Balance Observations

[Norfenstein]

I'm not sure how in depth the automated game statistics are, but it probably couldn't hurt to also discuss perceived balance. Here's my take at least:

Humans need to camp in the beginning of the game because its the best time for aliens to win. Once humans get powersuits they can easily drain the alien team's frag supply, especially if they continue camping. Soldiers have virtually no chance against a powersuit and hydras and chimeras are only marginally better off. Big Mofo's make great defenders but their size and speed make attacking a human base, or even a group of heavily armed humans suicide. From the games we played today aliens only won by getting a very early frag advantage and ending the game quickly, making a successful sneak attack on the human base in largish maps, or by drawing games out for an hour or longer by "spamming" eggs until they had enough frags (gotten mostly from helmet/body armor/jetpack combos used to find hidden eggs) to mount a coordinated attack while all the humans were scouring the map trying to make the game end.

My humble suggestions:

Make the powersuit cost 400 and only available at the last team upgrade. I'd say it's worth at least 400 points and on par with the aliens final upgrades. Plus humans already get the helmet on level 2 so they'll still get more protection then, and moving the powersuit to level 3 would give them something more to look forward to. I'd rather see it balanced as it is than have it give aliens 2 frags.

Make the Big Mofo faster. Shrinking it some would help too, but I'd rather see other compensations. I know the trample makes it fast, but you have to charge it up for every straight length of an escape route and so works better for getting into fights rather than out of them. Its speed should make up for its gigantic bounding box, so there's some chance of dodging mass driver shots from across the map.

Make the defense computer warn humans when their structures are being attacked. Would help prevent sneak/back attacks obliterating human bases. I forget who's idea this was, but it's a good one.

I'm not sure what to do about grangers running around on big maps laying eggs and prolonging games forever. Maybe make eggs without an overmind have half as much health.

Miscellaneous stuff: Flame thrower and lucifer cannons aren't really worth their price. LC can do a lot of damage up close, but I'd rather have something I can't shoot myself in the back with for 600 credits.


Something else to consider: Since humans get more credits for bigger aliens, aliens have twice as much to lose from being killed than humans (lose your upgrade and give your killer more credits). Without implementing a similar system for aliens, perhaps this could be balanced by having the credits humans earn from kills be affected by how powerful they are. So a powersuit + chaingun would get much less from soldiers than a rifle grunt.

[Molog]

I'll have to disagree on lucifer cannon. Fully charged it can take out clusters of alien defense buildings, kill eggs and dragoons in one hit and has a nice aoe for all the smaller aliens. Spamming it will also lag up people with slower computers.

The whole lucifer cannon rounds appearing behind you thing is weird.

You are correct that anything under a dragoon can't really take on a battlesuit with a good weapon. It gets worse when multiple powersuits are together. Human focus fire can quikly kill any alien.

Making the battlesuit a bit more expensive could lead to aliens having a better chance of victory. But it is difficult to tell, need more games to to get better understanding

[juice]

I agree with Norf about the battlesuit.  After you get the battlesuit, there's a low chance that you'll never be unable to get another one.  Soldiers are pretty much free credits for battlesuits, and they can stay out longer because of this.  Im not saying battlesuit is overpowered, but that its just gained way too early.  If its gained that early, perhaps it needs to be toned down, such as hydra being able to stick it (however, the person would be able to turn completely around) etc.  A higher cost is a must then, and so forth.  It would just make alot more sense to put it as a later upgrade, which, as norf has explained, would balance out the defensive upgrades for the humans.  Light armor -> Helmet -> Battlesuit instead of Light armor -> helmet + battlesuit -> nothing.

Also, I was thinking that maybe SOME aliens might be more resistant to "Energy weapons" (lucifer, pulse, las, painsaw etc.) than others.  Perhaps Chimera or something to give a little incentive to use that class perhaps when there's alot of humans which are lasgunning or even near the end when humans have lucifer cannons.  Its not that I find those weapons too strong, but it gives a little edge.  Usually me and norf are unstoppable when we load up our weapons and go (me = lasgun, norf = pain saw).

