty damn close to it, yes.
It is everyone's natural tendency to come up against something they can't beat right off the bat and to think that it must be unfair in some way. That right there is at least 90% of the source of all conversation having to do with this build, and honestly, every build before it. Give it time. If you're quitting this build after 1 week you honestly have NO GROUNDS to say anything about it.
win loss ratios mean nothing, when you have one side thats not fun to play (aliens) it matter not.
I dont care if I win...as long as I have fun.
Playing aliens has become almost totaly devoid of fun.
Even when winning alien gameplay feels like hard work, marine gameplay is the exact opposite....even on those last base turltes you can still have some fun killing skulks and higher lifeforms.
Some of us have played the BTmod so its not simply 1 week that we have been playing with these changes, besides most casual gamers are not going to invest large amounts of time to a game they are not enjoying.
Saying they need to invest weeks to learn to play simply so they can enjoy the game is not going to work.
I have a few hours a week at best to be able to play games...sadly it looks like NS2 will no longer be the game I am playing, I dont play games to get frustrated...I want to relax and have fun.
Its sad that despite having played many hours of this game I am again in a position of not enjoying the gameplay.
I, on the other hand, have found the aliens of 250 to be about 10 times as much fun as 249. It might have something to do with the fact I watched videos on the new movement and figured that out first and I practiced comm'ing a bit to figure out the new tech. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you're not complaining on a game forums.
And not trying to sound too harsh here, but if your time is limited and that's your excuse for not being able to practice the new mechanics, go play a game that doesn't require time and practice to get good at, like CoD. Yeah I know I sound like a royal asshole here, but honestly, what the hell do you want from this game? Everything spoon fed to you like so many other shooters? We all know what we were getting into with this game, and most of us marched into more then willingly. However, there seems to be that persistent crowd that would rather complain that it's not easy enough for them and make up all sorts of excuses as to why, rather then just playing the game or finding another one.
So your response to casual gamers is "go play COD"?
Well dont complain when the community all but vanishes....I think the figures after the first sale and then gorgeuos illustrates the issue the game has in retaining new players.
The skill floor needs to be accesible if you want this game to grow, sadly its heading the opposite direction.
New players are not being retained, undoubtably one of the causes is that one side is unfun to play on aliens.
Sure if you can dedicate enough time you might start to enjoy it...but most ppl are not going to do this.
Most ppl play games for fun....not to spend hours learning out how to move for each different alien lifeforms (5 of them).
The skill floor isn't really that hard to attain. You jump next to a wall, you go faster. You keep jumping after that, you keep going faster. It took me like 30 minutes to figure out and I promise you I'm an average maybe slightly above average player at best.
This is not a racing game, so you need to do more than just achieve a high speed.
Skill floor refers to more than just being able to max out your speed...its about being able to be effective/use with the class.
With the skulk you must first learn how to move, then how to close distance, then when to attack, then you need to learn how to track the jumping marine whilst landing your 3+ bites.
Thats just one class...gorge, lerk, fade and onos all offer new challenges and have their own unique movement and attack nuances.
Ppl find playing as alien hard/un-fun not because they cant move around the map...but because they cant get kills or seemingly have a meaningful impact on the game (other than being a target for marines to kill).
People probably new how to play WoW back in vanilla. Doesn't mean that if they were frozen in time and transported to that pandas expansion that they would still know how to play it. They would have to relearn that too. That's the evolution of a game. Developers try to improve upon it, it's only natural to try to improve a product. Yet people like you blast them for it, and honestly it's just silly.
And no, I'm not mistaking one bit why games like cod are popular. There's a word for "offer some form of satisfaction regardless of skill", it's called EASY. No matter how you try to sexy that up that's effectively what you're saying.
No its called having a well designed game that is accessible to players at all levels.
Offering some form of satisfaction regardless of skill mean ensuring your highly skilled players also find the game fun.
Having a game thats only fun for experienced, skilled or even new players is a badly designed game and you either wont attract or maintain a player base.
No one is saying leave the skill ceiling low...but just make sure the floor is low enough to attract and maintain new players.
This is something that NS2 is struggling to do at present....despite everyones best efforts and intentions.
Yet, achieving speed ties directly into evasion, being harder to hit, and quicker to attack, which is what every lifeform but debatedly 2 are all about. So, in effect, it's a very important part of learning that. If you're refusing to lend credit to that, then obviously you're missing out on a decent chunk of the improvement this patch brought in. My KDR as a skulk/lerk/fade has went up tremendously since this patch because I can move very effectively with the changes.
And really, I freaking sucked at this game my first couple months, both the first game and this one. It's natural. Yet, every COD game (for comparison) I walked right into doing just as good if not better then at least half of whatever server/match I was in. Because it was just that easy. You point and click, and that is literally it. If you're smart you get high explosive device and point and click and kill even more people. Thrilling gameplay right thar! Yeah, let's make NS2 like that.
On second thought, no, let's not. I'd rather see people drench the forums with tears while I'm tabbed out between map changes and go on enjoying the very much improved game I'm seeing right now.
People probably new how to play WoW back in vanilla. Doesn't mean that if they were frozen in time and transported to that pandas expansion that they would still know how to play it. They would have to relearn that too. That's the evolution of a game. Developers try to improve upon it, it's only natural to try to improve a product. Yet people like you blast them for it, and honestly it's just silly.
And no, I'm not mistaking one bit why games like cod are popular. There's a word for "offer some form of satisfaction regardless of skill", it's called EASY. No matter how you try to sexy that up that's effectively what you're saying.
I don't understand what you just wrote here. Using an MMORPG that starts you off at the very bottom and offers visible progression as you level up and learn the mechanics as you go along is a different beast altogether? You do know that those are called expansion packs and are meant to add to the base game? It stands to reason that new content added to the game would add new nuances to the way it's played? I'm fine with improving a product, but I'm not at all fine with the product not working as intended. The product is certainly a hell of a lot different than when it was back when it first came out. Some changes were good (fps improvements being the most notable), but some changes are debatable and highly subjective. B250 is just one of those debatable and highly subjective changes.
Ever played Q3A? UT? I'm an average player at best and I found these games satisfying to play. You would be a fool to consider these games "EASY" and I doubt you would want to look like one. Counterstrike is also a pretty popular game, but I'm going off on a tangent here. It's also foolish to believe CoD is an "EASY" game. While it's true that it has a very low skill floor, it also has a very high skill ceiling as evident by the fact it's part of an actual professional gaming league. I don't know about you, but I don't think its "EASY" to be a part of that elite group. Unless you think any player out there has what it takes to compete for money in these leagues?
It's people like you that don't know what the hell they are talking about that need to step back from worshipping the devs and learn they are subject to valid criticism from their customers.
People probably new how to play WoW back in vanilla. Doesn't mean that if they were frozen in time and transported to that pandas expansion that they would still know how to play it. They would have to relearn that too. That's the evolution of a game. Developers try to improve upon it, it's only natural to try to improve a product. Yet people like you blast them for it, and honestly it's just silly.
And no, I'm not mistaking one bit why games like cod are popular. There's a word for "offer some form of satisfaction regardless of skill", it's called EASY. No matter how you try to sexy that up that's effectively what you're saying.
I don't understand what you just wrote here. Using an MMORPG that starts you off at the very bottom and offers visible progression as you level up and learn the mechanics as you go along is a different beast altogether? You do know that those are called expansion packs and are meant to add to the base game? It stands to reason that new content added to the game would add new nuances to the way it's played? I'm fine with improving a product, but I'm not at all fine with the product not working as intended. The product is certainly a hell of a lot different than when it was back when it first came out. Some changes were good (fps improvements being the most notable), but some changes are debatable and highly subjective. B250 is just one of those debatable and highly subjective changes.
Ever played Q3A? UT? I'm an average player at best and I found these games satisfying to play. You would be a fool to consider these games "EASY" and I doubt you would want to look like one. Counterstrike is also a pretty popular game, but I'm going off on a tangent here. It's also foolish to believe CoD is an "EASY" game. While it's true that it has a very low skill floor, it also has a very high skill ceiling as evident by the fact it's part of an actual professional gaming league. I don't know about you, but I don't think its "EASY" to be a part of that elite group. Unless you think any player out there has what it takes to compete for money in these leagues?
