Honestly pugging on this week's meta (new meta every week confirmed? #rapidDev2016) seems to favour aliens. If aliens can hold 4 res long enough to get onos (not that long) you can easily see an entire team of onos.
The meta used to be that aliens could stay competitive against a dominant marine team with 4 nodes but now it seams like they assure a win on 4 nodes (or at least an entire team of onos which can arguably be the same thing).
Had games where lerks, fades, and gorges were on field yet 4/5 still had onos at once.
The timings between a player gorging first and getting onos and a player lerking first and getting onos don't feel that different either.
Cysts just seem in a weird place now as well. Every cyst has 450 hp when mature which is annoying enough. But making it so that when someone does cut a chain they still have to cleans the map of every cyst seems dumb especially since marines almost never have that time.
It's pretty standard practice among vets to triple cyst nodes, with the cyst chain changes it makes it not very worthwhile to bother with cysts at all as a marine.
did you try out the HMGs?! ... onos op.. pah.. I think it's FAR to early for balance talk... try out some different formats, maybe and different communitys... a bad game is a bad game and you help noone by basing your opinion on a efed up experience... I think we should play a couple of weeks, when ALL the changes are through... I heard rumors that this is not the end of it... let's not judge an incomplete picture after 2 min of looking at it
Likewise to you? I gave my experience after playing in 6v6 comp style games for a night. The feedback I gave doesn't cancel out anyone else's. Feedback isn't zero sum.
I don't think it was an 'efed up experience' however. These games were played rather typical. Only now they had the added balance changes.
If there was a time and a place for telling someone off for giving their opinions it would have been when any opinion was first given.
Not when people started giving opinions that you disagreed with.
Adding to this: Silence being on shift hive feels weird. It's already a strong hive choice due to echo, adrenaline, and celerity. Adding silence on top gives it a lot of utility.
Every hive of course has viable upgrade options but the extra heal wave mechanic of crag, and the ink mechanic of shade are usually far more situational/used far less than the net good of echo. Which to me pushes shift into a clearly optimal choice over the other two.
Silence does feel great to have on a more useful hive though. I know I'll almost always choose it on skulks over celery.
I really want to know other players opinions of crush. With 3 shells placed it reduces an RT kill from 60 to 54 bites for a skulk, and 25 to 22 for an onos. Does that sound like enough extra damage? Any comp player want to chime in on how big a difference 6 bites on an rt can make?
I could literally keep pressure on a defended TP location on my own. Just disappear behind a corner and regenerate all your armor.
I have been doing this to a lesser extent with regen for some time now.
@Nordic As someone who frequently spends entire matches res biting until I have enough res to go Onos, I think 6 bites is an important differences - there's often those situations where you almost get an RT down but not quite. I've almost always picked this upgrade since it's introduction. And as other people mentioned, the real power of this upgrades is seen in skulk rushes.
As for the Onos - after you recently mentioned Regen Onos being powerful I tried playing with it, but it wasn't really my cup of tea. I prefer my Onos a little tankier, and I most definitely wouldn't be able to pull the same hit and run off with regen as with the new boneshield. And since the new boneshield gives you sooo much free armor, I don't see a reason not to go Cara now - after all you want to maximize the amount of armor you get out of it.
First off, this is one of the best updates I can remember... Moving silence to the shift hive has been a godsend for my play style. I've been dominating as a skulk in nearly every game now.
The balance does seem to have skewed balance somewhat though, making some things feel extremely OP (even if they're not)
The HMG for example can melt an Onos so quickly it feels insanely OP...
yet
The new Onos Boneshield can heal such a ridiculous amount you can stand in the middle of a room surrounded by LMG marines and heal yourself while they shoot you...
The new cysting change makes it seem insanely easy for Alien commanders to cyst behind the Marine lines and get forward bases up...
yet
The new Marine comm changes make it harder for Aliens to bite down Marine res...
