General Impression on Game State After 2 Years Out and Some Stuff
Shurakan
Join Date: 2013-06-29 Member: 185776Members
Join Date: 2013-06-29 Member: 185776Members
The last time I tried to play the game was in April of 2014, to no avail, because I had a horrific red plug issue that prevented me from playing the game since way before then (June 2013, apparently). After being told that the issue was with my ISP, and them telling me that it was the game, I basically just gave up. Randomly, just a month ago I decided to load up NS2, since at this point I understand the community was in charge of the game. "Whatever, Evolve has the worst matchmaking in history, what do I have to lose?". I was finally able to join games after so many patches. It seems my ISP was correct, and something in the game was preventing me from playing and to my surprise it had been fixed.
I was pleased since I had good experiences in the game.
Many things had changed so I took some time to get used to them and see the climate of the typical game - aka. the normal pug server wherever the small community congregated in. I was enjoying getting back in the game. It still had most of the elements I found enjoyable from way back when. Performance was noticeably better for me, but I also upgraded my video card so that might have had something to do with it. Playing as a marine felt pretty good. The new Fade felt great to me. I remember when Fade had like a short blink thing on shift and could jump twice. I don't even remember what they had on 3 and Metabolize wasn't there the last time I played. Stab seemed pretty useless but other than that I was satisfied, for the moment. The new alien vision is amazing to me. I no longer feel like I have to give my eyes cancer to play alien.
So as not to go into further pointless details - I was happy with what I was seeing.
Then I kept playing for more and more and started to notice a trend - which I'm not sure if it's just me being unlucky or if this is the typical example of an NS2 game.
I know stacking seemed to be a big problem and although it happens and whatever I constantly felt like my experience on the alien team was very different to my experience on marine teams.
For one, being a skulk now kinda... feels off. I feel slow as molasses and useless. I seem to remember some patch when UWE was still in charge that altered skulks, but my memory is vague. This in and of itself isn't much of an issue, but as I kept playing I saw I wasn't the only one who couldn't do much of anything as a skulk. At first I'm like "I'm bad", but then... so is everyone on my team? Facing the modern day marine is like fighting a superhero. I seem to remember a time when skulks could fight marines for real... but now I'm seeing marines 1v2ing skulks to the degree where map control seems super hard to achieve. The only times I see aliens somewhat fighting with any degree of map control is when the alien team gets stacked with players that vastly outclass the marines. When aliens attack the marines they die in droves and still might not win even when they outnumber the marines.
So I changed my playstyle. I stopped fighting marines at all until I was forced to or could eat one from behind. Just eating rez nodes. Not all that much fun, but my K/D ratio improved significantly if I never fought till I was fade. That was great for me... meanwhile my hives were getting killed and most games I play in aliens struggle to hold 2 nodes.
On top of that, my playstyle didn't seem to work on maps that have long narrow corridors or giant rooms and can also be safely divided into lanes. No matter what route I take, marines are there. Marines swarming like ants.
The reason I'm saying all of this is to give some context to what I'm about to say is the procedure of most of my games. Marines start the match and take as much ground as they can, then they hold and slowly push. Any aliens that come are farmed, useful for K/D epeen stroking. If certain players are on the marine team, it doesn't matter what players are on the alien team, if that marine is in a lane, the lane is closed. 2 aliens attack him, he kills one, can kill the second if he gets meds. If he has friends, forget it. A single marine can hold those tunnels in tram against the whole alien team, I swear. The aliens hold 2 nodes and if God Gaben wills it, 3 nodes. Then they hold on for dear life until me and some other sap (because everyone else wants to be onos?) go fade. If these same marines kill the fades the game is over - whether marines win or aliens depends on the last ditch bile bomb rush that the marine comm may or may not react to in time to stop. The outcome of the match is mostly dependent on what these fades decide to do because at this point skulks are even more worthless than at the start of the game (which is saying something) until finally some people suggest "rush a base". When the fades come out it becomes an actual back and forth match. Unless 2 shotgun marines "one shot" a fade, then it goes down shit creek for the aliens. Lerks help, but against these marines any commitment is a dead lerk.