It's people like you that don't know what the hell they are talking about that need to step back from worshipping the devs and learn they are subject to valid criticism from their customers.
LMAO. I absoutely love that you brought up Q3A because it's that game that actually inspired the advanced movement features that were kept alive in NS1 and now this game. Talk about opening mouth and inserting foot. But you're right, I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. I'll go back to enjoying the game.
I only have a couple of complaints with the patch, but somehow none of them are listed in the OP?
It would be easy for me to list reasons why I disagree with each point, but I don't think that would be very constructive
What is constructive though is asking how many new strategies everyone has tried since the patch?
OP mentions a few strats on Marine I won't touch if I'm commanding because I know how to counter it on Aliens and have seen it fail many times already
That's not to say that the strat can't work, but the conditions have to be right. . .
If Aliens don't go a certain tech I won't even consider doing it; there's just far better and lower risk routes to take once the cards are shown
This isn't a total waste though. . .
I'm seeing a lot of interesting ideas pop up in this thread that I think should be tested
Cannon_FodderAUSBrisbane, AUJoin Date: 2013-06-23Member: 185664Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
@Mavick
Although the win % is a nice stat to point to and say its balanced, sadly that is not how stats works (particularly in a game). The 50% win might be what you want to achieve in competitive matches, as that will mean, when a game starts, generally, you don't know who might win. And that is exciting to the viewer. Couple this with the fact that you know each team has a turn on Aliens and Marines, you could say it must be balanced.
In pub games, it is a different beast. When you point to a 50% win/loss ratio in pub games, all you are saying is aliens win 50% of the time, so what? The problem is, I might be on the losing team 100% of the time (hypothetically), because there is no enforcement for me to be on alternate teams. In fact that is the case for me, I play aliens about 70% of the time, due to Marine team stack.
Now on the fun factor. As someone else has pointed out, Marines can lose and still felt it was epic because they might still take down life forms in the Alamo stand, where as Aliens just get trampled as the marine deathball steam rolls over the aliens. Whilst you can say if Aliens didn't dominate marines and lose, then they deserve it (this is true, the better team should win). However, 250 introduced some game mechanic that make the last stand marine, have such power that a dominating alien side early / mid game or even late game (ie. 3 hives) can still lose to a 1 base marine if they just hold out for long enough to tech up to 3/3 and get some exos (even single minis), and an arc train. It still means the aliens has stopped pushing the gas pedal or got uncoordinated at some stage to let the game slip through their hands. My point is, Aliens were never about absolute team work (this works in the comp. scene, but much less so in pubs). They are more of a horde, that rush, and if you get lucky someone might go for the greater good and go lerk to umbra (but I find this more rare on pubs these days).
So, looking at 250's changes, I would say it works very well for comps - delayed alien tech (no tech explosion), so game can be decided in the mid game stage (or late game stage as both teams are very coordinated). For pubs, you need to be more forgiving on the cooperation stakes. This isn't a problem for marines, as they spawn in generally the same locations, and have very uniform equipment that play the same (ie. all get a gun, and all walk at same speed). Aliens play is all about spreading out and harass, stalk, stealth (except onos). So you are suddenly asking players to play as a tight team (lerk, gorge go with onos to support), doesn't work in pubs because you might have no lerk at a given point (comps. will ensure there is one, but pubbers do what they want).
I love some of the changes in 250 as well, the marines changes were great for both comp. and pub. except the all tech on 1 cc (see my previous post). The alien changes were great, I don't mind biomass as it keeps the game flow even and not go one side as soon as 2 hives is up. The build any support structure is a master stroke, as the aliens can now have a proper forward base early on.
So, there are positive and negative things with 250, we just need to play it more, and give feed back and wait for the devs to respond to our feedback. I think some tweaking is required, as with previous builds. I just hope people will come back to this great game.
I feel there's two problems in regards to skill and balance.
First the skill differences between players, the lack of any matchmaking or team balance means unbalanced games are fairly frequent. A new player against even an average player is totally useless, likewise an average player against a really good player is totally useless. That's not a fun feeling. I think this is what @hakenspit is getting at in regards to skill floor, a new player can feel totally useless failing over and over to even damage one player on the other team.
Secondly losing as aliens is still abysmally unfun, 1 hive skulks against exos+macs and jp+ft/gl/sg is just depressing. Compared to 1 CC marines who now can even get jps and exos on 1 CC!
I keep trying to play and give the build a chance, and when I get on marines it's generally a lot of fun. But playing aliens is just depressing and stressful right now.
I think it's fine if pub teams that can't play well as a team end up losing all the time. The game is fundamentally about teamwork. Teams that can't get their act together SHOULD lose, and that should be just as true in pub games as in comp games. Pub play needs to evolve such that the good pub players are actively and assertively working to get their teams coordinated, with the weaker and newer players learning from their examples.
If some players aren't enthusiastic about teamplay and end up losing and end up quitting because they keep losing, well, I'm sorry to see them go. But I'd be more sorry to see them stay and see NS2 become something that it isn't.
I think it's fine if pub teams that can't play well as a team end up losing all the time. The game is fundamentally about teamwork. Teams that can't get their act together SHOULD lose, and that should be just as true in pub games as in comp games. Pub play needs to evolve such that the good pub players are actively and assertively working to get their teams coordinated, with the weaker and newer players learning from their examples.
If some players aren't enthusiastic about teamplay and end up losing and end up quitting because they keep losing, well, I'm sorry to see them go. But I'd be more sorry to see them stay and see NS2 become something that it isn't.
I'm glad other people like me exist. Played about 8 matches last night that were all balanced by KDR. In every single match it was clear the team that employed more teamwork was the winner. One match in particular, on marines, I thought the alien team would actually roll us. No, Summit with neighboring starts, aliens kept trying to rush marine base, failing (I think they got our obs one time), while the marines took the rest of the map. The aliens that weren't rushing the base were running around solo trying to be super all stars. Marines with a whole map in early game are more then likely going to dominate the game. And we did.
And as far as looking at stats and percentages for wins: what do you expect? People comment that "oh it's just a marine steamroll all the time", I point out that statistically that is incorrect. If that isn't the case for you perhaps you're just contributing to poor alien teams all the time out there. Or perhaps you should find servers that use a KDR balancing method or urge the server ops you play on to implement it. It actually works quite well, despite all the people that would say otherwise. There are ways to counter a "stack" if the people on the server are unwilling to do it.
Long and short of all this, most of you are just going to complain about this and there's really nothing anyone is going to say to convince you otherwise. It happens in every game with every change in history. So by all means, keep complaining. But know that there are statistics and people with personal experience that say you're all wrong.
The biggest problem i see from my casual gaming perspective is they make these changes without any help on how to learn the new features. No video on skulk jumping. Jumping from a wall and gaining speed doesn't intuitively make sense. There's not much to indicate that you've actually strung your jumps together except for a sound the skulk makes. For an actual skulk it does - but a human playing a game as a skulk... not really.
Shooting a gun at an alien... intuitive for a human playing a FPS.
Even the video put out by UWE didn't even explain all the changes because its so long... well then how do you expect someone to do just that on a free play weekend, or after a sale? Hell i'm still telling people to use their Exo speed boost. People don't even know that change happened even when its clearly in the change log.
this is my opinion and clearly a bachelor's level look at "build 250" problems. The rest of you are having Master's level discussion but maybe improving what i've pointed out here would help at least retain players longer.
LMAO. I absoutely love that you brought up Q3A because it's that game that actually inspired the advanced movement features that were kept alive in NS1 and now this game. Talk about opening mouth and inserting foot. But you're right, I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. I'll go back to enjoying the game.
