Gorge,
-Reduce clog HP by 20% or add maturity (want to feel out both at some point)
-Reduce max clogs to 8 from 10
-Webs cost 1pres, no limit (remove this)
Marine
-Axe can kill web with 4x swings
Exo,
-Make Minigun and Railgun research separately, keep same cost per
Infinite webs is baaaaadddd.. (should've been removed already I think too?)
There's an issue here with webs that I don't believe can be solved by pres. They won't be worth it if they're easier to kill. And they should be easier to kill (with axe). Marines just need better tools early on. (nades etc) ..To be frank.. I don't believe they should cost Pres.
Clog count should remain 10 for a multitude of reasons. Gorge forts just weren't as strong, and this combined with the HP reduction was overkill
After testing, the effectiveness of 2 marines killing a full fort made by 2 gorges (clogs, webs, babbler mines, hydras) was as difficult as it always has been. However when it's just 2 gorges filling a hallway with clogs vs 2 marines, it takes less than a second to penetrate. The clog HP has little to zero effectiveness against 1 or 2 marines since only 1 or 2 clogs have to be destroyed to penetrate a doorway.
I agree gorge clog count should not be lowered and neither should the clog HP.
Webs feel very weak as-is, making them cost pres means players would always make babblers over webs every time.
Suggestion: Make welders and/or axes do extra damage against clogs. This way the marine player has to expose him/herself by obscuring their own line of sight as well as give up the weapon switch delay.
I can foresee no argument in support of any of these listed changes.
The capacity for gorges to fortify a position is roughly half of their entire role, this change erases that. Going from requiring the marine to plan in advance to eradicate the gorge emplacement to simply trivially and effortlessly eradicating with no foreknowledge, no research, no pres cost, simply using the same gun that they rely on for all purposes without cost.
What exactly is the gorge player getting for his 8 pres? He gets roughly double his eHP in exchange for his movement speed. He loses his damage potential, and he gains the opportunity to spend more of his pres. He gains the ability to heal his team mates and build structures. Features the marines got either for free or for a bit over 1/3rd of the cost.
Webs are not worth pres. They slow by about 20% for about a second, if the marine is in some strange circumstance prevented from simply walking around the web, which is often possible, he suffers only a very brief blip of parasite, 10 seconds long. Is this valuable information? Very possibly. It's also information that a skulk can provide for free for 4 times longer than the web will.
If the gorge is not intended to be able to invest into an area to defend it, why it possible to construct defenses? Why offer him the false choice of constructing things nominally labeled as defenses? If there is a specific issue with combining hydras and clogs in a way that simply adds ablative damage to hydras, fine, address that. Do not nuke the entirity of the gorge's toolkit chasing that interaction.
If the hydras is not usable without this interaction then address the HP of the hydra, don't codify a bug as a feature by balancing everything else around it.
The goal was to remove the usual tunnel rush. Too bad. It's the opposite that happened.
Tunnel rushes only work when
a) the marine comm is a complete muppet
b) the marines are already on their toes and cannot spare to do a beacon/phase back to base (in which case the tunnel is not important, only that a new front is opened where there are less marines)
none of which justifies nerfing tunnels. its so flippin easy to counter a tunnel rush.... why does it feel more cheesy than doing a catpack rush as marines at the start?
because there are no large-scale engagements and fighting for rooms? the reason why i love the game is that it gives you options to win. if you reduce that to ONE META it's not gonna help. you might dislike tunnel rushes, but there are players who get off on such. play, and let others play.
regarding clogs, it's gonna have the same effect. you INTEND to disincentivize clog walls because YOU dont like them, but none of the planned changes would help.
gorges will still build clog walls, and other aspects of gorge-play will suffer.
Gorge,
-Reduce clog HP by 20% or add maturity (want to feel out both at some point)
-Reduce max clogs to 8 from 10
-Webs cost 1pres, no limit (remove this)
Marine
-Axe can kill web with 4x swings
Exo,
-Make Minigun and Railgun research separately, keep same cost per
Infinite webs is baaaaadddd.. (should've been removed already I think too?)
There's an issue here with webs that I don't believe can be solved by pres. They won't be worth it if they're easier to kill. And they should be easier to kill (with axe). Marines just need better tools early on. (nades etc) ..To be frank.. I don't believe they should cost Pres.