So, I'm going to guess that this is a combination of the lack of coordination going on the alien side that is not really required for marine play and perhaps some gameplay decisions made by the typical random alien. You need 1 or 2 or 3 marines that for all intents and purposes have aimbots (this community swears nobody has them, and I believe them, but would it really matter if they did? If marines outclass skulks this badly you might as well act as if every marine has one) and throw these guys in separate directions so they farm the alien team on each lane. No matter where the aliens push this guy will 1v3 skulks and even if these same men switch teams at that very moment their equivalent on the marine side will farm them as well. So the aliens have to outnumber marines but also need to stop marines from pushing into their hive and shitting all over their 2 rts... and you know, all that stuff. The typical alien team on these random servers will be unable to do these things, in my experience.
I also notice that every single khamm in all of existence goes shift hive first. I have not been here long enough to question this time honored tradition, but I'm going to do so anyway so someone smarter than me can prove his superiority by telling me how stupid I am for questioning it. In my experience, the normal pub alien uses celerity to run into bullets faster, and that's about it. I honestly am a dumbfuck when it comes to the changes to the khamm made in all of these patches, I don't command and have no intention of ever doing so, so feel free to tell me I'm a retard because I don't know a certain detail about khamming. All I know is that something called "biomass" is a thing now. So there might be some invisible benefit here that I don't see. But, again, celerity does not seem to help skulks do anything. In theory they are fast and can be in places marines aren't, but marines are usually everywhere. And these guys don't miss. Every single one of these people is a living aimbot, no matter what acrobatic jumping off the wall climbing onto the ceiling, juking, zig zagging, etc. you do, these marines will wreck your butt. I know man, I've tried it. I'm not even trying to bite, dude, just trying to see if it's even possible to dodge bullets. I learned you can't. So celerity doesn't help me make them miss.
Meanwhile, in crag hive land, I get some more armor so at least I can soak more of those bullets that these guys don't miss. I can take regen so I can harass rts forever and make marines waste ammo on a regenerating skulk. I can go regen lerk and harass marines for eternity. If skulks just want to rush marines all day at least they can take a slightly longer beating.
Man, I'll even take shade. But that's just me trying to rationalize it. As I ramble trying to piece together my thoughts, I wonder if this only happens to me or if this is a common occurrence.
I understand that this state is probably intended, at least to a certain degree. If aliens can't coordinate they deserve to die like the worthless scum they are. Fair enough.
My concern with this is thusly:
It's not all that much fun to be a skulk, right now. Fun is subjective, but it's hard for me to imagine biting rts for life is all that enjoyable to a significant number of people. It's hard for me to imagine that being yet more padding for these guys' K/D ratio is all that much fun. There are times it can be fun, but this mostly depends on the marines you are facing. If they can actually be killed, fun is to be had, if they never miss, being a skulk sucks. At best, against these marines, skulks can run around harassing with parasite, biting the rt when he turns around, playing around with him, etc, which is certainly enjoyable, but it's terrain dependent. Sometimes you just can't do these things. For the vast majority of the game, you are a skulk, and it only gets worse. Even with the slight hp increases you get. New players will all be skulks. I pity them. At least as a marine you can hide behind that guy killing all the skulks!
And unlike marine, you feel like you hit a skill ceiling really, really hard. Part of the reason I played the game was because I always felt I could do better. As a marine, the limit to aim is when I can always hit 100%. Still not there yet. As as a skulk? Land your bites, practice movement. After that? It's all on the marine. His aim decides whether you live or you die. This is kinda disappointing, to me. It feels like a one sided interaction. Even now, at my current skill level, skulks are not that threatening to me, even when I know the player on the skulk is better than me. Sure, there are skulks who can kill me - but that's mostly because I still have more room to grow. When I get better none of those fancy wall jumps are gonna work as well as they do now.
So after typing out all of this dribble, I am also curious as to what I can do, at this very moment, to remedy this situation, at least for myself. What can I try and convince my team to do? Will they even listen? I love playing alien, man, but it's hard and can be frustrating. Really frustrating. When my marine team is getting wrecked I open the scoreboard and see it plain as day: my marines can't aim. The usual case is that marines are pooping on the aliens in terms of kills. If at least 2 marines don't have 15 kills for every death the game is unusual.
