Tremulous Forum
General => Feedback => Topic started by: Barney on September 18, 2006, 10:39:16 am
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I might have missed a topic covering this but I did have a good look around. I'm new to Tremulous so I suppose I really shouldn't posting and I'm sure someone is going to point this fact out to me so if I'm wrong in something I say please say why as well.
I think the aliens side is too strong.
In every game where the teams have been balanced, skillwise and number of player wise, aliens have always won. The only times I've seen the humans win is when the teams are unbalanced with experienced players on the human side and fairly new players on the aliens side, where the humans advance quickly and destroy the eggs. It seems to me as soon as the alien side gets dragoons the human side has already lost, they just don't know it yet.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the main tactic of the aliens side is to hit and run? As in, mainly with dragoon or tyrant, run in destroy a turret or two and leave, regenerate health, then repeat till the humans base is destroyed. Or if the game lasts an extended period of time, to stage 3 or sudden death, even if the humans have the max turrets, tesla or otherwise, it only takes an advanced dragoon to spit... twice I think it is?... and they're destroyed.
What am I missing? Why do the humans lose all the time? I'm sure someones going to say, "Because they suck" or "j00 n00bs" so I suggest to them to play human all the time and see how they like facing a swarm of tyrants and advanced dragoons.
In my opinion, the advanced dragoons ranged shot is far too powerful. Especially against structures like the turrets. Also, I don't know whether it is just me, but apart from the lasgun all the energy projectiles seem really slow? Is it supposed to be like that or is something wrong on my end? Or is the projectile animation just slow? I'm finding I have to aim a fair distance ahead of a target for the projectile to hit which is even more difficult because of the aliens speed. The most annoying thing I'm finding so far is that the high end human weapons are poor over distance. So the following happens. Dragoon or Tyrant charges into human base, you engage it, it destroys a turret and tries to kill you. You fight back, they can't kill you, you're winning, and the thing just runs off. You certainly can't catch it and even though while its running off and you're chasing it you can keep it in sight for a while the weapon you're using can't hit it. The chainguns spread means so few bullets will hit thats its pointless to keep shooting, and the plasma rifle and lucifer projectiles can't even catch them (given the lucifer is really strong so I can accept the speed of its projectile just pointing out all the energy weapons have slow projectiles except for lasgun).
Let's compare each weapon in its effectiveness at killing/attacking a retreating alien, specifically dragoon, advanced dragoon and tyrant.
Machinegun - If you can force a dragoon, adv dragoon or a tyrant to retreat on this then props to ya but I doubt you're gonna finish it off as it retreats with this.
PlasmaChainsaw thingie (I haven't used it so I don't know its name) - Well... Unless you sorta... Throw it...
Shotgun - The spread stuffs it up over distance but then a shotgun wouldn't be a shotgun if you could use it to snipe an opponent down the hallway.
Lasgun - You're still probably not going to be dealing enough damage to take em out.
Plasma Rifle - As I said before, I don't know whether it's just me or if it's supposed to be like this, but the projectiles are really slow.
Chaingun - Great a point blank but I've chased a retreating alien down a corridor and I've seen a large amount of bullets holes everywhere but straight ahead.
Flamer - I admit I can't use a flamer very well... I'm sure I'm torching myself more then I am aliens but then I am comparing the weapons as to effectiveness over a shortish distance while chasing an alien down a corridor and a flamer certainly won't kill it. More like fry yourself.
Lucifer cannon - This seems to me like it's an energy based version of a rocket launcher. Blast radius good for taking out dretches.
Now I'm sure I've missed one or two human weapons but still... It seems to me like any weapon capable of being accurate over a distance is not strong enough to take on a dragoon, advanced dragoon or tyrant at close range... Which is where you're going to find them because of their stampede and pounce abilities.
The best way I can see to fix this is to either increase energy projectile speed (especially of the handgun there's no point using it when you're using a construction kit) or jam a cool down on the dragoon and tyrants stampede and pounce. Wihch there should be anyway... You try sprinting, then sprinting, then sprinting again, then sprinting again... and again... and again... Or preparing to for a second jump while you're doing the first jump. I mean that's how you use a dragoon, advanced dragoon and tyrant right? You use stampede/pounce and while in mid-stampede/pounce you're charging up for your next stampede/pounce.
So. As I said before, I'm new. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong and tell me WHY i'm wrong. I don't care if you tell me my solutions are wrong but if you tell me each side is fair I'm gonna tell you you're an idiot.
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I also think that aliens are overpowered;P
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I agree. But I also think humans are over powered... so it works out.
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I agree. But I also think humans are over powered... so it works out.
If you read my post fully I asked for any people with difference of opinion to state why... So could you please elaborate on your reasoning as to how they are both over powered so it all works out in the end?
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The dang spectators are overpowered, i mean geez, have you tried to kill one?? you can't!!!!
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The dang spectators are overpowered, i mean geez, have you tried to kill one?? you can't!!!!
I know what you mean. They're exploiting some kind of bug so they can't be seen or hurt and jeez... It's really disconcerting having one riding round inside your head.
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See now, i play a lot as both humans and aliens, and i must say the winning chances are mostly equal. The chaingun is GREAT for taking down retreating tyrants and goons, even if it spreads a wee bit too much, you can press the 'x' button to sprint, and run ALMOST as fast as a dretch, which is to say that you have a fair chance of hanging on an aliens back till it is dead.
now, the pulse rifle does an incredible amount of damage, if you know how to use it. Refrain from using the pulse rifle in huge open spaces where the aliens have a lot of room for moving, rather spam it in the hallways as the tyrant ot goon charges you, and they will be dead in no time.
and always when fighting aliens, remember t o dodge, not only retreat, this makes a pain in the ass to the alien, since it will take heavy damage while not being able to hit you, dodging is best done by circling an alien , and moving a wee bit back or forth after the aliens movement.
this is useful with the painsaw, as you can get at point blank range, and saw those tyrants and goons to death. (you'd be suprised at how much damage it deals, especially since it has unlimited ammo.)
also, a full charged luci shot insta-kills and adv goon, and forces any tyrants without a deathwish to retreat.
and really, the rifle is a fair weapon, you can help a great deal at cutting down the aliens' hp with this one, not to mention it is hitscan.
all close range weapons can be used effectively while dodging, and i would say that the only thing a bit unbalanced in trem, is the stages, which dosnt really matter since the overall balance is good.
Edit: typos.
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If there are 2 things two improve in trem I would do :
- human stage 1 is underpowered. Leads to boring games if aliens get an early goon in the hands of a good player. Well, not really underpowered as it is, more of the lines of "boring". I wouldn't mind if both teams started at stage 2
- humans are overpowered in the hands of a good team
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In the hands of a Newbie:
*Humans: Lethal against almost all newbie aliens, will get chomped most of the time by a moderate alien player, all the time by a good/expert alien player.
*Aliens: Pretty screwed, for the most part.
In the hands of a Moderate Player:
*Humans: Take out any newbie alien, stand about a half and half chance against moderate aliens, will get chomped most of the time by a good/expert alien, though.
*Aliens: Newbie players -- save for divine intervention -- will be yours. Stay away from a human that knows what he's doine with a chaingun, painsaw, luci, or a pulse rifle.
In the hands of a Good Player:
*Humans: Take out almost any alien save for those that are really, really good at it.
*Aliens: Beware the chaingun and painsaw, but you should be able to take down a pulser or luci most of the time.
In the hands of an Expert:
*Humans/Aliens: It's all equal here. You'll take out anyone in the lower tiers almost 100% of the time 1 on 1, and will likely be able to take out small groups too. Against another expert player, though.. Well, that's the game balance that we're talking about. ;)
As you can see, game balance is directly related to player skill. Most new players flock to human, because it's familiar. However, the moderate and good players will likely want to go alien, and the expert players are probably going to do whatever they can to level the playing field for everyone. :D
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I agree with you Stof. I have been told by a few players the best strategy for being an alien is to be a dretch until you can be a dragoon. In the case of good players all it takes is some humans to make a few mistakes and become fodder or some fancy runs into the human base and they have a dragoon after a few minutes. Which they can then use to start taking down the human base's turret making the base more open for other aliens to get enough kills to evolve into a dragoon. In fact I think the only time I've seen an alien be anything other then dretch, dragoon, advanced dragoon or tyrant is in the latter part of the game as an advanced marauder (the lightning thing?)
Perhaps a way to resolve this is to make the dragoon an s2 evolution...? Although that would make taking down the humans defenses alot harder.
Bajesfar - It's not that I have trouble dodging aliens... I suppose... Maybe my problems with the humans guns might just be that I get annoyed that my kills run off all the time... Such as, in a previous game, I forget the map it was an arena like map, I was defending the side passage pretty much on my own in a battlesuit and chaingun. I had two tyrants and an advanced dragoon constantly retreating. Killing one of them only if when it was about to retreat making it get stuck on me stopping it from being able to run off so I could get in more hits, also dying a few times myself when I overextended myself down the passageway in my pursuit.
Since I posted the first post I have also read a few other posts which talk about the damage of the plasma rifle and lucifer cannon and admit that from their discussions I must be using the weapons wrong because it was never like that for me.
Still, I stick to my opinion that the advanced dragoon's ranged attack is far too powerful and take up Stof's call that if a dragoon gets up and going at the start that the humans have little chance of taking it out. Although I suppose that situation only becomes more and more apparent the fewer the players. I would like to see the basilisk and marauder having to be used more often at the start.
Edit - Just saw your post Seffylight and... well... maybe you're right but I'm talking common gameplay not say, clan vs clan which I haven't had the pleasure of watching in which perhaps the humans are so good that its alot harder for the aliens to get kills. In a public game, what happens is a few good players on the aliens team manage to kill the more novice players on the humans team and then evolving into a dragoon. Once that happens the humans are screwed because as soon as it hits stage 3 those dragoons are now advanced dragoons and tyrants. Which means the eventual downfall of the humans. Especially at Sudden Death when the humans can't rebuild the base defenses.
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goons at s2? hmmmmm no thanks
as for aliens always winning, thats because the team are NOT balanced to begin with
a decent team doesnt just consist of shooting /attacking players, you need a good builder/repairer aswell
if our base is under seige , im not that good at taking on tyrants so i whack out the conkit and ask someone to help
when i see a turret with no power about to blow, i decon it rather than let it explode and damage the rest of the base . i also ask any other players to try and help out with the building, as you need atleast 2 imo
also, humans can defend well against tyrants if they work together and chase down the retreating aliens, and dont feed, they will wear down thier evos until they are just dretches or goons
but admitidly, thier are times when you just get pwned
alot of people will say this but just play/spec on decent servers and you will see humans do not always lose
also
painSAW will take down a tyrant in 2 seconds and a goon in 1, adv goon 1.5 i am lead to belive. skill is required
las gun does 9 damage a shot as does the PULSE rifle, but the strength in the pulse rifle is at close range due to its rapid fire, you can get a goon down to below 100hp/ kill it within seconds if all shots hit
you need to be close with the chaingun as it has a large spread, but its very good for chasing tyrants if you can dodge and if you can be sure not to run into many others
flamer for tyrants.hmmm not so sure. maybe if you block them while they attack turrets, but you can so much more easily go around thier backs with a bsuit/psaw and trap them against the turrets
and also, the shotgun isnt supposed to be an offensize weapon ( someone else said this) las guns can take out goons at s1, you need good dancing tho.
shotguns are best to defend with/kill aleins that are attacking you
theres a few of my views anyway
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Constructive criticism:
-you are a N00B
-you play with N00B humans
-most N00Bs play only humans because they are N00Bs
-N00Bs suck even in human team
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I don't remember who said this but "we can't balance the game according to the lowest denominator"
Yes the teams are different...
