Game Balance Aliens > Marines (long!)!
IsNSunbalancedBS
Join Date: 2003-09-24 Member: 21166Members
Join Date: 2003-09-24 Member: 21166Members
<div class="IPBDescription">How to even NS gamebalance</div> Hello,
just wanted to drop you a note about my personal experiences with NS and what I personally think about the current game balance.
At first, I was pretty euphoric that someone finally made a game that has real innovations and started to play on various server over a period of some weeks. After some time however it became completely obvious that the game is totally unbalanced in favor of the aliens and that the alien team is going to win almost every game due to about 2 dozen reasons (which are so obvious its ridiculous - anyone who can think logically can deduct this from the game manual / rules of the game; you really do not have to be Spock, any child could see this; it becomes even more obvious when you just watch games).
I noted that if the marine team was well organized with good players and the alien team were "not so good", marines could still win however. Of course, if a professional marine team fights against a professional alien team, the marines are no match for the aliens due to their various and very unfair advantages (except extreme marine tactics, but this is not what is usually done on servers). Anyone can see this and this is reflected by all server statistics. I can prove anyone wrong who says something different.
Therefore, I uninstalled NS as being a completely unbalanced game, another unfortunate ruin in a long list of games that COULD have been good IF <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--><!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--><!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->.. (?).
Some time ago I heard you programmed a new version (the actual one) and I installed it (NS 2.01) to try NS again.
Unfortunately I had to note that - except some small and basically insignificant betterments for the marine team (the most noticeable is that webs need 3 hives now) - the new version makes the game even more unbalanced now due to the following reasons (partially I mentioned general ones (like point 1 :-)) and special ones based on the new version):
1.) Marines usually have 1 person less in the field (due to commander which the aliens do not need).
As you must admit almost all games in this world have as a an elementary precondition that both teams have an equal number of players (in the "playfield").
There are even servers that are configured to say "Oh teams are 7 vs 7 (players) you cannot join marines, you know they would have one more! So as everyone can see not even the most basic precondition for an even gameplay is fulfilled. I wonder if anyone has any rational arguments against this very first and basic point?
2.) New: Aliens get resource points for killing marines, while marines dont.
This means that if aliens are starting to win, they even get more and more resources. Imagine the usual marine game with marines dieing in 5 - 60 seconds frequency and how much resources this ADDITIONALLY brings for the alien team. This point alone logically massively pushes game balance in favor of aliens.
3.) Aliens can reach every point on the map in practically notime (as almost every species). This means they can build up their res points at extreme speed, which means they get res points very very fast. This means the game must logically be unbalanced right from the start because one team - the marine team - is cut off from 70% of the resource points just by their low speed.
As Marines are very slow and as they have to stick together usually (to survive) they therefore can only move in bunchs to 1 or 2 res points at once. Then it takes some additional time for them to build some (weak and illusionary (maximum as a defense against skulks)) defenses there and move on to the next point.
4.) New: Aliens can now become every life form they want even with one single hive.
In combination with 3.) this means aliens can become fades and onos very fast, which also very massively moves game balance farther in favor of alien team.
4.1.) As long as aliens have enough resource towers (which they logically usually have) it is only a matter of time until aliens can easily overrun weakly defended resource points (it takes 1 minute or less to crush 1 turret factory, 3 turrets and the point itself if they work together a littlebit).
The marines on the other hand need eternities to destroy some offense chambers with defense chambers behind them. When marines try to take back these points they are usually killed several times again by (cloaked and/or) fast moving skulks / fades / onos, which brings again resource points for the alien team. If they are really desperate to take back the point, they would need turret factory (15), turret factory upgrade (15), siege tower (15), some people to defend the whole thing, sensor sweep (15?) to see the structures to attack and then the siege tower will need some minutes to crush these structures (if ever, depending on amount of offense / defense chambers). If the resource point was far away, they would also need 2 phasegates which are usually hard to defend (spawn at the portal is always at the same place ? means if 2 skulks come to phase gate (or fades), marines cannot do anything anymore when they get through and get eaten all the time without getting a fair chance).
This means that marines need extreme amounts of res to take back and hold a resource point over a longer period of time.
The alien buildings on the other hand cost MUCH less for the aliens to build than the appropriate buildings of the marines.
What is the equivalent of some off. chambers and some def. chamber for marines? There is no real one of course because there is nothing that repairs turrets lol. Besides that, the poor equivalent would be a turret factory (15), 4 turrets (20) and electrification (20 now?) to match up for the regen induced by the defense chambers on the alien side. Also, electrified buildings do not heal nearby marine players "BTW" as defense chambers do.
So taken all in all, aliens have a very easy time to a) capture resource points due to their speed and especially b) very easily hold resource points due to their offense chamber / defense chamber combination. Furthermore, they get automatically alerted as soon as someone attacks a resource tower, while marines don?t (except commander but he has far too much to do anyway).
5.) Aliens can attack the marine team right at their spawn due to their speed in a very short frequency. Marines cannot usually attack the spawn of the aliens directly because a) usually all ways are blocked by offense chambers after some minutes due to massive res advantages for alien team b) it takes very long for marines to get from one side of the map to the other c) aliens spawn at different places while marines always spawn at infantry portals so they will logically have a very hard time when they reach the hive - as aliens will always spawn somewhere else and therefore get new chances to kill marines in very short frequencies (and then marines have to go the complete way again) - 2 skulks / fades etc. can simply wait in front of the inf portals and eat marines as they show up, then eat inf portals. Because marines always spawn at the same place (while aliens don?t!!!) I bet this point alone makes a total of at least 30% of aliens winning the game (even if marines were playing so good that they already conquered 3/4 of the map). It happens so often and it is such a **** and ruins so many hopeful games of the marines. ))
d) marines cannot even get near the enemy hive because while they go the way one time aliens go the way 10 times. This means aliens will usually notice them and kill them long before they reach the hive. e) Phase gates are no real relief either because they cannot be hidden anywhere and are very easily destroyed by some small skulks, especially because Marines always spawn at the same place. f) Marines cannot climb up walls and use all the hidden (additional!) ways aliens can, this means they need to take the main routes which they usally cannot get through after some minutes except with massive res efforts (turret factory, upgrade, siege etc. and all this has to be defended) (see above)).
6.) Abilities and marine equivalents
Additionally to the above mentioned massive resource tower problems and very different abilities to destroy structures, some things are very obvious as well:
6.1.) Carapace is available for aliens by building 3 defense chambers.
This is a a fraction of the costs needed the marine equivalent which needs:
arms lab
armor upgrade 1
armor upgrade 2
armor upgrade 3
prototype lab
heavy armor research
6.1.1) Carapace then costs 2 points for every alien player and every player can choose this freely as long as they have TWO resource points.
Marine players on the other hand need to wait "eternities" (compared to aliens) until everything is researched at all (if game does not end before that lol). Then, they have to beg the commander to give the heavy armor to them. Next, it costs not TWO, it costs FIFTEEN OR TWENTY (usually TWENTY) resource points. It ADDITIONALLY makes players much SLOWER (have you seen slower aliens because of carapace?!?!)
If the marine dies, he has to beg for armor again while aliens can again choose it freely for TWO resource points with no disadvantages whatsoever.
6.2.) Regeneration - costs 2 for aliens, works endlessly (!) and infinitely (until death).
The marine equivalent is a "one time half cure (50%) which costs 2 (if the commander does so). So total healing for marines costs 4 res points (one time). This is the double amount and works once (and costs 4).