Clog count should remain 10 for a multitude of reasons. Gorge forts just weren't as strong, and this combined with the HP reduction was overkill
After testing, the effectiveness of 2 marines killing a full fort made by 2 gorges (clogs, webs, babbler mines, hydras) was as difficult as it always has been. However when it's just 2 gorges filling a hallway with clogs vs 2 marines, it takes less than a second to penetrate. The clog HP has little to zero effectiveness against 1 or 2 marines since only 1 or 2 clogs have to be destroyed to penetrate a doorway.
I agree gorge clog count should not be lowered and neither should the clog HP.
Webs feel very weak as-is, making them cost pres means players would always make babblers over webs every time.
Suggestion: Make welders and/or axes do extra damage against clogs. This way the marine player has to expose him/herself by obscuring their own line of sight as well as give up the weapon switch delay.
I can foresee no argument in support of any of these listed changes.
The capacity for gorges to fortify a position is roughly half of their entire role, this change erases that. Going from requiring the marine to plan in advance to eradicate the gorge emplacement to simply trivially and effortlessly eradicating with no foreknowledge, no research, no pres cost, simply using the same gun that they rely on for all purposes without cost.
What exactly is the gorge player getting for his 8 pres? He gets roughly double his eHP in exchange for his movement speed. He loses his damage potential, and he gains the opportunity to spend more of his pres. He gains the ability to heal his team mates and build structures. Features the marines got either for free or for a bit over 1/3rd of the cost.
Webs are not worth pres. They slow by about 20% for about a second, if the marine is in some strange circumstance prevented from simply walking around the web, which is often possible, he suffers only a very brief blip of parasite, 10 seconds long. Is this valuable information? Very possibly. It's also information that a skulk can provide for free for 4 times longer than the web will.
If the gorge is not intended to be able to invest into an area to defend it, why it possible to construct defenses? Why offer him the false choice of constructing things nominally labeled as defenses? If there is a specific issue with combining hydras and clogs in a way that simply adds ablative damage to hydras, fine, address that. Do not nuke the entirity of the gorge's toolkit chasing that interaction.
If the hydras is not usable without this interaction then address the HP of the hydra, don't codify a bug as a feature by balancing everything else around it.
MephillesGermanyJoin Date: 2013-08-07Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
The main problem with tunnel rushes in the first place is that there were always some alien players who did nothing else but sit in a vent as gorge the entire game waiting for 1 opportunity to drop a sneaky tunnel and therefor reducing the alien team by effectively 1 or 2 players which hurt them a lot more in the game than they helped. And when the tunnel rush actually works like 1 out of 5 times (not sure if that is true) they feel great about themself and think this weas the best play possible and continue to hurt their teams.
Also since B323 the balance of the game reached pretty much 50:50 but I don't know the quality of the games. The ones I played seemed ok.
On a sidenote you can very well baserush without a tunnel, especially if you have 3 hives. marines need to commit to kill a hive (atleast somewhat) so the same way you bring your team to enter the tunnel to rush the base you can bring them to walk all the way to the marine base to do the same, the high number of aliens will shred through the 1 or 2 marines you will encounter on the way.
A personal sidenote: This problem is far less of a problem for small player count games (8v8 for example). With 12v12 the map is crowded and open lanes barely exist at all, which makes aliens feel the need to drop cheese tunnels in the first place. I still recommend playing 8v8 or 9v9 instead and the problem is much less noticable then (also higher playnumbers seem to help marines more generally)
The main problem with tunnel rushes in the first place is that there were always some alien players who did nothing else but sit in a vent as gorge the entire game waiting for 1 opportunity to drop a sneaky tunnel and therefor reducing the alien team by effectively 1 or 2 players which hurt them a lot more in the game than they helped. And when the tunnel rush actually works like 1 out of 5 times (not sure if that is true) they feel great about themself and think this weas the best play possible and continue to hurt their teams.
There are also people who run in straight line as skulk, walk as fade, dont go back to heal as onos, etc... they are as useless as the gorge who's camping in a vent to drop a tunnel at some point. I don't think you should balance around a player's stupidity.
The rest i totally agree with. Especially the part where smaller servers prove to be more enjoyable and balanced.
One of the big problems is that people view the 12 v 12 or 25 v 25 servers as an actual game. That is not the case. This game was created and balanced around 6v6 games. Unfortunately due to player count and retention we are forced to play 12v12 most of the time. I actually prefer 10v10 max so i dont get massacred when entering a room with 8 marines in the doorway. The real issue with balancing is it doesn't scale well past 10v10.