Only time will tell if it has truly made the game more balanced, I just hope they are going by more than simply win/loss statistics for their record keeping... You can have a perfect 50/50 win/loss balance for each side, but if every Marine win is a grueling 30 minute stomp, and every Alien win is a 2 minute base rush, it's clearly not balanced even the slightest bit...
did you try out the HMGs?! ... onos op.. pah.. I think it's FAR to early for balance talk... try out some different formats, maybe and different communitys... a bad game is a bad game and you help noone by basing your opinion on a efed up experience... I think we should play a couple of weeks, when ALL the changes are through... I heard rumors that this is not the end of it... let's not judge an incomplete picture after 2 min of looking at it
Well the changes that are still coming are very much based on the feedback on the changes that have been implemented so far, so we should probably keep providing it.
As it is part of crag hive, and skulk upgrades are free to respec, it is worth juggling them depending on if you manage to break through marines or not.
It is also important to recognize the power of pack play and the rate at which RTs could melt.
I don't think it's worth evolving Crush before you start biting an RT though. The amount of time to re-upgrade is probably longer than what Crush would save you.
When are the devs going to actually start whitelisting servers on the hive again? It's been 4 months without the hive on Hellarious / Shellarious servers -- they are the most popular servers in Europe and the devs are ignoring them? Come on. Whitelist them already.
These server have been whitelisted as of 2:15PM Pacific. Have Fun!
Thanks so much! I can start playing NS2 again
Just as a minor quibble, is there an internal process and maintenance schedule for whitelisting servers? I think it should be checked more often because 4 months is pretty unacceptable. I believe Hellrunner has been trying to get it whitelisted for a while but didn't have much luck. Glad it's sorted out now though
i hope you fguys are planning on changing the hmg sound effect so it doesnt sound like an exo and also changing the model so it doesnt look like an smg
i hope you fguys are planning on changing the hmg sound effect so it doesnt sound like an exo and also changing the model so it doesnt look like an smg
From 299 changelog:
- HMG has been added, to help deal with those pesky lifeforms
-- Note: Sounds and art assets for HMG are temporary.
i hope you fguys are planning on changing the hmg sound effect so it doesnt sound like an exo and also changing the model so it doesnt look like an smg
Exactly, git some proper iconic nostalgia in here nubs
i hope you fguys are planning on changing the hmg sound effect so it doesnt sound like an exo and also changing the model so it doesnt look like an smg
Exactly, git some proper iconic nostalgia in here nubs
That's the sound of power, that and the pistol sound so much beefier.
As it is part of crag hive, and skulk upgrades are free to respec, it is worth juggling them depending on if you manage to break through marines or not.
It is also important to recognize the power of pack play and the rate at which RTs could melt.
I don't think it's worth evolving Crush before you start biting an RT though. The amount of time to re-upgrade is probably longer than what Crush would save you.
Think about it this way: the faster speed with which you kill an RT reduces the amount of time marines have to respond to the attack. The difference isn't overall time saved assuming you'd always kill the RT - the difference is whether or not you'd have enough time to kill the RT before a marine responds, kills you, and saves the RT (wasting your time completely). At 30% it was incredibly obnoxious, and at 15% I still think it's a decent upgrade. I could see it tweaked to 20% based on feedback but we'll see as more games are played.
i hope you fguys are planning on changing the hmg sound effect so it doesnt sound like an exo and also changing the model so it doesnt look like an smg
Exactly, git some proper iconic nostalgia in here nubs
We were literally just discussing this in the CDT Discord channel. We pretty much all agree it would be a much better placeholder but we can't use the extension mod for assets as that would negatively impact the perception of loading times. It will probably (no guarantees) change in the next patch. Also, bear in mind that I just test things and give feedback - and mostly feedback about things that are broken - so remember that I'm not actually a developer who does this stuff.
Also, Simon is working on a new, distinct sound effect for the HMG, but it's not done yet.
what will happen to the lmg model once the hmg gets updated? hopefully it will get released as a dlc replacement for rifle
or, all marines start with the lmg, its fires faster than the rifle but less accurate. in order to get the rifle you get it from an armory at 0 cost. if u have no armroy then u are stuck with the lmg the lmg and rifle are a choice, which the player prefers, rather than 1 being better than the other
what will happen to the lmg model once the hmg gets updated? hopefully it will get released as a dlc replacement for rifle
or, all marines start with the lmg, its fires faster than the rifle but less accurate. in order to get the rifle you get it from an armory at 0 cost. if u have no armroy then u are stuck with the lmg the lmg and rifle are a choice, which the player prefers, rather than 1 being better than the other
Would rather it functioned exactly the same as the rifle and was just a selectable within Customise Player menu.