6.2.1.) Aliens on the other hand get automatically healed by
regeneration (2)
hive (0)
and could additionally be healed by
gorges (0)
Marines can only be healed by commander (who is more than busy anyway). They cannot be healed by other players, they cannot be healed somewhere in base.
These were the 2 main points that have an "equivalent" for the marine team.
There is no equivalent for
stealth
regeneration
celerety
adrenaline
redemption
cloaking
blink
climbing up walls (jetpacks maximum, but this is no real equivalent and costs not zero, but 15 for marines!)
stunning ability of onos
swallowing ability of onos
primal scream
xenocide
leap
healing spray
web
babblers
charge
Correct me when I am wrong or missed something.
I do not say everything has to have an equivalent of course lol. Of course the game should have significant differences between alien and marine team, but STILL some form of balance is needed and the game is definitely not balanced at the moment.
BTW gorges can heal alien health AND armor as well, while marines need 4 res for one total healing plus 1 welder (5) and someone who uses it on the appropriate player (which is uncommon as you cannot see who carries welder etc.).
7.) The next very unfair point is that there is NO defense against the following alien tactics:
7.1.) New: Fades Blink Attack:
Fades are even more powerful now due to their blink ability. They attack, kill (get resources), blink back to defense chamber around the corner or gorge (or hive or regen), and attack again completely healed and with maximum armor.
It is so simple to mow down marines with this tactics that I personally think it is already a shame playing on the alien team at all.
An "experienced player" can easily kill a dozen well equipped marines with this tactics, let alone 2 or more fades or an onos (!). And the worst thing there is absolutely NO DEFENSE against this tactics. The fades are so fast you really cannot hit them or only casually hit them while "in flight" which surely does not kill them. They are gone again, regenerate and come back in an endless cycle which bounds most marines at the main base and robs them the initiative.
7.2.) Spore attack of lerks (from vents or hidden places near base) - marines drop like flies and cannot repair structures anymore - equipment is lost en masse due everything drops to the ground. Lerks just have to shoot around the corner, when marines try to get them they are killed by the skulks, fades or onos waiting around the corner.
7.3.) New: Stunning ability of Onos:
Now Onos can easily kill even the best equipped marine players by their new stunning ability which completely paralyzes marines for SIX (!) seconds (you made it so that they cannot even shoot which makes it ultimately unfair). Theoretically onos could paralyze about 8 fully equipped marines standing in a row for 6 seconds and eat them one after each other (or just mow them down).
7.4.) New: Swallowing ability of Onos:
During this SIX seconds, onos can eat the complete player, disabling the marine player for 30 seconds or so (!) which also destroys his complete equipment.
IF he survives (onos gets shot before digestion is complete), he usually lost all his weapons and has not one weapon now. So all he can do is kill himself or wait until someone drops a weapon (!). USually people type kill, wait another 3 seconds, wait another 20 seconds (or much longer) and spawn again.
In the old version onos could at least not kill marines by completely swallowing them with all equipment but marines could at least shoot or do something until they died. Now, not even this is possible anymore.
7.5.) New: turrets do half the damage to onos (...). Generally turrets are very ineffective compared to the alien counterpart. This is very extreme in combination with defense chamber.
Turrets were only useful against skulks before (if placed good), now they are even more worthless. If one turret is set at the wrong place, a single skulk can easily eat the turret factory anyway.
7.6.) Gorge standing around corner endlessly healing alien players.
7.7.) web spamming (which makes the game even more unfair when aliens are already winning (3 hives))
etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
There are at least 2 dozen of more unfair alien tactics the marines cannot defend themselves against. Think about this yourself or just take a look at the next server, I do not want to write an encyclopedia britannica about this.
8.) Electrification
Mainly a joke. Too expensive and too useless seen from marine point of view (except against skulks). Every small gorge can kill electrifieds buildings with bile bomb or by building a small offense chamber right in front of it (or by spitting).
9.) Increased lag / much lower fps / alien speed
Due to the increased lag in the new version and especially the much lower fps (I suppose this is because of the interesting light effects which nobody knows how to turn off it seems) skulks are even harder to hit now.
BTW: I recently hit a gorge on the head (direct hit) with a grenade launcher and he survived and escaped. (.....................) Just look what a skilled skulk can do and how many marines he can drop before dieing (especially with regeneration). Even gorges can easily drop marines now by spitting.
10.) Aliens do not have an ammo capacity and do not have to load up endlessly at armory. All aliens automatically get full ammo, it does not take a building, they have almost no reloading time. Aliens have a ?faster reloading ability? that costs 2 (adrenaline). There is no equivalent for this for the marine team.
11.) Aliens have cloaking ability which is extremely unfair as fades (etc.) can now stand right in the middle of the gangway and wait for marines to run into their arms. The same for onos. This makes the game even more unfair.
Are commanders supposed to build observatories all across the map???
12.) Marines can be heard over a great distance as they do not have an equivalent to stealth. Marines now make a clonk clonk sound with heavy armor which makes them even more simple to hear?
13.) Alien buildings build themselves, for example offense and defense chambers (altough slow, faster when Gorge holds use button). Marines buildings always need marines to build them and do not build themselves at all.
14.) Redemption is also very unfair because there is no equivalent for marine team and there is absolutely no disadvantage for this for the alien team. Why don?t you make it so that redemption needs res for the alien team and/or make respawn time longer? This would at least be a littlebit fairer.
15.) Ah ? respawn time. Aliens of course spawn much faster then the marines because of res cost reasons. Which commander ever builds 4 infantry portals??? So when you die as marine, you usually have to wait MUCH longer than the aliens do.
16.) New: Jetpacks are much harder to handle now and have much less thrust. This makes them much more difficult to use. The cost for jetpacks was massively increased ?> you almost do not see any more jetpack users (or commanders that issue jetpacks) on almost any server.
17.) New: Grenade launcher damage was (a littlebit) increased, BUT on the other hand reload time was extremely increased (you usually cannot watch the nice animation as you are far too busy getting killed by some skulks or fades or onos LOL). Grenade launchers are therefore much less effective.
18.) Marine team usually desintegrates after some time of play due to quitters / winnerjoiners / frustration, making teams even more unfair.
19.) Marines team looses initiative after some time of game due to ?alien overinfestation? via offense / defense chambers, and in the end, webs. All main roads are blocked then and no resources come in due to lacking res points.
20.) Marine team and all the other stuff is extremely hard to manage by one single commander. This was already mentioned in the forums and I totally agree with the opinion that the marine team completely depends on the ability of one single person. This means that the whole gameplay experience depends on the ability of a single person for the complete marine team. This means however good you are as a single player, you will get frustrated if the commander is not able to take initiative or do something useful.
This is absolutely not so for the alien team. The alien team is completely self dependant and even if players disperse, they still have good chances against the marine team. If the alien team works together, I am confident that marine team is absolutely no match for them.
You can NEVER get an even gameplay this way as everything depends on a single person. I will think about solutions for this problem below.
--
I am sure I could think about at least 20 more points if I took more time to do so, but I think you get my point.
The problem is how to balance all this. Generally, I do not think this is very complicated.
Here are some solution suggestions according to my ?point system? :-)
1.) Commander should not be count as a player for the marine team, but under a separate point called ?commander?. (with another color, lets say bright blue or something)
If teams get uneven, the team that has lesser players should get some appropriate advantages like res bonuses (depending on how uneven teams are).