Tunnels being nerfed is a good thing because it was one of the highest chances aliens have to win, thus used more than any of the other methods to win. This skewed the winrate towards aliens because of ONE method. I see things going either way most games now but I will let the data come in and we will all see what that shows us soon enough. I will say that due to very little scaleability on the alien side that it is really tough as an alien in anything higher than 10v10 IMO. It could be fixed with an alien buff or damage resistance buff based on server player count past 18 or something. Just an idea.
Also as for patch 324 axe swinging on webs should be 2, Four is just too much. I can destroy a web in about 2 seconds with a welder or just hop over the web.
Rail gun exos should probably just be removed at this point in favor of buying a portable rail gun form the armory or allow customisable options to exos. Currently the second rail gun is essentially useless. They dont do high enough damage to fades and especially onos. Basically your dead if you miss one shot. Against an onos you are nothing. Make rail guns cheaper Pres. like 30 or something. This would give marines a reason to research the other option of exos. Because if UWE separates the exos into two researchable items, then no one will ever get rails.
One of the big problems is that people view the 12 v 12 or 25 v 25 servers as an actual game. That is not the case. This game was created and balanced around 6v6 games. Unfortunately due to player count and retention we are forced to play 12v12 most of the time. I actually prefer 10v10 max so i dont get massacred when entering a room with 8 marines in the doorway. The real issue with balancing is it doesn't scale well past 10v10.
I totally agree, what im not sure about is the reason for this shortcoming.
Is it purely because of game mechanics? (relative player-count difference in a given room)
Or is it because maps have too few lanes?
Summit, tram are pretty much unplayable as aliens above 12v12. On the other hand, i've played some custom map on thirsty which had more lanes, and was enjoyable, even despite the GL spam.
There are a few factors in this from what I can tell.
The main reason I think is the fact that marines get stronger and stronger over time while aliens stay relatively the same. That coupled with marines having a stronger base form at max than aliens with no pres. Once a marine gets to a3 w3, 2 marines can take an onos in their base form with rifles if they are decent. However if that onos dies then they revert to a skulk which is nearly no match for a a3 w3 marines 1v1. It gets exponentially more difficult for aliens / lifeforms to survive encounters as the game goes on because of this.
Hypothetical situation - Say in a 4 v 4 in Repair. 1 fade, 2 skulks, 1 lerk vs 4 w3 marines. One Marine damage output in 1 second is 236 dmg/s but with an average 20% accuracy is like 47 dps. That means Each second these marines 4 marines are putting out ~188 damage from Close to Long range.
Skulk effective HP at bio 6 w/ carapace ~148.
Lerk - Pretty sure its 257 with bio 6 and carapace
Fade - I think its like 400 with 6 biomass 6 and carapace.
Basically these marines can kill the first 2 skulks in 2 seconds and then the lerk before their first reload. Then the fade within 2.5 seconds of that. So in the span of 6 or so seconds all these aliens can die. However most players focus on higher lifeforms or at least they should. This means a fade can die in about 2 seconds of combat in this room compared to a 2v 1 an the fade can live for up to 5 seconds if they dont take out the marines first or escape. Basically each added marine makes it multiple times more difficulty for a higher lifeform to survive an encounter even in a group.
No big deal though right? Skulks are free but if the fade & lerk die then instead of having 400 health, 257 respectively they go back down to 148 or w/e. This leads to a disparity between the teams in the Marine favor because they get to keep all their upgrades after death. Lifeforms dont. The only way for marines to lose their base advantage is to take out their arms lab. Not an easy task. So you are stuck in an unfavorable situation because aliens lose their lifeforms much easier than in low count servers.
Thats why I think it would be nice for aliens including their structures to get either a hp buff or incoming damage debuff based on the player count. That number is not something I can say off hand but I want to say 3% damage for each +6 players after 12 player count that increase with each segment or stays the same. Look below to see what that would look like:
MephillesGermanyJoin Date: 2013-08-07Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
as rule of thumb I have for myself (works nice in 6v6 not sure how it does for 12v12): always have twice as much aliens in the fight as marines unless you fight on alien PvE. If more than half of the marine team is on the same place you avoid the fight if possible and do damage somewhere else.
b) the marines are already on their toes and cannot spare to do a beacon/phase back to base (in which case the tunnel is not important, only that a new front is opened where there are less marines)
So they weren't looking back... Map awareness... I have no mercy for them.