Overall the game experience is really good, I dare say superior to what it was when I had to stop playing. This game had, and still has a great deal of potential. There's just that one element of the marine/skulk interaction that I can remember once existed but no longer does that I miss and that I think weakens the game a bit, at least to me. Certainly makes it hard on most servers. I don't think it realistic to suggest a complete rebalance of the state of the game just because I say so, but I'm just saying what I'm thinking.
I also don't like commanders. Not that the game has them, just that nobody wants to command and the effect this has on a game that needs them. 8 minutes of people dicking around until finally someone commands. Nothing can be done about this, I suppose, but it's still kind of annoying. Doesn't always happen.
There's this one server that's always full that's no rookies allowed. Believe it or not I actually qualify to be on this server by about 5 hours. Surprised me, too. I imagine the situation looks different on that server, but I can't really know. Perhaps therein lies the secret.
I have typed all of this stupid shit because I care. This game fills the rare niche of Aliens vs Marines shooter. It is the only one of its kind with any quality, at this moment. Aliens vs Predator has like 60 people at peak and Aliens: Colonial Marines has even less and it is a colossal turd. I want you guys to know that there are people who loved the game ages ago, but had to leave or could not play the game for a multitude of reasons not game related (which you probably know already), and that it is unfortunate that they will probably never find out how far the game has come along but we exist. The game itself is actually good.
TL;DR
Gone for 2 years. Back. The game is pretty good, except playing alien kinda sucks because you are the marine's bitch until fades. And even then you are terrified of shotguns. Hard to play alien in random servers. I suppose masochists enjoy feeding marine egos. Overall it is a good experience, a pity more people are no longer around to appreciate it. You've done good work. Even fixed things some people (me) swore were never gonna be fixed.
I was pleased since I had good experiences in the game.
Many things had changed so I took some time to get used to them and see the climate of the typical game - aka. the normal pug server wherever the small community congregated in. I was enjoying getting back in the game. It still had most of the elements I found enjoyable from way back when. Performance was noticeably better for me, but I also upgraded my video card so that might have had something to do with it. Playing as a marine felt pretty good. The new Fade felt great to me. I remember when Fade had like a short blink thing on shift and could jump twice. I don't even remember what they had on 3 and Metabolize wasn't there the last time I played. Stab seemed pretty useless but other than that I was satisfied, for the moment. The new alien vision is amazing to me. I no longer feel like I have to give my eyes cancer to play alien.
So as not to go into further pointless details - I was happy with what I was seeing.
Then I kept playing for more and more and started to notice a trend - which I'm not sure if it's just me being unlucky or if this is the typical example of an NS2 game.
I know stacking seemed to be a big problem and although it happens and whatever I constantly felt like my experience on the alien team was very different to my experience on marine teams.
For one, being a skulk now kinda... feels off. I feel slow as molasses and useless. I seem to remember some patch when UWE was still in charge that altered skulks, but my memory is vague. This in and of itself isn't much of an issue, but as I kept playing I saw I wasn't the only one who couldn't do much of anything as a skulk. At first I'm like "I'm bad", but then... so is everyone on my team? Facing the modern day marine is like fighting a superhero. I seem to remember a time when skulks could fight marines for real... but now I'm seeing marines 1v2ing skulks to the degree where map control seems super hard to achieve. The only times I see aliens somewhat fighting with any degree of map control is when the alien team gets stacked with players that vastly outclass the marines. When aliens attack the marines they die in droves and still might not win even when they outnumber the marines.
So I changed my playstyle. I stopped fighting marines at all until I was forced to or could eat one from behind. Just eating rez nodes. Not all that much fun, but my K/D ratio improved significantly if I never fought till I was fade. That was great for me... meanwhile my hives were getting killed and most games I play in aliens struggle to hold 2 nodes.
On top of that, my playstyle didn't seem to work on maps that have long narrow corridors or giant rooms and can also be safely divided into lanes. No matter what route I take, marines are there. Marines swarming like ants.
