Marines and Aliens unbalanced

[Corax]

Hello everyone. I have a bit of a problem with NS2.
I started playing aliens at first and stayed there for a long time, since I loved how I was winning every game.
Then I got BORED of winning all the time.
I switched to marines and found them to be interesting and challenging. After playing for a while I got BORED of losing all the time, since marines really need some boost up. Marine early and mid game is way too hard and depends too much on good team coordination and commanding which must work perfectly together.

So, after I got bored of both Aliens and Marines, since the outcome was too predictable I decided to write here and ask what others think of it?

2 things that concern me first are:
1) Alien commander has a massive advantage by not depending on other aliens to build.
2) Blink is way too powerful, it really needs to drain at least 2x more energy from fades to be anywhere near balanced.
3) There should be a way to make squads in marine team and a squad leader who can give orders on map to not depend on some people discussing things on voicechat

Those are my toughts for now, let me know what you think.
I would like to play this game, but aliens got boring for being too strong and winning all the time, and marines the opposite, losing all the time.

This game needs balancing else I belive I will not be the only one to get bored.

Let me know what you think. Have a good one.

[2+2=5]

Winning with aliens is easier becouse playing as marines needs more game knowledge and aim plus a better commander. you need high accuracy also you have to know where to stand in the room if you gonna be succesful defending yourself

so first:
marines have phasegates + distress beacon + jetpacks
aliens have celerity + fade + blink

marines need a better commander and a little bit better organized gameplay to win which is hard to find at most public games. I suggest you to find yourself a new server with more organized players. thats the only way to enjoy marines gameplay believe me. marines team usually get tunnel visioned and ofc, alien team with onosses pwns the match at late game thats whats happenning almost every public game.

when I consider your concerns..
1- alien buildings needs chain cysts which can be destroyed easily or a marine can stand in the room and block infestation like forever.so alien comm do need support while building. also alien buildings grow so slow without a gorge yet you can build everything in no time with marines just pressing e without any resource cost or combat cost like gorging.

2- marines have phase gates to move around map fast. aliens only have fades to navigate faster around the map so reducing fades energy would ruin alien mobility. whole marines just pay 10resource and get jetpacks. fade needs far more resource then it should be mobile both for combat survival and for fast navigation around map

these are my 2c. you have a good one too mate.

[Titan Arum]

1) I disagree, Marines can build faster than aliens can.
2) Disagree again (sorry), it is not that hard to trap a fade. And come W3 a fade is quite fragile, not to mention expensive.
3) Couldn't agree more! :)

[indefort]

You must be playing on different servers than I, because it's pretty much 50/50 which team wins for me.

[Corax]

1) Marines can not build faster than aliens can. Try out alien commander, you can spam every direction without the need to bother your teammates. That IS the advantage that you don't need your teammates to do it.

2) Hard to trap a fade? Well when I play a fade then I have a ridiculous amount of energy with adrenaline and blink saves my butt every time. Also it works for other fades agains me when I'm a marine.

3) Well.. at least we agree on that one.

Just in case (reading BiteThePain's comment) I stress, that I played aliens a lot, I constantly change servers and it's a lot easier to win as aliens. 90% wins for me at least, not even close to 50/50

And to Iamatree, good points and excactly my points: Marines need more knowledge of the game, tactics, good team, good FPS players, good commander etc.
That's why marines are unbalanced :) We are talking about the ideal team here, but how often do you find those with marines?
Clearly there is something wrong when getting it with aliens is easy while marines are some special creatures who need tons of knowledge :)

[RoaR]

I do believe that the game balance is pretty good. I think the official stats say its currently 60/40 in terms of aliens winning percentage. So to start making my points:

1)Alien Khammander (see what I did there =P) can expand much quicker without support from his team. He doesn't require teamates to build for him, though it does go much quicker with a gorge or nutrient mist (both of which cost pres, and tres respectively). That being said though the alien commander has little impact on the battlefield. Though tactics like whips, bone wall, or drifters are available, the marine commander can actively drop both ammo and medkits, as well as place a shield on players that reduces damage by 50%.

2)The fade blink I think all around is balanced. It does drain energy quite quick, and without adrenaline lasts for about 2 seconds. And as brought up earlier is quite fragile when it comes to late game.

3)Yes to all that!

[TheEvilNoob]

I've heard the stats are currently 60/40, down from 70/30 from the last patch. I've played a decent amount since the patch, and the 60/40 seems about right. Its unbalanced, but not by much.

Saying that you got tired of winning all the time on aliens and losing all the time on marines is a HUGE exageration. Solution? Switch teams. Then you lose some and you win some. Theres no problem with that.