2.) Marines should get a small amount of res when killing aliens as well.
You could make it so that marine teams get 1 res point for every 2 skulks killed (figure out appropriate numbers) and a littlebit more for bigger aliens and much for onos.
OR you disable this function for both teams, so no team gets resources for killing each others players.
3.) no practical solution currently comes to my mind at the moment.
4.) At least onos should only be available with 3 hives.
4.1.) Capturing and especially holding res points must be made easier for marines.
5.) infantry portal must get more armor points and should be able to spawn players within a certain spawn field that surrounds them (random), lets say some? meters. Furthermore? players should be automatically notified as soon as infantry portals get attacked.
6.1.) Marines armor should cost less and should be available faster especially if you are so (crazy?) to leave onos available also with less than 3 hives.
6.2.) Regeneration should be made available at STANDARD armories (like on some test servers). Armories should refill ammo faster (as aliens have no such limitation and get full ammo right from the start) and should also heal faster.
Marines should get a limited ability to heal each other (however this is implemented), for example everyone carries a small injection system that holds 100 health at once. If the marine wants to refill it he has to return to the next armory.
Concerning the other advantages of aliens:
stealth and cloaking ? you could introduce a stealth/cloaking upgrade 1,2,3 for marines;
celerety ? lessen cost of jetpacks, make them easier to use
adrenaline ? make ammo reload faster at armory, greatly reduce reloading time of pistol, greatly reduce reloading time of grenade launcher and give it a bigger clip (7)
redemption ? double the amount of time equipment lies on the ground before disappearing; make a special area where equipment does not disappear at all, even if picked up and thrown to the floor again (for example in an area 30 meters around armories). Generally, if an item lies around for 20 minutes with noone picking it up it should disappear anyway.
blink ? remove it completely and substitute it with something else; or make it much weaker or make it decrease health when using it. There is no defense against this type of attack for the marines so it is unfair and must be taken out or made much weaker.
climbing up walls ? jetpacks again. You could however also make a new equipment item available that allows marines to slowly climb up walls.
stunning ability of onos ? remove it completely or make it much weaker. Make it at least so that marines can at least still move very slowly and can fire at half the speed or something.
swallowing ability of onos ? onos should have a hard time swallowing completely equipped players. They should at least spit out the main weapon. Digesting should go a littlebit faster (usually onos does not get killed in this time period anyway).
primal scream ? no equivalent needed in my opinion
xenocide ? no equivalent needed. However as this usually means endgame for the marines you could make it so that xenocide damage is reduced against HA marines and against vital base structures.
leap ? should reduce health when aliens bump into things before 1/2 of leap range is over. This would mean if skulk is 5 meters in front of player that stands before wall and leaps and player evades, skulk gets damage from bumping into wall. You could also use hitting angles to calculate damage. Means if skulk just hits wall in 15 degrees angle does not do any damage etc. etc.. It is up to you to figure out the numbers. Skulks are already deadly as they are, leap just makes them more deadly so that should also backfire.
healing spray ? you could for example make such an injection system for marine players as mentioned
web ? it should be possible to remove webs also with normal weapon fire when you directly fire at the web. Webs should be removed by grenade launcher explosions of course.
babblers ? no equivalent needed.
charge - no equivalent needed.
7.1.) As mentioned as there is no defense against fades blink attack you should make this much weaker.
7.2.) Make a safe zone where only minimal spore damage is done to players within 10 meters around armory or something like this.
7.3.) see above
7.4.) see above
7.5.) Make marine turrets more effective. Remove half turret damage against Onos (it does not interest onos if half damage or full damage is done anyway, it is only the degree how ridiculous the damage is). Marine turrets should automatically slowly regenerate when within a turrets factory radius (this is just fair, remember the aliens possibilities).
You could also make marine turrets upgradeable or something like this.
7.6.) see above
7.7.) see above
8.) Electrification should work faster and be less expensive.
9.) I do not know why there seems to be lower fps now, I think it has something to do with light effects. Could you tell me what the command is to turn off these light effects completely? Or has it something to do with the netcode of the new version?
10.) see above
11.) see above
12.) see above
13.) make certain buildings build themselves as well, for example defense towers.
14.) Why don?t you make it so that redemption needs res for the alien team and/or make respawn time longer? This would at least be a littlebit fairer. Furthermore see above (time when equipment disappears, safe zone around armory).
15.) Make respawn time a bit longer for the alien team.
16.) Give jetpacks the old flying scheme and remove costs.
17.) Increase clip capacity of grenade launcher a bit, make reload process much faster, direct hits (WHEN do players EVER hit directly?!?!) should make much more damage, while splash damage should be the same.
18.) Teams with lesser players should get res advantages depending on ?unbalance ? ratio?.
19.) Siege turrets should cost less and should do more damage against offense and defense chambers, fire a littlebit faster and should have a greater range concerning these 2 structures. They should be able to remember positions of structures for at least 3 hits (after that, memory should need to be refreshed for example by marine seeing structure).
20.) I really do not know what to do about this point. Perhaps some not so important functions could be done by players itself ? for example you could make it so that marines can buy weapons / armor at arms lab. This would mean that they also get a small res account for themselves.
You may say this was not intended when you created the game and that this will unbalance the game in favor of marine team. Well, I think it all depends on how this is figured out.
For example you could make it so that a marine gets 2 res points for every skulk he kills, 3 for gorge, 5 for lerk, 15 for fade and 30 for onos (or something). A very cool idea would be that the commander can donate res to players and vice versa! So a good player could give the team more res by killing aliens and could then donate this to commander.
All I would like to say with this post is that at the moment, anyone can see that aliens have very big advantages and therefore win almost all games on all servers. It is almost a shame to play on alien team because it is really so simple if you are an experienced player to crush the marine team.
I think that NS needs to be balanced to make it a game one can play.
Best regards,
IsNSunbalanced.. :-)
just wanted to drop you a note about my personal experiences with NS and what I personally think about the current game balance.
At first, I was pretty euphoric that someone finally made a game that has real innovations and started to play on various server over a period of some weeks. After some time however it became completely obvious that the game is totally unbalanced in favor of the aliens and that the alien team is going to win almost every game due to about 2 dozen reasons (which are so obvious its ridiculous - anyone who can think logically can deduct this from the game manual / rules of the game; you really do not have to be Spock, any child could see this; it becomes even more obvious when you just watch games).
I noted that if the marine team was well organized with good players and the alien team were "not so good", marines could still win however. Of course, if a professional marine team fights against a professional alien team, the marines are no match for the aliens due to their various and very unfair advantages (except extreme marine tactics, but this is not what is usually done on servers). Anyone can see this and this is reflected by all server statistics. I can prove anyone wrong who says something different.
Therefore, I uninstalled NS as being a completely unbalanced game, another unfortunate ruin in a long list of games that COULD have been good IF <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--><!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--><!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->.. (?).
Some time ago I heard you programmed a new version (the actual one) and I installed it (NS 2.01) to try NS again.
Unfortunately I had to note that - except some small and basically insignificant betterments for the marine team (the most noticeable is that webs need 3 hives now) - the new version makes the game even more unbalanced now due to the following reasons (partially I mentioned general ones (like point 1 :-)) and special ones based on the new version):
1.) Marines usually have 1 person less in the field (due to commander which the aliens do not need).
As you must admit almost all games in this world have as a an elementary precondition that both teams have an equal number of players (in the "playfield").