Way to ignore every other thing I wrote, but I'll keep on humoring you since I find this somewhat entertaining. I wasn't even making the argument of NS2/NS1 drawing inspiration from Q3A. I was pointing out how these low skill floor/high skill ceiling games can be satisfying to play regardless of skill level. How's that for opening mouth and inserting foot? So yeah we agree that you have no idea what you're talking about since apparently you haven't acquired the skill called reading comprehension. Come back once you've allocated some skill points okay?
Also don't you find it ironic how you keep spouting anecdotal evidence about how this game is so balanced and filled with the awesomesauce, yet the anecdotal evidence of others mean absolutely nothing? Hey pot come over and let me introduce you to my friend kettle!
I'll probably get an infraction or whatever, but man this was fun to write!
I think it's fine if pub teams that can't play well as a team end up losing all the time. The game is fundamentally about teamwork. Teams that can't get their act together SHOULD lose, and that should be just as true in pub games as in comp games. Pub play needs to evolve such that the good pub players are actively and assertively working to get their teams coordinated, with the weaker and newer players learning from their examples.
If some players aren't enthusiastic about teamplay and end up losing and end up quitting because they keep losing, well, I'm sorry to see them go. But I'd be more sorry to see them stay and see NS2 become something that it isn't.
I've seen earlier statistics that indicate a fairly unbalanced winrate on public servers in favor of the marines. Does it means that somehow, in public games where both alien and marine players are drawn from the same pool of players, marines are more often more coordinated than aliens?
No, it probably mean that marines suffer much less from mediocre teamwork than aliens, which constitute a balancing issue. The game should remain somewhat balanced in public server's mediocre teamwork all around situations if it doesn't want to become too elitist and even more of a niche game than it is now.
I've generally noticed a certain asymmetry between the ability of either side to push on. Aliens need to control and defend tech points like crazy, whereas marines don't care as much about them so they can be more offensive. Since the patch I don't think I've ever seen a win from the alien side where aliens didn't manage to control and hold on to three tech points early in the game (or where the marine commander didn't completely screw up). It makes sense too, considering how hard it is for aliens to push the last marine CC with three hives and all upgrades: with one fewer hive and two CC to destroy it seems pretty much impossible.
In this situation, time play against aliens. Marines can focus on harassing those tech points which are so much more important for aliens than for them, which force aliens to constantly defend those instead of harassing marines.
Once marine have jetpacks and exos the balance tilts very strongly in their favor. You're going to say "just have better teamwork!", but I don't see how it is not an order of magnitude harder to keep for instance onos alive than exos.
Onos and the gorges healing them have to dive right in the middle of the marines and eat grenade/flamethrower spam whereas an exo can control an entire area from a relatively safe position.
And you also need lerks with umbra too to have any chance, whereas any marine can support an exo as long as they have a welder (which they usually do).
Generally, marines have ranged mass destruction weapons whereas aliens have mostly melee lifeforms. More powerful alien life forms are also increasingly harder to play, which would be fine except for the fact that unlike aliens, marines don't pay the extra power they get from jetpacks, FT, GLs or exos with a very increased playing difficulty. They don't have to master difficult movement schemes. Perhaps jetpacks but the fact you usually have a powerful ranged weapon along with it doesn't make it remotely punishing.
In fact, in this patch they made all alien life forms harder to play (except perhaps skulks) than before because of a mix of harder to perform movements and reduced survivability, and at the same time, they made marines easier to play by making FTs and GLs so powerful. I do understand that there was an ongoing balance problem in favor of aliens before the patch, but I think they overcompensated for it.
I do like that marines have a fair shot at a comeback when aliens control most of the map. Unfortunately, aliens have nowhere near the same ability in the opposite situation.
I also do like the necessity for good teamwork, but only in so far as neither side is at an advantage in a situation where you have mediocre teamwork on both side.
Well, now that I've been playing a little bit more seriously, and everyone's got used to the new build, aliens are winning a LOT more than marines (it definitely was the other way around on pubs at release of 250).
The fadeplosion is very difficult to counter if the fades are good. That's fundamentally the problem I'm seeing. Individual fades running around alone get tagged quite easily, but a pack of 4 or 5 that al appear at once is almost impossible to stop. I'm assuming decent fades, here.
Not suggesting anything to get around this, just noting what I'm seeing in games where people know what they're doing (pubs & comp).
I think it's fine if pub teams that can't play well as a team end up losing all the time. The game is fundamentally about teamwork. Teams that can't get their act together SHOULD lose, and that should be just as true in pub games as in comp games. Pub play needs to evolve such that the good pub players are actively and assertively working to get their teams coordinated, with the weaker and newer players learning from their examples.
If some players aren't enthusiastic about teamplay and end up losing and end up quitting because they keep losing, well, I'm sorry to see them go. But I'd be more sorry to see them stay and see NS2 become something that it isn't.
I've seen earlier statistics that indicate a fairly unbalanced winrate on public servers in favor of the marines. Does it means that somehow, in public games where both alien and marine players are drawn from the same pool of players, marines are more often more coordinated than aliens?
No, it probably mean that marines suffer much less from mediocre teamwork than aliens, which constitute a balancing issue. The game should remain somewhat balanced in public server's mediocre teamwork all around situations if it doesn't want to become too elitist and even more of a niche game than it is now.
I've generally noticed a certain asymmetry between the ability of either side to push on. Aliens need to control and defend tech points like crazy, whereas marines don't care as much about them so they can be more offensive. Since the patch I don't think I've ever seen a win from the alien side where aliens didn't manage to control and hold on to three tech points early in the game (or where the marine commander didn't completely screw up). It makes sense too, considering how hard it is for aliens to push the last marine CC with three hives and all upgrades: with one fewer hive and two CC to destroy it seems pretty much impossible.
In this situation, time play against aliens. Marines can focus on harassing those tech points which are so much more important for aliens than for them, which force aliens to constantly defend those instead of harassing marines.
Once marine have jetpacks and exos the balance tilts very strongly in their favor. You're going to say "just have better teamwork!", but I don't see how it is not an order of magnitude harder to keep for instance onos alive than exos.
Onos and the gorges healing them have to dive right in the middle of the marines and eat grenade/flamethrower spam whereas an exo can control an entire area from a relatively safe position.
And you also need lerks with umbra too to have any chance, whereas any marine can support an exo as long as they have a welder (which they usually do).
Generally, marines have ranged mass destruction weapons whereas aliens have mostly melee lifeforms. More powerful alien life forms are also increasingly harder to play, which would be fine except for the fact that unlike aliens, marines don't pay the extra power they get from jetpacks, FT, GLs or exos with a very increased playing difficulty. They don't have to master difficult movement schemes. Perhaps jetpacks but the fact you usually have a powerful ranged weapon along with it doesn't make it remotely punishing.
In fact, in this patch they made all alien life forms harder to play (except perhaps skulks) than before because of a mix of harder to perform movements and reduced survivability, and at the same time, they made marines easier to play by making FTs and GLs so powerful. I do understand that there was an ongoing balance problem in favor of aliens before the patch, but I think they overcompensated for it.
I do like that marines have a fair shot at a comeback when aliens control most of the map. Unfortunately, aliens have nowhere near the same ability in the opposite situation.
I also do like the necessity for good teamwork, but only in so far as neither side is at an advantage in a situation where you have mediocre teamwork on both side.
Aliens really don't need to control 3 tech points early on. On the contrary, maintaining just 3 harvesters until they can get their fades out is enough as long as marines are not sitting on 6 RTs the entire time. Getting a second hive is actually less important than pre-b250 imo, because you can now get bilebomb and umbra (arguably the two most useful abilities atm) on just one hive. Most of the time when I see a marine stomp on a pub server, it's simply because the alien team suffered from a severe lack of players who are somewhat decent with a fade. Seeing as there are still some green aftershocks following the steam sale, it wasn't very surprising to see quite a few marine wins this last week.
I agree there are some problems with gls/flamethrowers being quite destructive, especially on pub servers, and that there's more potential for a marine comeback (which I like as well), but it's really not essential for aliens to hold and defend three tech points from the very start, far from it. It just comes down to how well the players on the alien team can fade.
