Standoffs - How to deal with them

[BabyAlien]

I just got off of a round of playing and out of four games, three were 'standoffs' going to the max time limit, and one was overwhelming human victory.

On one hand the standoff indicates some balance in the gameplay, on the other hand it makes for very frustrating play.  Generally my perception is that even good teamwork on the part of the aliens isn't enough to break through the often hefty defenses of the humans.  And, when the aliens are laying it on thick, the humans can't really get out of their base to clear out the aliens, unless the aliens are dumb enough to lose all their evo points.

I don't really know the solution.  Perhaps there should be a penalty to humans for staying in the base.  If they had to get out into the map and collect food or something, then the aliens could at least 'starve em out'.

I guess the point here is that if the aliens have played it hard enough to keep the humans from being able to leave their base, then the game shouldn't carry on for 20+ minutes this way.

As for the aliens, perhaps eggs should be given a certain proximity to the OM.  You can't build eggs too far from the OM and if the OM moves out of range after an egg goes up then their spawn rate goes way down.  This may help the opposite effect where aliens go on forever even though the humans should be able to close the match.

As a final point, aliens need some kind of equivalent to a grenade to open up packed human bases.  When they camp out in a narrow hallway, even tyrants can do nothing or very little.  Maybe tyrants should have the ability to explode on death, spraying goo all over the turrets and clogging them up.

I don't want it to sound like I'm giving much of a solution, it's more a problem and a couple of initial thoughts.

[SLAVE|Mietz]

I just got off of a round of playing and out of four games, three were 'standoffs' going to the max time limit, and one was overwhelming human victory.

On one hand the standoff indicates some balance in the gameplay, on the other hand it makes for very frustrating play.  Generally my perception is that even good teamwork on the part of the aliens isn't enough to break through the often hefty defenses of the humans.  And, when the aliens are laying it on thick, the humans can't really get out of their base to clear out the aliens, unless the aliens are dumb enough to lose all their evo points.

I don't really know the solution.  Perhaps there should be a penalty to humans for staying in the base.  If they had to get out into the map and collect food or something, then the aliens could at least 'starve em out'.

I guess the point here is that if the aliens have played it hard enough to keep the humans from being able to leave their base, then the game shouldn't carry on for 20+ minutes this way.

As for the aliens, perhaps eggs should be given a certain proximity to the OM.  You can't build eggs too far from the OM and if the OM moves out of range after an egg goes up then their spawn rate goes way down.  This may help the opposite effect where aliens go on forever even though the humans should be able to close the match.

As a final point, aliens need some kind of equivalent to a grenade to open up packed human bases.  When they camp out in a narrow hallway, even tyrants can do nothing or very little.  Maybe tyrants should have the ability to explode on death, spraying goo all over the turrets and clogging them up.

I don't want it to sound like I'm giving much of a solution, it's more a problem and a couple of initial thoughts.

If aliens can push the humans back to their base, but are not able to take out the base defenses, the Alien-Team is plain DUMB (in the word of uncoordinated and/or just DUMB)

If Humans are good enough to push the aliens back to their base and take it down, and after 5 minutes the aliens are back into play, the human team is just plainly uncoordinated and/or just thinks that BS is the best you can get (you NEED helmet for egg hunts!!).

The most "Stalemate" situations i ever encountered were either of great teamplay of both teams, where both just pwned equally.
The other situation is where the teams are noob (but equally) and just don't get some of the game-physics (like hunting grangers and eggs, using helmets even on S3, rushing base with tyrants, sniping teslas with adv. goon etc etc)

[Survivor]

Taking out human bases relies heavily on actually drawing the humans out of it. Aliens camping just outside the human base for 40 minutes isn't smart because all humans are close together, their strongest point.
When humans leave their base they usually fan out making easy pickings for normal to skilled players while the truly hefty players usually round up a group against a heavy base or just jump in alone to take out armoury and spawns.

[werepants]

I agree about drawing humans out.  Sitting just outside a base, where humans can run right back to turrets, is bad form.  The only good thing about this is that aliens can have free reign of the rest of the map, and build boosters, eggs, tubes and whatnot to provide easier offense.  Also, if you don't feed, humans get bored enough to keep coming out of the base and feeding you.

[Neo]

The easiest way to win from a stalemate as humans is to make a breakout, like in Niveus. All the aliens will be right by their base leaving you free reign to get their eggs without any difficulty.

[b0rsuk]

The problem with 'drawing humans out' is that it may, or may not, work. You could as well advise humans to 'draw aliens to turrets'. Determined campers won't leave. The game is too often decided by who has more feeders; you can do whatever you like and use excellent strategies, but 2-3 feeders can easily make you lose. 2-3 feeders are not hard to find on a pub server.

[next_ghost]

Even some experienced players haven't realised yet that the goal is not to keep humans inside their base but to destroy the base. Some skilled aliens just stand outside human base and suck evo points thus denying evo points to the rest of their team. In the end, there're just 2 or 3 evo suckers and everyone else in the alien team is completely starved. If humans eventually reach stage3, they get advanced weaponry, kill the evo suckers and win because the entire alien team can't resist as simple dretches. Evo suckers may own total noobs but mediocre human team with good turret layout will resist long enough to be able to win.

This does not happen to humans because you get your share of credits after each kill. It happens to aliens because if you wound humans to 51hp and some 1337 tyrant finnishes him for you, you get NOTHING. He gets everything.

[Neo]

Not from the times i've played. I believe you'll find whoever does the most damage gets the evolve point, atleast thats what happens on the servers I play on, @db and SATGNU.

Also you can't suck up evo points as your team mates still get their points every 2 minutes, if they are being starved then they should stop flinging themselves on turrets.

[next_ghost]

Not from the times i've played. I believe you'll find whoever does the most damage gets the evolve point, atleast thats what happens on the servers I play on, @db and SATGNU.

That's exactly the problem! You don't get your share, the guy who makes most damage gets the entire evo point. One dragoon bite does more damage than several dretch bites to the same place. And if you happen to be close to some 1337 killing machine, you may not get a single evo point for a looooooooong time. Just because that trigger-happy fool has to kill everything that moves even if you can kill it easily yourself.

Also you can't suck up evo points as your team mates still get their points every 2 minutes, if they are being starved then they should stop flinging themselves on turrets.

So you suggest the rest of aliens should just stand around and watch? Choking humans inside their base doesn't prevent feeders from feeding. IT FORCES THEM TO FEED! And camped-up evo points ussually don't last long.

What's especially bad about evo sucking is that it denies not only evo points but the very combat experience. Noobs can't learn to fight because they have no available targets.

[Catalyc]

The problem I often see in long games is that players dont target the buildings but start hitting the low level classes instead, this happens with both aliens and humans. The most exploitable thing about camping humans is that in cramped bases they'll most likely shoot half of their buildings before killing you, thats why adv. marauder is such an awesome base attacking class.

Another part of  the problem is that most players lack the balls to do kamikaze runs, instead they just sit and frag whore, while the other team slowly stages up. I never mind dying 2-3 times wasting all my evo points as long as my team continues to attack, its quite frustrating when you have 3 tyrants staring at each other in the alien base while the human team has no DC and Armoury after you wasted all your evo points in kami runs. Whats even more frustrating is trying to win the game while all you have is a team of turret hugging hippies that don't even chase dying aliens.

[Vector_Matt]

Whats even more frustrating is trying to win the game while all you have is a team of turret hugging hippies that don't even chase dying aliens.

Yep, nailed it.