When did the noob GL spam start...
maD_maX_
Join Date: 2013-04-07 Member: 184678Members
Join Date: 2013-04-07 Member: 184678Members
I was off for the holidays, and i come back to this massive GL spam-fest... In the past 3 days 2 things have been constant. 1st no one will alien com. 2nd, when the first fade goes up instead of seeing SG hit the field I see waves of GL's spamming everywhere. Now I lol'd at first at the sillyness but after taking a couple of random GL's to the face i realized that in the hands of a 6-35 a SG is worthless and they might as well fire blindly with something that does splash. Personally I dont blame them, but I cant stand the game play. Its completely skill-less and does not allow for the player to develop skill (aside from learning a bit of geometry)
To this end, I have mixed feelings about it. Is it a real problem? should it be fixed? if so how? When I use Gl its usually in combo with a JP, and another marine who are trying to snip a hive before they react. This structure attack feels like its intended goal. So the only thing i could see changing is its damage vs players being reduced.
I cant really think of any drastic problem from reducing GL damage to players... aside from not killing that gorge in his fort (but who would want that)...
To this end, I have mixed feelings about it. Is it a real problem? should it be fixed? if so how? When I use Gl its usually in combo with a JP, and another marine who are trying to snip a hive before they react. This structure attack feels like its intended goal. So the only thing i could see changing is its damage vs players being reduced.
I cant really think of any drastic problem from reducing GL damage to players... aside from not killing that gorge in his fort (but who would want that)...
Comments
I play on those a lot and I've never seen GLs as a problem when playing alien / comming. I would see it as a problem if I were commanding marines
I definitely don't think its a problem. GL's can damage the user, so, point-blank explosions in the face usually mean the GL Marine is gonna die too from the blast.
But, when you're entering a room as a Fade, and you run into 2-3 Marines with GL's, sometime you just find yourself dealing with 8-12 grenades suddenly popping around you. Hope you have some energy to about-face blink away!
Not hard to deal with as a competent Lerk/Fade as you should have 1 or 2 of each by the time JP's hit the field. But yes, soloing Hives with silly puppies jumping all around you is cute.
Love where JP's are right now. Thank God for adding the jump back in when wearing one...
But i do dislike how high the skill floor is.... GL has become the Noob cannon, and while sure its great that finally a noob rine might end my 43-2 fade, I cant stand the lack of skill required. once 3-4 GL's start spamming nothing short of an onos dare approach. While this is true of 3-4 decent SG's at least dieing to a SG I can respect the persons twitch.
SO i dont know, I want to give the Greens a fighting chance, but spamming GL's is just annoying and leads to games of roulette.
Nanoshield is great but it's SOO expensive (both to research and use) that I wouldn't be getting it until late, probably after AA but maybe before jetpacks. I'm not exactly a great marine com though.
I also like to rush hives myself (second and third, maybe even fourth if we get it) because I would rather make it that much more difficult for the marines to take (back) the room. That all depends on res flow though and I do get upgrades along the way, just not necessarily all of them at the first opportunity.
As far as grenade spam... it bothers me that a grenade can pretty much end a lerk by chance and there's nothing the lerk can do about it. Shotguns you can keep your distance but a lucky grenade can hit you pretty damn far away before the lag interp even lets you know it's been fired. For other lifeforms (other than skulk which doesn't matter) it's not much of an issue.
You were around before the radius decrease though, right? Because today is nothing compared to what it used to be.
For me it's less about the splash and more about the grenades that actually hit a target. With the improved trajectories they are a lot more effective at doing that. For me though the real problem is that by the time you see the grenade in the air it's already too late to dodge because of interp.
Think I've hit myself more times then actually get it inside the vent.
However, when people learn to shoot, they upgrade to the shotgun, and then you'll wish they stayed with the GL spam. Your fade will kill me far more times than one of my lucky grenades, as I can't shoot with a shotgun
Game sense also shows if you are buying GL's, you don't really have any...
And it is actually good when there is one weapon in the game that noobs can use to have at least a bit of success. It keeps them playing. And than they will get better with the LMG and later with other weapons too.
With the reduced splash radius it isn't as annoying as it was.
I say, let them have those few easy kills. Even if they don't "earn them". You get enough kills anyway. And new players need some success to keep playing.
But if you killed dozens of GL'ers before losing your 43-2 Fade to one lucky nade, i guess it's a good PRES trade
My solution. Turn on friendly fire and let the problem solve itself
have 5 of them flying around, it takes several lives to get one out of the air.
You may wanna rephrase your post so it is clear what agree/disagree actually means, then ;-) That JP hive soloing is awesome? Or that it should be nerfed?
100% agree with that. Getting killed as Lerk by a random(!) grenade to the face is just plain annoying. If someone manages to hit you with an *aimed* GL shot, that's fine, but that's quite rare compared to those lucky spam hits.
What I also find annoying is the relatively low self-damage with GL shots. I don't know the numbers, but I've seen damaged marines kill me as Skulk with a point-blank grenade, and still survive the blast. IIRC, self-damage is a percentage of the normal damage, which I understand to avoid frustration from bouncing grenades. But in close combat, it gives really weird results.
lol I was sarcastic about loving it. I have no problem with the DMG to lifeforms, but a JP gl can decimate alien hives and upgrades, while keeping fades and lerks chasing u in a hive.. and rines can hit elsewhere. worst case I can think of is cargo on veil..
basically, I wanted a nerf in some way. no alien has a real ''noob cannon'', and we already have mobile arcs... its like having flying arcs controlled by an individual marine... now the dislike
I'm on the fence on how specialized the GL is. You hardly ever see it in pro-games. And it's mostly due to the effective strength you lose vs. lifeforms for the increased damage output to structures, and area denial.
Would an iteration of the GL being turned back into a mounted component to the LMG be viable with certain limitations? (see: balance)
Such as the mount GL having 2 shots per clip instead of 4. 12 grenades instead of 28(?) Decreased movement speed for the Marine (mostly to remove agility for fights). Unlocked at the AA, same Res cost. I'd like to NOT touch the LMG itself, but limit the effectiveness over time of the double-weapon.
The point is to still provide a tool for area-denial and base siegeing, without making the marine useful for JUST that.
Hmm, just a 2 second idea for making GL more, err, "action", how about making the nades explode on impact on anything? That way you could use it to combat lifeforms extremely effectively but you'd also have to shoot exactly where you want it to explode?