The aliens with their massive close range damage and high hit points make good lone wolves and often dominate lone humans/ lesser humans( less fighting gear). In public games the excellent players tend to favour the alien side because of it's lone wolf gamestyle and because them playing humans would spoil the fun.
The humans on the other side with ranged weapons and teamwork can dominate the lonely tyrants that can't attack in groups for fear of team damage. example 5 humans fighting without being too cramped in a tunnel where only 1 tyrant fits. Beware a human team that works together.
It is all about playstyle :)
you said you wanted to reduce the adv goons effectiveness vs turrets well imho the opposite would be nice to see as when you reach stage 3 in less then 10 mins usually it is often very frustrating for an alien player to have to wait outside a well guarded human base( in which the humans sit on turrets and spam unlimited amounts of ammo out) for 40 minutes longer for sudden death to start.
goon at stage 2 would very much kill the game balance as any alien team(against skilled humans) hoping to last until s3 will need to gather as many frags towards s3 as possible before humans hit s2. Grouped stage 2 humans are nigh impossible to kill with s1 or s2 aliens and even s3 aliens can have difficulties.
Machinegun - If you can force a dragoon, adv dragoon or a tyrant to retreat on this then props to ya but I doubt you're gonna finish it off as it retreats with this.
PlasmaChainsaw thingie (I haven't used it so I don't know its name) - Well... Unless you sorta... Throw it...
Shotgun - The spread stuffs it up over distance but then a shotgun wouldn't be a shotgun if you could use it to snipe an opponent down the hallway.
Lasgun - You're still probably not going to be dealing enough damage to take em out.
Plasma Rifle - As I said before, I don't know whether it's just me or if it's supposed to be like this, but the projectiles are really slow.
Chaingun - Great a point blank but I've chased a retreating alien down a corridor and I've seen a large amount of bullets holes everywhere but straight ahead.
Flamer - I admit I can't use a flamer very well... I'm sure I'm torching myself more then I am aliens but then I am comparing the weapons as to effectiveness over a shortish distance while chasing an alien down a corridor and a flamer certainly won't kill it. More like fry yourself.
Lucifer cannon - This seems to me like it's an energy based version of a rocket launcher. Blast radius good for taking out dretches.
1 rifle is meant for the little bugs dretches, basilisk, at a push marauders and for getting money for better weapons/ armour
2 painsaw(or PlasmaChainsaw as you called it) is a melee weapon that does insane damage at short range to *hint*BUILDINGS and bugs
3 shotgun does very good damage at close range- watch skilled players use it
4 lasgun is an affordable base/ dretch/ builder killer for early raids and egghunts
5 pulserifle has among best damage in tremulous (lucifer, flamer and painsaw have better afaik) yes the projectiles are slow so it wouldn't dominate the aliens too badly ( it already does that).
6 chaingun goes good damage with fast moving bullets for killing fleeing bigger bug(goons for example) it is best when used with a battlesuit but watch out for the ammo
7 flamer has very high damage but should be used with restraint when new to the game, it works well when coupled with teammates
8 lucifer cannon should not be under estimated :D in the right hands it is the gayest most unbalanced gun in the game ( wrongly used it does suck:) )
you said sudden death isn't fair for humans... do you think a human team that is stuck in their base afraid to kill the dragoons spitting at their turrets deserves to win or draw? humans have equal chances in sd imho. a human that gets steamrolled as soon as sd starts was most likely losing to begin with.
The alien team needs to be able to flee and removing/nerfing the trample and pounce would make it impossible for aliens... also how fun would it be to play humans if you can't even get close to enemy without losing over 50% hp. TIP of the day use the sprint button.
the blaster is meant to be useless... it is a last resort weapon and not an incentive for people to rambo as builder
everything i have said here is probably in the manual if you cared to read it( i never did that is why i typed all this)
I don't care if you tell me my solutions are wrong but if you tell me each side is fair I'm gonna tell you you're an idiot.
feel free to call me an idiot :wink:
@stof making both teams start at s2 would imo make nearly 100% human wins
@seffylight you pretty much got it right
@everyone that read this far sorry for my stupidly long post, what can i say i'm infected
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@stof making both teams start at s2 would imo make nearly 100% human wins
Maybe, but still, having aliens deadlock the game by getting goon early and still not strong enouth to kill the human base doesn't make for fun games.
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like janev said
groups of humans with even some team work are nigh unkillable
eg flamer, psaw, pulse rifle and chaingun in one group is a walking deathtrap for any s2 alien
but they can be picked off from behind, but even then, strength for humans lies in number
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The teams are balanced. Noobs go to humans, because it is easier, and it follows the traditional fps scheme. More adv players go to aliens. The humans camp till sudden death, or their s3, and the aliens mow down the stragglers. The aliens wait for sudden death, and then rush the human base, using great teamwork, like 3 tyrants tag teaming, and one goon. Since the players on aliens ususally know how to use teams well, they attack better.
One final thing to say: Before you bitch about any 'unbalance', search the forums, or even just look 2 pages back. Play the game and get GOOD before you say "Waah! I was mowed down by a tyrant 4 times in a battlesuit! Waah! I am obviously the best player ever, and thusly the aliens are too powerful because they kill me using teamwork!"
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I find that lots of the better players prefer the aliens. We're just cooler than those hideous humans. :D
But for the sake of balance, I think the default build point total should be somewhere around 120 instead of 100. 2 extra acid tubes aren't gonna stop the humans from destroying an alien base, but 2 extra turrets'll help a human base stand up just a little longer against tyrants, allowing someone to go repair the turrets more easily.
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I think humans are the overpowered ones. Humans can swap weapons and gear. They can choose the right tool for the job.
Aliens are better at survival (and its intended). Aliens are stuck doing whatever they are doing until they evolve or die. I think aliens have the disadvantage by far but aliens are just finesse and skilled players can push the alien potential from survival to ruthless predator.
If Humans are aggressive and not feeding, they will eventually break through anything aliens can throw at them. Its just that the ruthless aliens are usually already hacking the Humans to pieces before a counter attack can be mounted.
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Play on servers with high bps, like SST, you will have a much more balanced game, even though its balanced in the first place.
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Constructive criticism:
-you are a N00B
-you play with N00B humans
-most N00Bs play only humans because they are N00Bs
-N00Bs suck even in human team
Wow, that has to be the most unconsctructive post I have come across in quite a while. Nice explanation of your reasoning too. It is due to your post that I have learnt the error of my ways. Clap clap boyo.
Seriously though, thanks janev and I read and thought over your post and some of the others and have concede that I am in error. The problem I think I'm experiencing as a few people have mentioned is probably that I'm just playing on the wrong servers with players that aren't very experienced and tend to want to solo more then team. Also that I haven't used the stronger human weapons enough to get a feel for how you're supposed to use them. However due to my location in the world there are only a few servers in which I get a good enough ping to play on (three servers < 100 and two or three more between 100-200 ping) and I'm just talking from experience in playing in these servers which would only encompass a very small portion of the Tremulous population.
Contrary to what one person said, it is not that I suck using aliens. In fact I started using the aliens before humans. Which was probably why I ended posting this in the first place, because I hadn't played the human side enough. I started this thread after slogging it out for around 18 hours with the human side only winning very few times spreading myself between each side fairly evenly. Say 1 in every 25 or 30 games the humans would win.
To those of you who posted constructively I thank you and will endeaver to implement your opinions into my Tremulous gameplay.
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Barney, how often have you played as an alien?
The Adv Goon barb really does rip up constructions. However, it's needed to destroy Teslas. If there's more than one of them, you are going to have a hard time taking them out, especially while humans are shooting at you.
The pulse rifle and the lucifer projectiles are slow because they do a lot of damage. I don't know if you have noticed, but aliens are rather limited in ranged attacks. If they were faster, then the poor bugs wouldn't stand a chance. It's needed for balance.
The mass driver is an instant hit energy weapon, except it has some limitations as well.
If you haven't noticed, the chaingun becomes a different weapon when the battlesuit is equipped. It's actually not bad at all for chasing dying big bugs.
The blaster ("handgun") is supposed to be wimpy. It's what you get for wasting all of your ammo. Not to mention, the builder isn't really supposed to be a fighter.
Hell, the alien builders have it worse. Plain grangers can't attack at all, and Adv. Granger spit does 4 damage. And then, human builders can still buy bsuits and hand grenades, and swap between the ckit and a weapon as often as they please.
Barney, I think you need to play a bit more on the alien side (and Tremulous in general) before you further judge balance.
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Constructive criticism:
-you are a N00B
-you play with N00B humans
-most N00Bs play only humans because they are N00Bs
-N00Bs suck even in human team
Wow, that has to be the most unconsctructive post I have come across in quite a while. Nice explanation of your reasoning too. It is due to your post that I have learnt the error of my ways. Clap clap boyo.
.....
seriously, he made valid points. Granted, they require some thinking.
But it really boils down on the experience you have playing both sides.
Every team is as good as the weakest player. As Trem is not a FPS where you die w/o consequences.
Everytime you die, you help the other team.
I have seen good player get taken down because they thought they had backup but were slashed by total newb-players. Why? because the newb-players acted as a team.
A BS does not help you much if you go against few dretches that know how to play.
Likewise a Tyrant does not stand a chance if he does not know how to charge/slash. One can even be taken care of by a lowly human that knows how to dance.
So please take the advice given here. Play, play play and play, get experienced and then do you comparison again. Preferably in one of the other Threads that have the same topic .)
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I think the aliens are overpowered in two ways.
First, the aliens can basically camp any area of the map; the humans will eventually run out of ammo and health, but the aliens ammo regens and their health does as well. At S1, this means a massive advantage with goons in being able to camp corners, at S2, a large advantage in being able to wear down an opponent by forcing them to fire at you all over the place (even through dretches do this anyway), and at S3 with camping entrances at multiexited bases. Because the aliens can hold territory over the map since the maps are made in a semi-liniar, often circular fashon and because it takes so much ammo to down one good alien, humans are limited in how far they can reach out because they get either bogged by a ninja dretch or outright killed by a camping goon or tyrant. Additionally, when they do attack an alien base, it takes a lot of ammo to blow the alien structures, so that again leads to wear-down.
What would help is the ability to buy extra ammo clips and medikits from the armory; additionally, an ammo pack for weapons that require a continuous feed of ammo such as the chaingun and flamer would also be a good idea. The battlesuit itself should also have a very slow native regenration rate for energy weapons and a bigger ammo capacity for ammo-based weapons. This would give the humans a stamina equivelancy to the aliens and keep combat relitivally balanced.
Secondly, aliens have a disproportionate advantage at medium player counts when working in numbers since they are, on average, more powerful one-on-one against humans. Like in RTS games, the power of a given superunit doubles for every unit that projects it's power into a certain area. I'v never seen a human base survive getting rushed by 3 or 4 tyrants at once, much less a combination of tyrants and sniping goons, especially when the clock hits sudden death and the humans end up trapped in their base unable to move out. When the player count gets very high, as in 12-32 players per side, the humans gain an advantage from their ranged weapons in small corridores. 5 guys with rifles standing at the end of a corridor can do a heckuva lot of damage against rushing tyrants and if they are using lasguns, plasma rifles, or luci cannons forget it. It's very rare to see an alien victory on the SST server, but very common to see alien victories on other servers with 6 on 6 or 7 on 7, simply because the humans can't attack or defend effectivly against those alien superunits. In a cooridor, can 1 tyrant kill a battlesuit clad human wielding a chaingun or luci? 2 tyrants against 2 battlesuit clad humans? 3 on 3? Ect? At some point, the tyrants are coming in a line and you've got a wall of hurt coming at them which is a map design issue; not a balancing issue.