LMAO. I absoutely love that you brought up Q3A because it's that game that actually inspired the advanced movement features that were kept alive in NS1 and now this game. Talk about opening mouth and inserting foot. But you're right, I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. I'll go back to enjoying the game.
Way to ignore every other thing I wrote, but I'll keep on humoring you since I find this somewhat entertaining. I wasn't even making the argument of NS2/NS1 drawing inspiration from Q3A. I was pointing out how these low skill floor/high skill ceiling games can be satisfying to play regardless of skill level. How's that for opening mouth and inserting foot? So yeah we agree that you have no idea what you're talking about since apparently you haven't acquired the skill called reading comprehension. Come back once you've allocated some skill points okay?
Also don't you find it ironic how you keep spouting anecdotal evidence about how this game is so balanced and filled with the awesomesauce, yet the anecdotal evidence of others mean absolutely nothing? Hey pot come over and let me introduce you to my friend kettle!
I'll probably get an infraction or whatever, but man this was fun to write!
I'm sorry, point me to the evidence people are bringing? All I'm seeing is personal opinion, which is commonly misrepresented as "fact" and "evidence" on these boards. Something I've railed about for months now and you're, quite honestly, just continuing the trend of that.
Now, if you want to get back to what your opinion is about 2 other games that, imo, were probably even harder to get into and master then this one (for me anyway), then fine. But don't talk to me like it's some kind of "anecdotal evidence" that I'm overlooking when it's not. It's a fucking opinion. And I'm overlooking it because I don't share it, nor do many others.
Well, now that I've been playing a little bit more seriously, and everyone's got used to the new build, aliens are winning a LOT more than marines (it definitely was the other way around on pubs at release of 250).
The fadeplosion is very difficult to counter if the fades are good. That's fundamentally the problem I'm seeing. Individual fades running around alone get tagged quite easily, but a pack of 4 or 5 that al appear at once is almost impossible to stop. I'm assuming decent fades, here.
Not suggesting anything to get around this, just noting what I'm seeing in games where people know what they're doing (pubs & comp).
The useless stats on ns2stats.org have gone up to 54% aliens to 46% marines. But remember, those are useless stats unless everyone personally sees that all the time.
First of all, flamerthrower needs to be made into a projectile weapon for starters. Its ridiculous that a fluid flaming substance can be controlled as a cone that follows your aim perfectly. Second, reload speed is way too fast imo. JP + FT Combo is crazy powerful, to the point where a single marine can do the same damage as a cooperative team of 3-4 marines (without jp + ft) could do. Damage numbers might be fine, idk need to think more about that, but the flamer needs to depend more on his teammates and positioning. If the flames actually worked like a fluid and were harder to aim with its current stats would propably even out.
JP + FT Combo is crazy powerful, to the point where a single marine can do the same damage as a cooperative team of 3-4 marines (without jp + ft) could do.
Oh i wish aliens had some long range lifeform that could handle solely close range marines?
I also do like the necessity for good teamwork, but only in so far as neither side is at an advantage in a situation where you have mediocre teamwork on both side.
Good point; agreed.
Generally, marines have ranged mass destruction weapons whereas aliens have mostly melee lifeforms. More powerful alien life forms are also increasingly harder to play, which would be fine except for the fact that unlike aliens, marines don't pay the extra power they get from jetpacks, FT, GLs or exos with a very increased playing difficulty.
Also a good point. I think that's a permanent feature of NS2; I don't see anyway for that not to be the case and still have the game retain its character. It has its advantages, too - marines can be "easy mode" for new players, and as they get drawn into the game they can spend more time learning to play the harder side and the harder lifeforms. The big problem is that it means that balance (not just win/loss rates, but also things like which lifeforms / weapons / tactics / strategies are effective or interesting or fun) can end up being very different for pubs than for high-skill matches. I'm confident that UWE, Sewlek, and the community can make it work anyway. It's a challenge, but we'll solve it in time as the game evolves.
I do like that marines have a fair shot at a comeback when aliens control most of the map. Unfortunately, aliens have nowhere near the same ability in the opposite situation.
I'm not sure they need one. That just means that the effective victory conditions for the two sides are asymmetrical, which of course is fine. Marines can come back when they're down to one base, aliens have to "come back" before they've lost map control. The important thing is that the game ends rapidly once the point of no return is reached. This is true for alien losses and always has been - once they've effectively lost, they will get rolled by the marines in short order. It's also true for marine losses, but it used to not be. Prior to b250 they could draw out a loss nearly forever but without any hope of recovery; now they either lose fast or have a fighting chance to win.
I'm not saying the play is perfect yet. I think it's good, and better than it was. I also think b250 has opened up a lot of possibilities that we need to explore further, and in doing so we'll find ways to make the gameplay even better.
I'm not sure they need one. That just means that the effective victory conditions for the two sides are asymmetrical, which of course is fine. Marines can come back when they're down to one base, aliens have to "come back" before they've lost map control.
The asymmetry line can only take you so far. In a game like this, where each team has the same end goal (destroy all the hives/chairs), each side needs to have the same chance. Saying that one side can come back after not having map control for the entire game and the other can't is just bull. This only leads to people surrendering or leaving the game very quickly when playing alien and the game starts going downhill because it is PAINFUL to lose, late-game, to marines with JP/FT/GL/SG/Exo/ARC trains. Marines can still have fun with last stands as other people have said.
I'm sorry, point me to the evidence people are bringing? All I'm seeing is personal opinion, which is commonly misrepresented as "fact" and "evidence" on these boards. Something I've railed about for months now and you're, quite honestly, just continuing the trend of that.
Now, if you want to get back to what your opinion is about 2 other games that, imo, were probably even harder to get into and master then this one (for me anyway), then fine. But don't talk to me like it's some kind of "anecdotal evidence" that I'm overlooking when it's not. It's a fucking opinion. And I'm overlooking it because I don't share it, nor do many others.
Did you conveniently forget to add that I specifically said anecdotal evidence? The same kind you use when you're explaining why you find things balanced? I find that W/L stats on public servers to be all but useless so I don't have any "hard" evidence to speak of, but the OP brought up very good points calling out issues introduced in b250. There are also numerous complaints littered in other threads involving b250 and they are valid complaints. If I'm continuing the trend of mispresenting my opinion as "fact" and "evidence," then what the hell do you think you're doing with your posts?
Now I'll explain a bit why I find W/L stats pointless. I am confident in saying that my buddy and I can win 4 out of 5 games as alien whenever we play seriously. Now this is not an e-peen stroking statement where I then glorify my awesome skillz of pwnage. It's just a simple matter of knowing how to properly utilize bile bomb and hopefully adrenaline if we're lucky enough to have it researched. Our sample size is small, but a good representative of how "good" players can skew any game. The same thing applies to marines and anyone with good enough twitch aim to fully utilize the shotgun. All it takes is ONE SINGLE MARINE to completely decimate the alien team early game and the rest of the marine team have to be pretty bad to still lose that game. Using W/L percentage on pub games is therefore pointless when the overall outcome can be more or less decided by 1-2 players (commanders fit into this as well) through overwhelming skill or knowledge of the game. These numbers are even more pointless when roughly half of the current players are most likely those who just bought the game a few days ago and only have a few hours under their belt.
Alright fine we'll go back to your example of how CoD is an "EASY" game to play when it is in fact one of the games included in a professional league? A game that is very easy to get into as is evident by its popularity, but a high enough skill ceiling to be considered part of a pro league? I'm calling you out on your opinion and blatantly saying it's wrong. Now either you admit you made an erroneous statement or we can keep playing this game where you try to misdirect me in some circular logic that I'm having trouble comprehending. Or I suppose you can just keep overlooking an "opinion" you don't share. Either way is amusing to me.
And we're not going to get anywhere if you can't even see the blatant anecdotal evidence you're using in your own posts.
Can someone here answer whether the devs are balancing the game towards 6v6 comp play or 10v10+ pub play? I've always been under the impression that the devs balance towards comp play, and that pretty much makes the argument of balanced pub play an exercise in futility.
