Natural Selection 2

Natural Selection 2

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I dont know why UW..
Cant say i dont know why UW is having a hard time balancing the teams of aliens without just dismantling the team they are trying to balance, it used to be aliens were OP, now the Marines are and the aliens are just the marines pets at this point. Me and my buddies who play together in either just fun games, or to compete, are now having the hardest time winning as aliens, but flawlessly win as marines. But now with this recent patch and seeing that they nerfed the aliens some more, my friends are just about giving up with NS2, we enjoy being aliens because its a refreshing break from just another shooter. But when you play a game and all you do is lose without a chance of victory(unless the marines team is stacked agaisnt) then well you just get bored of it. what i would like to see that may fix it and make balancing teams better, is a personal RANK, and not one that simply "play longer and get higher rank" i mean, skill rank. With points being gathered for destoryed structures and players, as well as healing and fixing them as well as other players, then when you want to randomize players in teams, the server makes the best choices of the players by rank to balance them, instead of just flipping coins with everyone because that stacks more games than just everyone going whatever.
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Agreed except I do not think aliens were OP for a very, very long time now (YMMV, if you had a lot of performance issues you might have had more trouble with aiming in the past).

Otherwise, this also has completely my observation too (and I'm usually just playing with one other player). Recent patches broke so many things.

- Aliens require map control for ALL of terrain, hives and resource nodes without being given anything much to establish it. Not even manned Gorge clog walls work against just 1-2 marines anymore, given that there is no way to repel grenades anymore. If marines don't ignore cysts but attack every building in sight, life is hell for the aliens and their commander.

In fact, it is mainly the marines that have some useful map area control/cleaning tools with PGs and arcs and Flamers / GLs and such.

- Aliens have terribly slow skulks now (skilled movement some patches ago was easily +30% faster than you can get with skilled movement using leap now - making you much less of a bullet sponge on attacks). People's performance however got better so marines can now aim even better than when it was more balanced.

- Various maps were edited to have far more long, straight lines of fire with no cover. Few bypasses -if any- exist on most of these, so many fully guard a RT and everything behind it.

- Regeneration is useless. It does not heal fast enough out of combat especially.

- Aliens have even worse options with regard to tech progression now than they used to, whereas marines became completely flexible in their choices.

- Every lifeform but the fade is woefully weak, and getting to Fade is very late.

- Bilebomb has worse range and much worse damage at range.

- Marine commander has additional OP skills like powering a phase gate after a power node is down.

- Organized groups of marines have grenades for even more AoE.

- GL and Flamer are stronger. They complete the package of Shotty / Pistol who always were already too strong in the hand of people who can aim.

- JP is a little better, Exo much better.

- No more egg spawning on shifts, all eggs predictably spawn in hive location. This makes egg lock & overwhelming a location for the marines easier and, getting aliens to another location on map harder for the alien commander. No, shifting them in is not nearly the same, and I don't mean that just on the first hive.


Unfortunately, I have little hope of the NS2 team fixing these by now. A lot of people on the NS2 forums seem to think Aliens are (too) strong and that this is all just personal preference. But they're disadvantaged from ~4-6 players per team onwards and it only gets much worse with more players...
最近の変更はRadioactiveが行いました; 2013年10月15日 20時24分
Akito39 2013年10月15日 20時35分 
Also, OH MY GOD, Marine Jump Strafe.....
Hobocop 2013年10月15日 21時12分 
Radioactive の投稿を引用:
Agreed except I do not think aliens were OP for a very, very long time now (YMMV, if you had a lot of performance issues you might have had more trouble with aiming in the past).

Otherwise, this also has completely my observation too (and I'm usually just playing with one other player). Recent patches broke so many things.

- Aliens require map control for ALL of terrain, hives and resource nodes without being given anything much to establish it. Not even manned Gorge clog walls work against just 1-2 marines anymore, given that there is no way to repel grenades anymore. If marines don't ignore cysts but attack every building in sight, life is hell for the aliens and their commander.

Except...you know...gorge tunnels being available right from the start of the game no research required in 257. And they can be built virtually anywhere you can get a gorge, which is huge. Whips being able to deflect grenades automatically with zero player input were one of the big reasons why GLs were so useless before, and I'd rather not go back there.

In fact, it is mainly the marines that have some useful map area control/cleaning tools with PGs and arcs and Flamers / GLs and such.

The vast majority of which are easy prey for most combat lifeforms or require extensive setup before being effective. Though aliens could use something a little extra to help clear out massive ARC trains besides just bilebomb. Or maybe more alien khamms just need to use enzyme cloud.