Now that grenades are not dropped on death and mines were tweaked, could we also extend this to mines (i.e. not drop them on death)? It's frustrating when I lose my mines when I die before I managed to place them.
You still drop them on the floor when you die. And if you want to keep them and drop them in an aggresive position it's at you own risk. If a skulk ambushes you outside your main while you have mines he should be rewarded. If you die while spamming them on the floor in an engagement or if you run across the whole map without placing them it's your fault.
I've also found crush to be mostly useless.. The change in damage is so minimal that it's just not worth it unless you're doing a coordinated "crush" rush...
Now that grenades are not dropped on death and mines were tweaked, could we also extend this to mines (i.e. not drop them on death)? It's frustrating when I lose my mines when I die before I managed to place them.
Overall I dig these patch changes. HMG is a ton of fun, it adds a lot of interesting choices to how I spend my PRes in the early game. Coupled with the reduced costs to grenades and mines, it feels like a very meaningful decision now when it used to be a linear "choose the right path or the wrong path" sort of deal.
Though the HMG needs to change the silhouette of the marine more imo. As a skulk I can't tell if a player has LMG or HMG equipped until they open fire, which is odd from an immersion standpoint. There isn't enough visual 'weight' to the thing. The reload animation looks like you just grabbed the curves and scaled it out. Make a real reloading animation please! Add visual snap when marines rock a clip in and pull back the charging handle, currently it is very floaty.
Grenades being maintained on death is handy, and I wish mines did the same thing. It would provide more incentive for people to play support with welder/grenade/mine spam in the early game, at the cost of going HMG/jetpack/mech late game.
New Onos bone shield is lovely. That's all, it's awesome.
Cyst changes are a step in the right direction. I still think this mechanic is a bit awkward though, and that they are unnecessarily complex. I don't see why disconnected cysts need any kind of penalty at all.
i really lerk the gas cloud on death from combat, perhaps that could work out as a better crag upgrade than crush? for those who dont know what it is, its essentially a small cloud of lerk gas that appears when u die as a lifeform
Comments
The meta used to be that aliens could stay competitive against a dominant marine team with 4 nodes but now it seams like they assure a win on 4 nodes (or at least an entire team of onos which can arguably be the same thing).
Had games where lerks, fades, and gorges were on field yet 4/5 still had onos at once.
The timings between a player gorging first and getting onos and a player lerking first and getting onos don't feel that different either.
Cysts just seem in a weird place now as well. Every cyst has 450 hp when mature which is annoying enough. But making it so that when someone does cut a chain they still have to cleans the map of every cyst seems dumb especially since marines almost never have that time.
It's pretty standard practice among vets to triple cyst nodes, with the cyst chain changes it makes it not very worthwhile to bother with cysts at all as a marine.
I don't think it was an 'efed up experience' however. These games were played rather typical. Only now they had the added balance changes.
If there was a time and a place for telling someone off for giving their opinions it would have been when any opinion was first given.
Not when people started giving opinions that you disagreed with.
Adding to this: Silence being on shift hive feels weird. It's already a strong hive choice due to echo, adrenaline, and celerity. Adding silence on top gives it a lot of utility.
Every hive of course has viable upgrade options but the extra heal wave mechanic of crag, and the ink mechanic of shade are usually far more situational/used far less than the net good of echo. Which to me pushes shift into a clearly optimal choice over the other two.
Silence does feel great to have on a more useful hive though. I know I'll almost always choose it on skulks over celery.
@Nordic As someone who frequently spends entire matches res biting until I have enough res to go Onos, I think 6 bites is an important differences - there's often those situations where you almost get an RT down but not quite. I've almost always picked this upgrade since it's introduction. And as other people mentioned, the real power of this upgrades is seen in skulk rushes.