There are even servers that are configured to say "Oh teams are 7 vs 7 (players) you cannot join marines, you know they would have one more! So as everyone can see not even the most basic precondition for an even gameplay is fulfilled. I wonder if anyone has any rational arguments against this very first and basic point?
2.) New: Aliens get resource points for killing marines, while marines dont.
This means that if aliens are starting to win, they even get more and more resources. Imagine the usual marine game with marines dieing in 5 - 60 seconds frequency and how much resources this ADDITIONALLY brings for the alien team. This point alone logically massively pushes game balance in favor of aliens.
3.) Aliens can reach every point on the map in practically notime (as almost every species). This means they can build up their res points at extreme speed, which means they get res points very very fast. This means the game must logically be unbalanced right from the start because one team - the marine team - is cut off from 70% of the resource points just by their low speed.
As Marines are very slow and as they have to stick together usually (to survive) they therefore can only move in bunchs to 1 or 2 res points at once. Then it takes some additional time for them to build some (weak and illusionary (maximum as a defense against skulks)) defenses there and move on to the next point.
4.) New: Aliens can now become every life form they want even with one single hive.
In combination with 3.) this means aliens can become fades and onos very fast, which also very massively moves game balance farther in favor of alien team.
4.1.) As long as aliens have enough resource towers (which they logically usually have) it is only a matter of time until aliens can easily overrun weakly defended resource points (it takes 1 minute or less to crush 1 turret factory, 3 turrets and the point itself if they work together a littlebit).
The marines on the other hand need eternities to destroy some offense chambers with defense chambers behind them. When marines try to take back these points they are usually killed several times again by (cloaked and/or) fast moving skulks / fades / onos, which brings again resource points for the alien team. If they are really desperate to take back the point, they would need turret factory (15), turret factory upgrade (15), siege tower (15), some people to defend the whole thing, sensor sweep (15?) to see the structures to attack and then the siege tower will need some minutes to crush these structures (if ever, depending on amount of offense / defense chambers). If the resource point was far away, they would also need 2 phasegates which are usually hard to defend (spawn at the portal is always at the same place ? means if 2 skulks come to phase gate (or fades), marines cannot do anything anymore when they get through and get eaten all the time without getting a fair chance).
This means that marines need extreme amounts of res to take back and hold a resource point over a longer period of time.
The alien buildings on the other hand cost MUCH less for the aliens to build than the appropriate buildings of the marines.
What is the equivalent of some off. chambers and some def. chamber for marines? There is no real one of course because there is nothing that repairs turrets lol. Besides that, the poor equivalent would be a turret factory (15), 4 turrets (20) and electrification (20 now?) to match up for the regen induced by the defense chambers on the alien side. Also, electrified buildings do not heal nearby marine players "BTW" as defense chambers do.
So taken all in all, aliens have a very easy time to a) capture resource points due to their speed and especially b) very easily hold resource points due to their offense chamber / defense chamber combination. Furthermore, they get automatically alerted as soon as someone attacks a resource tower, while marines don?t (except commander but he has far too much to do anyway).
5.) Aliens can attack the marine team right at their spawn due to their speed in a very short frequency. Marines cannot usually attack the spawn of the aliens directly because a) usually all ways are blocked by offense chambers after some minutes due to massive res advantages for alien team b) it takes very long for marines to get from one side of the map to the other c) aliens spawn at different places while marines always spawn at infantry portals so they will logically have a very hard time when they reach the hive - as aliens will always spawn somewhere else and therefore get new chances to kill marines in very short frequencies (and then marines have to go the complete way again) - 2 skulks / fades etc. can simply wait in front of the inf portals and eat marines as they show up, then eat inf portals. Because marines always spawn at the same place (while aliens don?t!!!) I bet this point alone makes a total of at least 30% of aliens winning the game (even if marines were playing so good that they already conquered 3/4 of the map). It happens so often and it is such a **** and ruins so many hopeful games of the marines. ))
d) marines cannot even get near the enemy hive because while they go the way one time aliens go the way 10 times. This means aliens will usually notice them and kill them long before they reach the hive. e) Phase gates are no real relief either because they cannot be hidden anywhere and are very easily destroyed by some small skulks, especially because Marines always spawn at the same place. f) Marines cannot climb up walls and use all the hidden (additional!) ways aliens can, this means they need to take the main routes which they usally cannot get through after some minutes except with massive res efforts (turret factory, upgrade, siege etc. and all this has to be defended) (see above)).
6.) Abilities and marine equivalents
Additionally to the above mentioned massive resource tower problems and very different abilities to destroy structures, some things are very obvious as well:
6.1.) Carapace is available for aliens by building 3 defense chambers.
This is a a fraction of the costs needed the marine equivalent which needs:
arms lab
armor upgrade 1
armor upgrade 2
armor upgrade 3
prototype lab
heavy armor research
6.1.1) Carapace then costs 2 points for every alien player and every player can choose this freely as long as they have TWO resource points.
Marine players on the other hand need to wait "eternities" (compared to aliens) until everything is researched at all (if game does not end before that lol). Then, they have to beg the commander to give the heavy armor to them. Next, it costs not TWO, it costs FIFTEEN OR TWENTY (usually TWENTY) resource points. It ADDITIONALLY makes players much SLOWER (have you seen slower aliens because of carapace?!?!)
If the marine dies, he has to beg for armor again while aliens can again choose it freely for TWO resource points with no disadvantages whatsoever.
6.2.) Regeneration - costs 2 for aliens, works endlessly (!) and infinitely (until death).
The marine equivalent is a "one time half cure (50%) which costs 2 (if the commander does so). So total healing for marines costs 4 res points (one time). This is the double amount and works once (and costs 4).
6.2.1.) Aliens on the other hand get automatically healed by
regeneration (2)
hive (0)
and could additionally be healed by
gorges (0)
Marines can only be healed by commander (who is more than busy anyway). They cannot be healed by other players, they cannot be healed somewhere in base.
These were the 2 main points that have an "equivalent" for the marine team.
There is no equivalent for
stealth
regeneration
celerety
adrenaline
redemption
cloaking
blink
climbing up walls (jetpacks maximum, but this is no real equivalent and costs not zero, but 15 for marines!)
stunning ability of onos
swallowing ability of onos
primal scream
xenocide
leap
healing spray
web
babblers
charge
Correct me when I am wrong or missed something.
I do not say everything has to have an equivalent of course lol. Of course the game should have significant differences between alien and marine team, but STILL some form of balance is needed and the game is definitely not balanced at the moment.
BTW gorges can heal alien health AND armor as well, while marines need 4 res for one total healing plus 1 welder (5) and someone who uses it on the appropriate player (which is uncommon as you cannot see who carries welder etc.).
7.) The next very unfair point is that there is NO defense against the following alien tactics:
7.1.) New: Fades Blink Attack:
Fades are even more powerful now due to their blink ability. They attack, kill (get resources), blink back to defense chamber around the corner or gorge (or hive or regen), and attack again completely healed and with maximum armor.
It is so simple to mow down marines with this tactics that I personally think it is already a shame playing on the alien team at all.
An "experienced player" can easily kill a dozen well equipped marines with this tactics, let alone 2 or more fades or an onos (!). And the worst thing there is absolutely NO DEFENSE against this tactics. The fades are so fast you really cannot hit them or only casually hit them while "in flight" which surely does not kill them. They are gone again, regenerate and come back in an endless cycle which bounds most marines at the main base and robs them the initiative.