[Volcano]

unless your marines are not willign to play aggressively against the aliens early game, you're going to lose. So rather than relying on exos and sentries to win you games actually play properly

[100% Recycled Awesome]

Originally posted by dog:

1) Marines can not build faster than aliens can. Try out alien commander, you can spam every direction without the need to bother your teammates. That IS the advantage that you don't need your teammates to do it.

There is a difference between building as an alien Com and having mature buildings that actually do anything. Alien structures without Gorges take a considerable amounts of time to mature. A good Alien com with competent gorges can drop a shift and see buildings build super fast as gorges speed their maturity and see their energy boosted with shifts. A new hive with 3 gorges and a shift will get up and running super fast. A hive without gorges will take eons to mature.

An alien Com without gorge support will build far slower then a Marine com with marines actively building. 4 marines building a stucture makes that go incredibly fast.

I think one problem Marines are facing is that some Gorge players are getting really good to the point where offensive gorge pushes are actually happening. When a gorge within the first minute of the game blocks off half to a third of the map, your marines have a problem. On Tram, I'n regularly denying marines repair and I watch my Skulk friends flank and eat marines constantly. Some games it gets bad enough where I'm able to wall off logistics or Ore processing (depending if they start in Shipping or Warehouse) and then start offensively pushing Hydras. Same thing for Summit. I don't see the same kind of advancement as a whole happening for Marines.

[100% Recycled Awesome]

Originally posted by Volcano:

unless your marines are not willign to play aggressively against the aliens early game, you're going to lose. So rather than relying on exos and sentries to win you games actually play properly

Well, either team that fails to harrass the other team's economy is going to lose. For the most part. Occassionally a team will manage to break out, but it's not common. Aliens have an obvious advantage in economy disruption and most Marine players don't compensate for this. Marines can play somewhat defensively in the early game if they are still making raids on on harvestors. But this rarely happens on defensive marine teams.

That said, a decent ARC push can let a defensive marine team win if they do it right.

[Marq]

Originally posted by Volcano:

unless your marines are not willign to play aggressively against the aliens early game, you're going to lose. So rather than relying on exos and sentries to win you games actually play properly

So what are the competitive players doing wrong? I mean if 30% of competitive games go to marines then they must not be doing something properly as well.

[Volcano]

Mainly due to the power node system where when they base rush with 4 skulks with cara theyll take out the power before the bacon goes off, they are much more mobile than marines in the sence that you cant have a phase at every point otherwise youll be wasting 20odd seconds jjumping around the map. Marines have the advatange in being able the demolish the aliens economy since harvesters take less time to kill than extractors even if you have to suicide rush the extractor losing your lmgs which is free to impair their income for 2minutes ( i think thats how long it takes for an unassisted harvester to build).

[five-o]

the unbalance is really most apparent in small games. it's not even worht playing with less than 8 players, much too easy for aliens to take over the map.

[Bartz]

One point that I would argue is that newer players tend to gravitate to playing marines first because it's more familiar territory for them. Therefore, marines are more likely to have less experienced players and lose more often.

Also, having recently played with friends that are completely new to NS and NS2 I've notice that newer marines stay too close when covering eachother. By covering my teammates from further back I've been able to score upwards of 5 skulk kills in a row. I wouldn't even call myself a good shot, I've just played long enough to know not to cluster up as a marine.

[Corax]

@TheEvilNoob It is not at all exageration and you can't decide that for me thank you :)

@Volcano Usually they aren't. And relying on exos is a bad way to play anyway. In public games it's hard to get a proper marine team and a lot easier to get a proper alien team.

@Resycled Awesome The alien building maturation doesn't affect commander long. I usually go off building cysts all around the place and as soon as one harvester spot is infested I start building them, but I never stop building (well sometimes you can build cysts so fast that you actually run out of res at the beginning)

The biggest problem in my opinion is Blink. When I play fade nobody can kill me since Blink always saves me. It's too damn powerful. Every time fades come to the battlefield it's pretty much over :)

On marine tactics:
Mistake #1) They usually start building the main base and forget RTs after they have 2 or 3 in place (alien commander won't stop)
Mistake #2) Marines walk too close together rendering them useless at spotting aliens who attack their teammates + aliens get close to ALL OF THEM so long range shooting is out of the question

I agree on that with Bartz.

Well it's a sure thing that both sides have unique gameplay, but it's also that marines need to be more well rounded to do anything better than aliens.

[bone]

marines and aliens feel almost balanced for me, winning or losing is depending on skills.