What would help is obviously a stamina boost for the humans which would allow them to actually attack the alien base, forcing them to defend for once in smaller games. More importantly, after S3 is reached, kills go towards buying BP for either team depending on the value of the kill relative to the player count. For every 2000 creds worth of kills, or 10 frag points, a team gets 5BP. Bigger games get more BP, and bigger kills yield more BP, and more of the map becomes entroached in territory holding buildings thus lessening the effect either side would get. A tyrant killing lots of naked marines isn't going to yield as much frag points as those marines killing the tyrant. At OT, BP is no longer awarded for kills and you no longer gain BP when a building is destroyed; all saved up BP is kept. This awards the more skilled team overall. Better map design would also be handy, with maps having playercount limits on them perhaps.
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Hmm. That would buff humans an awful lot.
Really, it seems that if humans would simply work together for once, they could accomplish a hell of a lot more. If more than one bsuit came out at once, they would do a bit better at pushing back the line.
Since experienced players often prefer bugs, they tend to work together, making them seem stronger than they would be otherwise.
Aliens also have a much harder time defending. Their constructions are generally wimpy and less effective (and one particular construction is useless, possibly worse), and often can be destroyed by a well placed (or poorly placed) grenade. Not to mention, they can't evolve if humans are nearby. Oh, and the psaw.
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@TyrranzzX
now before you go yelling omg the aliens are overpowered please scroll up the page and read my 894 word post on that subject
aliens are actually a bit underpowered
try a clanmatch where humans attack in groups and don't overly feed
remember that aliens need to gather twice as many kills early in the game as humans.
If humans hit stage 2 when aliens are still s1 or s2 their teamworking rush is stupidly powerful and they can pretty much get stage 3 without anyone dying.
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I think the aliens are overpowered in two ways.
First, the aliens can basically camp any area of the map; the humans will eventually run out of ammo and health, but the aliens ammo regens and their health does as well. At S1, this means a massive advantage with goons in being able to camp corners, at S2, a large advantage in being able to wear down an opponent by forcing them to fire at you all over the place (even through dretches do this anyway), and at S3 with camping entrances at multiexited bases. Because the aliens can hold territory over the map since the maps are made in a semi-liniar, often circular fashon and because it takes so much ammo to down one good alien, humans are limited in how far they can reach out because they get either bogged by a ninja dretch or outright killed by a camping goon or tyrant. Additionally, when they do attack an alien base, it takes a lot of ammo to blow the alien structures, so that again leads to wear-down.
Aliens camp corners, Humans camp halls. Its relative. Rushing with numbers affect any sides ability to camp. Spin jumping, retreating, grenades, wallclimbing, pouncing, or trampling can counter corners or halls (species specific). Humans also have good suppression weapons. Aliens just get hitpoints.
Aliens regen slowly, Humans can use med kits to regen quickly. Its relative. Humans may less it points and limited regen but they can jump and 'dance' to counter headshot while still striking from range. Aliens have to attack or retreat. Humans can attack while retreating.
Humans are just as lethal as Aliens when they use aim and footwork. A dancing humans can kill anything below s3 and hurt a lot at s3.
What would help is the ability to buy extra ammo clips and medikits from the armory; additionally, an ammo pack for weapons that require a continuous feed of ammo such as the chaingun and flamer would also be a good idea. The battlesuit itself should also have a very slow native regenration rate for energy weapons and a bigger ammo capacity for ammo-based weapons. This would give the humans a stamina equivelancy to the aliens and keep combat relitivally balanced.
Rifles, shotguns, and chainguns are all instant shot weapons. They are very powerful. Extending the clip will only extend time away from a base but I doubt it will make Humans any more effective. If you aim well (and restrain from shooting), those weapons last longer than energy weapons.
An ammo pack is also planned for later patches.
If Battlesuits regen, then they shouldn't have med kits. But I doubt regen on Battlesuits would matter considering you have to go back to the base eventually for ammunition. A Battlesuited Human, with your idea for regen, kills an alien but will not be able to regen before that alien respawns. The med kit and med bay is much better.
Secondly, aliens have a disproportionate advantage at medium player counts when working in numbers since they are, on average, more powerful one-on-one against humans. Like in RTS games, the power of a given superunit doubles for every unit that projects it's power into a certain area. I'v never seen a human base survive getting rushed by 3 or 4 tyrants at once, much less a combination of tyrants and sniping goons, especially when the clock hits sudden death and the humans end up trapped in their base unable to move out. When the player count gets very high, as in 12-32 players per side, the humans gain an advantage from their ranged weapons in small corridores. 5 guys with rifles standing at the end of a corridor can do a heckuva lot of damage against rushing tyrants and if they are using lasguns, plasma rifles, or luci cannons forget it. It's very rare to see an alien victory on the SST server, but very common to see alien victories on other servers with 6 on 6 or 7 on 7, simply because the humans can't attack or defend effectivly against those alien superunits. In a cooridor, can 1 tyrant kill a battlesuit clad human wielding a chaingun or luci? 2 tyrants against 2 battlesuit clad humans? 3 on 3? Ect? At some point, the tyrants are coming in a line and you've got a wall of hurt coming at them which is a map design issue; not a balancing issue.
In regards to 20+ player servers....
Tremulous was designed with less than 20 players in mind. Tremulous isn't a deathmatch that can be played with 2 or more. Its a team game and there has to be a manageable team size in order for it work. I've beaten Aliens with a 4x4 and up before. The differnce is that Aliens can win 1vs1 easily but grouped humans can win against group aliens due to having varying weapons. Outside of that, the more players balance each other out. Its the increase of build points that make or break a side's ability to win. This favors Humans due to the damage potential of its structures. Humans can actually attack via structures with enough buldl points. They can build forward turrets but should the turrets 'do all the work'?
The problem with Tyrants and with most Alien classes is that you have to use the points and you lose them all with death. As a Human, you can take only what you need and no more. You can also parley those points to switch weapons. As an Alien, you have to kill an equal amount of Humans to your evolution cost in order to sustain fighting. With Humans, you just reload. Tyrants are a high cost, high risk unit. You have to kill 5 humans just to be able to use it again if you die. Its much easier to bankrupt Aliens if a Human team fights well. 4 Tyrants is the equalivent of 20 kills or 40 minutes of playing (and any combination of both).
Also a Tyrant in a corridor has to kill any humans in there or they have no means of suriving. I can't remember the map name (the one with the huge tubes and long hallways with doors) but that map is basically Tyrant suicide against aggressive humans.
What would help is obviously a stamina boost for the humans which would allow them to actually attack the alien base, forcing them to defend for once in smaller games. More importantly, after S3 is reached, kills go towards buying BP for either team depending on the value of the kill relative to the player count. For every 2000 creds worth of kills, or 10 frag points, a team gets 5BP. Bigger games get more BP, and bigger kills yield more BP, and more of the map becomes entroached in territory holding buildings thus lessening the effect either side would get. A tyrant killing lots of naked marines isn't going to yield as much frag points as those marines killing the tyrant. At OT, BP is no longer awarded for kills and you no longer gain BP when a building is destroyed; all saved up BP is kept. This awards the more skilled team overall. Better map design would also be handy, with maps having playercount limits on them perhaps.
A stamina boost for human is the med kit. I don't know else could be holding Humans back from attacking a base other than organization (which means that each attacking Human is a stamina boost of sorts). Acid tubes are the only defense in s1, Trappers don't deal damage in s2 (but help acid to work), and Hives can be killed in a few shots in s3. However, the build points don't increase. So on a server with 100 build points, you will see a reduction in some in order to use others.
Humans would get more structures but more doesn't equal better. Armories and Defensive computers would still be fragile, even if you could build multiples. Where are you going to put all this stuff? In the open? The major problem for Human builders is replacing damaged structures fast enough to deal with Tyrants. It would be more snipe fodder for advanced Dragoons. Also, Defence computers would still be snipable to deactivate any Tesla generations. More BP would be delaying the inevidable if the Aliens are poised to attack the Human base.
Increasing BP for kills in S3 would mean longer egg hunts for Humans, faster spawn times for Aliens, and you would have Dretches pouring in from all sides (if you didn't egg hunt to begin with). You can't build structures that cost BP in SD, so accumilating BP would useless at that point for either side. I think you would have the same outcome, just more damaged structures in the end.
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(http://www.tremulous.net/balance/Overall.png)
A picture's worth a thousand words (you all seemed to be writing about that many, thought I'd get mine in as well :P )
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This one speaks volumes more.
(http://www.tremulous.net/balance/Overall_AS3vsHS3.png)
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I hate it when people think s3 is the end all-be all of Tremulous.
Tremulous is boring (and isn't Tremulous) when both teams sit there waiting for s3 to magically appear to win the game.
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Hehe. Nice plots!
Don't know if someone mentioned it before (to many posts - I'm to lazy to read 'em all :P ) - I think goons should be available in s2 and not in s1 - they are only one class below the tyrant (not counting the adv goon - it is just a small upgrade in my opinion) and are terribly lethal - one pounce is enough to kill a light armoured human.
And I'm sure that the situation presented on the plots is mainly caused by goons available in s1
:P
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Hehe. Nice plots!
Don't know if someone mentioned it before (to many posts - I'm to lazy to read 'em all :P ) - I think goons should be available in s2 and not in s1 - they are only one class below the tyrant (not counting the adv goon - it is just a small upgrade in my opinion) and are terribly lethal - one pounce is enough to kill a light armoured human.
And I'm sure that the situation presented on the plots is mainly caused by goons available in s1
:P
This is wrong. One pounce is enouth to kill an unarmored human. Then again, one head chomp does that even to an armored human anyway :)
Not that I don't think the goon might better be a stage 2 alien too. Not sure how much it would unbalance the game but I think it is worth testing.
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Maybe move adv mara to s1, in that case?
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I agree with s2 goon.
s2 feels like its not there... no one cares if aliens go into s2 (maybe just a mara players)
It feels kinda wrong when you become goon in s1; then in s2 theres nothing to spend evo on... feels a little bit empty.
alien: "s2, finally!" *evos into dragoon*
humans: "goons!" (yup, aliens s2)
sounds nice.
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Goons are the only thing keeping a base safe in s1 or s2. Not because goons are used for base defense but they keep humans from advancing and controlling the map. Goons in s2 would be a major step back for aliens. Aliens wouldn't get out of s1 in near enough time before their base is flooded with humans.
In general, s2 is create for aliens. Aliens get
Trappers
Boosters
Advanced Granger
Advanced Basilisk
Advanced Marauder
Structures get more hit points, damage, and regen a little faster.
The trappers, boosters, grangers, and marauders are good for overal advancement.
The boosters, advanced basilisk, and structures really help if the human team is isn't s2 yet or are having some problems. Its just that most humans teams are feed until they almost always get s2 first. But that isn't always the case.
I think people think goons are the end all be all. But I'm starting to spend more time in a marauder during s1 and its really paying off. A good marauder is hard to counter compared to a goon.
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How can you say in the same argument that Dragoon is needed at stage 1 and that you find the Marauder a better alien form to use at that stage? :D
ANd excuse me but saying the Adv Basilisk is such a help against stage 1 humans is just too funny.
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How can you say in the same argument that Dragoon is needed at stage 1 and that you find the Marauder a better alien form to use at that stage? :D
ANd excuse me but saying the Adv Basilisk is such a help against stage 1 humans is just too funny.
Re-read what I said, I didn't say marauders were better.
Advanced basilisk is constant poison that is only countered by helmets and Battlesuits. They can reapply it over and over making them lethal if they already have someone snared.
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Goons are the only thing keeping a base safe in s1 or s2.
You got to be kidding.
A simple dretch owns any s1 human.
Will couse drawback for s1 aliens when humans s2? Thats the point!
Thay are one stage further, there should ba drawback.
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Advanced basilisk is constant poison that is only countered by helmets and Battlesuits. They can reapply it over and over making them lethal if they already have someone snared.