As for the Onos - after you recently mentioned Regen Onos being powerful I tried playing with it, but it wasn't really my cup of tea. I prefer my Onos a little tankier, and I most definitely wouldn't be able to pull the same hit and run off with regen as with the new boneshield. And since the new boneshield gives you sooo much free armor, I don't see a reason not to go Cara now - after all you want to maximize the amount of armor you get out of it.
The balance does seem to have skewed balance somewhat though, making some things feel extremely OP (even if they're not)
The HMG for example can melt an Onos so quickly it feels insanely OP...
yet
The new Onos Boneshield can heal such a ridiculous amount you can stand in the middle of a room surrounded by LMG marines and heal yourself while they shoot you...
The new cysting change makes it seem insanely easy for Alien commanders to cyst behind the Marine lines and get forward bases up...
yet
The new Marine comm changes make it harder for Aliens to bite down Marine res...
Only time will tell if it has truly made the game more balanced, I just hope they are going by more than simply win/loss statistics for their record keeping... You can have a perfect 50/50 win/loss balance for each side, but if every Marine win is a grueling 30 minute stomp, and every Alien win is a 2 minute base rush, it's clearly not balanced even the slightest bit...
Well the changes that are still coming are very much based on the feedback on the changes that have been implemented so far, so we should probably keep providing it.
I don't think it's worth evolving Crush before you start biting an RT though. The amount of time to re-upgrade is probably longer than what Crush would save you.
Thanks so much! I can start playing NS2 again
Just as a minor quibble, is there an internal process and maintenance schedule for whitelisting servers? I think it should be checked more often because 4 months is pretty unacceptable. I believe Hellrunner has been trying to get it whitelisted for a while but didn't have much luck. Glad it's sorted out now though
- HMG has been added, to help deal with those pesky lifeforms
-- Note: Sounds and art assets for HMG are temporary.
Exactly, git some proper iconic nostalgia in here nubs
That's the sound of power, that and the pistol sound so much beefier.
I actually reported this as feedback from the first playtest where we had them. I'm a little annoyed it was ignored.
Think about it this way: the faster speed with which you kill an RT reduces the amount of time marines have to respond to the attack. The difference isn't overall time saved assuming you'd always kill the RT - the difference is whether or not you'd have enough time to kill the RT before a marine responds, kills you, and saves the RT (wasting your time completely). At 30% it was incredibly obnoxious, and at 15% I still think it's a decent upgrade. I could see it tweaked to 20% based on feedback but we'll see as more games are played.
We were literally just discussing this in the CDT Discord channel. We pretty much all agree it would be a much better placeholder but we can't use the extension mod for assets as that would negatively impact the perception of loading times. It will probably (no guarantees) change in the next patch. Also, bear in mind that I just test things and give feedback - and mostly feedback about things that are broken - so remember that I'm not actually a developer who does this stuff.
Also, Simon is working on a new, distinct sound effect for the HMG, but it's not done yet.
or, all marines start with the lmg, its fires faster than the rifle but less accurate. in order to get the rifle you get it from an armory at 0 cost. if u have no armroy then u are stuck with the lmg the lmg and rifle are a choice, which the player prefers, rather than 1 being better than the other
Would rather it functioned exactly the same as the rifle and was just a selectable within Customise Player menu.
If anyone can set up a NS1 night make sure to announce in order to make a beer'crakers supply check
I think crush has its uses, just like adrenaline did over celerity. I am also biased that I think regen > all other upgrades.
Though the HMG needs to change the silhouette of the marine more imo. As a skulk I can't tell if a player has LMG or HMG equipped until they open fire, which is odd from an immersion standpoint. There isn't enough visual 'weight' to the thing. The reload animation looks like you just grabbed the curves and scaled it out. Make a real reloading animation please! Add visual snap when marines rock a clip in and pull back the charging handle, currently it is very floaty.
Grenades being maintained on death is handy, and I wish mines did the same thing. It would provide more incentive for people to play support with welder/grenade/mine spam in the early game, at the cost of going HMG/jetpack/mech late game.
New Onos bone shield is lovely. That's all, it's awesome.
Cyst changes are a step in the right direction. I still think this mechanic is a bit awkward though, and that they are unnecessarily complex. I don't see why disconnected cysts need any kind of penalty at all.
Thank you for ping filter!