The reason I'm saying all of this is to give some context to what I'm about to say is the procedure of most of my games. Marines start the match and take as much ground as they can, then they hold and slowly push. Any aliens that come are farmed, useful for K/D epeen stroking. If certain players are on the marine team, it doesn't matter what players are on the alien team, if that marine is in a lane, the lane is closed. 2 aliens attack him, he kills one, can kill the second if he gets meds. If he has friends, forget it. A single marine can hold those tunnels in tram against the whole alien team, I swear. The aliens hold 2 nodes and if God Gaben wills it, 3 nodes. Then they hold on for dear life until me and some other sap (because everyone else wants to be onos?) go fade. If these same marines kill the fades the game is over - whether marines win or aliens depends on the last ditch bile bomb rush that the marine comm may or may not react to in time to stop. The outcome of the match is mostly dependent on what these fades decide to do because at this point skulks are even more worthless than at the start of the game (which is saying something) until finally some people suggest "rush a base". When the fades come out it becomes an actual back and forth match. Unless 2 shotgun marines "one shot" a fade, then it goes down shit creek for the aliens. Lerks help, but against these marines any commitment is a dead lerk.
So, I'm going to guess that this is a combination of the lack of coordination going on the alien side that is not really required for marine play and perhaps some gameplay decisions made by the typical random alien. You need 1 or 2 or 3 marines that for all intents and purposes have aimbots (this community swears nobody has them, and I believe them, but would it really matter if they did? If marines outclass skulks this badly you might as well act as if every marine has one) and throw these guys in separate directions so they farm the alien team on each lane. No matter where the aliens push this guy will 1v3 skulks and even if these same men switch teams at that very moment their equivalent on the marine side will farm them as well. So the aliens have to outnumber marines but also need to stop marines from pushing into their hive and shitting all over their 2 rts... and you know, all that stuff. The typical alien team on these random servers will be unable to do these things, in my experience.
I also notice that every single khamm in all of existence goes shift hive first. I have not been here long enough to question this time honored tradition, but I'm going to do so anyway so someone smarter than me can prove his superiority by telling me how stupid I am for questioning it. In my experience, the normal pub alien uses celerity to run into bullets faster, and that's about it. I honestly am a dumbfuck when it comes to the changes to the khamm made in all of these patches, I don't command and have no intention of ever doing so, so feel free to tell me I'm a retard because I don't know a certain detail about khamming. All I know is that something called "biomass" is a thing now. So there might be some invisible benefit here that I don't see. But, again, celerity does not seem to help skulks do anything. In theory they are fast and can be in places marines aren't, but marines are usually everywhere. And these guys don't miss. Every single one of these people is a living aimbot, no matter what acrobatic jumping off the wall climbing onto the ceiling, juking, zig zagging, etc. you do, these marines will wreck your butt. I know man, I've tried it. I'm not even trying to bite, dude, just trying to see if it's even possible to dodge bullets. I learned you can't. So celerity doesn't help me make them miss.
Meanwhile, in crag hive land, I get some more armor so at least I can soak more of those bullets that these guys don't miss. I can take regen so I can harass rts forever and make marines waste ammo on a regenerating skulk. I can go regen lerk and harass marines for eternity. If skulks just want to rush marines all day at least they can take a slightly longer beating.
Man, I'll even take shade. But that's just me trying to rationalize it. As I ramble trying to piece together my thoughts, I wonder if this only happens to me or if this is a common occurrence.
I understand that this state is probably intended, at least to a certain degree. If aliens can't coordinate they deserve to die like the worthless scum they are. Fair enough.
My concern with this is thusly:
It's not all that much fun to be a skulk, right now. Fun is subjective, but it's hard for me to imagine biting rts for life is all that enjoyable to a significant number of people. It's hard for me to imagine that being yet more padding for these guys' K/D ratio is all that much fun. There are times it can be fun, but this mostly depends on the marines you are facing. If they can actually be killed, fun is to be had, if they never miss, being a skulk sucks. At best, against these marines, skulks can run around harassing with parasite, biting the rt when he turns around, playing around with him, etc, which is certainly enjoyable, but it's terrain dependent. Sometimes you just can't do these things. For the vast majority of the game, you are a skulk, and it only gets worse. Even with the slight hp increases you get. New players will all be skulks. I pity them. At least as a marine you can hide behind that guy killing all the skulks!