I'm not sure they need one. That just means that the effective victory conditions for the two sides are asymmetrical, which of course is fine. Marines can come back when they're down to one base, aliens have to "come back" before they've lost map control.
The asymmetry line can only take you so far. In a game like this, where each team has the same end goal (destroy all the hives/chairs), each side needs to have the same chance. Saying that one side can come back after not having map control for the entire game and the other can't is just bull. This only leads to people surrendering or leaving the game very quickly when playing alien and the game starts going downhill because it is PAINFUL to lose, late-game, to marines with JP/FT/GL/SG/Exo/ARC trains. Marines can still have fun with last stands as other people have said.
The amusing part is that the marines ALWAYS had an easier time managing a comeback. Marines kept every tech except proto at 1-base while Aliens lose everything but the kitchen sink. Sure Aliens got 1-base bile bomb and that helps immensely, but nothing like what the marines can now utilize. Breaking a 1-base turtle marine supported by exos has always been a difficult task for any Alien team. So what do the devs do? They give 1-base marines exos to make that task even harder. It makes me wonder how they reached that conclusion...
I'm not sure they need one. That just means that the effective victory conditions for the two sides are asymmetrical, which of course is fine. Marines can come back when they're down to one base, aliens have to "come back" before they've lost map control.
The asymmetry line can only take you so far. In a game like this, where each team has the same end goal (destroy all the hives/chairs), each side needs to have the same chance. Saying that one side can come back after not having map control for the entire game and the other can't is just bull. This only leads to people surrendering or leaving the game very quickly when playing alien and the game starts going downhill because it is PAINFUL to lose, late-game, to marines with JP/FT/GL/SG/Exo/ARC trains. Marines can still have fun with last stands as other people have said.
The amusing part is that the marines ALWAYS had an easier time managing a comeback. Marines kept every tech except proto at 1-base while Aliens lose everything but the kitchen sink. Sure Aliens got 1-base bile bomb and that helps immensely, but nothing like what the marines can now utilize. Breaking a 1-base turtle marine supported by exos has always been a difficult task for any Alien team. So what do the devs do? They give 1-base marines exos to make that task even harder. It makes me wonder how they reached that conclusion...
I like that marines keep tech at 1 base, the possibility of comebacks is good. What I don't like is how they don't need any other tech points to tech up and how aliens both need tech points to tech up and to keep that tech. It's one of the contributing factors that makes losing as aliens so damn miserably, you lose one hive and start a slippery slope of getting weaker and weaker. Lose one CC as marines and unless it was your main (which it rarely is as that's defended so well) your don't lose your tech.
I'm not sure they need one. That just means that the effective victory conditions for the two sides are asymmetrical, which of course is fine. Marines can come back when they're down to one base, aliens have to "come back" before they've lost map control.
The asymmetry line can only take you so far. In a game like this, where each team has the same end goal (destroy all the hives/chairs), each side needs to have the same chance. Saying that one side can come back after not having map control for the entire game and the other can't is just bull. This only leads to people surrendering or leaving the game very quickly when playing alien and the game starts going downhill because it is PAINFUL to lose, late-game, to marines with JP/FT/GL/SG/Exo/ARC trains. Marines can still have fun with last stands as other people have said.
The amusing part is that the marines ALWAYS had an easier time managing a comeback. Marines kept every tech except proto at 1-base while Aliens lose everything but the kitchen sink. Sure Aliens got 1-base bile bomb and that helps immensely, but nothing like what the marines can now utilize. Breaking a 1-base turtle marine supported by exos has always been a difficult task for any Alien team. So what do the devs do? They give 1-base marines exos to make that task even harder. It makes me wonder how they reached that conclusion...
I like that marines keep tech at 1 base, the possibility of comebacks is good. What I don't like is how they don't need any other tech points to tech up and how aliens both need tech points to tech up and to keep that tech. It's one of the contributing factors that makes losing as aliens so damn miserably, you lose one hive and start a slippery slope of getting weaker and weaker. Lose one CC as marines and unless it was your main (which it rarely is as that's defended so well) your don't lose your tech.
I'm not against marines keeping their tech at 1-base, but giving them proto tech is ridiculous. They already have instant teleportation and a handy panic button if they get outflanked. This is just a kick in the face for aliens whose tech is tied to their Hives. But I suppose making things easier for marines is fine so long as they give the aliens a handout yeah? And believe you me I'm enjoying my 1-base bilebomb!
Just played about 6 more games or so and I can easily say that the balance is nowhere near easy to figure out. First game I wrecked the aliens cargo hive with my flamethrower/jetpack combined with arcs. Lost the arcs but that was because a certain commander *cough* ZeroIBIS *cough* wouldn't give me ammo.
Then played aliens and watched them dominate for 4 rounds each time with different players. First 2 times I was aliens on veil and I just did my little battle gorgie in west junction while most of the team kept them from the other side as well. Marines had no map control and lost. The other 2 rounds I was on the marines, we lost both times due to a well times rush that set every marine running back or dead and we lost all map control. Both of these games were on docking.
Last game was on Tram and I was the alien commander. We wreaked the marines after they pushed observation. We started shipping btw. We managed to hold Repair and elevator dispite phasegates in Ore and Mezz, and then with some awesome Drifter enzyme, heal wave, and storm, my aliens were a wreaking train and marched over both ore and mezz killing the exos and then pushing in to Server to win. The alien commander drifter micro is soooooo important now
I can say flamer's are kinda strong when combines with jetpacks, but then again, I nearly died to a lerk who went in to bite me and confused me enough to drop me down to 0 armour and 6 health.
Oni, yeah, with the speedy exos the Oni need some love, especially since exo's now scale with upgrades meaning any exo with good aim and positioning can basically handle almost anything except for a mass alien rush or a few decent skulks/lerks/fades with drifter support.
Just played about 6 more games ... drifter support.
Like others have said, I think it seems to be different for everyone, some will say marines will dominate every game, some will say that aliens dominate every game. Part of it has to do with who is commanding IMO and how much he/she knows about the new changes.
What I think is kinda silly is that marines need 1 chair to thrive, aliens need 3-4 to thrive with full abilities. What's the point of having all these abilities for aliens if they can rarely use them! Maybe if the amount of biomass you can get on 1 hive increased so aliens could get more upgrades with just 1 hive.
And Docking, I have seen different things. I have never seen marines lose on Docking with a goodish listening team. All of takes is most of the team rushing to Generator at the start, while 1 goes cafe and bar, and 1 to east depending if they start in departures. If marines can rush into gen and get built up it pretty much locks aliens from having 2 hives, and if the team is a little slow, even 1 person up there killing cysts from the start delays the aliens. And if you can't manage to hold in gen as a team, just have 1-2 constantly running up there waiting for the inevitable hive drop while you get a phase gate in maintinence, or if not locker. If you can manage to rally people together fast enough you can cost aliens some serious res by rushing a newly dropped gen hive
Just to share my experience after playing a few games:
I do not think the balance has been tipped completely in favor of marines, but some of the changes could have been a bit more subtle.
The Flamethrower seems to do too much raw damage. Even with a crag next to me I cannot outheal the damage on my Hydras and the Whips next to it. It took a single marine a rough 3 seconds to kill everything, another 3 to kill me.
I'd like to note this happened 4 to 5 minutes into the game.
Skulks can still outmaneuver FT marines without jetpacks, but even a grazing hit usually means you die, too. A decent marine will have hit you enough for that after the second bite.
Once Fades are out FTs become significantly less hard to counter.
I did not notice the exos changing for the worse of any team, but they feel more dynamic, which seems alright to me.
Alien commanders on the servers I played on where a lot less likely to drop Shells/Veils etc. Even crags etc. are less prominent, usually used for their upgrades rather then helping field players. The effect a single shell gives seems to be too little in the eyes of many commanders for their investment cost.
I have seen commanders go for an early second hive a lot more often, scrapping other upgrades and light expansions completely. You cannot live on 2 res towers as alien, but with light structures dieing so easily I can understand why some want to put their money into a building that stays alive for a while when under fire.