7.2.) Spore attack of lerks (from vents or hidden places near base) - marines drop like flies and cannot repair structures anymore - equipment is lost en masse due everything drops to the ground. Lerks just have to shoot around the corner, when marines try to get them they are killed by the skulks, fades or onos waiting around the corner.
7.3.) New: Stunning ability of Onos:
Now Onos can easily kill even the best equipped marine players by their new stunning ability which completely paralyzes marines for SIX (!) seconds (you made it so that they cannot even shoot which makes it ultimately unfair). Theoretically onos could paralyze about 8 fully equipped marines standing in a row for 6 seconds and eat them one after each other (or just mow them down).
7.4.) New: Swallowing ability of Onos:
During this SIX seconds, onos can eat the complete player, disabling the marine player for 30 seconds or so (!) which also destroys his complete equipment.
IF he survives (onos gets shot before digestion is complete), he usually lost all his weapons and has not one weapon now. So all he can do is kill himself or wait until someone drops a weapon (!). USually people type kill, wait another 3 seconds, wait another 20 seconds (or much longer) and spawn again.
In the old version onos could at least not kill marines by completely swallowing them with all equipment but marines could at least shoot or do something until they died. Now, not even this is possible anymore.
7.5.) New: turrets do half the damage to onos (...). Generally turrets are very ineffective compared to the alien counterpart. This is very extreme in combination with defense chamber.
Turrets were only useful against skulks before (if placed good), now they are even more worthless. If one turret is set at the wrong place, a single skulk can easily eat the turret factory anyway.
7.6.) Gorge standing around corner endlessly healing alien players.
7.7.) web spamming (which makes the game even more unfair when aliens are already winning (3 hives))
etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
There are at least 2 dozen of more unfair alien tactics the marines cannot defend themselves against. Think about this yourself or just take a look at the next server, I do not want to write an encyclopedia britannica about this.
8.) Electrification
Mainly a joke. Too expensive and too useless seen from marine point of view (except against skulks). Every small gorge can kill electrifieds buildings with bile bomb or by building a small offense chamber right in front of it (or by spitting).
9.) Increased lag / much lower fps / alien speed
Due to the increased lag in the new version and especially the much lower fps (I suppose this is because of the interesting light effects which nobody knows how to turn off it seems) skulks are even harder to hit now.
BTW: I recently hit a gorge on the head (direct hit) with a grenade launcher and he survived and escaped. (.....................) Just look what a skilled skulk can do and how many marines he can drop before dieing (especially with regeneration). Even gorges can easily drop marines now by spitting.
10.) Aliens do not have an ammo capacity and do not have to load up endlessly at armory. All aliens automatically get full ammo, it does not take a building, they have almost no reloading time. Aliens have a ?faster reloading ability? that costs 2 (adrenaline). There is no equivalent for this for the marine team.
11.) Aliens have cloaking ability which is extremely unfair as fades (etc.) can now stand right in the middle of the gangway and wait for marines to run into their arms. The same for onos. This makes the game even more unfair.
Are commanders supposed to build observatories all across the map???
12.) Marines can be heard over a great distance as they do not have an equivalent to stealth. Marines now make a clonk clonk sound with heavy armor which makes them even more simple to hear?
13.) Alien buildings build themselves, for example offense and defense chambers (altough slow, faster when Gorge holds use button). Marines buildings always need marines to build them and do not build themselves at all.
14.) Redemption is also very unfair because there is no equivalent for marine team and there is absolutely no disadvantage for this for the alien team. Why don?t you make it so that redemption needs res for the alien team and/or make respawn time longer? This would at least be a littlebit fairer.
15.) Ah ? respawn time. Aliens of course spawn much faster then the marines because of res cost reasons. Which commander ever builds 4 infantry portals??? So when you die as marine, you usually have to wait MUCH longer than the aliens do.
16.) New: Jetpacks are much harder to handle now and have much less thrust. This makes them much more difficult to use. The cost for jetpacks was massively increased ?> you almost do not see any more jetpack users (or commanders that issue jetpacks) on almost any server.
17.) New: Grenade launcher damage was (a littlebit) increased, BUT on the other hand reload time was extremely increased (you usually cannot watch the nice animation as you are far too busy getting killed by some skulks or fades or onos LOL). Grenade launchers are therefore much less effective.
18.) Marine team usually desintegrates after some time of play due to quitters / winnerjoiners / frustration, making teams even more unfair.
19.) Marines team looses initiative after some time of game due to ?alien overinfestation? via offense / defense chambers, and in the end, webs. All main roads are blocked then and no resources come in due to lacking res points.
20.) Marine team and all the other stuff is extremely hard to manage by one single commander. This was already mentioned in the forums and I totally agree with the opinion that the marine team completely depends on the ability of one single person. This means that the whole gameplay experience depends on the ability of a single person for the complete marine team. This means however good you are as a single player, you will get frustrated if the commander is not able to take initiative or do something useful.
This is absolutely not so for the alien team. The alien team is completely self dependant and even if players disperse, they still have good chances against the marine team. If the alien team works together, I am confident that marine team is absolutely no match for them.
You can NEVER get an even gameplay this way as everything depends on a single person. I will think about solutions for this problem below.
--
I am sure I could think about at least 20 more points if I took more time to do so, but I think you get my point.
The problem is how to balance all this. Generally, I do not think this is very complicated.
Here are some solution suggestions according to my ?point system? :-)
1.) Commander should not be count as a player for the marine team, but under a separate point called ?commander?. (with another color, lets say bright blue or something)
If teams get uneven, the team that has lesser players should get some appropriate advantages like res bonuses (depending on how uneven teams are).
2.) Marines should get a small amount of res when killing aliens as well.
You could make it so that marine teams get 1 res point for every 2 skulks killed (figure out appropriate numbers) and a littlebit more for bigger aliens and much for onos.
OR you disable this function for both teams, so no team gets resources for killing each others players.
3.) no practical solution currently comes to my mind at the moment.
4.) At least onos should only be available with 3 hives.
4.1.) Capturing and especially holding res points must be made easier for marines.
5.) infantry portal must get more armor points and should be able to spawn players within a certain spawn field that surrounds them (random), lets say some? meters. Furthermore? players should be automatically notified as soon as infantry portals get attacked.
6.1.) Marines armor should cost less and should be available faster especially if you are so (crazy?) to leave onos available also with less than 3 hives.
6.2.) Regeneration should be made available at STANDARD armories (like on some test servers). Armories should refill ammo faster (as aliens have no such limitation and get full ammo right from the start) and should also heal faster.
Marines should get a limited ability to heal each other (however this is implemented), for example everyone carries a small injection system that holds 100 health at once. If the marine wants to refill it he has to return to the next armory.