And unlike marine, you feel like you hit a skill ceiling really, really hard. Part of the reason I played the game was because I always felt I could do better. As a marine, the limit to aim is when I can always hit 100%. Still not there yet. As as a skulk? Land your bites, practice movement. After that? It's all on the marine. His aim decides whether you live or you die. This is kinda disappointing, to me. It feels like a one sided interaction. Even now, at my current skill level, skulks are not that threatening to me, even when I know the player on the skulk is better than me. Sure, there are skulks who can kill me - but that's mostly because I still have more room to grow. When I get better none of those fancy wall jumps are gonna work as well as they do now.
So after typing out all of this dribble, I am also curious as to what I can do, at this very moment, to remedy this situation, at least for myself. What can I try and convince my team to do? Will they even listen? I love playing alien, man, but it's hard and can be frustrating. Really frustrating. When my marine team is getting wrecked I open the scoreboard and see it plain as day: my marines can't aim. The usual case is that marines are pooping on the aliens in terms of kills. If at least 2 marines don't have 15 kills for every death the game is unusual.
Overall the game experience is really good, I dare say superior to what it was when I had to stop playing. This game had, and still has a great deal of potential. There's just that one element of the marine/skulk interaction that I can remember once existed but no longer does that I miss and that I think weakens the game a bit, at least to me. Certainly makes it hard on most servers. I don't think it realistic to suggest a complete rebalance of the state of the game just because I say so, but I'm just saying what I'm thinking.
I also don't like commanders. Not that the game has them, just that nobody wants to command and the effect this has on a game that needs them. 8 minutes of people dicking around until finally someone commands. Nothing can be done about this, I suppose, but it's still kind of annoying. Doesn't always happen.
There's this one server that's always full that's no rookies allowed. Believe it or not I actually qualify to be on this server by about 5 hours. Surprised me, too. I imagine the situation looks different on that server, but I can't really know. Perhaps therein lies the secret.
I have typed all of this stupid shit because I care. This game fills the rare niche of Aliens vs Marines shooter. It is the only one of its kind with any quality, at this moment. Aliens vs Predator has like 60 people at peak and Aliens: Colonial Marines has even less and it is a colossal turd. I want you guys to know that there are people who loved the game ages ago, but had to leave or could not play the game for a multitude of reasons not game related (which you probably know already), and that it is unfortunate that they will probably never find out how far the game has come along but we exist. The game itself is actually good.
TL;DR
Gone for 2 years. Back. The game is pretty good, except playing alien kinda sucks because you are the marine's bitch until fades. And even then you are terrified of shotguns. Hard to play alien in random servers. I suppose masochists enjoy feeding marine egos. Overall it is a good experience, a pity more people are no longer around to appreciate it. You've done good work. Even fixed things some people (me) swore were never gonna be fixed.
Comments
Yes, advanced players often play on lower-level servers, I find it aggravating too, but then again, there's not always somewhere for them to go either. Our player numbers have dropped dangerously low, so there's not always a "no rookies pub" server open and seeded. I've had to settle many times for rookie servers, but I tend to handicap myself though, (ie pistols only).
Within the CDT now (community development team) pretty much every new feature is being measured with the statement "how is this going to help player retention?", so we're very much aware of the player-count issue.
As far as nobody wanting to command... yea that just sucks, not really much to do about that without fundamentally altering the game.
Welcome back! We hope to see you around for a while.
More to the point, I believe a marine should win against a skulk the majority of the time, especially after armour and weapon upgrades. Taking on two to three skulks after upgrades and meds is reasonable as well, especially with a shotgun. Of course, skulks should also stand a better chance with upgrades, but just in general, a marine is expected to beat a skulk.
What you can do is to avoid engaging marines in good position (long line of sight and such, marines can't shoot you if they can't see you), go as a group (marines can't shoot you if they are reloading, and they tend to die quicker with more bites. Going with higher lifeforms that can absorb more bullets helps also), or go around them. The worst thing you can do is to rush against marines in a good position one at a time. Remember, two consecutive hits will kill a marine without armour, and you need at least four* hits to kill a welded marine with meds so you shouldn't allow the marines to recover.
*Maybe three if armour 0, but marines shouldn't be on armour 0 for long.
Parasite + 2 bites = dead armor 0 marine, every time.