My suggestion would be a combination of different things:
FTs should be used in small controlled bursts, let the burn damage do the brunt. Make the fuel tanks empty really fast so marines cannot tank enemies on their own with it. Powerful against single aliens, but easy to overwhelm. Maybe on top of draining energy have them slow down energy generation significantly while the alien burns. Using short, controlled bursts would still enable the marine to shoot down bile, slow down enemy attacks and deconstruct enemy light structures (Hydras, Whips, Cysts), making it a good defensive and offensive weapon without turning it into shotgun 2.0.
Crags healing needs to go up a bit. I do aknowledge the descision not to have it stack, but the healing needs to be adjusted accordingly.
Make the next Shell/Veil/etc. free to place for every hive dropped (one time deal, if the dropped buildings die they have to be rebought for the regular price)
Make Clogs resitant to flamethrowers, this should give alien players some time to react when flamethrower marines rush in.
Comments
Skill floor refers to more than just being able to max out your speed...its about being able to be effective/use with the class.
With the skulk you must first learn how to move, then how to close distance, then when to attack, then you need to learn how to track the jumping marine whilst landing your 3+ bites.
Thats just one class...gorge, lerk, fade and onos all offer new challenges and have their own unique movement and attack nuances.
Ppl find playing as alien hard/un-fun not because they cant move around the map...but because they cant get kills or seemingly have a meaningful impact on the game (other than being a target for marines to kill).
No its called having a well designed game that is accessible to players at all levels.
Offering some form of satisfaction regardless of skill mean ensuring your highly skilled players also find the game fun.
Having a game thats only fun for experienced, skilled or even new players is a badly designed game and you either wont attract or maintain a player base.
No one is saying leave the skill ceiling low...but just make sure the floor is low enough to attract and maintain new players.
This is something that NS2 is struggling to do at present....despite everyones best efforts and intentions.
Agree.
Furthermore, combat server is so broken, can't really train any particular lifeforms in them GL/FT spam kills the hive.
Had any other old build generated this much controversy?
Yet, achieving speed ties directly into evasion, being harder to hit, and quicker to attack, which is what every lifeform but debatedly 2 are all about. So, in effect, it's a very important part of learning that. If you're refusing to lend credit to that, then obviously you're missing out on a decent chunk of the improvement this patch brought in. My KDR as a skulk/lerk/fade has went up tremendously since this patch because I can move very effectively with the changes.
And really, I freaking sucked at this game my first couple months, both the first game and this one. It's natural. Yet, every COD game (for comparison) I walked right into doing just as good if not better then at least half of whatever server/match I was in. Because it was just that easy. You point and click, and that is literally it. If you're smart you get high explosive device and point and click and kill even more people. Thrilling gameplay right thar! Yeah, let's make NS2 like that.
On second thought, no, let's not. I'd rather see people drench the forums with tears while I'm tabbed out between map changes and go on enjoying the very much improved game I'm seeing right now.
I don't understand what you just wrote here. Using an MMORPG that starts you off at the very bottom and offers visible progression as you level up and learn the mechanics as you go along is a different beast altogether? You do know that those are called expansion packs and are meant to add to the base game? It stands to reason that new content added to the game would add new nuances to the way it's played? I'm fine with improving a product, but I'm not at all fine with the product not working as intended. The product is certainly a hell of a lot different than when it was back when it first came out. Some changes were good (fps improvements being the most notable), but some changes are debatable and highly subjective. B250 is just one of those debatable and highly subjective changes.
Ever played Q3A? UT? I'm an average player at best and I found these games satisfying to play. You would be a fool to consider these games "EASY" and I doubt you would want to look like one. Counterstrike is also a pretty popular game, but I'm going off on a tangent here. It's also foolish to believe CoD is an "EASY" game. While it's true that it has a very low skill floor, it also has a very high skill ceiling as evident by the fact it's part of an actual professional gaming league. I don't know about you, but I don't think its "EASY" to be a part of that elite group. Unless you think any player out there has what it takes to compete for money in these leagues?
It's people like you that don't know what the hell they are talking about that need to step back from worshipping the devs and learn they are subject to valid criticism from their customers.
LMAO. I absoutely love that you brought up Q3A because it's that game that actually inspired the advanced movement features that were kept alive in NS1 and now this game. Talk about opening mouth and inserting foot. But you're right, I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. I'll go back to enjoying the game.
It would be easy for me to list reasons why I disagree with each point, but I don't think that would be very constructive
What is constructive though is asking how many new strategies everyone has tried since the patch?
OP mentions a few strats on Marine I won't touch if I'm commanding because I know how to counter it on Aliens and have seen it fail many times already
That's not to say that the strat can't work, but the conditions have to be right. . .
If Aliens don't go a certain tech I won't even consider doing it; there's just far better and lower risk routes to take once the cards are shown
This isn't a total waste though. . .
I'm seeing a lot of interesting ideas pop up in this thread that I think should be tested
Although the win % is a nice stat to point to and say its balanced, sadly that is not how stats works (particularly in a game). The 50% win might be what you want to achieve in competitive matches, as that will mean, when a game starts, generally, you don't know who might win. And that is exciting to the viewer. Couple this with the fact that you know each team has a turn on Aliens and Marines, you could say it must be balanced.
In pub games, it is a different beast. When you point to a 50% win/loss ratio in pub games, all you are saying is aliens win 50% of the time, so what? The problem is, I might be on the losing team 100% of the time (hypothetically), because there is no enforcement for me to be on alternate teams. In fact that is the case for me, I play aliens about 70% of the time, due to Marine team stack.
Now on the fun factor. As someone else has pointed out, Marines can lose and still felt it was epic because they might still take down life forms in the Alamo stand, where as Aliens just get trampled as the marine deathball steam rolls over the aliens. Whilst you can say if Aliens didn't dominate marines and lose, then they deserve it (this is true, the better team should win). However, 250 introduced some game mechanic that make the last stand marine, have such power that a dominating alien side early / mid game or even late game (ie. 3 hives) can still lose to a 1 base marine if they just hold out for long enough to tech up to 3/3 and get some exos (even single minis), and an arc train. It still means the aliens has stopped pushing the gas pedal or got uncoordinated at some stage to let the game slip through their hands. My point is, Aliens were never about absolute team work (this works in the comp. scene, but much less so in pubs). They are more of a horde, that rush, and if you get lucky someone might go for the greater good and go lerk to umbra (but I find this more rare on pubs these days).
So, looking at 250's changes, I would say it works very well for comps - delayed alien tech (no tech explosion), so game can be decided in the mid game stage (or late game stage as both teams are very coordinated). For pubs, you need to be more forgiving on the cooperation stakes. This isn't a problem for marines, as they spawn in generally the same locations, and have very uniform equipment that play the same (ie. all get a gun, and all walk at same speed). Aliens play is all about spreading out and harass, stalk, stealth (except onos). So you are suddenly asking players to play as a tight team (lerk, gorge go with onos to support), doesn't work in pubs because you might have no lerk at a given point (comps. will ensure there is one, but pubbers do what they want).
I love some of the changes in 250 as well, the marines changes were great for both comp. and pub. except the all tech on 1 cc (see my previous post). The alien changes were great, I don't mind biomass as it keeps the game flow even and not go one side as soon as 2 hives is up. The build any support structure is a master stroke, as the aliens can now have a proper forward base early on.
So, there are positive and negative things with 250, we just need to play it more, and give feed back and wait for the devs to respond to our feedback. I think some tweaking is required, as with previous builds. I just hope people will come back to this great game.
First the skill differences between players, the lack of any matchmaking or team balance means unbalanced games are fairly frequent. A new player against even an average player is totally useless, likewise an average player against a really good player is totally useless. That's not a fun feeling. I think this is what @hakenspit is getting at in regards to skill floor, a new player can feel totally useless failing over and over to even damage one player on the other team.
Secondly losing as aliens is still abysmally unfun, 1 hive skulks against exos+macs and jp+ft/gl/sg is just depressing. Compared to 1 CC marines who now can even get jps and exos on 1 CC!