Concerning the other advantages of aliens:
stealth and cloaking ? you could introduce a stealth/cloaking upgrade 1,2,3 for marines;
celerety ? lessen cost of jetpacks, make them easier to use
adrenaline ? make ammo reload faster at armory, greatly reduce reloading time of pistol, greatly reduce reloading time of grenade launcher and give it a bigger clip (7)
redemption ? double the amount of time equipment lies on the ground before disappearing; make a special area where equipment does not disappear at all, even if picked up and thrown to the floor again (for example in an area 30 meters around armories). Generally, if an item lies around for 20 minutes with noone picking it up it should disappear anyway.
blink ? remove it completely and substitute it with something else; or make it much weaker or make it decrease health when using it. There is no defense against this type of attack for the marines so it is unfair and must be taken out or made much weaker.
climbing up walls ? jetpacks again. You could however also make a new equipment item available that allows marines to slowly climb up walls.
stunning ability of onos ? remove it completely or make it much weaker. Make it at least so that marines can at least still move very slowly and can fire at half the speed or something.
swallowing ability of onos ? onos should have a hard time swallowing completely equipped players. They should at least spit out the main weapon. Digesting should go a littlebit faster (usually onos does not get killed in this time period anyway).
primal scream ? no equivalent needed in my opinion
xenocide ? no equivalent needed. However as this usually means endgame for the marines you could make it so that xenocide damage is reduced against HA marines and against vital base structures.
leap ? should reduce health when aliens bump into things before 1/2 of leap range is over. This would mean if skulk is 5 meters in front of player that stands before wall and leaps and player evades, skulk gets damage from bumping into wall. You could also use hitting angles to calculate damage. Means if skulk just hits wall in 15 degrees angle does not do any damage etc. etc.. It is up to you to figure out the numbers. Skulks are already deadly as they are, leap just makes them more deadly so that should also backfire.
healing spray ? you could for example make such an injection system for marine players as mentioned
web ? it should be possible to remove webs also with normal weapon fire when you directly fire at the web. Webs should be removed by grenade launcher explosions of course.
babblers ? no equivalent needed.
charge - no equivalent needed.
7.1.) As mentioned as there is no defense against fades blink attack you should make this much weaker.
7.2.) Make a safe zone where only minimal spore damage is done to players within 10 meters around armory or something like this.
7.3.) see above
7.4.) see above
7.5.) Make marine turrets more effective. Remove half turret damage against Onos (it does not interest onos if half damage or full damage is done anyway, it is only the degree how ridiculous the damage is). Marine turrets should automatically slowly regenerate when within a turrets factory radius (this is just fair, remember the aliens possibilities).
You could also make marine turrets upgradeable or something like this.
7.6.) see above
7.7.) see above
8.) Electrification should work faster and be less expensive.
9.) I do not know why there seems to be lower fps now, I think it has something to do with light effects. Could you tell me what the command is to turn off these light effects completely? Or has it something to do with the netcode of the new version?
10.) see above
11.) see above
12.) see above
13.) make certain buildings build themselves as well, for example defense towers.
14.) Why don?t you make it so that redemption needs res for the alien team and/or make respawn time longer? This would at least be a littlebit fairer. Furthermore see above (time when equipment disappears, safe zone around armory).
15.) Make respawn time a bit longer for the alien team.
16.) Give jetpacks the old flying scheme and remove costs.
17.) Increase clip capacity of grenade launcher a bit, make reload process much faster, direct hits (WHEN do players EVER hit directly?!?!) should make much more damage, while splash damage should be the same.
18.) Teams with lesser players should get res advantages depending on ?unbalance ? ratio?.
19.) Siege turrets should cost less and should do more damage against offense and defense chambers, fire a littlebit faster and should have a greater range concerning these 2 structures. They should be able to remember positions of structures for at least 3 hits (after that, memory should need to be refreshed for example by marine seeing structure).
20.) I really do not know what to do about this point. Perhaps some not so important functions could be done by players itself ? for example you could make it so that marines can buy weapons / armor at arms lab. This would mean that they also get a small res account for themselves.
You may say this was not intended when you created the game and that this will unbalance the game in favor of marine team. Well, I think it all depends on how this is figured out.
For example you could make it so that a marine gets 2 res points for every skulk he kills, 3 for gorge, 5 for lerk, 15 for fade and 30 for onos (or something). A very cool idea would be that the commander can donate res to players and vice versa! So a good player could give the team more res by killing aliens and could then donate this to commander.
All I would like to say with this post is that at the moment, anyone can see that aliens have very big advantages and therefore win almost all games on all servers. It is almost a shame to play on alien team because it is really so simple if you are an experienced player to crush the marine team.
I think that NS needs to be balanced to make it a game one can play.
Best regards,
IsNSunbalanced.. :-)
Comments
You seriously need to change server... o_o
EDIT: then again, JP HMG RUSH LOLZ might class as one of his "extreme" tactics.
Also, marines <i>do</i> get res for kill(R4K, RFK).
Anyway, FYI marines do get res for kills. And there isn't supposed to be "equivalents" like achers=headhunters=crips=gunners. Also, you complain about the lack of marine healing while we got plenty forum members that will scream its too powerful (medspam omg). You got some valid points though. And yes, we do know its unbalanced. At least in 2.01 its not as bad.
You put a lot of effort into this, which is nice. But you're just flat out wrong about several things, and have a kind of skewed perspective of others.
I'm not going to go point by point, but instead offer a single piece of advice. Don't write off electricity in the early game. Single-hive aliens can't do much to electrified nodes (and what they can do takes a week or so to make a dent), which lets marines rather cheaply lock down the nodes and secure a nice resource flow. Since resources *are* the marine game, this can turn everything around.
Certain maps are very alien-friendly in 2.01, which I see as the only remaining big balance problem. Otherwise, decent comms/marines against non-exploiting aliens is pretty even at this point. Fades get pwned bad by shotties, oni can't do diddly against JPers, spores roll right off HA. Everything has a counter, the only trick is the marines keeping the resources up to make those counters available.
I would post a long detailed post but it looks like Khaim's gonna do it. I'll simply ask people to note the numerous errors this poster has made re: basic gameplay facts and then make up their mind if he can't even get those right whether his opinions hold any weight.
He also conviently left out every single marine advantage. Therefore this whole thread is crap.
2.01 is really balanced. Just a couple of more tweaks, and this game will be gold.
Next, you think that marines get owned hardcore by skulks. Please, learn to aim a lot better. May I point to you the thread that's stickied which asks for anyone who wants to get better?
You should play with a competitent marine team, and you will easily see that marine's can and will own marine teams.
The only thing I agree with you on is that fades are overpowered, and this is simply because blink is unlimited in it's use, even without adrenaline. Therefore, the fade can always run from harm and continually hit the marines.
Everything else you posted, is incorrect and needs more research.
7.1.) New: Fades Blink Attack:
Gets counted by defensive HMG, HA, Armor upgrades and turrets.
7.2.) Spore attack of lerks
Gets counted by grenades, (HA), (shotgun), Medpacks, (mines) and weapon upgrades.+
7.3.) New: Stunning ability of Onos:
Jetpackers with brains and shotguns, onos is slow.
7.4.) New: Swallowing ability of Onos:
Jetpackers with brains and shotguns, NO HA, onos is slow.
7.5.) New: turrets do half the damage to onos (...)
Thats for a good reason you will never understand.
7.6.) Gorge standing around corner endlessly healing alien players.
Grenades, weapon upgrades, (jetpacks).
7.7.) web spamming (which makes the game even more unfair when aliens are already winning (3 hives))
Welders cost 5 res. are you kidding me?
7.x.) etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
ok you are.
well I just reported my experiences with the game so far. Surely, I am wrong with some points. There are surely some mistakes in there (some res values for examples). I also did not know marines get resources for kills, where can I read about this in the manual and how many?
However I think I also pointed out basic problems of the game balance, especially strategies marines cannot do anything against. I always have the feeling when a marine team wins then the other side consists of idiots or people on the alien side simply left because the game became too long. Of course it is extremely difficult to balance a game like this where both teams have nothing to do with each other in terms of anything (basically). Perhaps my suggestions go too far and would make the game more a marine winner game. Both would be very bad.
