Div2-3 PCWS are Boring

Me9a · July 2013

[WongaNS] played latley a lot of pcws and you know what they where most likley all boring
because as you can see here:

29.07.2013	 VS - Virtual Selection           	          Div 3 S2    3:3	    6 alien wins
28.07.2013	 [TWAT] - Teamwork and Tactics	    Div2 S2	    2:2	    4 alien wins
25.07.2013	 is Radical2 - is Radical2	                  Div3 S2	    2:2	    4 alien wins
24.07.2013	 Packet Loss - Packet Loss	              Div2-3 S2	 2:2	    4 alien wins
23.07.2013	 |el'pheer| - el'pheer  	                    Div3 S2 	   2:2	    4 alien wins
22.07.2013	 VS - Virtual Selection	                     Div3 S2	    2:2	    4 alien wins 
21.07.2013	 [TWAT] - Teamwork and Tactics	    Div2 S2	    1:1     2 alien wins

most likeley every game gets won by Aliens there is nearlly nothing you can do.
Here a list of reasons why i think that is allways the case:

-Aliens come allways in packs of 3-4 players most likeley with babblers and a gorge on engangments
(you need awesome good marines to kill them in that case)
Marines will most likley dont survive that and lose the RT they tryed to build.

-The Fade explosion brings 4 Fades assulting the Phase Gate/s when Marines barley have Armor1 and Shotguns
no matter how good you are when 4 Fades use awesome Teamplay the Marines will lose the PG or the Aliens will meanwhile capture the whole map

-Marines haveing an hard time unless you have awesome teamplay and mad skills to have any chance vs decent aliens

Im not sure if its just our "strong" Alien play and our "bad" Marine play or if its also the case when these teams play each other.
but still its SUPER BORING to even play when you know 3-4 alienplayers will kill the cappers and fadeexplosion will win the game no matter what you do.

it started with build 250 to be like that and now with build 251 "it feels like"(not sure about that) its even more the case.
i hope the upcoming balance changes will fix this otherwise people will just get demotivated and stop playing.

Mega

Frozen · July 2013

Just posted this on the ridiculous fades thread, pretty relevant

mattji104 wrote: »

In my opinion the game should play such that if you kill the fades, you win. But that should not be able to be your sole purpose.

What is making fade-killing such a focal point is not the fade itself, there's other factors such as gorge cost and 1-hive bile that make it so that even if marines deny a 2nd hive the aliens are still in position to win. The focus is no longer on the 2nd hive because it does not unlock the abilities, straight across the board, which allow the aliens to turn their defensive role to an offensive role. That being bile and umbra.

So, since the aliens are not forced to defend their second hive point, they can make decisions where they move to other parts of the map and attack phase gates etc that they WOULD NOT HAVE CHOSEN TO ATTACK, simply because they were able to sacrifice their second hive. This removes marine pressure teams and induces phase gate "turtles." (The NECESSITY of them, really, when playing better alien players)

Now, aliens are focusing on upgrades and dropping hives later, where the hives should be going down no sooner/later on average than fades are coming out, and the fades should be FORCED into a defensive role (This being meta-talk. Of course aliens can just have played well enough to get into an offensive position within 4 minutes) This works well with the current features because gorge tunnels in the 2nd hive, the hive, a dc, and gorge building are what should be keeping the fades healed and a relatively low-upgrade marines out of the hive. (Along with the fades. This is why sieges were so intense.) This is also a point where shotguns come out and the marines can choose between siege and attack.

So what can be done to push bile and umbra back to 2 hives without making early shotguns too overpowered? (Suggestions: 1. Projectile spores and a spike nerf, 2. Skulk speed increase, just some initial thoughts. Spores seriously hinder marine economy making low armor phase "turtles" as mentioned before less viable, skulk speed increase because we are sacrificing some alien map presence decision making ability by dictating their tempo more)

edit: I forgot to mention that these are major reasons for the length of current round times

edit: I chose to specifically ignore the fade-explosion problem/concerns for this discussion.

MaxAmus · July 2013

Not mostly boring, TAW1 has been winning quite a few of there marine rounds. But i can see how this can pan off as it seems we have a very hard time in dealing with fades (cause there is always 3-4 once we had 5 :P) all come at the same time.

Jekt · July 2013

Agree. There is no downside to early alien pack play (eggs are meaningless and the entire team can wave spawn to defend if at all required) and fade explosions suck. Maybe something will be done in Semptember.

thelawenforcer · July 2013

imo, the problem isnt really alien pack play as thats fair game, rather its that marines have to play extremely defensive once the fades are out (usually pretty early 6-8 minute mark in general i think) because phase gates are extremely vulnerable and because upgrades are so expensive that it takes forever to get the res for them (and they take ages to upgrade) meaning that marines cant confidently push for a long time... i wouldnt mind seeing the old upgrade costs and a slight push back on the phase gates again...

dePARA · July 2013

All pcws i watched in the weeks after 250 ends in an 4 fade umbra lerk pack.
One good fade is hard to kill but 4 + umbra a nearly unstoppable.
They can be everywhere on the map in seconds, nearly no chance for an midskilled team for an comeback.