The main problem with tunnel rushes in the first place is that there were always some alien players who did nothing else but sit in a vent as gorge the entire game waiting for 1 opportunity to drop a sneaky tunnel and therefor reducing the alien team by effectively 1 or 2 players which hurt them a lot more in the game than they helped. And when the tunnel rush actually works like 1 out of 5 times (not sure if that is true) they feel great about themself and think this weas the best play possible and continue to hurt their teams.
That we can agree on. Same goes for the marines. A GL spam isn't looking better either.
Also since B323 the balance of the game reached pretty much 50:50 but I don't know the quality of the games. The ones I played seemed ok.
precisely not. The game moved to something else. It's more like cannon fodder land. Like a WarHammer 40K artwork. There is less infiltration behind the enemy lines. Less strategy, more brute force. At some point hives are falling. It's rather stupid and not entertaining. Games last longer in the case marines are falling. They turtle more. It would be ok for me if the game experience was better. I'm afraid it's not.
On a sidenote you can very well baserush without a tunnel, especially if you have 3 hives. marines need to commit to kill a hive (atleast somewhat) so the same way you bring your team to enter the tunnel to rush the base you can bring them to walk all the way to the marine base to do the same, the high number of aliens will shred through the 1 or 2 marines you will encounter on the way.
That would be possible if the alien could stop the marine at 50% of the map in the early game. We all know it's never gonna be the case. So they cannot do that without being seen... which defeat any strategy.
A personal sidenote: This problem is far less of a problem for small player count games (8v8 for example). With 12v12 the map is crowded and open lanes barely exist at all, which makes aliens feel the need to drop cheese tunnels in the first place. I still recommend playing 8v8 or 9v9 instead and the problem is much less noticable then (also higher playnumbers seem to help marines more generally)
On my side of the world the only crowded ones are the servers having more than 18 slots. Useless to fight it or to use any kind of pedagogy. Those are gamers...
There are a few factors in this from what I can tell.
No big deal though right? Skulks are free but if the fade & lerk die then instead of having 400 health, 257 respectively they go back down to 148 or w/e. This leads to a disparity between the teams in the Marine favor because they get to keep all their upgrades after death. Lifeforms dont. The only way for marines to lose their base advantage is to take out their arms lab. Not an easy task. So you are stuck in an unfavorable situation because aliens lose their lifeforms much easier than in low count servers.
Thats why I think it would be nice for aliens including their structures to get either a hp buff or incoming damage debuff based on the player count. That number is not something I can say off hand but I want to say 3% damage for each +6 players after 12 player count that increase with each segment or stays the same. Look below to see what that would look like:
Or limit players per team. Dont see that happening ever.
Obviously this example leaves a lot out of the equation but you get the point.
Agreed.
Just note that on some server with well oiled teams, the marines hunt the high lifeforms. It's far more dangerous even if the player count is low.
I have another suggestion;
Make
High life forms stay the same
They re-spawn as they were. ex: A Lerk re-spawn a Lerk.
A cool down timer delays the re-spawn depending on the life form. The enemy removed them from the board they deserve a some breathing space (or time actually).
Specialize high lifeforms more. A fade could not even scratch a extractor. That would force the aliens to make better use of life forms. A team composed of fades only won't be able to stop anything if no extractor go down... it would be fun.
You cannot evolve from Lerk to Fade without paying an extra from the original price. etc. So they have to choose carefully what tech path the field unit use.
And if there was a license to NS2... Like recycling the tutorial to make the rookie go through it.
Only to plug in their heads the map awareness or at least to make them open the map... Those rookies are kind of funny glued together on the same spot of the map leaving everything else unchecked. It's like like a line of lemmings when you see this from above.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
If the problem is long endgames, one solution could be to overpower the endgame tech:
- Double minigun damage
- Change minigun damage type to almost 100% armor & structural
- Double gore damage
- Change gore damage type to almost 100% armor & structural
N.B.: I don't know what the damage & damage types of the minigun & gore currently is.
The main point of these changes is to turn these two units into end game siege breakers that still need other units to assist them in PvP combat.
If the problem is long endgames, one solution could be to overpower the endgame tech:
- Double minigun damage
- Change minigun damage type to almost 100% armor & structural
- Double gore damage
- Change gore damage type to almost 100% armor & structural
N.B.: I don't know what the damage & damage types of the minigun & gore currently is.
