Gameplay Preview Phase 3 Results

[Meisseli]

Dretches are mostly balanced in normal public games when people don't have good enough aim to kill them before they can do anything or the player count isn't high enough that humans can just kill them because of their concentrated firepower.

Yes. The problem is that in places like ATCS' tunnel one single good human can win the whole alien team because of the dretch being so utterly useless. And it really doesn't help how good of a dretch you are.

Basilisk gas seems underpowered to me. While its disorienting effect can be useful its usually better to just grab the human and slash him because there is a long delay before you are able to slash after gassing and the gas range isn't much longer than grab range. Its still good when supported by other aliens or when you are gassing a group of humans but i would like to see its usefulness improved in 1vs1 combat which is how you fight most of the time. Perhaps improving it's range sligthly could make it good enough.

True it's useless too. IMO viable solutions would be either the range boost or shorten the delay between your next attack.

Teslas aren't useful when compared to turrets. They don't have to turn and they attack immediately but they do less damage, have shorter range and the knockback they have isn't strong enough to really stop aliens from attacking. Additionally because of mara zap/dragoon barbs you have to divide your defenses on a large area and they can't support each other properly. If they had longer range and increased knockback they could be useful to prevent aliens from reaching the base. Teslas would then be useful when combined with mg turrets which would then have more time to shoot the aliens before they can do damage. Also adv.dragoons would then be more important part of attacking human base because they could snipe teslas so adv.maras can get into the base more easily.

That sounds interesting. I like the making adv. dragoons more important.

Defence computer isn't worth its cost in my opinion. It's repair ability is nice but it repairs too little. It's repair rate could easily be tripled and even then it wouldn't be too good. You would still need to repair things manually and replace lost buildings.

The repair rate value now (3) could be made 15-ish.

[Liskey]

Yes. The problem is that in places like ATCS' tunnel one single good human can win the whole alien team because of the dretch being so utterly useless. And it really doesn't help how good of a dretch you are.

*cough*Bullsh*t*cough*   In a 1v1, a good human owns a good dretch.  But not in a 3v1. And certainly not a whole team v1.  (We're talking S1 here, not flamers and lucis vs dretches.)

[Asvarox]

Yes. The problem is that in places like ATCS' tunnel one single good human can win the whole alien team because of the dretch being so utterly useless. And it really doesn't help how good of a dretch you are.

*cough*Bullsh*t*cough*   In a 1v1, a good human owns a good dretch.  But not in a 3v1. And certainly not a whole team v1.  (We're talking S1 here, not flamers and lucis vs dretches.)

Yes because needing 3 good players to kill 1 good player is fine

Today morning i had 2 small (3-5vs3-5) games, I was playing as human in both. In first, I was building, my teammates feeding resulting in s1 vs s3 but we managed to win. In second I decided to start shooting aliens right away. I managed to get us to s2 without dying (or with one death but that's unlikely) and special pussying (1 return to base for ammo IIRC) only with rifle. I knew they were newbies, I consider myself as a good player, but, hell, I would never manage to get aliens to s2 as dretch without dying even against newbies.

Said value difference (70 credits if I count correctly (2000/9 ~220 - 150 (dretch value)) does not and will never balance that out.

[Meisseli]

Yes. The problem is that in places like ATCS' tunnel one single good human can win the whole alien team because of the dretch being so utterly useless. And it really doesn't help how good of a dretch you are.

*cough*Bullsh*t*cough*   In a 1v1, a good human owns a good dretch.  But not in a 3v1. And certainly not a whole team v1.  (We're talking S1 here, not flamers and lucis vs dretches.)

In a 3v1 too, easily. You can just keep going backwards with your dodges if you feel insecure.

[bob0]

Try putting http://bobis.boldlygoingnowhere.org/demo.dm_70 in base/demos, /demo demo, and seeing what happens at 1:00, even though aliens lost horribly on this one.  Sure, it's not every day I'm able to do that .

[UniqPhoeniX]

The problem with the 'rifle in ATCS hall' scenario is not the weakness on dretch, it's the campability of that location + lack of domination makes camping a valid tactic. It is much more difficult for a human to go there and kill dretches if dretches were already waiting, then to snipe incoming dretches from long range.