I keep trying to play and give the build a chance, and when I get on marines it's generally a lot of fun. But playing aliens is just depressing and stressful right now.
If some players aren't enthusiastic about teamplay and end up losing and end up quitting because they keep losing, well, I'm sorry to see them go. But I'd be more sorry to see them stay and see NS2 become something that it isn't.
I'm glad other people like me exist. Played about 8 matches last night that were all balanced by KDR. In every single match it was clear the team that employed more teamwork was the winner. One match in particular, on marines, I thought the alien team would actually roll us. No, Summit with neighboring starts, aliens kept trying to rush marine base, failing (I think they got our obs one time), while the marines took the rest of the map. The aliens that weren't rushing the base were running around solo trying to be super all stars. Marines with a whole map in early game are more then likely going to dominate the game. And we did.
And as far as looking at stats and percentages for wins: what do you expect? People comment that "oh it's just a marine steamroll all the time", I point out that statistically that is incorrect. If that isn't the case for you perhaps you're just contributing to poor alien teams all the time out there. Or perhaps you should find servers that use a KDR balancing method or urge the server ops you play on to implement it. It actually works quite well, despite all the people that would say otherwise. There are ways to counter a "stack" if the people on the server are unwilling to do it.
Long and short of all this, most of you are just going to complain about this and there's really nothing anyone is going to say to convince you otherwise. It happens in every game with every change in history. So by all means, keep complaining. But know that there are statistics and people with personal experience that say you're all wrong.
Shooting a gun at an alien... intuitive for a human playing a FPS.
Even the video put out by UWE didn't even explain all the changes because its so long... well then how do you expect someone to do just that on a free play weekend, or after a sale? Hell i'm still telling people to use their Exo speed boost. People don't even know that change happened even when its clearly in the change log.
this is my opinion and clearly a bachelor's level look at "build 250" problems. The rest of you are having Master's level discussion but maybe improving what i've pointed out here would help at least retain players longer.
Way to ignore every other thing I wrote, but I'll keep on humoring you since I find this somewhat entertaining. I wasn't even making the argument of NS2/NS1 drawing inspiration from Q3A. I was pointing out how these low skill floor/high skill ceiling games can be satisfying to play regardless of skill level. How's that for opening mouth and inserting foot? So yeah we agree that you have no idea what you're talking about since apparently you haven't acquired the skill called reading comprehension. Come back once you've allocated some skill points okay?
Also don't you find it ironic how you keep spouting anecdotal evidence about how this game is so balanced and filled with the awesomesauce, yet the anecdotal evidence of others mean absolutely nothing? Hey pot come over and let me introduce you to my friend kettle!
I'll probably get an infraction or whatever, but man this was fun to write!
No, it probably mean that marines suffer much less from mediocre teamwork than aliens, which constitute a balancing issue. The game should remain somewhat balanced in public server's mediocre teamwork all around situations if it doesn't want to become too elitist and even more of a niche game than it is now.
I've generally noticed a certain asymmetry between the ability of either side to push on. Aliens need to control and defend tech points like crazy, whereas marines don't care as much about them so they can be more offensive. Since the patch I don't think I've ever seen a win from the alien side where aliens didn't manage to control and hold on to three tech points early in the game (or where the marine commander didn't completely screw up). It makes sense too, considering how hard it is for aliens to push the last marine CC with three hives and all upgrades: with one fewer hive and two CC to destroy it seems pretty much impossible.
In this situation, time play against aliens. Marines can focus on harassing those tech points which are so much more important for aliens than for them, which force aliens to constantly defend those instead of harassing marines.
Once marine have jetpacks and exos the balance tilts very strongly in their favor. You're going to say "just have better teamwork!", but I don't see how it is not an order of magnitude harder to keep for instance onos alive than exos.
Onos and the gorges healing them have to dive right in the middle of the marines and eat grenade/flamethrower spam whereas an exo can control an entire area from a relatively safe position.
And you also need lerks with umbra too to have any chance, whereas any marine can support an exo as long as they have a welder (which they usually do).
Generally, marines have ranged mass destruction weapons whereas aliens have mostly melee lifeforms. More powerful alien life forms are also increasingly harder to play, which would be fine except for the fact that unlike aliens, marines don't pay the extra power they get from jetpacks, FT, GLs or exos with a very increased playing difficulty. They don't have to master difficult movement schemes. Perhaps jetpacks but the fact you usually have a powerful ranged weapon along with it doesn't make it remotely punishing.
In fact, in this patch they made all alien life forms harder to play (except perhaps skulks) than before because of a mix of harder to perform movements and reduced survivability, and at the same time, they made marines easier to play by making FTs and GLs so powerful. I do understand that there was an ongoing balance problem in favor of aliens before the patch, but I think they overcompensated for it.
I do like that marines have a fair shot at a comeback when aliens control most of the map. Unfortunately, aliens have nowhere near the same ability in the opposite situation.
I also do like the necessity for good teamwork, but only in so far as neither side is at an advantage in a situation where you have mediocre teamwork on both side.
The fadeplosion is very difficult to counter if the fades are good. That's fundamentally the problem I'm seeing. Individual fades running around alone get tagged quite easily, but a pack of 4 or 5 that al appear at once is almost impossible to stop. I'm assuming decent fades, here.
Not suggesting anything to get around this, just noting what I'm seeing in games where people know what they're doing (pubs & comp).
Aliens really don't need to control 3 tech points early on. On the contrary, maintaining just 3 harvesters until they can get their fades out is enough as long as marines are not sitting on 6 RTs the entire time. Getting a second hive is actually less important than pre-b250 imo, because you can now get bilebomb and umbra (arguably the two most useful abilities atm) on just one hive. Most of the time when I see a marine stomp on a pub server, it's simply because the alien team suffered from a severe lack of players who are somewhat decent with a fade. Seeing as there are still some green aftershocks following the steam sale, it wasn't very surprising to see quite a few marine wins this last week.
I agree there are some problems with gls/flamethrowers being quite destructive, especially on pub servers, and that there's more potential for a marine comeback (which I like as well), but it's really not essential for aliens to hold and defend three tech points from the very start, far from it. It just comes down to how well the players on the alien team can fade.
I'm sorry, point me to the evidence people are bringing? All I'm seeing is personal opinion, which is commonly misrepresented as "fact" and "evidence" on these boards. Something I've railed about for months now and you're, quite honestly, just continuing the trend of that.
Now, if you want to get back to what your opinion is about 2 other games that, imo, were probably even harder to get into and master then this one (for me anyway), then fine. But don't talk to me like it's some kind of "anecdotal evidence" that I'm overlooking when it's not. It's a fucking opinion. And I'm overlooking it because I don't share it, nor do many others.
The useless stats on ns2stats.org have gone up to 54% aliens to 46% marines. But remember, those are useless stats unless everyone personally sees that all the time.
Just my 2 cents...
Nibblez out!
Good point; agreed.
Also a good point. I think that's a permanent feature of NS2; I don't see anyway for that not to be the case and still have the game retain its character. It has its advantages, too - marines can be "easy mode" for new players, and as they get drawn into the game they can spend more time learning to play the harder side and the harder lifeforms. The big problem is that it means that balance (not just win/loss rates, but also things like which lifeforms / weapons / tactics / strategies are effective or interesting or fun) can end up being very different for pubs than for high-skill matches. I'm confident that UWE, Sewlek, and the community can make it work anyway. It's a challenge, but we'll solve it in time as the game evolves.
I'm not sure they need one. That just means that the effective victory conditions for the two sides are asymmetrical, which of course is fine. Marines can come back when they're down to one base, aliens have to "come back" before they've lost map control. The important thing is that the game ends rapidly once the point of no return is reached. This is true for alien losses and always has been - once they've effectively lost, they will get rolled by the marines in short order. It's also true for marine losses, but it used to not be. Prior to b250 they could draw out a loss nearly forever but without any hope of recovery; now they either lose fast or have a fighting chance to win.
I'm not saying the play is perfect yet. I think it's good, and better than it was. I also think b250 has opened up a lot of possibilities that we need to explore further, and in doing so we'll find ways to make the gameplay even better.