The main point of these changes is to turn these two units into end game siege breakers that still need other units to assist them in PvP combat.
Do that and the game just becomes a race to "who can get this tech up first" and you will immediately see every other possible strat shunned.
Pls, dont nerf gorges. It is already hard to be effective gorge. So squishy that sometimes cant do enough for the team and feel like you were better as a skulk.
Some notes:
-Dont nerf or buff anything for ppl´s stupity: Gorgewalls can be usefull early game room lockdown. Skulks can go around and kill rine(s) while reload. Also block couple onoses and you will learn not to make walls (if dont you are just dumb).
-If you decide gorgewalls are problem and aliens are dying to them left and right: Make onos charge destroy clogs. Make Fade blink blink thru glogs. Rines riflebutt could move clogs (not sure if game engine can handle that). Increase time which allows you build new clog, so gorge behind clogs cant just place new clog so easily.
How about an instant action for destroying clogs Or maybe alien primary attack can be used to destroy them? I like the second one but I feel a bit of griefing could come from it. But probably not much. Its more worth it to have this feature instead of delaying aliens moving around the map for 10- 15 seconds because a gorge clogged a doorway.
How about for webs, they are free or really low cost - like 0.25 each, max 10 webs but... GORGES CAN CLIMB THEM! Spider gorge
Im not sure if they work like this but if webs could gunk up jet packs for 1-2 and also extend the placing range by using that distance spit like in NS1 that would be useful.
Thanks! I probably should have known that but I rarely see webs and never get hit by it with a JP. Gorges really should have a way to plant webs at higher places like in Ns1. Cargo in Veil would be a primary example of the benefits of elevated webs.
If the problem is long endgames, one solution could be to overpower the endgame tech:
- Double minigun damage
- Change minigun damage type to almost 100% armor & structural
- Double gore damage
- Change gore damage type to almost 100% armor & structural
N.B.: I don't know what the damage & damage types of the minigun & gore currently is.
The main point of these changes is to turn these two units into end game siege breakers that still need other units to assist them in PvP combat.
Do that and the game just becomes a race to "who can get this tech up first" and you will immediately see every other possible strat shunned.
Good point. The fights are already good. There no sense in making some super cool ability. You just want to nudge the game in a less stalematey direction. Easiest way to do that? Reduce pres rates and make onos cost a little less.
Onos don’t serve their purpose unless one of the following happens: marines prepare for onos by getting specific upgrades (and sacrificing something) or marines know they lack the upgrades to deal with onos so they are forced to rush a hive before onos spawn. I’m not sure if I’m seeing either one of those scenarios playing out currently which leads to stalemates.
And pres rates being reduced instantly opens up more plays because you can be agressive once you know the other team is low on pres.
And if UWE is anti changing pres rates for some reason, increase the cost of jps and sgs at least.
Really off topic thought: These forums have been fairly dead for awhile. Most everything gets discussed on discord now. But one controversial thread and suddenly we have multiple people posting a day. Hmm.
as rule of thumb I have for myself (works nice in 6v6 not sure how it does for 12v12): always have twice as much aliens in the fight as marines unless you fight on alien PvE. If more than half of the marine team is on the same place you avoid the fight if possible and do damage somewhere else.
as rule of thumb I have for myself (works nice in 6v6 not sure how it does for 12v12): always have twice as much aliens in the fight as marines unless you fight on alien PvE. If more than half of the marine team is on the same place you avoid the fight if possible and do damage somewhere else.
Don't agree
Some balance changes are just obvious...
I played Smash Bros Brawl yesterday with a friend. My god, those landmasters... so fucking strong and cheated......
Comments
https://trello.com/c/yr9758y7/1077-balance-experimental-changes-324
Tunnel rushes only work when
a) the marine comm is a complete muppet
b) the marines are already on their toes and cannot spare to do a beacon/phase back to base (in which case the tunnel is not important, only that a new front is opened where there are less marines)
none of which justifies nerfing tunnels. its so flippin easy to counter a tunnel rush.... why does it feel more cheesy than doing a catpack rush as marines at the start?
because there are no large-scale engagements and fighting for rooms? the reason why i love the game is that it gives you options to win. if you reduce that to ONE META it's not gonna help. you might dislike tunnel rushes, but there are players who get off on such. play, and let others play.
regarding clogs, it's gonna have the same effect. you INTEND to disincentivize clog walls because YOU dont like them, but none of the planned changes would help.
gorges will still build clog walls, and other aspects of gorge-play will suffer.