[Conzul]

You also gotta think in terms of the power being transfered. 3 dretches may kill one human and have a partial (unusable) evo each, while if a human kills 2-3 dretches he has 300-450 credits. That equates to a lasbattery/armor getup(meaning if he can rifle 3v1 dretches in the first place, aliens are screwed), which continues the spiral of the imbalance. If there are an equal number of humans and aliens in atcs hall, (dretches), and the humans are covering eachother properly, no force of dretches stands a chance to have power transfered to their team.

[Meisseli]

The problem with the 'rifle in ATCS hall' scenario is not the weakness on dretch, it's the campability of that location + lack of domination makes camping a valid tactic. It is much more difficult for a human to go there and kill dretches if dretches were already waiting, then to snipe incoming dretches from long range.

The scenario works in so many other places too. Take Karith's Alien Main Entrance, Arachnid's Alien Ramp, the whole Nexus map etc. etc... I've yet to see an unhostile map/room for dretches.

[UniqPhoeniX]

Just don't feed the rifles... Wait for them to come near.

With proper domination you can just ignore the camping rifles. And then own them with goons since they didn't get funds from map control. 2-3 dretches should be able to defend from 2-3 rifles in most cases if they can wait behind corner until the rifles get near. Also since aliens are much faster, they sometimes have the chance of respawning and then killing the fleeing human, while humans almost never get that chance. Just don't make dretch as easy as it was in 1.1.

[Meisseli]

Just don't feed the rifles... Wait for them to come near.

With proper domination you can just ignore the camping rifles. And then own them with goons since they didn't get funds from map control. 2-3 dretches should be able to defend from 2-3 rifles in most cases if they can wait behind corner until the rifles get near. Also since aliens are much faster, they sometimes have the chance of respawning and then killing the fleeing human, while humans almost never get that chance. Just don't make dretch as easy as it was in 1.1.

In practise what you described does not happen, even when you wait behind a corner. You can't always just avoid humans, such as in the ATCS tunnel example. If you ignore the humans completely, where do you get the evos for goons? The problem is that you usually need to waste even 3 dretches to get one rifle kill (which even can yield only 1/2 evo).

[UniqPhoeniX]

As I said:

The problem with the 'rifle in ATCS hall' scenario is not the weakness on dretch, it's the campability of that location + lack of domination makes camping a valid tactic.

The proper fix IMO would be to add domination, as it makes offence 10x more important.

[Lava_Croft]

Am I the only one thinking about how you can ignore the ATCS tunnel and just attack via the center, which is a far better area for the Aliens?

[Demolution]

Am I the only one thinking about how you can ignore the ATCS tunnel and just attack via the center, which is a far better area for the Aliens?

Yes. Why be different when you can be the same as everyone else?

[Silver]

Am I the only one thinking about how you can ignore the ATCS tunnel and just attack via the center, which is a far better area for the Aliens?

Sure, assuming any humans are dumb enough to solo that way and you can easily get past the default turrets.  Usually it's about as effective as hiding in your base though.

[Liskey]

It's trivial to evade the new default turrets.  The best places for dretches to get humans is flanking them in the hallway and standing on the medi.

[3th4n]

You know what, If luci and tyrant were removed from tremulous all together, i wouldnt give 2 shits.

[_Equilibrium_]

You know what, If luci and tyrant were removed from tremulous all together, i wouldnt give 2 shits.

If luci was removed, I'd quit trem.

[Conzul]

You know what, If luci and tyrant were removed from tremulous all together, i wouldnt give 2 shits.

Congratulations on displaying your uniqueness.

[Silver]

You know what, If luci and tyrant were removed from tremulous all together, i wouldnt give 2 shits.

If luci was removed, I'd quit trem.

Luci should be put back how it was and tyrant should be properly nerfed. 

[_Equilibrium_]

No way. With the luci how it is, there is MUCH less spam, and you can actually use it to fight aliens from farther away and/or chasing. I'd call it much more a a skill weapon now.

[Silver]

We'll just agree to disagree.

[_Equilibrium_]

We'll just agree to disagree.

what else is new? >.>