If your Adv Basilisk has a helmetless human snared, I say you'd be much better aiming for the head with regular attacks than using the poison. Also, poison effect doesn't stack, doesn't cause much damage ( a whopping total of 20 points! ) AND doesn't impair aiming that much when you get used to it :) Of course, the extreme rarity of adv basilisks makes it so that most humans don't really know how to cope with it's special attack.
Maybe we should switch the Dragoon and the Adv Basilisk :) Now, at stage 1 if I had the choice between the 2 point Marauder or the 2 point Adv Basilisk only, maybe ( maybe! ) I would consider the later since it's easier to grab a human with it ( grab time lasts longer and so makes it easier to lock a human in place )
And btw, I made a terrible mistake when I talked about the Adv Basilisk crappy poison gas attack : it is not the helmet which protects againt it but it is indeed the light armor itself. The Adv Basilisk poison attack is now officialy a useless ability.
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Alien forms are rather broken , a medium skilled marauder has more than twice the life expectancy of a dragoon , and dretches are several times deadlier than basilisks , and live longer too. Those are only ever used to show off mad skills :P
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I'd be all for giving the balskalisk its secondary attack at S1 in trade for the goon being a S2 unit and the advanced goon being an S3 unit; that'd help things along considerably. The advanced balskalisk probably should have a heft yHP boost and a ranged attack, say spikes or something; something that'll give it the ability to be annoying to battlesuits and light units. Marauder should get a bit more HP as well as the goon isn't there anymore to defend the aliens base against attackers at S1 and aliens have a tendancy to get raped hard by attackers at S1 without goons.
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if it wasn't for goons, there would be nothing that could do any damage to a human base s1. we don't need to give humans any more reason to camp. when there aren't any turrets around to protect the humans, marauders can be at least as dangerous as dragoons, because they are very difficult to kill, and kill a human in 2 headshots.
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I used to love being a goon at S1, but I've gotten good with mara and much prefer it over the goon. It seems to me that a good mara player can stay alive much longer then a goon one, and can have more easy access to the human base with his jump. You just jump everywhere and turrets have to keep tracking you.
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if it wasn't for goons, there would be nothing that could do any damage to a human base s1.
uh, yeah, and humans can;t even leave base with goons running around, thats why its unbalanced.
we don't need to give humans any more reason to camp.
A what? No goons = better chances for survival = less camping
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Goons are the only thing keeping a base safe in s1 or s2.
You got to be kidding.
A simple dretch owns any s1 human.
Will couse drawback for s1 aliens when humans s2? Thats the point!
Thay are one stage further, there should ba drawback.
uh, yeah, and humans can;t even leave base with goons running around, thats why its unbalanced.
This is funny.
I'm being too generious with the advanced basilisk's usefulness but it forces humans to get a helmet (or light armor, I always thought it was helmet). An advanced basilisk and just sit in one place and poison any passerby's repeatedly. I've done it on ledges. Basilisks are why battlesuits are good. The basilisk can lock down any human and kill them if the human doesn't get help soon. If the poison snared, it would be better but basilisks can snare anyway.
Its just that people don't bother with basilisk because there are few cases where aliens care to specifly target someone and basilisk usually get kills stolen.
If your Adv Basilisk has a helmetless human snared, I say you'd be much better aiming for the head with regular attacks than using the poison.
A good human will just jump and spin to kill you if you go for the head. A basilisk has to jump up to hit the head and that breaks contact. I've had it done to me and have done it to basilisks.
Alien forms are rather broken , a medium skilled marauder has more than twice the life expectancy of a dragoon , and dretches are several times deadlier than basilisks , and live longer too. Those are only ever used to show off mad skills :P
But a dragoon is more lethal by far until humans hit s3. Its a small step from using headshots with marauders and headchomping with a goon. I rather marauder simply because its hard to hit them and cheaper to evolve into. Also, you don't have blocking issues with a marauder (should have been my #1 reason).
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if it wasn't for goons, there would be nothing that could do any damage to a human base s1.
I disagree. Marauder does a lot of damage too.
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This is turning into yet another "basilisk sucks" thread but oh well :)
I'm being too generious with the advanced basilisk's usefulness but it forces humans to get a helmet (or light armor, I always thought it was helmet). An advanced basilisk and just sit in one place and poison any passerby's repeatedly. I've done it on ledges. Basilisks are why battlesuits are good. The basilisk can lock down any human and kill them if the human doesn't get help soon. If the poison snared, it would be better but basilisks can snare anyway.
Its just that people don't bother with basilisk because there are few cases where aliens care to specifly target someone and basilisk usually get kills stolen.
You really need to come show of your mad basilisk skills on the same server than I. You can bet that never before have I felt the urge to take a battlesuit because of some good basilisk player :) As for Basilisk counters :
- stage 1, shoot it first, stay in team, no good counter. Take light armor to protect against the poison attack
- stage 2, jetpack : you can consider that jetpacks makes you immune to the grab ability
- stage 3, lucifer. Nuff said.
Also, if you want a good reason for humans to take the light armor, there is one already on stage 1 : dragoon pounce does 100 points of unlocalised damage when fully charged. Kills all unprotected humans in 1 hit, even if you only touch them by a few milimeters.
A good human will just jump and spin to kill you if you go for the head. A basilisk has to jump up to hit the head and that breaks contact. I've had it done to me and have done it to basilisks.
I do not agree. When you snare an oponent, get close to his back and jump on its head to finish him from here. It never failed me.
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IMHO, stages are very balanced as well as classes with the exception of the basi. While some players rock at it, everything a basi does, can be done by any other class as well, so currently it's simply there for skill show-off.
As far as moving the goon to s2, I'm extremly against it and here's why.
People mistake stage balance with game balance.
At s1, aliens are supposed to gether kills while hummies build and protect. This is because aliens dont get squat in offense at s2. It's extremly important that aliens reach s2 before humans so they can build a correct base and have a chance against s2 hummies.
At s2, humans have all the means to whipe out all but the best alien teams due to helmets, pulse, flamers, granades and jetpacks.
All that aliens get are useless adv basi's and very usefull adv maras for offense.
If the hummie team didn't get to kill OM and most of the eggs before alien s3 hits, it's their own fault. All they can hope for now is either lucy spam or
a tie.
This IMO is the balance of Temulous. The imbalance of stages leads to balance in overall games.
All people need to do is play correctly rather then rambo-feeding frenzy style games.
It's not how many aliens you kill as a hummie, it's how fast you can kill all eggs and OM.
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Balanced or not, it's boring to sit on your turrets because of the big bad goon outside and the general stupidity of human soldiers for forgeting to pack an helmet as standard issue equipment.
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Goons are the only thing keeping a base safe in s1 or s2.
You got to be kidding.
A simple dretch owns any s1 human.
Will couse drawback for s1 aliens when humans s2? Thats the point!
Thay are one stage further, there should ba drawback.
uh, yeah, and humans can;t even leave base with goons running around, thats why its unbalanced.
This is funny.
Laughing at something you dont understand is a common human reaction.
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Goons are the only thing keeping a base safe in s1 or s2.
You got to be kidding.
A simple dretch owns any s1 human.
Will couse drawback for s1 aliens when humans s2? Thats the point!
Thay are one stage further, there should ba drawback.
uh, yeah, and humans can;t even leave base with goons running around, thats why its unbalanced.
This is funny.
Laughing at something you dont understand is a common human reaction.
You contradicted yourself. You said I was kidding about goons keeping a base safe in s1 and s2 (and include the other part of my quote 'Not because goons are used for base defense but they keep humans from advancing and controlling the map. ')
Then you said that humans can't leave the base due to goons running around. Which is it? Do goons contribute to base defense by controlling the map or are dretches the best at owning s1 humans?
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Still, what he said isn't wrong.
It's true that goons work very well to pin the humans in their base, but still, they aren't the only thing preventing stage 1 humans from killing the alien base in no time. Even without the goons, dretches can do a very good job of defending the alien base against helmetless humans.
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temple, its very simple:
It's... as Stof stated.
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Goons are the only thing keeping a base safe in s1 or s2. Not because goons are used for base defense but they keep humans from advancing and controlling the map. Goons in s2 would be a major step back for aliens. Aliens wouldn't get out of s1 in near enough time before their base is flooded with humans.
The situation is now exactly reverse. And it's even with out any goon in the alien's team
BTW. Have you seen the plots that show the Tremulous balance (couple posts before)????
:P
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ok I am really tired of seeing people saying that humans are underpowered :x The reason they seem underpowered is because over 50% of public players lack the disipline and skill needed to play them correct. contrary to common belief the way to play humans is not to sit in your base and let the goon pick you off one by one... you need to play more aggressively and chase those goons so they don't dare come near your base.... you need to destroy the alien team before they hit stage 3 as the human advantage is strongest in stage 2.
goons are not all powerful and dretches suck balls because though they dish out a lot of damage the humans with half a brain can kill them with absurd ease. DRETCHES FEEEED they are not something you should be throwing wave after wave at the enemy. yes the aliens do win alot according to the statistics but have you ever seen a co-ordinated human team?it is a fucking massacre!
the reason the aliens win is because the good players like aliens when they don't have a few friends nearby who they can teamup with... it is just more common that good players happen to be playing alone and not in groups, if you see 1 uber gamer join humans chances are 1 or 2 more will also join em and any1 caught on the alien team is in for a world of hurt pretty much regardless of their skill level.
2-3 teamworking humans can't really be countered in public play. try getting together a lasgun a shotgun and a pulse rifle in stage 2 and see how well the aliens do.
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ok I am really tired of seeing people saying that humans are underpowered :x The reason they seem underpowered is because over 50% of public players lack the disipline and skill needed to play them correct. contrary to common belief the way to play humans is not to sit in your base and let the goon pick you off one by one... you need to play more aggressively and chase those goons so they don't dare come near your base.... you need to destroy the alien team before they hit stage 3 as the human advantage is strongest in stage 2.
goons are not all powerful and dretches suck balls because though they dish out a lot of damage the humans with half a brain can kill them with absurd ease. DRETCHES FEEEED they are not something you should be throwing wave after wave at the enemy. yes the aliens do win alot according to the statistics but have you ever seen a co-ordinated human team?it is a fucking massacre!
the reason the aliens win is because the good players like aliens when they don't have a few friends nearby who they can teamup with... it is just more common that good players happen to be playing alone and not in groups, if you see 1 uber gamer join humans chances are 1 or 2 more will also join em and any1 caught on the alien team is in for a world of hurt pretty much regardless of their skill level.
2-3 teamworking humans can't really be countered in public play. try getting together a lasgun a shotgun and a pulse rifle in stage 2 and see how well the aliens do.
In large part I agree with you - I also think the 'pro-balanced' and 'pro-alien' side is forgetting one large thing: self-supporting alien bases.
The pro level human team will definately get out there and kill the bugs easily at s2, there's no justifiable reason for them not to. What happens, and this may be a map design flaw, (maps like Transit this problem is blatantly obvious) is that hunting down and finishing the aliens off is a 5-10 minute process on certain maps, and by that time even sub-standard aliens have reached s3. (because there's always that weakest link, you have to account for it)
This is also apparent in SD for different reasons. All the aliens need is a functional egg. That's it. These can be put up anywhere, almost anytime, as long as the 'control' structure is up. These two structures by themselves give you an alien team with full offensive capabilities, minus a booster. Humans need an armoury, medistation, and spawns can only be built in one spot, not to mention aliens have radar on even the suckiest alien players.
Having one active builder almost guarantees aliens make it to s3, assuming some semblance of team balance. No human stealthy egg-attacks, because the grangar can warn, or he can just go and hide some eggs, more grangars spawn, and this continues until s3.