The problem is that balancing games is always a dance on the volcano because game balance depends on seemingly tiny things. This is like it is with tanks - some mm more frontal armor and a bigger cannon can make one armor win against the other; but still, both are 99% the same except some tiny differences.
I think the best thing would be to always watch game server statistics and take the arithmetic middle (from a great number of games). The greater the number of games watched the better because everything flattens out the higher the number of games you take into consideration. If you reach values around 50% then, the game should be balanced. But as far as I can see, aliens are still winning much more games than marines do.
Nothing more comes to my mind right now, best regards,
IsNSUnbalanced.. :-)))
1) so rines have 1 less player? not realy, that one guy can jump outa the CC and kill things, and drop meds/ammo ANYWHERE on the map for ANYONE, which aliens can never do.
2.) Rines get RFK also with upgrades at 20/30/40 for marines you can upgrade spamm like CRAZY, meaning lvl 3/3 and motion tracking at 4-6 minutes, so no dieing like crazy realy.
3.) Phase gates, jetpacks, stronger firepower than aliens, its a classic argument, speed + damage - range versus Damage + range - speed.
4.) Destroy res nodes, they have less res as you gain more the gap widens twice as fast, and yes it is possible to kill alien resnodes OMG!!!
4.1.) If aliens spend so much res on defenses that you cant take an area with LMGs chances are that they will not have higher lifeforms, and if they do you are probably already 15 minutes + into the game.
The comm is alerted to marine structures under attack, if your comm has half a brain he'll say something. Again, if aliens spend all their res on getting defensive structures it will A) delay their tech, B) delay higher lifeforms, allowing you time to find where their D is weakest, and allow you to tech up over them.
5.) A) no, they realy dont build that many ocs, if they are, back off, and corner them in the hiveroom. B) Phase gates, instant reinforcement, not delayed at all. The reason you never see marines spawncamping is that if marines get enough people in a hiveroom they usualy just kill the hive, then the aliens, as that usualy sounds the death-toll for aliens(not the beeping, i mean the stratigical death knell.) Also, distress beacon for marines, spawn everyone at once, all around the marine spawn... what fade?
D) (combining the last few letters into D for now. ) Marines can tell when aliens are comming too, Motion tracking. Have someone guard the phase, realy, not very hard. Also, marines realy dont need to use vents and whatnot, they realy can deal with normal routes quite well.
6.) Abilities and marine equivalents
Additionally to the above mentioned massive resource tower problems and very different abilities to destroy structures, some things are very obvious as well:
6.1) LVL 3 carapace is not that strong buddy, HA is only equal to carapace 3? What are you smoking man, thats some strong stuff.
6.1.1) Carapace bonuses armor AT THE MOST 100 and thats for ONOS, marines HA armor absorbes 95% damage, and adds a total of 240 points of armor, much better, also normal marine armor really does work well, and you dont need to pay ANYTHING for that.
6.2.) You can be healed anywhere, as fast as needed, anytime as a marine, try some medspam sometime, it realy works wonders, also marines usualy do earn this medpack(s) back by killing things.
6.2.1.) The comm should have time, especialy to keep his troops alive.
Counter list:
stealth - > Motion tracking
regeneration - > medpacks
celerety - > shotgun, you will own them as soon as they get close enough to even think about touching you, and yes you will probably easily get 10 res worth of kills out of this.
adrenaline - > not applicable, marines use ammo, comm can drop ammo anywhere though.
redemption - > shotgun, gl, or hmg, all work very to kill redeem stuff.
cloaking - > Motion Tracking
blink - > not sure what you mean by a counter for this, but motion tracking sort of.
climbing up walls - > Jps/shoot the thing down.
stunning ability of onos - > JP, cant stun air targets etc.
swallowing ability of onos - > Kill the onos or make him redeem, marine pops out.
primal scream - > Not realy applicable to marines, but Killing the lerk should work, also this IS a hive 3 ability, if you let the aliens get 3 hives you're toast anyway.
xenocide - > 3hive ability, see primal scream.
leap - > shotgun, hit him as he flies at you, dead skulk.
healing spray - > medkits.
web - > 3 hives, but welder or gl also blows these up.
babblers - > not in anymore nublar.
charge - > 3 hive ability, meant to be strongest in the game anyway.
Welders apply infinately to armor, and can be picked up off dead players, thus recycleing infinately.
7.) The next very unfair point is that there is NO defense against the following alien tactics: - > what am i supposed to comment on your introduction to a new section too <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->.
7.1.) New: Fades Blink Attack:
Shotguns, they OWN fades hard, 2-3 shots = dead fade, with 2-3 people that fade is owned, and thats even for a smaller cost than the fade itself.
Shotguns. Own. Fades. Period. Also onos can be killed with shotguns or hmgs quite easily.
7.2.) Grenade launcher, or HA or Jetpack to catch the lerk, also lerks cant spore the base to death, you can go on the offensive while they do this, usualy messes them up pretty bad.
7.3.) New: Stunning ability of Onos:
A) It's not six seconds. B) Jetpackers cant be stunned C) Spread out. D) stacking on top of each other, as silly and usualy tricky as it is actualy works.
7.4.) New: Swallowing ability of Onos:
A) Kill said onos, you DO keep your equipment, there was a bug, fixed now though. B) You weren't supposed to be able to shoot around inside the onos in the first place, again, a previous bug. C) Jps arnt stompable, the horn does have a realy long range tho <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->.
7.5.) Marine nor alien defenses are enough to hold back any detirmined players, dont even make me start going into the bugs with OCs.
7.6.) Grenade Launcher.
7.7.) At 3 hives you should be dead ANYWAY, the balance is supposed to against you then. P,S. It's encyclopedia Brittanica, not brianica I believe.
8.) Have someone kill the oc, also if a fade or onos takes the time to kill a electrified rt, good, thats that much longer that you have to kill a hive off without worrying about them. Also multiple skulks cant kill an elec rt anymore anyway, maximum targets was moved to 2 from 1.
9.) Uh once again what are you smoking... The lag has DECREASED from what I've seen on servers, and there is no new models asides from the GL really, so fps should not be decreasing, perhaps you did something odd to your comp?
See what a skilled marine can do to a number of skulks.
10.) A number of alien abilities are VERY high energy requirement, pretty much forcing the aliens to get addren, also a hmg has 125 bullets, thats 2.5 times that of the LMG and it does more damage, and marines can upgrade damage for 20/30/40, aliens cant, ever.
11.) A)Get motion tracking B) Scan C) Get multiple obs, they were lowered cost-wise for a reason.
12.) Aliens can be heard too, also you can get motion tracking for marines. Marines really weren't meant for stealth that much anyway.
13.) Yes, because alien things grow, static buildings don't, also if buildings built themselves as marine they could just drop a phase and/or a seige base outside their hive and let it build itself.
14.) Shotguns and/or grenades, redeem can be very annoying atm though if you're not careful. Also farrier means a person who farries people, i.e. accross a river on a barge, not fair-er.
15.) Try building 4 ips and a phase near a hive, the aliens will be slaughtered simply because of the onrush of the marines, the comm can choose how fast he wants people to spawn based on his res and strategy.
16.) JPs do work still, the main thing is that jps take weight into account now and are not fps based. Many people who had bad fps in 1.0/still do actualy get more thrust now. Also, try shotgun-jps, they work VERY well.
