The changes have had effect, but not terribly much of one. Alien wins are still terribly common.

The extra 5 armor helps marines a fair bit in the early game if the aliens fail to parasite. I think that most marines that get anywhere useful without being parasited now are mostly the result of aliens, for some reason, not realizing how much more useful it is in 3.0.3.

As Mustang said in another thread, the extra 5 armor will, in many cases, hurt marines, as it will cause them to be parasited when they wouldn't have been in previous versions.

The main effect of the extra 5 armor seems to be that it is now far harder for skulks to attack base in the early game, for obvious reasons.

The extra armor only helps marines in the early game. The aliens are still far stronger in mid-to-late game. Where before marines would have to deal with something like a fade or two, maybe a lerk and a few leaping skulks, now the leaping skulks have silence and focus. If the marines managed to kill some of the higher lifeforms, they still have to deal with a large number of quickly-spawning leaping two-upgrade skulks. Two-hive aliens can generally hold off a lot of marine pressure without lifeforms. If the marines want to pressure a hive, they basically have to put up with a constant stream of leaping focus skulks, plus whatever lifeforms they haven't gotten lucky and killed. If they don't pressure the hive, then they're leaving alien res up, and just asking to fight more fades and onoses later.

The other problem is that the two-upgrade skulks are far more efficient at dealing with marine RTs. A lone recapper stands little chance against a silence/focus/leaping skulk, so marines can have trouble keeping their res flow unless they send two people on capping duty, which is practically half their team. Previously, the aliens would generally at least have to tear their fade away from battle to deal with a recapper. In addition, skulks can get adren/SoF or silence/focus, bite RTs forever, without having to wait for energy to replenish, and easily deal with anyone that comes to stop them.

The primary cause of the imbalance is, in my opinion, the free and quick upgrades. Getting upgrades every life as skulk used to have the potential to cost much time and res. Now skulks can suicide leap with two upgrades on the marines outside your hive dozens of times without a worry. Two-hive two-upgrade skulks are sort of difficult for marines to deal with, and the aliens have an endless supply of them.

You say you don't want a solution, but I just thought I'd mention that skulks are much more fun with upgrades. The balance is just less than optimal.

I've been discussing the two-hive skulks. Obviously, once the marines get proto tech, things change a bit, but they still have a very hard fight, unless they've had good res control all game. I think that marines already had an overly-difficult time dealing with two hives in b5, and 3.0f has made that far worse. I don't know if you want to get into a discussion of how two hives make (and made, in 3.0b5) aliens 14x stronger, though

The extra siege damage helps, but it is not clear how much. The extra damage can be made up for with only one extra siege (unless you've got more than 7 of them ), so you've really just reduced the cost of a siege from somewhere around 85/70 to somewhere around 70/55 (plus 15 if you want to count the pg, and I don't think two-cannon sieges are very popular). Useful and all, but not huge (there is also a slight decrease in the time to set the siege up, too).

As with b5, the aliens are extremely difficult to deal with at two hives, so the obvious marine strategy to try is to stop them from getting two hives. This was often difficult to do in beta 5. As has been stated elsewhere, the way this is done is exactly the same as in beta 5, except now the marines have 5 extra armor for the first 1:30, 10 extra res somewhere in the early game, a couple of extra pings, and a rather slower phasing rate. Aliens now all have free upgrades, which are very useful, innate regen (which, besides the obvious benefit, means that skulks always take at least one extra bullet to kill), siege immunity (this is huge), effective OCs, and the extremely powerful flashlight.

I think the phase rate is more important than it is given credit for. It was very, very common in b5 for a pg outside a building second hive to be saved via a beacon followed by all five marines simultaneously phasing. If all five come through at once, then aliens on the pg have a lot more work to do. Now that they come through one at a time, it is much easier to camp the pg and deal with them. This happens all the time in assaults on the second hive, and very often made the difference in whether the second hive went down or not.

That said, I do not think allowing a whole team to phase simultaneously is necessarily a desirable gameplay feature. I just think that it needs to be considered important when discussing balance.

