Balance across levels

[Kadreal]

Currently it seems that aliens have an advantage at stage 1, marines have advantage at stage 2, and prehapes aliens have a slight advantage at stage 3. Allow me to explain:

At stage one dragoons are availible, these units are capable of getting headshots on marines with a fair amount of ease which will one shot a full health marine without a helmet. This allows a good dragoon to jump into a pack of humans and take down 3 or 4 within seconds. Marines have no item to counter this at stage one, and their guns lack the power to gun down a dragoon before he gets in range for that one single bite. Stage one deciding force: Dragoons

At stage two marines get the helmet, which gives 70% damage reduction to the head. This makes them extremely resliant against most aliens as a dragoon must now score 3 headshots to kill a marine. Also unlocks the pulse rifle which is rather effective against the large targets. Aliens get adv marauder but the zap really only does good damage to marines who are unarmoured. As a marine with light armour will still take 4 direct zaps to kill. Stage two deciding force: Marine armour

At stage three the tyrant is unlocked. While not incredibly hard to kill this alien seems to be at the perfect height to always get headshots without much effort. It also hits very hard. This allows it to drop most marines extremely quickly including battlesuits in 3 hits. Marines get the battlesuit, which ups reduction to 80%. Also unlocks the lucifer cannon, which while great against smaller aliens due to splash, lacks punch against hit and run tyrants. Stage 3 Deciding Force: Tyrants

Of course balance "complaints" would be unsavory without suggestions as to a solution.

The solution I offer is rather simple, change the damage model to the .5 to legs 1.0 to chest and 1.5 to head model that some other people have offered. This would prevent one shot headshots early game cause by dragoons and would tone down the tyrant slightly without nerfing it's damage to buildings. Damage on dretch basi marauder and prehapes even dragoon could be upped slightly to make up for this small loss in overall damage.

For stage two I suggest that light armour + helmet reduction be reduce abit, prehaps down to around 50-60%. This would prevent marines from suddenly gaining "tripple" damage absorbtion from a mear 160 credits at stage two.

Feel free to comment, offer suggestions, or "object" but please try and keep it constructive and offer something meaningful to the thread. Thanks.

[Juno]

to be honest the game is perfectly balanced ( almost)


what your experiencing is imbalanced teams thats all



seriously,i say it alot but play on aliens wrath for a bit and you'll see that not all games go towards the aliens, and its about 50/50

[Stof]

Easier : give helmet at stage 1. Maybe an helmet version without the radar but give it anyway.

Hell, make the light armor more expensive and include an helmet and make the stage 2 helmet be only the radar itself.

And at stage 3, I'm not sure aliens have such an advantage. Sure on 1vs1 nothing beats a Tyrant except an out of reach jetpacker ( or somebody under stairs ). But still, against a good low ping human strafing like mad with a gatling gun, Tyrants have a hard time. And Dragoons or Adv Dragoons have an even harder time. Make that a group of 3 humans against a group of 3 aliens and with some coordination, aliens are dead since it's much easier for humans to focus fire on the same target than for aliens.

Also, strafing like mad also works extremly well in stage 2 with armor + helmet + chaingun. At THAT point of the game, a good human team can very easily deplete the alien team of it's evo points, no matter how good they are.

[Norfenstein]

Kadreal your observations are pretty much spot on but the solution is a little more complex. Right now the dragoon is the best class aliens have until stage 3, so it's sort of balanced for stage 1 and stage 2. If (when, since all this is currently being worked on) alien stage 2 is brought up to the level of human stage 2 then the goon can be scaled back a little for stage 1.

[kevlarman]

The solution I offer is rather simple, change the damage model to the .5 to legs 1.0 to chest and 1.5 to head model that some other people have offered. This would prevent one shot headshots early game cause by dragoons and would tone down the tyrant slightly without nerfing it's damage to buildings. Damage on dretch basi marauder and prehapes even dragoon could be upped slightly to make up for this small loss in overall damage.

why is the reduction for legs twice as big as the increase for head, it should be .75 legs, 1.0 chest, 1.5 head.