Now every human team bar the most elite team-workers will have little chance against this defense. On some maps, such as ATCS, there are few places to hide, and by and large this is the most played map simply because it is the most balanced. I don't know if this is a cry out to the devs or the map makers, but this is the largest issue in my mind.
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In large part I agree with you - I also think the 'pro-balanced' and 'pro-alien' side is forgetting one large thing: self-supporting alien bases.
The pro level human team will definately get out there and kill the bugs easily at s2, there's no justifiable reason for them not to. What happens, and this may be a map design flaw, (maps like Transit this problem is blatantly obvious) is that hunting down and finishing the aliens off is a 5-10 minute process on certain maps, and by that time even sub-standard aliens have reached s3. (because there's always that weakest link, you have to account for it)
This is also apparent in SD for different reasons. All the aliens need is a functional egg. That's it. These can be put up anywhere, almost anytime, as long as the 'control' structure is up. These two structures by themselves give you an alien team with full offensive capabilities, minus a booster. Humans need an armoury, medistation, and spawns can only be built in one spot, not to mention aliens have radar on even the suckiest alien players.
Having one active builder almost guarantees aliens make it to s3, assuming some semblance of team balance. No human stealthy egg-attacks, because the grangar can warn, or he can just go and hide some eggs, more grangars spawn, and this continues until s3.
Now every human team bar the most elite team-workers will have little chance against this defense. On some maps, such as ATCS, there are few places to hide, and by and large this is the most played map simply because it is the most balanced. I don't know if this is a cry out to the devs or the map makers, but this is the largest issue in my mind.
Egg spam is sooooo overrated. Most players don't know how alien's work. Its a lot harder than humans.
Alien structures deactivate when the Overmind is dead, with the exception of eggs. Therefore, if you get the Overmind, you kill all of alien defenses.
The Overmind is required to build any structure, including eggs. So, in order to 'egg spam', you must have a working Overmind and the foresight to egg spam. Alien structures take nearly twice as long to build and eggs have spotty surface detection, requiring some thought when placing them. Its hard to effectively egg spam without a couple minutes headstart. Also, consider using a granger. They are very slow, too big for most small passageways and can only wall climb at s2. Its hard to get enough range to spam eggs before being shot to pieces.
Without the Overmind, aliens cannot evolve to defend their base, cannot build defensive structures, and cannot bulid more eggs. Egg spam is rarely works. Its just a matter of 'the match is going to take longer than expect'. If an alien can build an Overmind and eggs without being detected, they deserve to survive.
Not only that, but alien defense is pathetic anyway. Most humans never see alien base to understand that. The real defense for alien bases are the aliens themselves.
In SD, this all moot because you can't make eggs. So, Aliens can rebuild the Overmind but that's it. In SD, humans should wipe out the eggs in order to ensure a clean victory.
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Egg hunt would be easier if the bugs where an OM still works even when killed were fixed. With that bug, aliens don't even need a working OM to build more eggs.
https://bugzilla.icculus.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2845
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Dragoons in S2 are bullshit.
Every experienced player choose Adv. Marauder at S2, because mostly, also the humans are S2 and Dragoon vs a good S2-Human sucks.
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Shotgun + Armor = Dead goon.
Case closed. Next?
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Shotgun + Armor = Dead goon.
Shotgun + Armor = pwnt by dretch if they cant aim and pwn by marauder and dretch anyway
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Dragoons in S2 are bullshit.
Every experienced player choose Adv. Marauder at S2, because mostly, also the humans are S2 and Dragoon vs a good S2-Human sucks.
no
dragoon against s2 groups = pwned
if your good enough as a goon, you should be able to take on an s2 human, on thier own
chose your battles wisely as a goon
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very especially if they in groups u should use goon with ff on.. just jump around chomping the heads and most likley theyll shoot eachother
tk damage + headshots = pwnage
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In large part I agree with you - I also think the 'pro-balanced' and 'pro-alien' side is forgetting one large thing: self-supporting alien bases.
The pro level human team will definately get out there and kill the bugs easily at s2, there's no justifiable reason for them not to. What happens, and this may be a map design flaw, (maps like Transit this problem is blatantly obvious) is that hunting down and finishing the aliens off is a 5-10 minute process on certain maps, and by that time even sub-standard aliens have reached s3. (because there's always that weakest link, you have to account for it)
This is also apparent in SD for different reasons. All the aliens need is a functional egg. That's it. These can be put up anywhere, almost anytime, as long as the 'control' structure is up. These two structures by themselves give you an alien team with full offensive capabilities, minus a booster. Humans need an armoury, medistation, and spawns can only be built in one spot, not to mention aliens have radar on even the suckiest alien players.
Having one active builder almost guarantees aliens make it to s3, assuming some semblance of team balance. No human stealthy egg-attacks, because the grangar can warn, or he can just go and hide some eggs, more grangars spawn, and this continues until s3.
Now every human team bar the most elite team-workers will have little chance against this defense. On some maps, such as ATCS, there are few places to hide, and by and large this is the most played map simply because it is the most balanced. I don't know if this is a cry out to the devs or the map makers, but this is the largest issue in my mind.
Egg spam is sooooo overrated. Most players don't know how alien's work. Its a lot harder than humans.
Alien structures deactivate when the Overmind is dead, with the exception of eggs. Therefore, if you get the Overmind, you kill all of alien defenses.
The Overmind is required to build any structure, including eggs. So, in order to 'egg spam', you must have a working Overmind and the foresight to egg spam. Alien structures take nearly twice as long to build and eggs have spotty surface detection, requiring some thought when placing them. Its hard to effectively egg spam without a couple minutes headstart. Also, consider using a granger. They are very slow, too big for most small passageways and can only wall climb at s2. Its hard to get enough range to spam eggs before being shot to pieces.
Without the Overmind, aliens cannot evolve to defend their base, cannot build defensive structures, and cannot bulid more eggs. Egg spam is rarely works. Its just a matter of 'the match is going to take longer than expect'. If an alien can build an Overmind and eggs without being detected, they deserve to survive.
Not only that, but alien defense is pathetic anyway. Most humans never see alien base to understand that. The real defense for alien bases are the aliens themselves.
In SD, this all moot because you can't make eggs. So, Aliens can rebuild the Overmind but that's it. In SD, humans should wipe out the eggs in order to ensure a clean victory.
Again, it depends on the map. I neglected to mention this, but also a large part rests on the number of players. As it's been said, Tremulous was designed for under 20 players in a game. So I go with that figure.
ACTS and Uncreation is impossible to eggspam with, which makes them either balanced maps or sorely in favor of humans (uncreation).
Karith, Niveus, Arachnid, and Nexus are large enough to eggspam in, and with increasing size increases the chance of death as a human goes farther and farther form his base. I'm not saying a loner here, either, 1-2 goons can cause enough health/ammo loss in a group of humans to make them turn back. Especially with ff on.
Don't forget here that with 4-5 places to put the OM, patrolling groups of 3-4 humans don't have enough time to make it around the map on a 10 man team.
And then there's Transit. Hahahah transit.
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So far, Transit is the only map that can extend the game 10 or so minutes due to eggspam. All the other maps, while big, are a lot easier to control as a human.
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Arachnids spammable.
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i think we're getting off topic, as it was about inbalanced teams, not flaming people, but the teams are not imbalanced. when i'm humies, it takes three tyrants to kill me as i learned fancy footwork as an alien. many people say that the game is all about teamwork, and that is preciecly true. i've seen games where teams with 300+ kills lost because the other team rallied together. plus human+painsaworshotgun+sprint=deadalien
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Frags, frags, frags. Omfg that guy killed me. Omfg pulse rifle spam is overpowered. OMG goons 1 shot kill on head.
NONE of it matters. Frags mean nothing towards anything but stage points. What really matters are bases. I've managed to rack up highest frags on both teams, but still lost because the base was built poorly if on H or just because the H knew how to play when on A. Case in point, any good H base is far better than a good A base.
A good H base can be built with 100 BP at s1. It's basically 'gg' if someone that knows what they're doing manages to set up a signature base of destruction. Enough H camping, and they'll eventually reach S3 and team rush the A base into nothingness. And, since these H are now camping adding an extra defense to the structures, Aliens will have a doubly hard time taking it down. Especially with large aliens. One defender and a repairman can destroy a lone mara's attempts to take down the reactor. Sure, if two or three adv maras decide to suicide one after the other it could be taken down, but that is assuming there's only one defender and a repairman. If that ever happened, any human would sprint back to base and take out hte attackers. The base repaired, they get back on their merry way. Goons and Tyrants rush one after the other to take out a few turrets. If there's a small amount of players, it's futile. The turrets are rebuilt by the team HP is regen'd. If there's a lot of players, tyrant rushing means more spam fire. The Tyrants die quicker. Sure, sudden death rolls around and a few tyrants rush. But, if an H team is good enough to build this base they are undoubetbly good enough to painsaw rush. The Aliens aren't even given a chance to sufficiently group attack before the Overmind is taken out and the entire team charges in to finish off the eggs. One last tyrant rushes, the sheer skilled turret placement takes him out before he does any real damage. A few follow, but the humans are now stumbling back to base with low Luci ammo and no medkit. They take out the remaining attackers with whatever they have and win the match. A perfectly built H base can be made from start and last till finish. Easily.
However, a perfectly built A base cannot. Not only does it take S2 for this to be done, as tubes themselves are useless even with trappers, but one suicide human nading a key structure and another right behind him with some tricky jumping and a painsaw can take out hte overmind. An organized H team will then charge in and destroy the eggs and remaining aliens. One defender, one builder. That can last an entire map. But once Sudden Death looms around, a key structure is down, and the entire base is lost. A key structure, in any good base's case, would be the main trapper. With that gone, any tubes or hives or whatever are deemed useless as they suck horribley. A painsaw rushes, takes out OM, everything is down. You can build several trappers to reinforce during the actual match, but once Sudden Death rolls around they cannot be rebuilt. This means that once the trappers are down, there is literally nothing stopping a rush to the OM. Tubes are horrid. Hives are slightly better, but due to their cost should be used sparingly. Multiple trappers delays the humans, but in perfect conditions with perfect teams, H will win. An H base is, plain and simple, BETTER than an A base. No doubt about it.
If there is to be anything edited to Trem it'd be the concept of bases and sudden death. Turrets could be nerfed so that the direction they're placed in when built matters (e.g., making their rotation only 180 degrees instead of 360), tubes could cost significantly less so that they are more spammable as they are only good in high numbers, hives could cost less so that they could be a better use of that 8 BP tahn trappers or tubes, turrets could cost more so they couldn't be spammed. Whatever it is, it needs to be done. Class indifference means nothing, because in the end it comes down to the bases. Human range easily takes out Alien defenses. An Adv. Goon can barb a human base, but in perfect conditions no major structures would be snipe-able or the Adv Goon would be low on health from defending fire before he's given a chance to get off all three barbs. A tyrant charges in, but is stopped by the pulse spam and insane amount of turret fire. And again. And again. One battlesuit with a grenade runs into an A base and nades an important trapper, another follows with a luci and takes out the second at the door. The third is a painsaw, nading any trappers stopping him and rushing for the OM. Once the trappers are down an Alien base is as good as dead. But trappers don't do damage and are difficult to place, unlike the turret defense structure of humans.
Alright. Enough ranting on my part. I'm going to restate my final point, though, just so it gets through any thick skulls out there:
Balance between Aliens and Humans doesn't matter, it's the balance between the Alien and Human defensive base structures that determine the end outcome. With both teams perfectly matched in skill, H will always win due to superior bases. This is the only type of balance that truly matters, and trying to imrpove anything else is a waste of time. If any developers or someone of importance reads this, please just be aware that the issue is in bases and not in classes.
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Oh c'mon now, don't base this off one single game :P.
Only when the planets line up and the date is 6.6.6 will a similar game occur :p.
