Granger spit slowdown reduced to 1 sec? Granger is too dangerous? You can easilly hit dodging human with granger spit? I don't think so. It's hard and with 1 sec duration it is useless, you can remove it entirely like hovel...
I also don't agree with granger spit being made useless, grangers already have a very hard time egg spamming if humans just work together and don't let the aliens spread through the whole map again and again. If they don't work together at all, do they deserve to win?
If they clearcut the alien base and reduced the entire alien team to grangers, who themselves are only working together in the sense that they all build eggs as soon as any one of them gets an overmind up, then yes, the humans absolutely deserve to win.
...not that I really think changing the spit will help very much with that, but I do think being able to slow a human for five seconds (that's
any human; the basilisk gas -- which you have to pay two frags to get -- will slow a naked human for ten seconds, but a battlesuit only two seconds longer than the granger spit does) is very inappropriate for a builder. And at one second I expect it
will still be useful against humans trying to rush through an alien base (i.e. when slowing down can mean the difference between grenading the overmind and getting eaten), and for not much else (i.e. when the granger isn't in its base). If you're only imagining one granger dueling with one human then you have the wrong idea.
Maybe increasing flamer speed would be better then damage, as then self damage will not increase. I would like to see flamer more used against bases then aliens. In 1.1 flamers can actually kill some hives safely if you are careful and use the speed addition from movement. As hives now attack all attackers, what about making flamer kill swarms?
The biggest complaint about the flamer seems to be how much it hurts the user, so maybe addressing that even more will be warranted, but I think the flamer's niche is effectively killing lower level aliens. By its very nature it's not as good against structures as other weapons -- it has a short range but doesn't do as much damage as the painsaw, and if you don't position yourself well you are going to hit yourself (more inevitably than against alien players I think; you can hit them while backing up without risk to yourself).
While these results did surprise me, I believe part of the bias towards aliens could be due to people still trying to play trem like its 1.1. ...
... If that's the case, the balance may not be leaned towards aliens as much as it seems from the stats. ...
You'd still have to try very hard to convince me that this isn't due to the fact that new players DO NOT like to play as aliens. Hence, you often end up with a human team full of noobs, and more experienced players on the aliens.
I thought I'd mentioned this in the top post, but I guess I edited it out before posting: there's no shortage of reasons one could give to explain why the statistics are inaccurate, or scenarios one can imagine in which the balance is perfect already, but I think we're better off using the statistics we have instead of the statistics we might imagine for situations that can't be tested. At least this way we can be confident about being balanced in one set of circumstances, instead of just hoping to be balanced in all of them.
I still hold the belief that good players have a better feeling of balance than numbers and statistics ever will, because there are too many independent variables.
And up until now feelings have been the
only thing used to balance 1.2 (and no, not just my feelings). Now we're using them to interpret and act on empirical data, where we feel it's beneficial.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Did you have a look at that wikipedia page, or were you just being cynical? It cuts both ways:
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is the persuasive power of numbers, particularly the use of statistics to bolster weak arguments, and the tendency of people to disparage statistics that do not support their positions.