Parasite + 2 bites = 3 hits
Actually the situation of why skulks feel so weak and not enjoyable for new players was brought up and analyzed inside the CDT some month ago.
The overall result we came up with where basically these two points:
@Shurakan hopefully these points fit to your impression
So in a way Skulk vs. Marine might not be the problem but that Marines are everywhere these days. Skulks vs. Marines didnt get any significant changes in the last years right? What changed was the overall skill and playstyle for some reason.
I think the main thing that aliens need to be is faster overall. With celerity as a skulk I feel like I have more health than I do with carapace since I get hit so much less and so much more effectively bite someone before they shoot me
Actually i found myself nodding while reading his post and it suprised me that i apparently felt the same but hadn't thought so deeply about it.
It's like in-game the fun often goes away and skulking becomes a chore. You're slow, die quick and a lot, a marine can outjump you while you would think a skulk creature would, weapons are quite accurate over long distances, a marine can run, strafe, jump and still be accurate too.
During one of the last official world NS2 championships i remember reading that even pro players felt that in LAN environments it became apparent that the marine weapons are VERY strong.
I agree gameplay where marines had to stay in teams because aliens were deadlier was more fun to play.
This problem is compounded by >6v6 player count servers which allow for 2+ marines in each "lane" and the lack of adaptation in pub play of aliens. Maybe one day alien players will adapt like they did for marine play...
EDIT: Also who said l2p hasn't occurred over time?
You mention it yourself; the marines have to slowly push down the map. Because once aliens 'leak' they will otherwise have to regress to protect their rts. You have to keep the lanes closed.
So imagine that 1 skulk beats 1 marine now.. It would be that much more difficult to close the lanes while also keeping pressure on the alien res.
Aliens have the privilege, that they do not have to split up in the same way that marines do. Aliens can respond quicker to a threat on the map - they do not need perfect laneblocking like marines do.
So it stands to reason, in my opinion, that marine should have a slight edge in the pvp fights. Even to the point where 1 marine beats 2 skulks, without medpacks. <--That's just my opinion.
I got this game during the beta - I believe I got it after I watched a TotalBiscuit review (Where TotalBiscuit literally axes @Wasabi iirc, important detail...). Back then skulks could sort of 1v1 marines sure. But that was because marines were terrible.
Back then some time in beta I discovered Tane, who was actually playing pubs at that time. He'd go in a server and singlehandedly beat everyone, walk in to their hive, and start spawnraping everyone. This basically happened in every game I saw him in. His skill was so far above the average player at that time, this was indistinguishable from a hacker (not accusing him or anything, other than being amazing, I'm just trying to paint a picture). Eventually I learned to do the same, after lots of pug games, learning from some of the best in the game.
Nowadays, the average player is much closer to Tanes skill, than it was back then. So when you say that a skulk could fight 1v1's back then - I wish you would have played against Tane. Because it's just not true. Skulks mostly seemed stronger, because the marines back then were weaker imo.
And I think it's also fair to say, that the shrinking playerbase, is partly to blame for the rising average skill - it's natural selection at work (pun intended).
The adaption has taken place: Beeing a Skulk is a chore, try to stand early game out, bite rt, wait till you can evolve to higher liveform. This is not as much fun as before when you did matter a little more as a Skulk. Thats what we're discussing here now.
Go whatever hive you like as long as you understand what that necessitates in terms of where your early res goes (i'm referring to shade basically requiring 2 veils up asap).
Skulks aren't useless you just need to know the map to make the moves. I couldn't have made that play without knowing how to maintain a full speed bunnyhop up the steps leading to skylights on veil
I know and that contributes to the problem because then marines are everywhere on the map and the ability to easily 1v1 or 1v2 makes marines way stronger as they have a much larger map presence and more likely greater map control. Also in 6v6 it leaves one "lane" always with 1 marine maximum making that marine lose armor and so combat effectiveness the next time you try to engage if you failed the first time. Unfortunately 7v7 or greater means there is a higher chance he has a buddy to weld, or a buddy who can rotate to weld; thus marines are stronger in higher player count games and compounds marine dominance.