That's a strange place to end this post, but I can't think of where to go from here but suggestions, so I guess that's it.

It's not free upgrades that do this. Unupgraded leap skulks do the exact same thing and can take down pretty much anything. Of course upgrades help, but I think the real problem lies with Leap... as much as I love Leap it's just way too powerful. Leap is more powerful than all of the rest of Hive2 weapons and stronger than all the Hive 3 weapons except Web and Xeno... and maybe AR.

It's Leap plus respawning a skulk every 3.5 seconds (with 2 hives) that makes 2 hive aliens near invincible. Marines get worn down by the gas + skulks (even without fades) it makes it very very hard to siege, and you can't shoot down hives because of umbra.

So... Umbra on the Hive means you can't shoot it down, and you can't siege because of constant leap skulks and gas. It's been this way for a long time =\


I'd like to see a version of NS where aliens had a decent/good shot at getting the second hive up, but where it didn't make them as uberpowerful as it does now.



Edit: To Dirm, I don't really think it's free upgrades that are doing this. NS has been this way for a long time... Leap Skulks without upgrades are still *ridiculously* powerful.

Yeah, I think I said that two hives were too powerful even before 3.0f. Before, though, marines still stood a marginal chance of overcoming two hives. Now they must have an even larger advantage (either through skill or strong early game or whatever) to compete with the two-hive aliens. Yes, leaping skulks made things nasty, but leaping silence focus skulks are just silly. Free and cheap upgrades took a rather annoying part of NS and made it far worse. In addition, they made it rather more difficult to stop the second hive from showing up in the first place.

I am not sure this question belongs here, but I'll give it a go:

Fades are more generally up around 3:30-4:30, depending on the marine early game and how much rfk the aliens in question get.

The second hive is usually finished somewhere between 7:00 and 8:00.

In order to get proto tech before the second hive finishes, the marines have to sink 30 of their early res into an AA. This causes a bit of delay in upgrades. Then, at around the 3:30-4:00 mark, they need to dump 75-80 res into a proto and researching either jp or ha. It's hard to have HA tech before around the 6:00 mark, as it takes 1:40 to research. JPs you can have 50 seconds earlier. Either way, you've spent a ton of res to get the proto tech. Now, to make it useful against the second hive, you need to spend 30-35 res per marine and send them to the second hive. Generally, if you only have one or two JP or HA, the fades will take them down pretty easily, for the simple reason that it they can keep hitting the same target, and it is harder to weld (one person welding cuts your firepower and cover by 50%). With larger groups of protopeople, welding takes away less of your punch, and aliens have a much harder time getting the guy that's already damaged. Since you've already spent 75-80 res just to get the proto tech, and you had to delay upgrades in order to do your AA, so your RT building/pressure won't have been as good as normal, it is rather difficult to get any decent number of protopeople to the second hive before it is finished. Even if you do manage to get them there, they have an extremely small amount of time left to actually take it down. The fades have been rather bored all round, as you haven't been able to afford guns and upgrades to put decent pressure on anything, since you've been saving for a proto rush, so they are just waiting for you to try to attack the second hive, and it is normally not too hard for an alien team to hold a few marines off for a minute or so. Once the hive goes up, the fades heal practically instantly, the lerks can umbra, the skulks can leap, and they all have focus. Also, when a hive is first dropped, it has 3500 health. When it is almost done, it has closer to 7000. Delaying your second-hive push increases the amount of damage you have to do.

As has been discussed, once the second hive goes up, marines are generally in a lot of trouble. The best chance of success seems to come from stopping the second hive from finishing. Proto tech is just a res hole that rarely pays off before the second hive is finished and the marines are in a lot of trouble anyway. That 80 res can go a long way in helping a more traditional attack on the second hive.

