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General / the problem
« on: May 25, 2005, 05:53:01 AM »
Currently I think one of the biggest balance problems has to do with map layout. There are alot of hives that are unreasonably difficult to siege, requiring marines to rush in and become fodder for aliens spawning or movementing in and getting free attacks from behind while also benefiting from the hive regen. The most common siege areas are small cramped hallways that become even more cramped when you start putting tfs and turrets in them. So what you end up with is marines being stuck with low mobility and highly vulnerable to spores and skulks that can use marines and structures to block the majority of incoming fire. With LM having FF on you see marines taking quite a bit of team damage in these scenarios, as well as it being the main reason why grenade launchers are used so infrequently on the server. Places like the refinery hive on bast and mother hive on nancy give the aliens a significant advantage and I often see a bunch of res and time wasted on sieges that have very little chance of succeeding.
To combat this problem marine commanders need to have their marines put pressure on the aliens inside the hive and keep only 2 or so marines at the pg/tf. A single marine unloading his lmg clip into a fade can force it to retreat and heal before it will feel safe assaulting the main marine presence, more marines can hold off most of the alien team long enough for a couple guys to get sieges up. The goal shouldn't be to go fully into the hive and kill chambers or gorges but to keep the aliens at bay and keep the fighting away from the blocking turrets. And once the sieges are up the marines need to run in and shoot the hive, which thankfully seens to be happening more often as of late. There are still locations like sewer hive on caged where the geometry makes this really difficult but it is very effective on maps like eclipse and origin.
Another problem is the mid to late game rt advantage for aliens. Once the marines start focusing on hitting hives and put less effort into building/capturing new rts the aliens gradually pull ahead in regards to incoming res as they are able to use a single skulk to take out the majority of the marine res towers. And since aliens will have access to fades, leap and a second set of upgrades they have no problems reacting to hivesight warnings of rt's under attack and dispatching the marines or at least keeping them from damaging the rt while they defend themselves and more aliens arrive. Marines also are at a much greater disadvantage when attacking rts as both knifing and shooting the rt down leaves the marine extremely vulnerable. If the marine knifes he must stand right next to the rt while the constant sound effects make it difficult to hear incoming skulks, and when they do show up there's a delay to switch weapons that gives skulks time to close distance. If the marine shoots the rt he spends half his time with an empty clip and reloading with no way to defend himself effectively. Meanwhile a skulk isn't at any great disadvantage while biting an rt since it provides an effective shield from bullets and the marines focusing on the biting skulk are very susceptible to an ambush from another alien.
There's not any real way for marines to counter this disadvantage. If they send more people in larger groups that's pressure taken off hives or more critical locations and the people shooting or knifing still put the group at a disadvantage if the aliens attack in numbers. You can give out heavy weapons to make the rts die faster but there are still disadvantages with reloading and it's very easy to lose the weapon and watch the res spent on it go down the drain. Motion tracking does give a benefit when used in conjuction with the mini-map but you still end up in big trouble versus fades and leap. The benefit electrification gives goes away quickly once you have gorges bile bombing and an increasing number of fades. The only effective solution I can see is to decrease the total hp of alien rts so they go down faster. This would also provide a more active role for gorges as they'll need to heal the rts but changing it is in the dev's hands and could cause early game imbalance.
Overall I'd say marines need to play more agressively early game and put more priority on killing alien rts as the game progresses. In the very beginning of a game especially marines need to try and get deeper map penetration, they can oftentimes kill a gorge or two before it gets an rt up. Having the first couple marines out of base proceed directly to hives can also give you great early game map presence and the aliens will have to attack you instead of laying in wait and ambushing when and where they want.
To combat this problem marine commanders need to have their marines put pressure on the aliens inside the hive and keep only 2 or so marines at the pg/tf. A single marine unloading his lmg clip into a fade can force it to retreat and heal before it will feel safe assaulting the main marine presence, more marines can hold off most of the alien team long enough for a couple guys to get sieges up. The goal shouldn't be to go fully into the hive and kill chambers or gorges but to keep the aliens at bay and keep the fighting away from the blocking turrets. And once the sieges are up the marines need to run in and shoot the hive, which thankfully seens to be happening more often as of late. There are still locations like sewer hive on caged where the geometry makes this really difficult but it is very effective on maps like eclipse and origin.
Another problem is the mid to late game rt advantage for aliens. Once the marines start focusing on hitting hives and put less effort into building/capturing new rts the aliens gradually pull ahead in regards to incoming res as they are able to use a single skulk to take out the majority of the marine res towers. And since aliens will have access to fades, leap and a second set of upgrades they have no problems reacting to hivesight warnings of rt's under attack and dispatching the marines or at least keeping them from damaging the rt while they defend themselves and more aliens arrive. Marines also are at a much greater disadvantage when attacking rts as both knifing and shooting the rt down leaves the marine extremely vulnerable. If the marine knifes he must stand right next to the rt while the constant sound effects make it difficult to hear incoming skulks, and when they do show up there's a delay to switch weapons that gives skulks time to close distance. If the marine shoots the rt he spends half his time with an empty clip and reloading with no way to defend himself effectively. Meanwhile a skulk isn't at any great disadvantage while biting an rt since it provides an effective shield from bullets and the marines focusing on the biting skulk are very susceptible to an ambush from another alien.
There's not any real way for marines to counter this disadvantage. If they send more people in larger groups that's pressure taken off hives or more critical locations and the people shooting or knifing still put the group at a disadvantage if the aliens attack in numbers. You can give out heavy weapons to make the rts die faster but there are still disadvantages with reloading and it's very easy to lose the weapon and watch the res spent on it go down the drain. Motion tracking does give a benefit when used in conjuction with the mini-map but you still end up in big trouble versus fades and leap. The benefit electrification gives goes away quickly once you have gorges bile bombing and an increasing number of fades. The only effective solution I can see is to decrease the total hp of alien rts so they go down faster. This would also provide a more active role for gorges as they'll need to heal the rts but changing it is in the dev's hands and could cause early game imbalance.
Overall I'd say marines need to play more agressively early game and put more priority on killing alien rts as the game progresses. In the very beginning of a game especially marines need to try and get deeper map penetration, they can oftentimes kill a gorge or two before it gets an rt up. Having the first couple marines out of base proceed directly to hives can also give you great early game map presence and the aliens will have to attack you instead of laying in wait and ambushing when and where they want.