- Aliens have terribly slow skulks now (skilled movement some patches ago was easily +30% faster than you can get with skilled movement using leap now - making you much less of a bullet sponge on attacks). People's performance however got better so marines can now aim even better than when it was more balanced.

Skilled movement from which patch now? Because I find that incredibly hard to believe. Skulk movement has been virtually unchanged since 250.

- Various maps were edited to have far more long, straight lines of fire with no cover. Few bypasses -if any- exist on most of these, so many fully guard a RT and everything behind it.

Sounds like an exaggeration to me, though some maps like Docking favor either marines or aliens a bit more because of certain chokepoints or map layouts. Docking is an annoying map btw.

- Regeneration is useless. It does not heal fast enough out of combat especially.

Can't agree. Heals reasonably fast enough, especially if you actually have a crag or gorge around somewhere to further reduce downtime.

- Aliens have even worse options with regard to tech progression now than they used to, whereas marines became completely flexible in their choices.

They do seem a little more restrictive than they used to be with the lifeform packages.

- Every lifeform but the fade is woefully weak, and getting to Fade is very late.

You honestly believe that Lerks are weak right now? And Gorges are still ridiculous boxes of utility like they've always been.

- Bilebomb has worse range and much worse damage at range.

Bilebomb damage doesn't really decay with range, but because of how its damage works, it doesn't stack up as quickly at longer ranges.

- Marine commander has additional OP skills like powering a phase gate after a power node is down.

And aliens have powerful stuff like enzyme cloud, and the other drifter support abilities which are woefully underused in public games. Oddly enough, power surge is also very underused because it requires a robotics factory which isn't exactly a top consideration in build order until later when you have a better resflow and want MACs and ARCs.

- Organized groups of marines have grenades for even more AoE.

I don't really find them to be so good that they're overpowering, but nerve gas grenades are annoying and create a lot of area pressure/denial that can't really be countered. It'd be interesting if say...storm allowed aliens to clear nerve gas.

- GL and Flamer are stronger. They complete the package of Shotty / Pistol who always were already too strong in the hand of people who can aim.

Better than them being freakin' trash and not worth using at all over a Shotgun in the vast majority of cases. Though I think Flamethrowers need to stop being the catch-all hardcounter to all alien support abilities.

- JP is a little better, Exo much better.

Exos really aren't that great. I find it funny how overrated they are. Powerful if properly supported, but so are Onos. Unfortuantely, it's a little more creative to support an Onos push compared to 'buy welders, weld everything.'
最近の変更はHobocopが行いました; 2013年10月15日 21時13分
Akito39 の投稿を引用:
Also, OH MY GOD, Marine Jump Strafe.....
Theoretically yes.

Practically, it doesn't always end up mattering, in the bad sense. The people who aim well don't typically even have to move to kill 2 approaching skulks if they're located at the end of one of the longer corridors or other places that have a long approach. They'd also typically kill 1 skulk on usual not particularly defensive engagement distances.

Hobocop の投稿を引用:
Except...you know...gorge tunnels being available right from the start of the game no research required in 257. And they can be built virtually anywhere you can get a gorge, which is huge.
Even if they're free, they're not competitive with PG by virtue of being slower to move through, and requiring one player each to spend PRES on going Gorge - delaying the only really worthy upgrade (fade) by quite a lot.

The same Gorge player also needs to replace the tunnel exit if it gets destroyed, or confusion will ensue and another player is probably down 15 pres and delayed in going Fade.

And lastly, many players spend more time than is good when every ms counts orienting themselves, finding the right gorge tunnel entrance for the desired exit. (Might not be quite as much of a problem for veteran games, though.)

Hobocop の投稿を引用:
Whips being able to deflect grenades automatically with zero player input were one of the big reasons why GLs were so useless before, and I'd rather not go back there.
No, they already were extremely strong. Aliens could not afford whips everywhere, much less defend them everywhere. You could kill whips with shotty / pistols / lmg. Never mind that you could oversaturate whips with GLs and bomb them.

Hobocop の投稿を引用:
The vast majority of which are easy prey for most combat lifeforms or require extensive setup before being effective.
IMO, actually none of them are easy prey in the hands of reasonably skilled, situation-aware marine players even when they're solo. Many of are utterly devastating when said marine players also have a JP, which they already can use to very great effect with just an LMG / pistol.

Hobocop の投稿を引用:
Though aliens could use something a little extra to help clear out massive ARC trains besides just bilebomb.
Maybe slightly costlier prequisites for ARC (so they have the tendency to come out only when there might already be some Fades and/or Onos in typical games, provided some people saved up). And un-nerfing bilebomb's range + a little less loss of damage at range.