17.) Get someone to cover you. Also the GL does 1200+ damage a clip to structures, and splash damage, thats a LOT.
18.) This happens to aliens a lot too, I don't see how you could say it only applies to marines.
19.) By the time they have that many ocs and dcs you're probably already dead anyway and they have 3 hives.
20.) Eject the comm if you dont like him, Also, a competant commaner can take care of everything no-problem.
As one forumite's sig says, "We can only balance the game, not the Players."
Bring on the points, in the current version of ns 2.01RC2 there is relatively little that can be classified as 'greatly unbalancing'
The rest of this stuff should be in the suggestions and ideas forum. And after reading all of the ideas i'm not sure weather or not this entire topic was realy just an excuse to make a bunch of suggestions. Anyway I'm out for now cya.
Overall aliens are STRONGER than the marines.
But in the late game... what happens? Marines have enough res to make "ha-trains" (who thought of this expression?) equipped with the most fashionable hmgs which means it is IMPOSSIBLE to get near them! Onos or whatever can't even get close. Fades get ripped up before they are able to land 4 strikes and even with 4 swipes, a single HA is not dead. The thing is, IMO marine gameplay needs some change. HA is like the 1.04 onos - it's something you get in the end and is pretty much unbeatable with welder support & a little medpack. The thing about aliens is that they're good... only coz they're powerful against LMG/NORMAL ARMOR marines. These guys deal pitiful damage and get shredded by a few swipes thus creating the illusion that FADES & ONOS and LERKS are dominating. The obvious solution is to make HA available earlier and increasing alien versatality. Alternatively, you could give more weapons to the marines that are in between HMG effectiveness or armor that is between normal TSA plate and HA.
I also agree with the marine's dependance on a SINGLE player. It usually results in un-enjoyable pub games.
Lastly, I concur that marines cannot rush aliens no matter how skilled they are due to distance/speed. Perhaps the NS team should make smaller maps.
The marine's game lies almost entirely in the comms hands (though if the marines don't follow orders they're doomed anyways).
unlike aliens where the game is based on a mix of individuals working independantly but together in building, fighting and tactics the marines only have 1 builder and 1 tactician; all the other marine players can do is give advice, complete the buildings (they don't have to gorge luckily), go to their waypoints and shoot anything not in their team =P
thing is, with the aliens being the work of many it all balances out; the strong compensate for weak, the old compensate for the new. But with a comm it's mostly dependant on their ability to plan, direct, react and their ability to assess their own troops strengths and weaknesses.
<b>edit:</b> gah... fast posting mousie =3
1) Alien upgrades generally come at lower cost and reduced effectiveness. For instance, Carapace 3 is easier to get than Armor 3; however, just having Armor <b>1</b> improves marine survival rate by 50% against Skulks and Fades (2 bites/swipes becomes 3). Not to mention the fact that aliens don't even have access to attack upgrades.
2) Marine technology is instant and powerful, while alien "tech" generally requires time. Evolving to a higher life form or to get some form of upgrade takes time. Marine upgrades are instantly and permanently applied to all troops once researched, and weapons are also instantly useable. Similarly, medpacks instantly heal 50 HP, but HP regeneration for aliens takes time.
3) Aliens appear to have a resource advantage, but for some key things. Some examples:
-a- Distributed vs. centralized resources. A marine team that gets 20 RPs has many options. A team of aliens that receives 20 RPs can do much, much less - no structure or evolution only costs 20/(# of team members).
-b- Electricity is extremely helpful in the early marine game, as it renders RTs completely safe from skulks and Fades without support.
-c- In general, aliens cost *more* than marines. A fully upgraded onos costs 106 RPs, invested by a SINGLE alien. A commander can fully equip two marines for less than that, and is much more likely to have 100 RPs in the bank.
4) The simplest balancing "imbalance": ranged vs. melee weapons. If marines choose their ground carefully, they're virtually untouchable. Ever tried reaching Power Silo as a skulk with a pistol-equipped marine at the far end of the hallway? Best of luck. I've got 6-0 against skulks down one of those hallways, and I'm hardly an excellent player.
Anyway, points awarded for a well-written essay; however, I don't think you're right. If you're still playing 2.0, play 2.01; I think you'll see balance vastly improved.
Parting notes:
1) as said above, marines *do* get resources for kills.
2) The teams aren't supposed to have equivalent skills; they're supposed to have countering skills. Marines have no equivalent to spores, but they do have a counter: HA. Etc.
thank you for your replies so far.
Perhaps I was really disappointed too soon about the new version (probably also negatively influenced by my bad experiences with the old version which I quit playing some months ago) and therefore saw everything too black (or played on the wrong servers with the wrong people too often) which caused some frustration.
Interestingly, I have played for some hours today and there were even some wins for the marine team (D Version, RC01 + RC02 versions). It could be that I have had an unfortunate row of marines loosing in the last few days.
At least, as someone said I worked out almost every alien advantage by my posting (but I probably left out marine advantages thats right) hehe.
Best regards,
IsNsUnbalanced.. (LOL - my name is really easy to remember dont you think)
P.S.:
The tip with typing ati_npatch 0 in console works very good it seems!!! (seems to massively increase FPS) I hope I cited this one right, the tip was in the general discussion forum, the thread about how many FPS people get. I think I can recommend this one (however I do not know for which graphics cards this will work).
OMG
I am sorry but you are very incorrect in many points you made.
You lack a understanding of the game and the balance of the game.
You made your self look ignorant and the fact that you have never given this game a chance is obvious.
You played the game from 1 said, you took everything at face value and didn't botjher to learn to adapt.
As you have read, everyone saw that you were totally incorrect in almost all of your points.
You singled out kharaa characters and made them sound GOD LIKE.
The simple fact is that you really have already sold this game short and until you open your mind, NS isn't for you.
This game is one of the most masterfully created games I have ever seen and its the reason why it has such a HUGE fan base.
I hope that you will go back into the game, learn to play it and learn to get use to how its changed.
2.1 is very balanced. You need to get some play time to learn that.
P.S. IsNSunbalancedBS is the BS at the end supposed to stand for bull *stuff* or something else? keep in mind the board rules that are on the main ns.org webpage when you click the forums link, the language rules also apply to names.
These games have been mainly 10 vs 10 and the like, which gives marines an advantage, so..
As for the rest of the original post.. As several people has pointed out there are errors in the post, and there ARE counters to alien tactics, as well as unique marine benefits such as sieges.
But what you'll have to remember is that you cant compare aliens and marines the same way - The sides are not supposed to be mirrors of each other, they are supposed to feel different. Marines doesn't necessarily have to have an extra player, although marines <i>are</i> at a greater advantage at higher numbers.
Many of his arguments look exactly correct...looking at them from the outside that is.
More time played on various good servers will change his mind.
That would be me. It was a quote from Nem0 in reply to a very similar thread. I chose it because i felt it summed up NS Balance issues perfectly. The dev team can go to the ends of the earth and back trying to balance the game, but if the alien team is better than the marine team, they will win. its as simple as that. What kind of balance is "Marines should win even when they are worse than aliens??" it is just not fair. The Dev team have done <b>a lot</b> of work getting the game balanced. yes, it <i>is</i> balanced. if aliens are winning too often for your liking find a different server, or play aliens more.
I'm happy to see he at least cares. It wasn't a rant, he was doing what he felt was right...S&I forum would be best, but that forum has become a joke lately...