Obviously, clans do do proto rushes sometimes, and sometimes they work. In general, though, the second hive is so scary that clans want to put everything they can into stopping the hive from going up, rather than investing for the future. I would guess that marine win rate against two active hives is less than 5% (as in my previous post, this is biased by my experience, which is from a clan that has a stronger alien game than marine). For games in which the second hive doesn't go up, though, the marine win rate is substantially higher.

Coming up with marine win rates for games in which aliens were stuck with one hive, or finished their second hive might be interesting, but they would not tell the whole story.

Taking down two hives is harder than taking down one hive. If a marine team would have been good enough to win against two hives, they will most likely be able to stop the second hive from ever going up. If the marines cannot even cope with the one-hive aliens, they do not stand much chance against two hives.

(In the next paragraph, I'm making some sweeping generalizations about gameplay. Obviously games do not always go like this, but I think that this describes a large number of them.)

While this might make sense (I mean, of course two hives should be more powerful than one!), it can make for rather boring gameplay. In the vast majority of cases where the second hive finishes, the aliens will win. The game, however, does not end the moment the second hive completes. It goes on and on. Two-hive aliens have enough power to deal with most attacks at either of their two hives, so it is hard for them to lose their power or the game, but they have a hard time taking marine start. The result is that marines run around frustrated against two hives for 15 minutes while the aliens amass enough power to end it. On the other side of the fence, almost all marine victories come from taking out a hive before the second one finishes. This means that the game always goes like this: both teams spend the first few minutes on some skirmishes, trying to hold and take res, and then the marines have to attack a hive, and the aliens have to defend it. Attempting to take down the hive costs a ton of res (guns, mines, phase tech, possibly sieges) and time. If the marines have their whole team attacking the hive, by the time the attack is finished they will have no res in the bank, and one skulk will have taken out all of their RTs. If the marines send one person to hold their RTs, he stands a good chance of getting owned by silence or cloaking. If the marines send two people to hold their res, they only have three guys to actually attack the hive, which isn't likely to go well against two fades and a lerk. In addition, if the marines did not have a strong early game, the aliens still have RTs up and are getting mass rfk the whole time, from repeated beacon/phases.

If the marines actually succeed in getting the hive down before it finishes, the aliens have just gained a lot of res, and the marines have lost most of theirs. The aliens keep pressuring the marines at the hive, the marines can barely afford to keep meds and guns and rts and upgrades flowing, and the aliens are still pumping out lifeforms and can drop another hive.

If the marines fail in getting the hive down, then, well, they did what they had to do in attempting to get the second hive down, but they now still have the problem of no res, and they have to fight two-hive aliens.

Making the building second hive easier to take down isn't necessarily the answer, though, as that results in the aliens being stuck at the same tech level for most of the game, which can be rather boring.

Some poll-ish-type questions (I hope you take answers to these as "views on what's wrong", rather than suggestions, however you interpret the difference between those two ):

With reasonably evenly-matched teams, what percent of games would you guess marines win after the second hive finishes?

Do you think marines can even compete with two-hive aliens without very, very strong res control (taking out most of the alien RTs early in the game, and the aliens being silly and not pressuring marine RTs for most of the game)

Would you like to see the second hive left as it is, weakened, delayed, or what?

Is taking down the building second hive too easy, too hard, or just right?

How many people want to play against turrets or electrification? Not me...

Hand Grenades should be improved though (why not make them like TFC nades? you can prime and throw them without changing weapons or stopping firing), but even if they are I don't expect them to take priority over AA... so... Maybe make them researchable at a comm chair or something. I also like the idea of a cheap upgrade that gives welders to all your marines when they spawn.


Albino: Yeah skulks didn't usually get upgrades before, but Hive 2 was still GG. Leap Skulks were still insanely powerful...

I don't think making it take 5-7 seconds to get an upgrade is a good solution, it would make alien early game so much more fragile... IE. if you lose your first wave of upgraded skulks you have to make a rushed attempt to save your node with unupgraded skulks..