Hobocop の投稿を引用:
Skilled movement from which patch now? Because I find that incredibly hard to believe. Skulk movement has been virtually unchanged since 250.
249 and before, actually. Yea, I've been unhappy with slow speeds since then, and it became less and less comfortable with performance fixes enabling people to aim better.

Hobocop の投稿を引用:
Sounds like an exaggeration to me, though some maps like Docking favor either marines or aliens a bit more because of certain chokepoints or map layouts. Docking is an annoying map btw.
What can I say...? I think it's very bad.

Hobocop の投稿を引用:
Can't agree. Heals reasonably fast enough, especially if you actually have a crag or gorge around somewhere to further reduce downtime.
You only heal fast enough then or with a hive, but at that point it's near useless. The point of picking it in the past was that if you won a fight, you didn't HAVE to go back and heal. Now, it does no longer fulfil that purpose. You'd better pick cara so you survive a few extra shots.

Hobocop の投稿を引用:
You honestly believe that Lerks are weak right now? And Gorges are still ridiculous boxes of utility like they've always been.
Yup. Lerks always were weak against good players. A marine can kill a lerk faster than a lerk a marines, provided the marine hits well. Horray for pistol/lmg being default! Never mind when they get close with JP / shotty or flamers (I abstain on the usefulness of GLs vs lerks, I had no known good lerk of refernce anymore).

And Gorges don't have as much range on their most important skill anymore, bilebomb, neither do they have the strong splash effect. Certainly, inattentive teams still can get base rushed by gorge trains or such, but when they're better, they'll not really even loose an exo anymore now.
Apart from that, the average aiming skill also went up, and the usefulness of clog walls and whips behind which a Gorge could retreat went down, making Gorges overall less survivable.

Hobocop の投稿を引用:
Bilebomb damage doesn't really decay with range, but because of how its damage works, it doesn't stack up as quickly at longer ranges.
... yes it does decay with range. Massively so. Try it.

Hobocop の投稿を引用:
]And aliens have powerful stuff like enzyme cloud, and the other drifter support abilities which are woefully underused in public games.
Requiring an alive drifter, which is an attention hog and resource sink when aliens often get overwhelmed. You'll not have one in some of the best places where a small group of 1-2 skulks is currently doing damage. And last time I checked, it was +125% attack speed, but only for 2 seconds. Almost no khammander could do something else and be back in time to re-activate the skill.

Either way, I find the options less than comparable overall. And I have serious reservations about suitability for non-competitive games.

Hobocop の投稿を引用:
Oddly enough, power surge is also very underused because it requires a robotics factory which isn't exactly a top consideration in build order until later when you have a better resflow and want MACs and ARCs.
... or just because active skills do get underused, sure. But it'd be pretty OP if it was used.

Hobocop の投稿を引用:
I don't really find them to be so good that they're overpowering, but nerve gas grenades are annoying and create a lot of area pressure/denial that can't really be countered. It'd be interesting if say...storm allowed aliens to clear nerve gas.
Solo they can't be used to great effect, but watch a clan with 2-4 people use them systematically... it's just one more thing that can only be used very well against but not really by casual players.

Hobocop の投稿を引用:
Better than them being freakin' trash and not worth using at all over a Shotgun in the vast majority of cases. Though I think Flamethrowers need to stop being the catch-all hardcounter to all alien support abilities.
They're too powerful, regardless.

Hobocop の投稿を引用:
Exos really aren't that great. I find it funny how overrated they are. Powerful if properly supported, but so are Onos. Unfortuantely, it's a little more creative to support an Onos push compared to 'buy welders, weld everything.'
Better than they were, and still good. Yea, in the vast majority of situations, I'd prefer an ARC or JP, too. But they always were good on base / corridor defense duty, "holding down the fort" while the team is out on attack, forcing 3+ lesser lifeforms to attack to succeed.


An Onos take a fairly ridiculous amount of support to even stay alive once the first brave JP'ers are out, and/or if marines actually try to flank and run behind the Onos while shooting it, rather than being afraid and letting it (and maybe supporting Gorges) escape. An Ono's Bone shield is okay in just a few locations and it's almost always not where the enemy buildings are. And other pretty big flaws. Basically, Onos are not so useful now.


Well, long response. I'm already a bit physically tired, and from how I understand it, your game experience was probably very different. We may not find agreement, and I'll leave for now.
最近の変更はRadioactiveが行いました; 2013年10月15日 23時07分
Chris (禁止済) 2013年10月16日 10時19分 
Just about the marine jump, Now yes a good marine doesn't have to use it, but it does make him more bold at being alone with such evasions. What should take two marines to do, takes one with decent and not perfect aim. Killing at the hive has since been twice as easy. Or like I said just easier with equiped domination in mind.
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投稿日: 2013年10月15日 17時56分
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