Game Balance Discussion

[HalfdeadKiller]

I'd like to have a thread discussing how the game balance feels currently. I'm thinking the balance is now way in favor of aliens, but I'm not sure how to propose any fixes on that, and I'd like to see what the community thinks regarding the balance.

[apophis775]

The balance will always lean towards one of the two.

This is called "imperfect Balance" and is a game design technique designed to ensure the game remains fund and challenging.

Currently, at the start of the round, the balance leans towards the marines, and slowly shifts to the aliens as the game progresses.

[Fickmacher]

I find there to be too many variables for me to determine. For example, one team might have me playing on it, which isn't fair to the other one. ;D

[apophis775]

I, have a formula i use, which i adjust, based on changes I make.

[HalfdeadKiller]

Interesting design model, but I'm questioning whether that design model translates to fun for the whole community, or if its simply me being bored and wondering if anyone else feels the same. In either case, I would like to see if anyone else wants to discuss what they feel as far as fun goes. I don't expect it to change anything, but I've found discussion to be good. May open new viewpoints for you, the developer, or new ways of seeing the game for me, the player.

Or, perhaps this is a whole different topic for a whole other thread... I'm not so good with forums...

[MrJJJ]

I belive the game balance trys to go make the aliens etc where most idiots are, to have a chance against marines (for example, helmets got weakened to shit right now and welding masks cant be made now, along with mechs) but even then, they somehow fuck up rounds just because they too stupid to realise something simple, or not realising a fellow alien is trying to help them while they just refuse to learn or talk, i can give a example of drone instantly slashing monkeys and killing the survivor as drone, then evolving to queen
So because some aliens think "omfg marine do that and shit, lets powergame more (example: Aeleto, keeps camping every host and not allowing them any second to even get out of a nest and keeps trying to do everything to WIN) with methods of : sitting on hosts in nests and keep them always in nests, nesting right infront of the fire line (not behind the fire lines, combat nest is when a drone just instantly pulls you 5 tile away and places you into a random nest to disable you and make some marines rush out to save your ass) and powergaming the fuck out of nests (placing a nest, surrounding it with walls, and seperating him from his friends and always be on top of him, it is especaily dickish if they have nothing on them to even break out)
Its really dissapointing seeing aliens go toxic community, i see more and more attempts of powergame, because they just simply cant even think (for example, some queen yelled at me we where under a attack and i should fucking help defend, while in reality, there is like, 3 duded with no helmets not even close to our entrance, doing nothing, i facehugged and pulled them to nests anyway)

[Infernus]

While I agree that aliens should be more powerful than marines, the majority of their strength comes from powergaming and not-so-fun mechanics (Mrjjj's nest example). Instant facehugging by clicking while running like lightning, tackle and nest technique, guarding hosts and more of similar stuff just makes it frustrating to play against the aliens.

[HalfdeadKiller]

I'm pretty much on board with what Infernus said. The aliens can be powerful, just not frusturatingly powerful. The marines tend to only have one tactic which is to rush the xenos, surround them with themselves so the xeno can't run and regenerate, then blast if with a hail of bullets. On the opposite, if a warrior is good, they can hide behind corners, hug a marine instantly with a hugger in his hand, pull him behind cover where a sentinel waits to cover marine charges, and then nests the marine. Rinse, repeat, and now the whole squad is down, without a single alien casualty.

[apophis775]

So what do you guys want?

I do my best, to try and keep the balance good.

But realize this:
I can ***not*** balance for skill. some people, are INCREDEBLY ROBUST as aliens, that doesn't mean, I nerf ALL the aliens. For example: If a queen keeps me properly stocked with huggers, I'm a good enough carrier, to take down a squad of about 6 by myself, with 2-3 attack waves, depending on the location. At the same time, there are very few other people who play carrier, able to do this. So, should I nerf carriers, because I'm good with them, or leave them as it, for those who aren't as good to have a chance?

Same thing with warrior. I'm a fairly decent warrior, as are a few other players, but there are also a LOT of players, who are straight shit with warriors and do nothing except die horribly. Do i nerf warriors, because a few good players can use them to their potential, or leave them as is, so that new and less robust players have a chance?

At the same time, a squad with a leader who's using a motion tracker and moving as a group will RARELY get caught by surprise by a single warrior. So, should I nerf the marines, because a squad playing the game properly can do a good job?