Utterly useless in competitive play, yes absolutely. and yes this is the competitive forum. But I believe that those items and their form are essential due to the fact that Flayra has stated he wants one NS, balanced for both public and competitive. Turrets and electicity are the pub commander's best friend.(aside from a competitive player for a marine)

Those are the items that are necessary for these two realms to both be balanced, although obviously it isn't sufficient. Change them and balance will suffer in other areas, because these items are necessary in pubs but currently affect competitive very little. So I have to disagree with Digz' suggestion to beef up these boring(for experienced players) and useless marine tech. Of course additional marine tech is needed, but it should be skill-based, not based on turret ai or zapzap-"zzz..." electricity. There are other, better ways to improve competitive balance.

That said, this thread has a ton of great insight and suggestions on hive 2 overpower, like:

-> leap nerf, in the form of higher energy cost

-> more gestate time for upgrades

-> better grenades, welder access

-> no more ICBB(intercontinental bile bomb)

-> some sort of hive build nerf/delay

And these are mostly easily implementable.

I wholeheartedly agree with this, even though it probably isn't in 3.0.x's scope.

The only difference between pub strats and competitve strats is that pub strats suck.

Making something good for competitive play will make it good for pub play. The only reason those things are "a pub comm's" best friend is because they require 0 skill to use. The reasons pub comms suck is because it requires just a shred more skill to beat those things, which is why you never see pub strats used in a match.

If turrets were made more viable in competitive play, they would also be better in pub play. But the first clanner dc fade that joins the server will rock them and the noob comm will still blame his team for not defending the lock down on the third hive.

EDIT: The comm would prolly blame his team MORE because with the turret buff he expects his a1/w0 lmg marines to defend the third hive from a two hive regen/focus Nadagast.

talking about focus fade, yes he can stand 2 focus skulk bites after a med (only 140 dmg each) but not 2 fade swipes (160 dmg each). As swipe is 80 damage and bite is 70.

avl, the armour boost wouldnt need to be much to effect focus hits and not non focus hits.. maybe reduce focus strength to 180% normal damage at level 3 instead? it isnt a necessity as it is.. just stronger than DC so people prefer it and it unbalances the game. making armour 2 and armour 3 have an effect would not hurt the game balance, they would be a small counter to focus.

Well its hard to talk about balance without talking about fixes. Saying, "Celerity makes aliens move too fast" is the same thing as saying, "Celerity shouldn't make aliens move as fast." "Armor 2 and 3 are worthless." is the same as saying "armor 2 and 3 should be made worthwhile upgrades."

I'm talking about focus fades too. An A3 marine who gets swiped, medded, swiped, will have 2 hp left. (And bite is 75, not 70). But since A3 is apparently an extremely unpopular upgrade in clanplay, its not surprising you haven't seen it in action much.

is a nice example of highlighting what he think is a part of the problem, and it's very easy for us to work with such statements.

It is all about the usability -- we have to compile your views in a list and weight them up against eachother, and to a degree our own experience. Then we can start dealing with the changes needed. In this process, cause and effect is much easier for us to work with.

Feel free to mention the remedies after highlighting the current situation and problem, as it may help to elaborate your view (or some may simply be great ideas), but don't spend too much time or energy debating specific changes.

so you can , i didnt think the new changes effected that but fool on me. altho without med a3 still only takes 2 focus fade swipes which is still bad imho. It makes jp rush barely viable against any 2 hive aliens. (as they will 80% of the time get sc).

so armour 2 and 3 are still not enough when it comes to battling against focus, its a lot of res for standing up against an extra focus bite (assuming you get a chance to med the marine) which is just not going to happen with the marines need to look after any res they can against 2 hive aliens.

I don't really agree. I think a ton of pressure has been taken off the fade since 3.0F The added power to skulks make it so that if a fade can keep marines from shotty rushing the second hive, he's got a much better chance in the current version of it going up in the face of a seige. Once that happens the life of a fade is easy.

I have felt marine strats open up a lot with the last patch. I feel its possible to pull off w1/w2/a1/w3 or an obs first strat now. Early shotguns have been popping up more often too. There just needs to be more movement in this direction towards marine freedom in tech choice.