*exhales reassuredly*
Also since B323 the balance of the game reached pretty much 50:50 but I don't know the quality of the games. The ones I played seemed ok.
On a sidenote you can very well baserush without a tunnel, especially if you have 3 hives. marines need to commit to kill a hive (atleast somewhat) so the same way you bring your team to enter the tunnel to rush the base you can bring them to walk all the way to the marine base to do the same, the high number of aliens will shred through the 1 or 2 marines you will encounter on the way.
A personal sidenote: This problem is far less of a problem for small player count games (8v8 for example). With 12v12 the map is crowded and open lanes barely exist at all, which makes aliens feel the need to drop cheese tunnels in the first place. I still recommend playing 8v8 or 9v9 instead and the problem is much less noticable then (also higher playnumbers seem to help marines more generally)
There are also people who run in straight line as skulk, walk as fade, dont go back to heal as onos, etc... they are as useless as the gorge who's camping in a vent to drop a tunnel at some point. I don't think you should balance around a player's stupidity.
The rest i totally agree with. Especially the part where smaller servers prove to be more enjoyable and balanced.
Tunnels being nerfed is a good thing because it was one of the highest chances aliens have to win, thus used more than any of the other methods to win. This skewed the winrate towards aliens because of ONE method. I see things going either way most games now but I will let the data come in and we will all see what that shows us soon enough. I will say that due to very little scaleability on the alien side that it is really tough as an alien in anything higher than 10v10 IMO. It could be fixed with an alien buff or damage resistance buff based on server player count past 18 or something. Just an idea.
Also as for patch 324 axe swinging on webs should be 2, Four is just too much. I can destroy a web in about 2 seconds with a welder or just hop over the web.
Rail gun exos should probably just be removed at this point in favor of buying a portable rail gun form the armory or allow customisable options to exos. Currently the second rail gun is essentially useless. They dont do high enough damage to fades and especially onos. Basically your dead if you miss one shot. Against an onos you are nothing. Make rail guns cheaper Pres. like 30 or something. This would give marines a reason to research the other option of exos. Because if UWE separates the exos into two researchable items, then no one will ever get rails.
I totally agree, what im not sure about is the reason for this shortcoming.
Is it purely because of game mechanics? (relative player-count difference in a given room)
Or is it because maps have too few lanes?
Summit, tram are pretty much unplayable as aliens above 12v12. On the other hand, i've played some custom map on thirsty which had more lanes, and was enjoyable, even despite the GL spam.
The main reason I think is the fact that marines get stronger and stronger over time while aliens stay relatively the same. That coupled with marines having a stronger base form at max than aliens with no pres. Once a marine gets to a3 w3, 2 marines can take an onos in their base form with rifles if they are decent. However if that onos dies then they revert to a skulk which is nearly no match for a a3 w3 marines 1v1. It gets exponentially more difficult for aliens / lifeforms to survive encounters as the game goes on because of this.
Hypothetical situation - Say in a 4 v 4 in Repair. 1 fade, 2 skulks, 1 lerk vs 4 w3 marines. One Marine damage output in 1 second is 236 dmg/s but with an average 20% accuracy is like 47 dps. That means Each second these marines 4 marines are putting out ~188 damage from Close to Long range.
Skulk effective HP at bio 6 w/ carapace ~148.
Lerk - Pretty sure its 257 with bio 6 and carapace
Fade - I think its like 400 with 6 biomass 6 and carapace.
Basically these marines can kill the first 2 skulks in 2 seconds and then the lerk before their first reload. Then the fade within 2.5 seconds of that. So in the span of 6 or so seconds all these aliens can die. However most players focus on higher lifeforms or at least they should. This means a fade can die in about 2 seconds of combat in this room compared to a 2v 1 an the fade can live for up to 5 seconds if they dont take out the marines first or escape. Basically each added marine makes it multiple times more difficulty for a higher lifeform to survive an encounter even in a group.
No big deal though right? Skulks are free but if the fade & lerk die then instead of having 400 health, 257 respectively they go back down to 148 or w/e. This leads to a disparity between the teams in the Marine favor because they get to keep all their upgrades after death. Lifeforms dont. The only way for marines to lose their base advantage is to take out their arms lab. Not an easy task. So you are stuck in an unfavorable situation because aliens lose their lifeforms much easier than in low count servers.