These are the things i juggle with. Other than the recent helmet adjustments, which, was pretty much done because people were LOLTOPKEK rushing into nests wearing helmets to absorb huggers and clear paths. I've been working on giving marines more and more tools to balance, like the new grenades and mines, which, is used effectivly, can be DEVESTATING.

Also, I am working on a new construct-able turret for the marines to replace the current static MG with an auto-turret.

[Robin63]

To be honest, most of the round depends on how competent each player is in the various roles. Basically, my view is similar to what Apophis has said in the post right above mine.
Aliens are meant to be more powerful, naturally, but it also needs to be not horrendously powerful. I actually believe they're relatively ok at the moment and that is just depends on the individual skills of a player more than the way the settings for the aliens/marines are set up.

[Infernus]

So what do you guys want?

I do my best, to try and keep the balance good.

But realize this:
I can ***not*** balance for skill. some people, are INCREDEBLY ROBUST as aliens, that doesn't mean, I nerf ALL the aliens. For example: If a queen keeps me properly stocked with huggers, I'm a good enough carrier, to take down a squad of about 6 by myself, with 2-3 attack waves, depending on the location. At the same time, there are very few other people who play carrier, able to do this. So, should I nerf carriers, because I'm good with them, or leave them as it, for those who aren't as good to have a chance?

Snip

I understand what you say, but you can't call an warrior robust when all he does is wait behind the corner and snap the hugger at every marine that approaches. Aliens should always be stronger then marines, but as I said, they shouldn't be strong in non-fun mechanics.

These are the things that bothers me the most:
-warriors smacking huggers while at light speed and instantly dragging him away. ( I witnessed one warrior that was as fast as runner, and he facehugged one marine, instantly pulled him while still running ( He didn't stop for a second), and got away from 5 marines with automatics without getting shot. He infected over 10 marines that way. Run in, hug, pull.
-Nest guarding. This is the most annoying of them all. One alien can keep up to 8 people nested until they burst. Even more if their gear gets melted.


Aliens have too many power gaming elements that it isn't even fun to play against them. The ONLY thing that marines have currently are prodders which can instantly stun any tier and drag it away. But again, how is that compared when they have 5 prodders which can be used at special time, to warriors and runners who are common in every round.

I proposed the prodder nerf (Which was just that tier 3 aliens are hard to stun) to show how powerful the alien are with terms of disarming and KOing.

[TopHatPenguin]

-Snip-

i'm gonna have to agree with infernus on the warrior situation that was one of the reason's i suggested the pulling speed nerf but if what infernus says is true and it can run as fast as a runner it would probably be best to nerf the overall speed.

On the 1 alien holding down up to 8 + marines depending on the variables , i'm gonna have to say it is a annoying tactic that the aliens now have but i'm fairly sure they need it ( i may be wrong as i rarely play aliens.) so that the marines don't break out and kill the queen or the other aliens.

[Infernus]

i'm gonna have to agree with infernus on the warrior situation that was one of the reason's i suggested the pulling speed nerf but if what infernus says is true and it can run as fast as a runner it would probably be best to nerf the overall speed.

Then again, this would prove Apop's point of view. If that guy has powerful computer with no lag, while everyone else does (I honestly haven't seen him missing (ctrl + click) pulling anyone when he tackled them with that running speed (And he didn't stop moving when performing that stuff, mind you)), that shouldn't mean that we should nerf everyone's speed.

My computer is so slow, that as an marine, I move at 3/5 speed of any other marine. I always end up last, or even die since I couldn't keep up with them.

[HalfdeadKiller]

For the warrior, to prevent their "overpoweredness", I'd suggest maybe having them act like runners, where they can only use the grab intent, not pull. It would have them rely on other castes to capture marines, and prevent one single warrior from picking off a squad of marines, simply because he is faster than them and drags at his normal speed.

[UnknownMurder]

Force all castes to evolve once they've completed their jelly progress?

[Abbysynth]

On a game like this it's pretty difficult to balance, but as the gamecode evolves it'll slowly get there. It just takes time.

My suggestion on warriors/etc:

* Make runners unable to pick up huggers whatsoever. They should be scouts and flank harassers, and pouncers in a fight. Where are they even holding the huggers? They are quadrupeds!
* Beef up Ravagers. All they really need is a small speed boost and better health regen. Seriously, it's awful. Majorly awful. Their charge has a VERY long cooldown; anyone who goes Ravager is laughed at because Warrior is so much better.