I don't believe you. Still see floor skulks, charging suicide skulks, defend both naturals and lose slowly lose all 3 lanes failing to trade and capitalise, "i'm-a-tank-onos", lack of patience and discipline to wait for teammates.
Skulk is actually my most fun lifeform on publics because of res biting and pulling marines out of position to try and win 1v1s. It's a lot less fun with celerity first though because that seriously damages your staying power when res biting instead of phantom/aura/regen+carapace switching.
It's funny, when biting a res node in a 1v1 scenario, celerity hurts my ability to strafe back and forth to avoid fire behind an RT, but definitely helps in every other scenario, including fighting off an RT instead of strafing.
I think the most useful thing about getting a shift hive first is the ability to echo structures around the map. It's so easy to lose drifters and newly dropped harvesters on the frontline. It's also very helpful to echo support structures to positions under attack.
Echoing and hallucinations could be used a lot more imo. Most pub comms don't use any of these abilities.
8 res is an awful lot to lose for trying to give your team a not-OP engagement boost that also costs res.
Drifters being as sluggish and unresponsive as they are, they're all too easy to lose; indeed when I'm a marine I'll frequently prioritise drifters since they have such little health and killing one is pretty nasty for the alien team's expansion, especially if they have few/no gorges or you already killed 2 other drifters :P
I don't agree with that. I'd love to use drifter support more - the reason I don't, is not because I'm in any danger of losing my drifter in fights, but because I have to use them to build structures. In fact, if I can use drifters to soak up some bullets during a fight, I'd consider that a huge plus.
I usually have a 2 drifter setup, and 2 drifters can for the most part continuously build structures during a game in my experience. Buying a 3rd or a 4th drifter strictly for scouting and field support, IS something I consider, but they cost as much as a harvester.. And if I have to pick between a harvester, or a shell, or biomass, or a lifeform upgrade, or a crag, a shift, a shade, a whip - I'd pick any one of those, before I pick a 3rd or 4th drifter. Hell I'd rather spend 8 tres on cysts than a 3rd drifter.
If drifters were reverted back to 3 tres, I'd spend a lot more time field supporting - I'd of course expect harvester prices going back to 10 as well.
Ahhh I remember the days when 1st thing khaams had to do was build like 5 drifters and put them in random corners around the map. Days of nonsense.
Unless I'm recalling incorrectly and the res cost was increased post enzyme/mucous nerfs, in which case I'd assume it was something to do with that.
Also remember that initially enzyme and mucous were insanely powerful, to the point of being OP , when it was first released. (Hallucinations weren't that useful, but are very much so now)
The cost of casting these were too cheap at the time, as well. (1 Tres iirc)
Also it encouraged having a gorge still in the early game when Tres is precious.
If drifters were 3 Tres then it might be worth having that potential gorge be an offensive skulk instead. (If you weren't rushing for a tunnel)
While expensive, I think the cost is justified still and encourages you to use them appropriately (adding a bit of skill requirement to micro effectively) by popping into a room, casting, and then leaving.
Not to mention what others have said; where if it were 3 tres you would more frequently use them as bullet sponges because at that price they would be worth throwing away.
Does no one remember how infuriating "nascar drifters" were? You could rarely kill one
Really now? Come on, hallucinations are still in a stage of much needed improvement. Gorge A.I. is actually very good, jumping and spitting and generally looking like a real gorge.
Lerk A.I. is a mess. They never flap their wings unless a marine is like 2 feet away from them, meaning otherwise they are constant gliding at about 1mph. I'm not saying the lerk A.I. has to be based off of Div 1 pro's, but it needs to at least be mildly competent.
Skulk A.I. is better than lerk, but worse than gorge. If you don't touch them (i.e. take control of the hallucinations) sometimes they can seem really convincing - hopping around and wall jumping. The problem is if you don't take control of them, they basically get stuck on any small piece of terrain and will stay there until they expire.
Fade A.I. is decent when actually engaging with marines, but otherwise it's a walker fade. It would be much more effective if it used blink to get from place to place.
Onos A.I. is fine.
I don't really foresee this ever getting fixed, but just putting it out there.
*Ahmm* https://trello.com/c/1iFjPi49/743-tweak-bots-to-be-more-effective . Great feedback on the alien bots, will save it in my docs for later.