Sidegrades just work this way. They are better in some situations, but worse in others. This is why you have to play different.Originally Posted by Chocolate_bickie
Look at TF2 weapons. Every "new" weapon is a sidegrade to the stock.
Sidegrades just work this way. They are better in some situations, but worse in others. This is why you have to play different.
Look at TF2 weapons. Every "new" weapon is a sidegrade to the stock.
Here is how to fix the balance in this game:
1. Remove xeno power ramping
This means, no more stat buff mutators, no more stat buffs from aging.
STATIC BASELINE STATS. NEVER CHANGE.
Keep mutators tied to aging. When a xeno gets older, it gains access to more mutators. These mutators act as SIDEGRADES that let the xeno specialize somehow. Lurker/Runner with longer range pounces is a good SIDEGRADE. Drone with fast growing weeds is a good SIDEGRADE. Even the heal off weeds mutator could be acceptable as an ancient-tier-only mutation for specific castes designed with it in mind.
Instead of an ever-shifting balance target of young/mature/elder/ancient, you now have the same CONSISTENT statline across all age levels, the only difference is how a xeno specialized themselves with their mutations. By doing this, you make the game consistent. You can figure out what number of M41 rounds 'feels right' for killing xyz alien. You get a better idea what a single lurker can really do on the almayer. It's not a moving goalpost anymore. For the players on BOTH sides, the consistency helps them. They will have less bullshit moments wondering how that thing killed them/why that thing still isn't dead. Inconsistency leads to frustration.
Again, this is achieved by having one consistent statline for each caste. You can't change your stats getting older. You can't change your stats with a mutator. A young drone has the same health as an ancient drone. The ancient drone just has more sidegrades opening up alternative strategies/types of gameplay/abilities.
That's it.
This is the single biggest most foundational problem with present balance in the game: The inconsistency in xeno power level and the way the power ramping forces marines to either ungarush 12:15 or lose.
Right now a fully evolved, all ancient hive absolutely curb-stomps marines. If we played that every round it would be awful. Liekwise an unevolved, all young hive is almost the exact opposite and often subject to the "metarush" cries of xenomains. It's not balanced right, and you can't easily target good balance if you can't have a consistent target to chase after in the first place.
Get rid of stat buffs
Get rid of stat growth with age
Oh come on man.
Marines don't use walk intent, specifically because they're too goddamn slow. NOT because "Push forward Combat"; whatever the that even is. You are already too slow just wearing the armor in the first place! Why are marines removing armor? They're too slow. They can't chase xenos, they can't run away. Better not to wear armor and dodge a lurker pounce/crusher than to have armor and get hit.
Walking just exacerbates those issues even more. Just look at xenos who accidentally go walk intent and get murdered for making that mistake. It cannot be understated how unbelievably important movement speed is in ss13.
You have ENTIRELY the wrong preconcpetion why nobody uses walk intent. Not only is the dodging itself inconsistent being RNG based, but that shit gets you dead as a doorknob in a fight against xenos. You CANNOT AFFORD TO WALK in a fight.
You have it entirely reversed from how it should be. I told you as much before. It would make sense for the firer on walk intent to hit friendlies less often, from a gameplay perspective that would actually be useful and get used. As someone shooting from the back - HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW SOMEONE IS ON WALK INTENT!? If, on the other hand, I can control it as the person firing, then I don't have to worry about what the people ahead of me are doing.
More importantly this lets people in the back contribute to a fight while being blocked in by people ahead of them. The people at the front NEED to move to stay alive. They cannot afford to walk around leisurely while worrying about boiler gas, lurkers, spitters, queen screech, charging crushers, runners pushing them at 11 billion miles per hour into gas, warriors running up to punch/grab them.
And this isn't even taking into consideration the UI/controls of engaging walk intent. It's obtuse. You can't macro it (AFAIK), and it's not very obvious right away which stance you're in, and in a pinch where you've got 2 seconds to react, you have to figure out are you slow from paincrit, walk intent, running ontop of sticky; what direction should you dodge, did you get grabbed, do you need to use an autoinjector, burst fire a nearby lurker, etc. etc.
Using walk intent is a death sentence in frontline fighting in this game.
THAT is why neither aliens (excepting lurker which GO INVISIBLE with it) nor marines ever use walk intent. That is why your added FF benefit does not actually do anything to help marines.
I don't know what more I could say to help you understand why people don't (and won't) use walk intent to dodge bullets fired at the backs of their heads.
Last edited by Boersgard; 01-31-2019 at 09:59 AM.
I don't think this is necessary, and it will quite possibly ruin lurkers/runners depending on how it's implemented.
All the armor really needs to do is cut down on fractures/IB so that a single bullet doesn't force you into a 15-30 minute hospital ride. It doesn't even need to reduce damage, just the crit wounds.
Last edited by Boersgard; 01-31-2019 at 10:25 AM.
Legitimately the best solutions to balance I've seen on the forums.
I think Boersgard is right about why not to use walk intent but I dont like the idea of walking making FF from the guy shooting less. Its because then I feel like everyone in the back will shoot and kill me and be like "Oh I was walking so just bad luck for you." Like it will give them a reason to just blast me and not feel bad about it cause it was "RNGs" fault instead of theirs.
Not having armor on means you will get fucked up by every single hit a xeno gets on you. No armor = young tier one will break your bones in one to two slashes.
It's not like armor changes anything, if i get pounced I most likely die, armor or not
Due to how stuns are, having other marines around matters a lot more than your armor and other equipment. (Ignoring people with certain macros that allow them to grab their weapon and instakill you in the same moment)
The game has asymmetric balance. Lurkers are countered by barricades and groups.
What is that "balance" you speak of? 65% +/- 5% beno winrates is "perfectly balanced as all things should be"?
Nobody could argue that on defence it's better to have armor, but we are talking offence. This is where no armor shines. On offence you don't have cades and on offence you don't have big groups of marines. All lurker has to do is pounce and slash three times. For mature with mutators, or elder lurker without it's 100% sure that bones will break and this is a snowball effect, becouse pain makes you even slower next time.
I personally use armor all the time, but not becouse benos slash hard. It's becouse FF.
Big groups? Gas and/or Screech counter. Imagine that, benos have counters for counters. Flames? Rav and Queen, not even saying that fire just damages. You can step on fire as much as you want untill your HP reaches about 40%, then you have to retreat to have 100% chance to survive, even if it puts you in a crit.
Only thing that can counter lurkers are slug shotguns, but imagine how usefull it is against tankier and/or faster benos? Not at all.
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