[Kadreal]

currently it's .5 1.0 2.0 for the damage model. While .75 1.0 1.5 would be okay, frankly not many people get leg hits, and it wouldn't really change things much except for basi players.

[Aninhumer]

How about allowing the light armour to protect the head just a little?
Most aliens aim for the head, so can only protect against crappy aimers, and why do we need a defence against them?

If it protected say 20-30% it would eliminate one hit kills but still leave them very vunerable to more hits. (Obviously the price might need to be raised a little)

[FX-Arch]

Kadreal your observations are pretty much spot on but the solution is a little more complex. Right now the dragoon is the best class aliens have until stage 3, so it's sort of balanced for stage 1 and stage 2. If (when, since all this is currently being worked on) alien stage 2 is brought up to the level of human stage 2 then the goon can be scaled back a little for stage 1.

Stage 1 = Goon (Strongest of the s1 aliens and has 200 hp)

Stage 2 = Adv. Mara/Goon (Adv. Mara has 175 hp, Zap can easily destroy small groups of turrets and Adv. Mara has a decent attack, Goon has 25 hp more and a stronger attack but is slow and can't jump to reach higher places)

Stage 3 = Tyrant/Adv. Goon (Tyrant has 400 hp and very strong attack but the Adv. Goon can snipe humans/buildings which is very veryy handy)

I like adv. Mara better then Goon but that's my opinion.

[Seafoideach]

Goon has 25 hp more and a stronger attack but is slow and can't jump to reach higher places)

You do know of the pounce, don't you?

[FX-Arch]

Yeah ofcourse but the speed of a goon is lower then the speed of a mara. And a mara can jump, pounce only shoots you halfway across the map

[Norfenstein]

Stage 2 = Adv. Mara/Goon (Adv. Mara has 175 hp, Zap can easily destroy small groups of turrets and Adv. Mara has a decent attack, Goon has 25 hp more and a stronger attack but is slow and can't jump to reach higher places)

The zap does a maximum of 80 damage over 1.5 seconds. The advanced marauder's slash does 40 damage per 400ms, or 100 damage per second. Using the zap for anything other than finishing off a heavily damaged human is a mistake. Using it to hit multiple targets is an even bigger mistake because the damage gets spread out.

[kozak6]

The zap is useful on FF servers, however, because it simply can't hit teammates.

And don't forget about the bug that lets it do 100 damage.

[FX-Arch]

Stage 2 = Adv. Mara/Goon (Adv. Mara has 175 hp, Zap can easily destroy small groups of turrets and Adv. Mara has a decent attack, Goon has 25 hp more and a stronger attack but is slow and can't jump to reach higher places)

The zap does a maximum of 80 damage over 1.5 seconds. The advanced marauder's slash does 40 damage per 400ms, or 100 damage per second. Using the zap for anything other than finishing off a heavily damaged human is a mistake. Using it to hit multiple targets is an even bigger mistake because the damage gets spread out.

Zap a group of turrets 3 times. It will go boom =O Then your team mates could rush into the bases destroying everything and everyone in their path. Or u see 3 humans with flammies running after u screaming"WE WILL PWNED U MUHAHA N00B". Jump over them while hitting zap, then jump back while hitting zap and they're dead.

[Henners]

Dont underestimate the zap for reactor killing - it allows you to damage the reactor without getting zapped by it yourself. The chain zap can also be good for killing turrets behind other buildings - e.g. standing behind the reactor and shocking it and a spawn and a turret behind it, all whilst remaining out of range/sight of the static defences.....