Marines can have a good start, but the 4 fade pack are gg for div2 div3 teams.
Maybe the best div1 teams can handle that. If so, the balance is for the ass.

250 was made for more possible options and ends in always the same games.
We had that some builds ago where it was gg @ the point the one onos was on the field.
But this one slow onos is nothing against super fast fades.

In my opinion there has nothing changed in clanwars. Only one way is the key to victory for aliens.
Like in every build before 250.

nezz · August 2013

Jekt wrote: »

Agree. There is no downside to early alien pack play (eggs are meaningless and the entire team can wave spawn to defend if at all required) and fade explosions suck. Maybe something will be done in Semptember.

This is for the narrow minded. There are strats that have been made to counter early skulk pack play. The problem is the fade pack play with umbra is v hard to counter correctly without equal numbers & the ability to have all game winning alien tech on 1 hive in about 4 minutes on 1 rt and have fades out on 7 mins on 2 rts.

thelawenforcer · August 2013

T W A T played vs VS last night, ended 3:3 with all alien wins. We got pretty close on our first marine game, taking down 5+ fades and several hives, but they managed to hang on, refade and eventually base rushed us.

@nezz i'm interested in hearing what strats counter skulk+babbler pack play tbh. we found this impossible to deal with, and had very poor marine rounds when this was used against us - we simply could not win any engagements.

joshhh · August 2013

How to win marines:

1. Can marines kill alien RTs?
Yes - > Go to #2
No - > You lose.
2. Can marines deal with the fade ball and frag fades?
Yes - > Marines win.
No - > Marine turtle is eventually broken and you lose.

This pretty much applies to every scrim/pcw at any level. Don't know why this is thread just targets Div 2 and Div 3.

fanatic · August 2013

I agree with the posters who are saying that there's a difference between top, mid and low level teams with regards to how successful they are at playing marines versus aliens, but it is also in my experience true that the alien side is slightly stronger. Archaea had the strongest marine round of any team since the late beta, but we still have more rounds lost as marines than aliens.

It's not a good state for the game to be in at all and I think the balance definitely needs to change. Nerf aliens or buff marines, basically.

I'm very eager to see what's going to happen with the community this month. In the past, when we played ns1, things always started picking up in august, after the summer inactivity. I've sort of just expected that the same would happen now, but after looking at the sign up list for the summer cup, I'm not so sure anymore. That's a really depressingly short list. Disastrously short.

(crosspost from ensl)

statikg · August 2013

There is always a difference in balance at tiers. Its a result of a higher skill ceiling for ranged fps (aim skills) play then melee (movement skills).

dePARA · August 2013

4 teams can handle the fades sometimes maybe while all the other teams cant.
Thats a sad skill level for an game that want to be competitive.

SammyG · August 2013

I dont know about the rest of the teams but RadicaL is on a break until next week and we have people away the weekend of the summer cup so we decided not to sign up.

piratedave · August 2013

i cant remember who posted this idea before but ill repeat it here

Fades should get a huge nerf to HP/cara
Biomass needs a huge boost to hp/cara per biomass (maybe make it exponential ?)

early fades should be high risk while late fades 9-12 biomass will have the same or more HP as they do now.

i thought it was a pretty good solution

Therius · August 2013

You're seriously considering 9-12 biomass in the competitive forum?

Ironman · August 2013

They way to win is changing your strategy. You need to get arms lab first with armor 1, then drop your first armory at second hive. this will also become your AA.

But research mines early game to protect rt or base rush. after armor1 is complete, and weapons 1 is almost complete, phase tech should be complete around the same time leve1 weapons complete. or just rush jetpacks without pg, while holding 4rts

Ironman · August 2013

Second , i dont agree to nerfing the fades. Once flamers are on a fade, their adren depletes, and they are a walking dead duck to a shot gunner. I think carapace should increase for the fade...or make energy unlimited : P (buff adren) : D

Bacillus · August 2013

fanatic wrote: »

I agree with the posters who are saying that there's a difference between top, mid and low level teams with regards to how successful they are at playing marines versus aliens, but it is also in my experience true that the alien side is slightly stronger. Archaea had the strongest marine round of any team since the late beta, but we still have more rounds lost as marines than aliens.

It's not a good state for the game to be in at all and I think the balance definitely needs to change. Nerf aliens or buff marines, basically.

I'm very eager to see what's going to happen with the community this month. In the past, when we played ns1, things always started picking up in august, after the summer inactivity. I've sort of just expected that the same would happen now, but after looking at the sign up list for the summer cup, I'm not so sure anymore. That's a really depressingly short list. Disastrously short.

(crosspost from ensl)

I think at the very least there's a dire need for something to spark things up.

No matter how I look at things, I can't figure out even the slightest on what is actually going on. To an outside viewer the game still looks like it needs another year before it really starts looking 'complete' and there doesn't seem to be any guarantee UWE or community are committed for that in a decisive enough way.

Do I want to start picking things up when I get some more free time? At this point I'm probably putting my time on something else.

Div2-3 PCWS are Boring

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