Flamethrower I find as an incapable weapon for most situations.  Infact, the only situation I find it suitable is killing a few soldiers that are attacking you.  You can wave it around and take out multiple soldiers that the other weapons cannot do.  However, everything else just isnt worth it. I was thinking hard.  Maybe this gun is good for its price?  I checked the price and found it very expensive.  Nope.  Maybe, I thought, it was good at killing alien structures?  I tried using it to take out structures and eggs.  I wasted almost all of my ammo shooting one egg.  Also it takes alot of ammo to kill defensive structures.  No, not alien structures.  So, if its not good for that, it HAS to be good for defense, right?  Then I tried using it defensively.  No, it doesnt have enough range to be effective defense.  Plus, if you are defending the base, you'll probably scorch something important.  X there too.  I was starting to get desperate:  perhaps its good on higher alien classes?  Way wrong there.  Well, its fire, and fire is usually really bright, so perhaps it can light up dark areas, I was pondering.  Suprisingly, it wasn't good for that either.  Which leads me to a question for the Dev Team:  what CAN the flamethrower be used for?

As to norf's suggestion about ammo, I thought maybe a purchasable Ammo pack could work.  Same concept as the Battery pack, and I'm sure its probably been said before, but Norf is right, it would give humans a better reason to attack than defend.

[DCB:ETOX]

i have to agree with the observations about the battle suite, it should come in later in the game and/or be more expensive.

i would like to see some aliens having a small resistance to energy weapons, but i dont really have a problem with it atm.

the flame thrower... this is actually my fav weapon, it is hard to use, but only if your not skilled with it. I find that if you get flamethrower + jetpack +helmet +light armor your a pretty unstoppable force, though mostly what your reduced to is harrassing the aliens and letting your team mates kill them, though if you can find a doorway and hover just above it and away from the wall you can kill alot of the smaller alien classes. also on the last beta testing day i almost took out a bigmofo with the above combination, i hovered infront of it blasting flamethrower into its face, it went back into its base after 10secs of combat, but i had to go back to the base for ammo and health (56hp after fight)[/b]

[Molog]

The best unit of the aliens at the moment seems to be the dragoon. It's jump attack is great in killing humans and retreating quikly.

One idea might be to switch the health of the chimera and dragoon.

[Norfenstein]

I don't like the idea of any class/weapon specific balances like energy resistance or whatnot (I think the powersuit immunity to hydra grab is the only one present now, I'd like to see them grabbable but able to turn all around and up and down as juice suggested) because it limits the ways you can play the game creatively, which limits fun. I might want to tote around a chaingun but if I expect to encounter alien structures and, say, the flamethrower is especially good at destroying them, then I'm better off with a weapon I don't want. Best to balance everything against everything and let players decide what's best to use (plus its MUCH easier to balance things if you don't have a hundred different weaknesses/invulnerabilities *cough*gloom*cough*).

I like the idea of an ammo pack ("Bandolier" please, I already get "Jet Pack" and "Battery Pack" confused in the in-game menu ) that would function the same as the battery pack now and to differentiate things make the battery pack regenerate ammo slowly instead of just increase the capacity. Regenerating things is fun, at least for me. I had this idea a while back but didn't suggest it because it seemed like something more suited to post first release, but if humans need to be less campy now then why not (asides from possibly requiring another model). Also, my chaingun overheating idea was supposed to go along with an ammo boost of about a hundred, that's something else to keep in mind.

I don't think the chimera is that bad, it's just a lot harder to use than the other alien classes. Maps have to be very forgiving for the wall jump to be useful in combat and I've found I need a lot more practice to even hit reliably with the swipe (I think it'd be good for doing quick passes at humans' heads, but I can never seem to actually connect with it). Maybe increasing the slash's reach or making it wider would help. And the electric attack not hitting humans is a bug, right?

Molog's probably right about the lucifer cannon, I'm likely just not using it right.