That alien base was by no means a stellar base. And aliens were pretty much credit drained which means a human rush will work in almost all cases. This is not because the alien bases are "underpowered" defensively. This is because alien bases are not designed to stop/kill attacking humans, they are there to aid the aliens who are the real defenses. Now, have you tried to attack an alien base on the Karith elevator ledge with a tyrant camping on the ledge? You're not going to touch the overmind, let alone see it. However, a base there full of dretches is much much easier to attack.
Alien and human bases are completely different. Humans rely on their bases, alien bases rely on aliens.
Alien bases can't be indestructible killing machines and all over the place, flexible, easily rebuildable things at the same time. Yes human bases are naturally harder to destroy, but humans can't telenode spam when it has been destroyed.
And it's always funny to read someone stating SD favors humans :P.
If you want to make any changes, I'd say you suggest giving alien structures more HP.
But if that game taught you anything it's that aliens are a little powerful if a skilled human team was stuck at s1 while aliens got s3 like it was nothing. Being on the offensive for 40 straight minutes will take it's toll on your evo stash, especially when humans finally do reach s2. Had humans reached s2 before aliens got s3, the game would've played out much differently.
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If there is to be anything edited to Trem it'd be the concept of bases and sudden death. [/b]
I throughly agree with everything you said and am impressed that comment in particular.
Right now, the game centers around camping around the Human base for either side. There is no reason to explore unless its an egg hunt (which is totally up to the aliens to decide). There is no real skirmishing, which is a fun and needed part of combat. Actually, I credit SST with their increased build points because choke points and the concept of advancing is emphasised. Right now, all skirmish fighing can be avoiding via which route you take on the way. Also, due to human's ammo needs, skirmishing can't be successful for any extended period. Humans have to get in and out. Its a lot more detailed and I could go into more, but basically, its about aliens camping on humans and humans rushing aliens. Rushing and camping aren't the only points to team combat.
I would like to see the Overmind or Reactor have a decreased amount of sentience or power but builders have the ability to build more Oms/Reacts. That way, exploring, fighing over terrority, and planting bases would be important. It would give builder's more to do as well. As a counter measure for people trying to put all the Oms or Reacts in the same place, Control structures shouldn't be able to overlap their powergrid or control structure.
Also, I'm not in favor for a Commander or anything, but I would like to see builders have more abilities. Something like limited control over structures to make them more effective would interesting.
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My position is based on my experience, and on the Tremulous-generated balance-tracking images. Too many people are making false claims without backing them up with the conflicting evidence the Balance-charts report.
Specifically, the Overall Balance at Stage 1 versus Stage 1 (http://www.tremulous.net/balance/Overall_AS1vsHS1.png) shows the massive imbalance that favors aliens at the early game. If a game ends early, humans never have even a fifty/fifty chance of winning right now, statistically. I don't care what happens at non-equal stages, but at equal stages right now Aliens have an across-the-board advantage according to the automatically captured statistics.
I, like many others, lay some of this blame at the feet of Dragoons. But not directly due to Dragoons themselves, due to the locational damage factor and the default height of Dragoon attacks making all of their slashes effectively one-hit-kills against all S1 humans in practice. This allows them to mow humans down like swaths of wheat, especially if they are even moderately skilled.
My actual complaint is simple, right now Dretches get quadruple damage if they know to look up when scuttling along the floor, or if they jump. Same with Basilisks. Marauders, however, only get (usually) double damage if they use the same 'from the ground headshot' trick. Dragoons, however, can easilly get the headshot hitbox with their normal slash. I disagree with Dretches suddenly getting 'magic' quad damage as long as they're looking up at the right angle when they attack.
The 0.5/1.0/2.0 split between legs, torso, and head is to blame for part of this, the approach taken to determine hit-slice is another problem however. The hit-slice determination is more a bug for the developers to address, but the scaling for locational damage is something any server admin can adjust with modified files. I believe that reducing the sheer overwhelming power of headshots would do a lot to balance S1 games, which unless that is balanced it doesn't matter if later stages are balanced because it will highly skew which team gets S3vsS1, not when the game reaches S3vsS3. My most commonly-preached adjustment would be 0.75/1.00/1.50, which would still make headshots 'double damage' for Dretches while reducing the benefit to higher classes.
Balance S1vsS1 first, then gather a few thousand games of stats, then come back and discuss S2vsS2 and higher games. If S1vsS1 isn't balanced, all observations and statistics gathered from that point are on uneven ground and suspect.
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Specifically, the Overall Balance at Stage 1 versus Stage 1 (http://www.tremulous.net/balance/Overall_AS1vsHS1.png) shows the massive imbalance that favors aliens at the early game. If a game ends early, humans never have even a fifty/fifty chance of winning right now, statistically. I don't care what happens at non-equal stages, but at equal stages right now Aliens have an across-the-board advantage according to the automatically captured statistics.
I, like many others, lay some of this blame at the feet of Dragoons. But not directly due to Dragoons themselves, due to the locational damage factor and the default height of Dragoon attacks making all of their slashes effectively one-hit-kills against all S1 humans in practice. This allows them to mow humans down like swaths of wheat, especially if they are even moderately skilled.
My actual complaint is simple, right now Dretches get quadruple damage if they know to look up when scuttling along the floor, or if they jump. Same with Basilisks. Marauders, however, only get (usually) double damage if they use the same 'from the ground headshot' trick. Dragoons, however, can easilly get the headshot hitbox with their normal slash. I disagree with Dretches suddenly getting 'magic' quad damage as long as they're looking up at the right angle when they attack.
The 0.5/1.0/2.0 split between legs, torso, and head is to blame for part of this, the approach taken to determine hit-slice is another problem however. The hit-slice determination is more a bug for the developers to address, but the scaling for locational damage is something any server admin can adjust with modified files. I believe that reducing the sheer overwhelming power of headshots would do a lot to balance S1 games, which unless that is balanced it doesn't matter if later stages are balanced because it will highly skew which team gets S3vsS1, not when the game reaches S3vsS3. My most commonly-preached adjustment would be 0.75/1.00/1.50, which would still make headshots 'double damage' for Dretches while reducing the benefit to higher classes.
Balance S1vsS1 first, then gather a few thousand games of stats, then come back and discuss S2vsS2 and higher games. If S1vsS1 isn't balanced, all observations and statistics gathered from that point are on uneven ground and suspect.
I disagree completely. It has everything to do with psychology, which that model and image can't account for. Turrets in sets of 3 will provide complete protection from dretches and basilisks. Only Marauder and Draggons can survive long enough that close to a Human base. Goons do a lot of damage but a turret and player combination is enough to kill any Goon (especially if the player pursues and can aim) . So, a Human base should never fall at s1. When humans bases do fall, I think poor building and feeding aliens until they have goons is to blame.
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I see the biggest problem not in game inbalance, but the specific stage imbalances are too imbalanced, and this forces games into ruts. s1 aliens have advantage, humans camp. s2 humans have advantage, usually attack. s3 aliens have advantage, humans try to hold on til end of game. Stage imbalance might not be a bad thing, but atm it might be a little too big.
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I disagree completely. It has everything to do with psychology, which that model and image can't account for. Turrets in sets of 3 will provide complete protection from dretches and basilisks. Only Marauder and Draggons can survive long enough that close to a Human base. Goons do a lot of damage but a turret and player combination is enough to kill any Goon (especially if the player pursues and can aim) . So, a Human base should never fall at s1. When humans bases do fall, I think poor building and feeding aliens until they have goons is to blame.
The simple facts and numbers do not back up your claim. And the numbers do account for psychology, including teams quitting early, because the numbers only tally overall wins and losses and the final stages aquired by each time and player-counts. Looking purely at win/loss statistics at S1-S1 and overall 'all stage combination' charts, Aliens win the (at S1-S1 vast) majority of the time right now, and only do better and better on larger games.
Specifically, I find the sudden and dramatic drop-off in Alien wins once humans reach S2 quite telling. That's when they acquire helmets, which (against 'good' aliens that focus squarely on getting nothing but headshots) reduces the damage multiplier from 2.0 to 0.3. This means that against the more skilled aliens that get mostly headshots the helmet by itself allows as little as 15% of damage to get through. Light Armour, by comparison, allows 35-60% of damage through depending on location, but primarilly against the least skilled aliens that don't focus exclusively on getting headshots. And even without light armour humans can take over ten slashes with lesser alien classes to kill if you only get legshots and they use a medkit.
I disagree with the legs currently being as 'armored' as they are by default right now, but I also disagree with the head being a magic 'near instant evolution point for aliens' just as much. Humans should not be so invulnerable to legshots, nor so vulnerable to headshots, so dretches and basilisks can get more consistant kills across the board instead of low-level players getting the occasional lucky kill while high-level players are able to cut down swaths of human players with low-level classes.
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I see the biggest problem not in game inbalance, but the specific stage imbalances are too imbalanced, and this forces games into ruts. s1 aliens have advantage, humans camp. s2 humans have advantage, usually attack. s3 aliens have advantage, humans try to hold on til end of game. Stage imbalance might not be a bad thing, but atm it might be a little too big.
I agree with you. Stage 1 human is boring as soon as there are some decent alien players with some evo points. Stage 2 is where all the fun is.
Also, for those who said stage 1 is unbalanced judging from the statistics, I do not agree : it's is true that of the games ended in stage1 vs stage1, aliens have the advantage. It doesn't mean that humans have no chance but that aliens are the only team that can realisticaly win at stage 1. I have been in quite a few games where humans nearly won at stage 1, but reached stage 2 just before finishing the aliens for example. It is very hard for humans to eliminate the alien team without reaching stage 2 in the operation :)
Remember, there are three types of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics.
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the game is balanced
teams may not be
end of
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The simple facts and numbers do not back up your claim. And the numbers do account for psychology, including teams quitting early, because the numbers only tally overall wins and losses and the final stages aquired by each time and player-counts. Looking purely at win/loss statistics at S1-S1 and overall 'all stage combination' charts, Aliens win the (at S1-S1 vast) majority of the time right now, and only do better and better on larger games.
Specifically, I find the sudden and dramatic drop-off in Alien wins once humans reach S2 quite telling. That's when they acquire helmets, which (against 'good' aliens that focus squarely on getting nothing but headshots) reduces the damage multiplier from 2.0 to 0.3. This means that against the more skilled aliens that get mostly headshots the helmet by itself allows as little as 15% of damage to get through. Light Armour, by comparison, allows 35-60% of damage through depending on location, but primarilly against the least skilled aliens that don't focus exclusively on getting headshots. And even without light armour humans can take over ten slashes with lesser alien classes to kill if you only get legshots and they use a medkit.
I disagree with the legs currently being as 'armored' as they are by default right now, but I also disagree with the head being a magic 'near instant evolution point for aliens' just as much. Humans should not be so invulnerable to legshots, nor so vulnerable to headshots, so dretches and basilisks can get more consistant kills across the board instead of low-level players getting the occasional lucky kill while high-level players are able to cut down swaths of human players with low-level classes.
There is no way to destroy a well built human base at s1. Because you have to factor in Humans with games as 'moving Turrets' that can also defend the base.
Humans get 100 power units for building.
An Armory is 10 points.
A medistation is 8 points.
A 2nd tele node (if you don't get 2 at start) is 10 points.
That's 28 points total for basic structures and leaves 72 points for Turrets. A turret is 8 points. 3 Turrets will kill any dretch or basilisk. So, 9 turrets that can be built in sets of 3 for 3 effective defensive areas around a base.
I don't care what a graph says, the only thing that can realistically destroy a Human base is a dragoon. But you can't willpower turrets away. If Humans stay in the base until it is built, there is no way it is failing in s1. Its is possible but that graph is more of a sign of the frequency that inexperienced players get exploited by experienced alien players.