The asymmetry line can only take you so far. In a game like this, where each team has the same end goal (destroy all the hives/chairs), each side needs to have the same chance. Saying that one side can come back after not having map control for the entire game and the other can't is just bull. This only leads to people surrendering or leaving the game very quickly when playing alien and the game starts going downhill because it is PAINFUL to lose, late-game, to marines with JP/FT/GL/SG/Exo/ARC trains. Marines can still have fun with last stands as other people have said.
Did you conveniently forget to add that I specifically said anecdotal evidence? The same kind you use when you're explaining why you find things balanced? I find that W/L stats on public servers to be all but useless so I don't have any "hard" evidence to speak of, but the OP brought up very good points calling out issues introduced in b250. There are also numerous complaints littered in other threads involving b250 and they are valid complaints. If I'm continuing the trend of mispresenting my opinion as "fact" and "evidence," then what the hell do you think you're doing with your posts?
Now I'll explain a bit why I find W/L stats pointless. I am confident in saying that my buddy and I can win 4 out of 5 games as alien whenever we play seriously. Now this is not an e-peen stroking statement where I then glorify my awesome skillz of pwnage. It's just a simple matter of knowing how to properly utilize bile bomb and hopefully adrenaline if we're lucky enough to have it researched. Our sample size is small, but a good representative of how "good" players can skew any game. The same thing applies to marines and anyone with good enough twitch aim to fully utilize the shotgun. All it takes is ONE SINGLE MARINE to completely decimate the alien team early game and the rest of the marine team have to be pretty bad to still lose that game. Using W/L percentage on pub games is therefore pointless when the overall outcome can be more or less decided by 1-2 players (commanders fit into this as well) through overwhelming skill or knowledge of the game. These numbers are even more pointless when roughly half of the current players are most likely those who just bought the game a few days ago and only have a few hours under their belt.
Alright fine we'll go back to your example of how CoD is an "EASY" game to play when it is in fact one of the games included in a professional league? A game that is very easy to get into as is evident by its popularity, but a high enough skill ceiling to be considered part of a pro league? I'm calling you out on your opinion and blatantly saying it's wrong. Now either you admit you made an erroneous statement or we can keep playing this game where you try to misdirect me in some circular logic that I'm having trouble comprehending. Or I suppose you can just keep overlooking an "opinion" you don't share. Either way is amusing to me.
And we're not going to get anywhere if you can't even see the blatant anecdotal evidence you're using in your own posts.
Can someone here answer whether the devs are balancing the game towards 6v6 comp play or 10v10+ pub play? I've always been under the impression that the devs balance towards comp play, and that pretty much makes the argument of balanced pub play an exercise in futility.
The amusing part is that the marines ALWAYS had an easier time managing a comeback. Marines kept every tech except proto at 1-base while Aliens lose everything but the kitchen sink. Sure Aliens got 1-base bile bomb and that helps immensely, but nothing like what the marines can now utilize. Breaking a 1-base turtle marine supported by exos has always been a difficult task for any Alien team. So what do the devs do? They give 1-base marines exos to make that task even harder. It makes me wonder how they reached that conclusion...
I like that marines keep tech at 1 base, the possibility of comebacks is good. What I don't like is how they don't need any other tech points to tech up and how aliens both need tech points to tech up and to keep that tech. It's one of the contributing factors that makes losing as aliens so damn miserably, you lose one hive and start a slippery slope of getting weaker and weaker. Lose one CC as marines and unless it was your main (which it rarely is as that's defended so well) your don't lose your tech.
I'm not against marines keeping their tech at 1-base, but giving them proto tech is ridiculous. They already have instant teleportation and a handy panic button if they get outflanked. This is just a kick in the face for aliens whose tech is tied to their Hives. But I suppose making things easier for marines is fine so long as they give the aliens a handout yeah? And believe you me I'm enjoying my 1-base bilebomb!
Then played aliens and watched them dominate for 4 rounds each time with different players. First 2 times I was aliens on veil and I just did my little battle gorgie in west junction while most of the team kept them from the other side as well. Marines had no map control and lost. The other 2 rounds I was on the marines, we lost both times due to a well times rush that set every marine running back or dead and we lost all map control. Both of these games were on docking.
Last game was on Tram and I was the alien commander. We wreaked the marines after they pushed observation. We started shipping btw. We managed to hold Repair and elevator dispite phasegates in Ore and Mezz, and then with some awesome Drifter enzyme, heal wave, and storm, my aliens were a wreaking train and marched over both ore and mezz killing the exos and then pushing in to Server to win. The alien commander drifter micro is soooooo important now
I can say flamer's are kinda strong when combines with jetpacks, but then again, I nearly died to a lerk who went in to bite me and confused me enough to drop me down to 0 armour and 6 health.
Oni, yeah, with the speedy exos the Oni need some love, especially since exo's now scale with upgrades meaning any exo with good aim and positioning can basically handle almost anything except for a mass alien rush or a few decent skulks/lerks/fades with drifter support.
Like others have said, I think it seems to be different for everyone, some will say marines will dominate every game, some will say that aliens dominate every game. Part of it has to do with who is commanding IMO and how much he/she knows about the new changes.
What I think is kinda silly is that marines need 1 chair to thrive, aliens need 3-4 to thrive with full abilities. What's the point of having all these abilities for aliens if they can rarely use them! Maybe if the amount of biomass you can get on 1 hive increased so aliens could get more upgrades with just 1 hive.
And Docking, I have seen different things. I have never seen marines lose on Docking with a goodish listening team. All of takes is most of the team rushing to Generator at the start, while 1 goes cafe and bar, and 1 to east depending if they start in departures. If marines can rush into gen and get built up it pretty much locks aliens from having 2 hives, and if the team is a little slow, even 1 person up there killing cysts from the start delays the aliens. And if you can't manage to hold in gen as a team, just have 1-2 constantly running up there waiting for the inevitable hive drop while you get a phase gate in maintinence, or if not locker. If you can manage to rally people together fast enough you can cost aliens some serious res by rushing a newly dropped gen hive
I do not think the balance has been tipped completely in favor of marines, but some of the changes could have been a bit more subtle.
The Flamethrower seems to do too much raw damage. Even with a crag next to me I cannot outheal the damage on my Hydras and the Whips next to it. It took a single marine a rough 3 seconds to kill everything, another 3 to kill me.
I'd like to note this happened 4 to 5 minutes into the game.
Skulks can still outmaneuver FT marines without jetpacks, but even a grazing hit usually means you die, too. A decent marine will have hit you enough for that after the second bite.
Once Fades are out FTs become significantly less hard to counter.
I did not notice the exos changing for the worse of any team, but they feel more dynamic, which seems alright to me.
Alien commanders on the servers I played on where a lot less likely to drop Shells/Veils etc. Even crags etc. are less prominent, usually used for their upgrades rather then helping field players. The effect a single shell gives seems to be too little in the eyes of many commanders for their investment cost.
I have seen commanders go for an early second hive a lot more often, scrapping other upgrades and light expansions completely. You cannot live on 2 res towers as alien, but with light structures dieing so easily I can understand why some want to put their money into a building that stays alive for a while when under fire.
My suggestion would be a combination of different things:
FTs should be used in small controlled bursts, let the burn damage do the brunt. Make the fuel tanks empty really fast so marines cannot tank enemies on their own with it. Powerful against single aliens, but easy to overwhelm. Maybe on top of draining energy have them slow down energy generation significantly while the alien burns. Using short, controlled bursts would still enable the marine to shoot down bile, slow down enemy attacks and deconstruct enemy light structures (Hydras, Whips, Cysts), making it a good defensive and offensive weapon without turning it into shotgun 2.0.
Crags healing needs to go up a bit. I do aknowledge the descision not to have it stack, but the healing needs to be adjusted accordingly.
Make the next Shell/Veil/etc. free to place for every hive dropped (one time deal, if the dropped buildings die they have to be rebought for the regular price)
Make Clogs resitant to flamethrowers, this should give alien players some time to react when flamethrower marines rush in.