[MrJJJ]

To be fair, its extremely easy to win as a alien when you are
-Carrier
-Warrior

Be any of these and be very robust, you can solo entire marine armies (especially if you keep being supplied with huggers) like they just ants that need to be stomped upon, generally this is what most castes do

-Runner
They go and die, or live long enough to be a frontline warrior, they the ones who should be infecting monkeys before marines come, picking marines 1 by 1 too and scouting ahead
-Sentinel
The guy who for some reason decides to assist runner or he just guards the base, the moment a host arrives he will sit on him forever or etc
-Drone
Mostly will just fuck off and not build, if they do, its lazy work (you putted 1 nest in cage while we need it to have 9? really? we have 20 marines outside and only 7 nests while we can have a shit tons of more in those cells) although some do great work, some immideatley assume this "OMG, marines outside our hive? better yell for everyone to gtfo to "insert random place" build a hive there, yell for them to come there while they being sieged"
-Warrior
They just crush everything, as others described, hug a guy and pull him in before anyone can even hit him
-Spitter
Sit moar on the hosts, make sure all must be nested even when they have no gear because….reasons, sometimes go to combat, even if they do some just do not use they neuro
-Hivelord
Rarely see them, but mostly i see them act as if they super combats and charge marines…and die horribly and barely really help hive, why the heck do we need a plasma god when we have enough?
-Carrier
Does not know how to throw huggers or he does and just gives you entire army of marines, infected
-Ravager
Die, die and die again
-Praetorian
Die horribly or melt and catch shit tons of marines.
-Queen
Either becomes the idiot, slashes monkeys, does not produce eggs and refuses to give runners jelly (you have to be a idiot if you refuse runners jelly, its REQUIRED that all runners have jelly, unless you going on a challenge "Win with only basic castes" just expect everyone to rage a lot for jelly) or he becomes a very good queen, has a entire hive made of eggs, good combat skill and is competent and able to understand what to do and etc

Once you become very robust as warrior or carrier, its hard to win against you, and literally, why are warriors and carriers and etc able to pull gigantic aliens (I am pretty sure the queen weights like a train or something, which alien is definitely not able to just pick up, let alone pull it at hyper speed, making it impossible to even kill a god damn single queen if there is such a warrior near her)

Really, if there is a warrior, and he is a very robust one, say GG, you not winning as Marines.

[UnknownMurder]

I'm reading an entire guide.... Where's the Empress?

[RoswellRay]

I got a question. Now that all the welding masks have been removed and hardsuit helms nerfed to shit. How are marines supposed to deal with eggs around corners especially indestructable ones like on shuttles. Old way was let the guy in the mask do it. Now we have literally no way to do it without losing marines since even grenades don't destroy eggs. Fix this

[Robin63]

Yhea, noticed grenades didn't destroy eggs yesterday...that should be changed I think

[apophis775]

You should be dealing with them, using grenades, which is why you have them. If grenades aren't breaking eggs, I'll look into that. Also, I'm going to look into making a grenade dispenser for the Squad Leaders, it will contain his frag grenades, and a few grenades for dealing with huggers.

[mosshadow]

When I first started playing I thought aliens were really OP but it seems its really balanced if players RP correctly. If marines burst into xenobio in a group containing every marine they are going to win no matter what. Vice Versa if they run around like morons in groups of 1 or two.

[Robin63]

There is strategy involved in this game, thats why competent squad leaders and commanders are needed. Without competent leaders, theres a high risk of marines becoming a mess of confusion resulting in them being wiped out. And skill, skill is needed too :P
Same with the aliens, if the queens not very great at co-ordination then thinks can go wrong very fast.

[apophis775]

same thing on alien side.

With a competent queen, you can easily take out marines.

[helios345]

it kinda sucks how few grenades the marines get though, and if you dare try to turn a corner with a hugger camping it you're absolutely fucked. That's really my only gripe with aliens at the moment.
Unfortunately no one wants to be the squad leader for some stupid reason so no one uses the motion tracker and no one uses the grenades.
It also sucks that you cant use the motion tracker without it being in your hand, perhaps make it able to be used while it's on your suit storage? Otherwise all you can use is a crappy pistol or SMG.