The reason aliens can end a base in s1 is a classic and often repeated strategy. All the Humans leave the base except the builder. 1 Alien gets 3 kills in a minute or slightly longer. The alien player immediately evolves into a dragoon, kills off any nearby Humans and immediately attacks the base. Since the builder is undefended, the goon can stalk around and pick off turrets. The builder can't hold off the goon, build, or repair fast enough. The inexperience players usually get pounced immediately after spawning. Its a snowball effect once the builder gets killed or enough Turrets fall. The key to this strat is for Human team to continue to leave the base or 'feed the goon' which is a common saying. This formula for disaster isn't anything new or secret. It happens too frequently.
All that said, its not 'numbers'. That graph is all in how you interprete it. All it shows me is that a lot of human players lose around s1. That could be a number of reasons.
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Your math is wrong : with 2 telenodes, a human base costs 38 points, not 28. You are then left with 7 turrets only to defend the base, not 9.
Besides, you say that there is no way for stage 1 aliens to kill the human base. Then why the hell can stage 2 aliens do the same with only the adv mara to help? As I showed already, that alien form is only a very small upgrade above the mara itself. Of course attacking human bases is easier for aliens at stage 2, but it is only a very small ( insignificant ) upgrade.
Thus, if aliens can kill a human base with stage 2 forms, they could probably have done the same with stage 1 forms.
Now, what makes a human base hard to kill at stage 1, it's more probably the fact that humans are at stage 1 ( and thus more prone to camping ) than the fact that aliens are at stage 1.
And if humans reach stage 2 before aliens, it usualy means aliens do not have many evo points, and thus do not have the firepower needed to crack a correctly defended human base. And so, saying "aliens at stage 1 => impossible to break human base" is wrong. Saying "aliens with very few kills => aliens at stage 1 AND impossible to break human base" is correct.
Unfortunately, the statistics as they are currently available do not help us differentiate between the 2 :)
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Your math is wrong : with 2 telenodes, a human base costs 38 points, not 28. You are then left with 7 turrets only to defend the base, not 9.
I'm assuming you get 1 for free and build a 2nd.
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You are assuming wrong. When the server sets a 100 BP human base, you do get 100 BP once all buildings are removed and in no way do you get a free telenode.
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it seems like we are talking about base imbalances, which is a good point, but let me tell everyone something. THE GAME DESIGNERS MENT HUMAN BASES TO BE 1337 AND ALIEN BASES TO SUCK!!!!!
The entire point of s1 of aliens is to gather kills, and thusforth, smart humans camp. the aliens get less kills and then, when s2 arrives, there is little to defend the base from the resulting rushes and spams. ever wonder why helmets are s2 items? thats because DARKLEGION KNEW ABOUT HOW BROKEN HEADBIGHTS ARE!!! this also means that CAMPING HUMANS HAVE THE SAME CHACES OF WINNING AS EXPLORING HUMANS. let me explain
when humans camp, there are always one or two, maby five people who go out for kills. They tend to be anhiallated by cheap headbights. BUT A SKILLED HUMAN GROUP WILL BE ABLE TO KILL MOST OPPOSITION BEFORE THEY DIE. obviously, they get credits from this. STAGE ONE IS A STAGE TO HORDE CREDITS/EVO POINTS BEFORE S2 AND S3.
S2 is the human turn to attack. some people are truthfully stating that HUMANS HAVE THE ADVANTAGE IN S2. S2 is when humans can defend against the cheap head bights, and ALIENS MAINLY GET IMPORTAINT BASE STRUCTURES IN S2, THIS IS BECAUSE HUMANS ARE ON THE OFFENSIVE! Humans now can adequately attack and guard their base with pulse rifels and flame throwers which, along with helmets and armor, ELIMINATE THE ALIEN ADVANTAGE. However, YOU MUST HAVE CREDITS FROM S1 TO PURCHASE THEESE. If you were camping, you will have less. ALIENS SHOULD USE THEIR EVO POINTS FROM S1 TO DEFEND AGAINST HUMANS DURING S2, aliens also get the advanced granger so they can build BASES THAT ARE LESS ACCESIBLE TO HUMANS. A GOOD HUMAN TEAM WILL SPREAD OUT AND SURROND THE ALIEN BASE SO THAT NONE CAN GET OUT, AND DESTROY THE BASE. However, most human teams will not be able to do this, and the aliens will relocate. ALIENS WERE DESIGNED TO BE ABLE TO MOVE THEIR BASE. A SMART ALIEN TEAM WILL HAVE BUILT A SECRET EGG SO THAT THEY CAN MAKE ANOTHER BASE. If humans have all taken different routes to the base, this will not happen. Also, if humans camped, aliens will have less points, but humans will be unable to buy what they neeed to accomplish this IF HUMANS ARE UNABLE TO WORK TOGETHER/USE STRATEGIES OR THE SKILLED PLAYERS CAMP, THEY WILL BE PUNISHED WITH ALIEN S3.
Alien S3 is a time to strike back. tyrants and advanced dragoons prove this, as they are the ultimate base destroyers. ON AVERAGE, ALIENS WILL WIN DURING S3. HOWEVER, SUDDEN DEATH FAVORS HUMANS, AND IS PUNISHMENT FOR NOT FINISHING S3. this is because Aliens have one or two key structures that will make ALIENS LOSE DURING SD.
IN CONCLUSION
S1=Favors Aliens, a time for hoarding kills
S2=Favors Humans, a time for ending the game quickly
S3=Favors Aliens, a time for revenge
SUDDEN DEATH=Favors Humans, a time to finish it
Aliens should reach stage two first, and humans should reach stage three first
The game is balanced because the stages are not
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Cut out the CAPS :evil:
What you say is more or less right, except for SD. I don't see who in his right mind can consider that humans have the advantage during SD! We probably aren't talking about the same thing.
If you look at tjw's post on that subject, he said that stats showed 80-90% chance of aliens winning a game during SD. Now, I know that statistics and all should be taken with a grain of salt, but those odds are rather extreme.
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O_O
you cant balance tremulous unless you do some realtime shit
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Cut out the CAPS :evil:
What you say is more or less right, except for SD. I don't see who in his right mind can consider that humans have the advantage during SD! We probably aren't talking about the same thing.
If you look at tjw's post on that subject, he said that stats showed 80-90% chance of aliens winning a game during SD. Now, I know that statistics and all should be taken with a grain of salt, but those odds are rather extreme.
try the newest game.qvm builds :/ hummies can rebuild armory, medipads and repeaters ....
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Yep, but I seem to recall tjw saying it had practicaly no effect at all :)
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Okay, for those interested (and for me to brag :P) I have screenshots of the base that triggered Walker's rant :P. I've built it 5 times now, and it has yet to lose, with it being s1 humans vs s3 aliens twice :).
This is from a game we just played on [AKKA].
When aliens got s3:
(http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/6489/shot0015xh7.jpg)
After alien base was taken down in SD (SD started at 40:00, no structures lost):
(http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/5948/shot0016fs0.jpg)
It's not perfect, but it's pretty good ;).
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I like that base. In fact, I often do more or less the same :) Tyrants that run up to the bast face such a massive amount of turrets at the same time they do not even have the time to kill one before hurting a lot. A good team of Adv Goons will cause problems in SD of course.
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sorry about the caps, I was just trying to make skimming easier, as they are pretty much the main points. also, sudden death is pretty hard to judge, as it depends on the events that occured up to that point
and
"figures lie and liers figure"
no offense
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There is no way to destroy a well built human base at s1.
Dretches can kill turrets. It's done, has been done, and will continue to be done.
Because you have to factor in Humans with games as 'moving Turrets' that can also defend the base.
I don't have to factor that in, the win/loss statistics factor that, and all other points, in for me. The simple fact is, humans lose more often than aliens right now, with a marked decrease in their losses the instant they get S2. The only time humans have a better-than-fifty-percent chance to win is when Aliens are still S1, and humans are S2 or S3. Interestly enough, humans getting S3 doesn't aprpeciably make them any more likely to win than getting S2.
I don't care what a graph says, the only thing that can realistically destroy a Human base is a dragoon. But you can't willpower turrets away. If Humans stay in the base until it is built, there is no way it is failing in s1. Its is possible but that graph is more of a sign of the frequency that inexperienced players get exploited by experienced alien players.
Marauders can effectively destroy turrets, a single basilisk can drop on top of a reactor and destroy it before the reactor can fry the basilisk, I've seen both happen in games, and have accomplished a reactor-kill as a Basilisk before personally.
I'm not willpowering turrets away, but the facts are that turrets are only a threat to individual dretches until S2. Turrets without a Defense Computer cannot split targets. If one turret is targetting a dretch, all the turrets are targetting the same dretch. This is why a group of four or five dretch can get past a turret-wall if they spread out, only one gets shot.
The reason aliens can end a base in s1 is a classic and often repeated strategy. All the Humans leave the base except the builder. 1 Alien gets 3 kills in a minute or slightly longer. The alien player immediately evolves into a dragoon, kills off any nearby Humans and immediately attacks the base. Since the builder is undefended, the goon can stalk around and pick off turrets. The builder can't hold off the goon, build, or repair fast enough. The inexperience players usually get pounced immediately after spawning. Its a snowball effect once the builder gets killed or enough Turrets fall. The key to this strat is for Human team to continue to leave the base or 'feed the goon' which is a common saying. This formula for disaster isn't anything new or secret. It happens too frequently.
All that said, its not 'numbers'. That graph is all in how you interprete it. All it shows me is that a lot of human players lose around s1. That could be a number of reasons.
Actually, a single dretch getting inside the turrets and killing even just two humans can be all it takes, as that grants them Marauder access which can easilly prevent the builders from making anything. Just bounce around dodging all attacks and only attacking blue constructions, seen that done often enough. If you get a third kill and fall back to go 'Goon, now you can just chop humans down like wheat currently if they don't yet have S2.
The reasons Dragoons are so powerful specifically is the overly extreme locational damage. This is also why Helmets are such a godsend. I've done tests, and just having a helmet makes you a threat even to a Tyrant because their slashes are suddenly very weak unless they aim low enough to hit your legs or chest. Hell, I've danced in a room (not a hallway) with two tyrants with nothing but a helmet and lasgun, and killed one of the tyrants before I finally died when a Dragoon joined in. Helmets give humans a markedly more level playing field, because they correct a basic flaw in the balance of the game that highly favors metagaming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming) as being a ten-fold or better increase in effeciency.
It's not that skilled players are ten times more skilled than the unwashed masses, it's that these design decisions (and the resulting damage math) allow for a dramatic increase in effeciency with a very small, but highly focussed set of meta-gaming techniques. It's no longer about something as widely defined as just dodging humans shots long enough to chew on them as a Dretch, it's about scuttling along the ground without jumping, with your view tilted up at just the right angle as you only turn left or right so you'll get nothing but headshots for anyone you hit. Doing that, by itself, with guarantee that any hit you get will be four times as effective as most players. No jumping, no change in dodging, just looking up at the right angle. That's a textbook example of metagaming, and it's what disencourages new players from playing a game, because unless you know the 'secret recipe' you suddenly have nearly no chance of impacting the outcome of the game.
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There is no way to destroy a well built human base at s1.
Dretches can kill turrets. It's done, has been done, and will continue to be done.
I'm not going past this point. I read your whole post but you are ignoring the part about 'well built' base. Turrets in sets of 3 will not be killed by a dretch. I'm not playing theory tremulous. You are making things out to be so simple.
Okay, I'll hit something else. Helmets don't make anything a threat to a tyrant, lag does. There is no way a human with a helmet can kill a tyrant without lag. In fact, I play aliens a lot and I know that the only way a lone human can kill me as a tyrant is via lag. All that meta gaming stuff is just you trying to use fancy words that barely even relate to the actual gameplay situations.