[Odin]

Stage 2 = Adv. Mara/Goon (Adv. Mara has 175 hp, Zap can easily destroy small groups of turrets and Adv. Mara has a decent attack, Goon has 25 hp more and a stronger attack but is slow and can't jump to reach higher places)

The zap does a maximum of 80 damage over 1.5 seconds. The advanced marauder's slash does 40 damage per 400ms, or 100 damage per second. Using the zap for anything other than finishing off a heavily damaged human is a mistake. Using it to hit multiple targets is an even bigger mistake because the damage gets spread out.

Heheh, yea. I love owning mara noobs who think that zapping is better.

[kevlarman]

Dont underestimate the zap for reactor killing - it allows you to damage the reactor without getting zapped by it yourself. The chain zap can also be good for killing turrets behind other buildings - e.g. standing behind the reactor and shocking it and a spawn and a turret behind it, all whilst remaining out of range/sight of the static defences.....

or, you could just sit on top of the reactor. 2damage/tick is nothing, even a lisk will survive that.

[Stof]

Dont underestimate the zap for reactor killing - it allows you to damage the reactor without getting zapped by it yourself. The chain zap can also be good for killing turrets behind other buildings - e.g. standing behind the reactor and shocking it and a spawn and a turret behind it, all whilst remaining out of range/sight of the static defences.....

or, you could just sit on top of the reactor. 2damage/tick is nothing, even a lisk will survive that.

Or as a basilisk, you can often wallwalk and attack the reactor from the top. There are easy to find spots where you are in range to attack the reactor but it can't fight back. Aim for the top corners of the reactor.

[Norfenstein]

The chain zap can also be good for killing turrets behind other buildings - e.g. standing behind the reactor and shocking it and a spawn and a turret behind it, all whilst remaining out of range/sight of the static defences.....

How is spreading your damage out across three structures ever better than killing one structure three times as fast? If it were an armoury or dc covering you from turrets and the base had no human defenders to walk around it and shoot you you could still do more damage just by knocking down turrets until the reactor is exposed. And if the reactor is exposed then why waste time damaging anything else?

[Kadreal]

Zap is better for bases cause it does more overall damage then bite. While it does deal 20 less dps per second to your main target, the range advantage allows you more lee-way in dodging attacks while continueing to do full damage.

Zap will do 80+40+26 or 146 dps total (three targets)
Bite will do 100 dps total.

[Stof]

Zap has a refresh rate of 1.5s, did you take that into account when computing the DPS ? 80 damage per zap every 1.5s does not equate to a 80 DPS attack on the first target

[-Q-]

zap is nice against flamer........a human with a flamer ran behind me but i stood out of the reach of the flamer going backwards, he followed me so I could zap him the whole time untill he was dead......well was  abit noobish what he did but still zap is quite good against humans when you dont want to go tooo close

[MadMan2k]

Dont underestimate the zap for reactor killing - it allows you to damage the reactor without getting zapped by it yourself. The chain zap can also be good for killing turrets behind other buildings - e.g. standing behind the reactor and shocking it and a spawn and a turret behind it, all whilst remaining out of range/sight of the static defences.....

or, you could just sit on top of the reactor. 2damage/tick is nothing, even a lisk will survive that.

or you could just stay a bit off from it - the reactor damadge is range dependand.
so you will get only 3-4hp loss at max mara range...

[Norfenstein]

Zap will do 80+40+26 or 146 dps total (three targets)
Bite will do 100 dps total.

Except this is not how the zap works, which is what I've been trying to get across to everyone. If your percentages are right (I don't remember what they actually are) the zap would do something like 44+22+14 to the three targets, totaling the same damage as hitting one target.

[Lava Croft]

Zap will do 80+40+26 or 146 dps total (three targets)
Bite will do 100 dps total.

Except this is not how the zap works, which is what I've been trying to get across to everyone. If your percentages are right (I don't remember what they actually are) the zap would do something like 44+22+14 to the three targets, totally the same damage as hitting one target.

Effectively rendering the zap useless compared to it's earlier incarnations.