Is each side properly balanced?

[Juno]

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

[[EVIL]Unknown]

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

[Kolaris]

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.

[PHREAK]

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.

[|Nex|TrEmMa]

Arachnids spammable.

[AKAnotu]

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

[WalkerTexasGranger]

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.

[|Nex|TrEmMa]

Oh c'mon now, don't base this off one single game .
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 .

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.

[temple]

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.

[WolfWings ShadowFlight]

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 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.

[temple]

Specifically, the Overall Balance at Stage 1 versus Stage 1 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.

[|Nex|TrEmMa]

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.

[WolfWings ShadowFlight]

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.

[Stof]

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.

[Juno]

the game is balanced



teams may not be


end of

[temple]

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.

[Stof]

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

[temple]

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.

[Stof]

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.

[AKAnotu]

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

[Stof]

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.

[vcxzet]

O_O
you cant balance tremulous unless you do some realtime shit

[rasz_pl]

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 ....

[Stof]

Yep, but I seem to recall tjw saying it had practicaly no effect at all

[|Nex|TrEmMa]

Okay, for those interested (and for me to brag ) I have screenshots of the base that triggered Walker's rant .  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:


After alien base was taken down in SD (SD started at 40:00, no structures lost):


It's not perfect, but it's pretty good .

[Stof]

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.

[AKAnotu]

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

[WolfWings ShadowFlight]

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 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.

[temple]

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.

[janev]

@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          
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 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

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....