If anything, humans trying to move the reactor and getting killed in s1 is reason enough for the high loss on that graph.
edit: And I'm not trying to flame you. I know that Aliens can demolish a base at s1, s2, and s3. But it isn't rocket science to make a safe base from most attacks. I've demolished a few bases in s1 with a goon but it was for the reasons I've stated....spread out turrets, no defenders, lone builder. Humans usually have no excuse when they lose. They don't. As an Alien, I'm always amazed at our comebacks.
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@WolfWings ShadowFlight
if you can kill the acts human base setup a few posts up in a 50 min game with nothing but dretch (no1 repairing) and send me a demo of it i will believe you.... otherwise.... ROFL :D :D :D :D :D
same applies for marauders and anything short of adv goon or tyrant....
You think because you can outdance some tyrants with a lasgun + larmour + helm that helm gives you a chance vs equal skilled aliens :P I've also taken down 2x tyrant + adv goon at the same time with painsaw + bs all that means is that the tyrants you faced sucked :D
I think a lot of people will agree that the problem with human bases is that when coupled with camping they become insane fortresses that can't be cracked until sudden death....
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...and I haven't yet said a single dretch can tear down a stack of human turrets. Not once. I outlined the method you could use to bypass walls of human turrets with a 'sacrafice play' easilly, because until a DefComp is set up all turrets in LoS to a target will focus on the first target any single turret spots. Sure, you're multiplying the damage output, but until you get the chance to set up multiple turrets your base is very vulnerable to one dretch letting the entire alien team in.
Seperately, just to prove a dretch can take down the default coverage for a base entrance on an existing map (http://wolfwings.us/atcs.zip) just unzip that .pk3 into your Tremulous directory and type '/demo tenth' to see. The tenth references various demos I've been recording to demonstrate various ideas and concepts such as visual explanation for why you don't place turrets off ledges, etc. Just under 20 seconds from spawn to side-alley turret destroyed as a Dretch. Other dretches going that way wouldn't have even been shot as they passed since it was targetting me.
And for the two tyrants I was dancing with until I was down to 30 lasgun rounds, one of them was the high scorer on the server, the other was 3rd place. Neither was bad as chopping down humans, I just had a helmet, and kept ducking and pausing (yes, pausing, it's amusing to see a Tyrant zoom past where you would have been if you hadn't stopped) so I wasn't just an easy-to-track circling human target.
The reason I'm not moving the discussion to the territory both of you want, a well-built human base, is if the point was to fight aliens versus a well-built human base the maps should start with well-built human bases. The initial fight, where the telling handful of alien frags can be obtained that grant access to higher alien classes very early, happens within the first minute of a map. Not in the last minute. I'm debating the balance based on early-map situations before humans can 'tnak up' and a basic flaw in the damage-math (headshots being too powerful) allowing for metagaming (the idea of playing purely to win even if the playstyle looks strange, isn't what was intended, or uses knowledge you shouldn't yet have. For example knowing that trolls are vulnerable to acid and fire only, when your PC has never seen one before in a D20 game) to provide a dramatic increase in ability over the designed gameplay.
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ok... you uploaded a demo of you killing a single turret :-? do you think a am a newbie :eek: i know you can take out single turrets ez with dretch and that can result in a base toppling rush.
and we are still talking about complete bases... yes 5 dretches can get past a wall of turrets but to what end? if the defending humans hit them before they get killed by the turrets that is points towards their stage 2.
you won't takedown complete bases with a basilisk dropping on reactor or a marauder... well unless the human team is reeeeally stupid :D.
If you want to discuss rushing then that is a completely seperate issue.
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A good mara player can do a lot of damage to a human base on certain levels, mainly tremor and uncreation. On these you can win with a single mara under 5 minutes with a little luck.
The best bet for turrets is to have a single tank unit like a goon, as a dretch will die in no time reducing the effects of the suicide attack.
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and we are still talking about complete bases...
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If you want to discuss rushing then that is a completely seperate issue.
I'm not now, will not in the foreseeable future, and was not discussing well-built base situations, because I feel that the core problem happens earlier, in effect during the 'rush' phase. I said that before, and you're welcome to continue discussing later-game balance, but I feel that answering the question of 'is each side properly balanced?' (which is the subject line for this thread) has to be answered as follows:
Two well-placed kills by a single dretch can let Aliens get Marauder early, a third kill gives them Dragoon very early, because of a combination of problematic coding (locational damage determination taking into account things I don't feel it should) combined with the overwhelming power of headshots versus legshots makes the skilled players in 'weak' classes act as if they are under permenant quad-damage. This quad-damage results in them being much more able to grab that stack of early kills in the first minute of a game, letting them get to Dragoon which (due again to the slightly too high headshot multiplier and problematic locational damage again) can mow down humans with trivial ease. Single good players can and often do carry aliens all the way from S1 to S3, many times with more kills than the entire rest of the server combined by a factor of two or three times as many, due to this situation.
So in short, no, each side is not properly balanced against the other, though the basic concepts for each side are well-balanced. The implementation is lacking, and some pre-defined numbers are obviously not 'tuned' but simply (and rather blindly) set without proper thought to their consequences.
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and we are still talking about complete bases...
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If you want to discuss rushing then that is a completely seperate issue.
I'm not now, will not in the foreseeable future, and was not discussing well-built base situations, because I feel that the core problem happens earlier, in effect during the 'rush' phase. I said that before, and you're welcome to continue discussing later-game balance, but I feel that answering the question of 'is each side properly balanced?' (which is the subject line for this thread) has to be answered as follows:
Two well-placed kills by a single dretch can let Aliens get Marauder early, a third kill gives them Dragoon very early, because of a combination of problematic coding (locational damage determination taking into account things I don't feel it should) combined with the overwhelming power of headshots versus legshots makes the skilled players in 'weak' classes act as if they are under permenant quad-damage. This quad-damage results in them being much more able to grab that stack of early kills in the first minute of a game, letting them get to Dragoon which (due again to the slightly too high headshot multiplier and problematic locational damage again) can mow down humans with trivial ease. Single good players can and often do carry aliens all the way from S1 to S3, many times with more kills than the entire rest of the server combined by a factor of two or three times as many, due to this situation.
So in short, no, each side is not properly balanced against the other, though the basic concepts for each side are well-balanced. The implementation is lacking, and some pre-defined numbers are obviously not 'tuned' but simply (and rather blindly) set without proper thought to their consequences.
You are stuck on the whole headshot damage thing.
You won't mention any of the pros of humans.
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you won't takedown complete bases with a basilisk dropping on reactor or a marauder... well unless the human team is reeeeally stupid :D.
Some good human players still think the pipe base is best on Arachnid 2. More often than not, a basilisk can get in there and take out the reactor without getting hurt much.
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Amazing, I've been away for nearly a month and its still the same old shit being posted here....
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Except without your objections.
I missed you, henners. :cry:
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I'm not now, will not in the foreseeable future, and was not discussing well-built base situations, because I feel that the core problem happens earlier, in effect during the 'rush' phase.
There's no rush phase in most games. I rarely see aliens dretch the weakest side of initial human base and get inside. They ussually just camp outside the strong side (if there's one) and wait for easy kills while letting humans salvage the crap and build a real base.
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Nope, it's usually the decent/good players ignoring the back turrets and raping the human base while the humans are busy wildly spamming at dretches by their main entrance.
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You are stuck on the whole headshot damage thing.
You won't mention any of the pros of humans.
Wonderful way to overquote.
And my issue is that I believe aliens have an advantage in the initial-rush due to what I believe is a bug (the way locational damage is calculated) combined with the astranomical advantage a headshot versus a legshot has for a Dretch.
It's not the headshot damage specifically. I agree headshots should hurt. But right now they do 96 damage versus 24 damage just for looking up slightly as you rush at a human. Not for jumping at their head, not for dropping on them from above, from the ground, looking up, you get a 'free' quad damage as a Dretch or Basilisk.
That's what I'm complaining about, a set of highly arbitrary but simple mechanics combined gives lowest-level aliens quad damage in effect. You never seem able to counter that basic complaint, except by stating 'turrets will stop dretches!' when I've said repeatedly that I don't believe the game is unbalanced once humans have a well-built base. The initial rush is where aliens can get the early kills though, and you only need one good alien player to do so because then they'll have Dragoon (or Marauder which leads into 'Goon) which (due to the same bugs that grant Dretches ground-headshots) can mow down humans with trivial ease and dump the game into S3A-S1H land in under 8 minutes.
The game as designed on paper is balanced. As implemented, with the specific values chosen for some arbitrary multipliers, it has a flaw in the early-gameflow state that makes metagaming far too effective if you can accomplish it. That's my statement. Turrets don't matter when there's only 1-3 in place in the entire map yet and many times there's not even a medipad in place yet for humans either.
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Wonderful way to overquote.
And my issue is that I believe aliens have an advantage in the initial-rush due to what I believe is a bug (the way locational damage is calculated) combined with the astranomical advantage a headshot versus a legshot has for a Dretch.
It's not the headshot damage specifically. I agree headshots should hurt. But right now they do 96 damage versus 24 damage just for looking up slightly as you rush at a human. Not for jumping at their head, not for dropping on them from above, from the ground, looking up, you get a 'free' quad damage as a Dretch or Basilisk.
That's what I'm complaining about, a set of highly arbitrary but simple mechanics combined gives lowest-level aliens quad damage in effect. You never seem able to counter that basic complaint, except by stating 'turrets will stop dretches!' when I've said repeatedly that I don't believe the game is unbalanced once humans have a well-built base. The initial rush is where aliens can get the early kills though, and you only need one good alien player to do so because then they'll have Dragoon (or Marauder which leads into 'Goon) which (due to the same bugs that grant Dretches ground-headshots) can mow down humans with trivial ease and dump the game into S3A-S1H land in under 8 minutes.
The game as designed on paper is balanced. As implemented, with the specific values chosen for some arbitrary multipliers, it has a flaw in the early-gameflow state that makes metagaming far too effective if you can accomplish it. That's my statement. Turrets don't matter when there's only 1-3 in place in the entire map yet and many times there's not even a medipad in place yet for humans either.
How many times does the game end in the first 1-5 minutes?
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How many times does the game end in the first 1-5 minutes?
Seriously, if you're making a one-line reply, don't be rude to everyone else and quote my entire post. :-)
And to answer your question, I've seen games end in the first 5-8 minutes frequently if one of the metagaming players is on the aliens team.
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How many times does the game end in the first 1-5 minutes?
Seriously, if you're making a one-line reply, don't be rude to everyone else and quote my entire post. :-)
And to answer your question, I've seen games end in the first 5-8 minutes frequently if one of the metagaming players is on the aliens team.
most games don't last long as its not suppossed to.
though being a dtrech i can take out atleast two Turrets near each other, the Turrets have difficulty aiming up so spinning in a small circle on top can destroy the Turret quickly then quickly jump to the next one though is this a flaw in the Turret design or is it suppose to be like that? is it a pro or a con?
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Don't apply logic to Tremulous. It is above your silly logic. For some reason, a dretch does a lot more damage to your head. Yet it doesn't instantly kill you, implying it can't pierce all the way through your skull. If that's the case, it should be more effective at disabling you by going at your chest or back, or even your heals (remember the Achilles tendon... it's a very good way to prevent someone from walking).
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Don't apply logic to Tremulous. It is above your silly logic. For some reason, a dretch does a lot more damage to your head. Yet it doesn't instantly kill you, implying it can't pierce all the way through your skull. If that's the case, it should be more effective at disabling you by going at your chest or back, or even your heals (remember the Achilles tendon... it's a very good way to prevent someone from walking).
This game is NOT realistic.
you spin ontop as the Turret chases you around since it can't aim straight up.