Thats why I think it would be nice for aliens including their structures to get either a hp buff or incoming damage debuff based on the player count. That number is not something I can say off hand but I want to say 3% damage for each +6 players after 12 player count that increase with each segment or stays the same. Look below to see what that would look like:
Ie.
18 players - 3% | 3%
24 - 7% | 6%
30 - 12% | 9%
36 - 18% |12%
etc.
Or limit players per team. Dont see that happening ever.
Obviously this example leaves a lot out of the equation but you get the point.
So they weren't looking back... Map awareness... I have no mercy for them.
That we can agree on. Same goes for the marines. A GL spam isn't looking better either.
precisely not. The game moved to something else. It's more like cannon fodder land. Like a WarHammer 40K artwork. There is less infiltration behind the enemy lines. Less strategy, more brute force. At some point hives are falling. It's rather stupid and not entertaining. Games last longer in the case marines are falling. They turtle more. It would be ok for me if the game experience was better. I'm afraid it's not.
That would be possible if the alien could stop the marine at 50% of the map in the early game. We all know it's never gonna be the case. So they cannot do that without being seen... which defeat any strategy.
On my side of the world the only crowded ones are the servers having more than 18 slots. Useless to fight it or to use any kind of pedagogy. Those are gamers...
Adaptive balance...
Agreed.
Just note that on some server with well oiled teams, the marines hunt the high lifeforms. It's far more dangerous even if the player count is low.
I have another suggestion;
Make
And if there was a license to NS2... Like recycling the tutorial to make the rookie go through it.
Only to plug in their heads the map awareness or at least to make them open the map... Those rookies are kind of funny glued together on the same spot of the map leaving everything else unchecked. It's like like a line of lemmings when you see this from above.
- Double minigun damage
- Change minigun damage type to almost 100% armor & structural
- Double gore damage
- Change gore damage type to almost 100% armor & structural
N.B.: I don't know what the damage & damage types of the minigun & gore currently is.
The main point of these changes is to turn these two units into end game siege breakers that still need other units to assist them in PvP combat.
Do that and the game just becomes a race to "who can get this tech up first" and you will immediately see every other possible strat shunned.
Some notes:
-Dont nerf or buff anything for ppl´s stupity: Gorgewalls can be usefull early game room lockdown. Skulks can go around and kill rine(s) while reload. Also block couple onoses and you will learn not to make walls (if dont you are just dumb).
-If you decide gorgewalls are problem and aliens are dying to them left and right: Make onos charge destroy clogs. Make Fade blink blink thru glogs. Rines riflebutt could move clogs (not sure if game engine can handle that). Increase time which allows you build new clog, so gorge behind clogs cant just place new clog so easily.
^^
- increased range
- shortened timer to 1 sec
This alone would help a great deal.
Riflebutt could always destroy clogs...
How about an instant action for destroying clogs Or maybe alien primary attack can be used to destroy them? I like the second one but I feel a bit of griefing could come from it. But probably not much. Its more worth it to have this feature instead of delaying aliens moving around the map for 10- 15 seconds because a gorge clogged a doorway.
How about for webs, they are free or really low cost - like 0.25 each, max 10 webs but... GORGES CAN CLIMB THEM! Spider gorge
Im not sure if they work like this but if webs could gunk up jet packs for 1-2 and also extend the placing range by using that distance spit like in NS1 that would be useful.
Yup! That's how they work right now.
i'm not so sure about this..but wouldn't it have the unintended consequence of further discouraging marines to buy a *@#(&#! welder?
I will only agree to this if welders didnt take the spot of the Axe or you could shuffle between them.
Good point. The fights are already good. There no sense in making some super cool ability. You just want to nudge the game in a less stalematey direction. Easiest way to do that? Reduce pres rates and make onos cost a little less.
Onos don’t serve their purpose unless one of the following happens: marines prepare for onos by getting specific upgrades (and sacrificing something) or marines know they lack the upgrades to deal with onos so they are forced to rush a hive before onos spawn. I’m not sure if I’m seeing either one of those scenarios playing out currently which leads to stalemates.
And pres rates being reduced instantly opens up more plays because you can be agressive once you know the other team is low on pres.
And if UWE is anti changing pres rates for some reason, increase the cost of jps and sgs at least.
and remember :
#bringbackmotiontracking
Don't agree
Some balance changes are just obvious...
I played Smash Bros Brawl yesterday with a friend. My god, those landmasters... so fucking strong and cheated......