Its not balanced. Xenocide is the intended game ending tech and win condition for aliens

Originally posted by Drey:

Its not balanced. Xenocide is the intended game ending tech and win condition for aliens

Xenocide is old news, Contaminate spam is the new win condition.

Originally posted by Akula Sub:

Surely an exploding fast alien that can kill anything and has a radius that faaar extends its animation (lots of examples of this) is maybe pushing it a little bit too far? No one seems to think its strange to have this in a competitive multiplayer video game when it could be considered trolly and wouldnt be accepted in other video games, how is that thing balanced? Im listening.

Roughly speaking, marines tech faster, but their end game tech is weaker, so marines need to either keep the aliens lower "tech" by killing lifeforms and/or hives.

Once Xenocide is up, marines only have a few seconds to do a "hail mary" play or lose.

Originally posted by Akula Sub:

Surely an exploding fast alien that can kill anything and has a radius that faaar extends its animation (lots of examples of this) is maybe pushing it a little bit too far? No one seems to think its strange to have this in a competitive multiplayer video game when it could be considered trolly and wouldnt be accepted in other video games, how is that thing balanced? Im listening.

Xenocide finnishes games and stops marines from turtling.

If you let aliens get xenocide, you let them have three hives. And its been in NS1 (the mod) too...

What other games do is not relevant.

Originally posted by GamingWithSilvertail:

Originally posted by Akula Sub:

Surely an exploding fast alien that can kill anything and has a radius that faaar extends its animation (lots of examples of this) is maybe pushing it a little bit too far? No one seems to think its strange to have this in a competitive multiplayer video game when it could be considered trolly and wouldnt be accepted in other video games, how is that thing balanced? Im listening.

Xenocide finnishes games and stops marines from turtling.

If you let aliens get xenocide, you let them have three hives. And its been in NS1 (the mod) too...

What other games do is not relevant.

Im asking why the community think its normal to have

I also question the balance between the aliens and marines, as the marines dont really have an equivolent, and its not apparent to me that they are overpowered before the aliens have xenocide, the marines have to be aggressive in their ballpark the entire game, and arent exactly overpowered to begin with

Pretty sure aliens have a higher winrate in this game, and you cant say "but with pros the marines win more often" and thats a reason why this game rapidly fell off after its release, because the game caters to the veteran aspect of the community by default, not your average casual player which keeps the game going

This is obviously a noob take, but I can look at the lerk costing 21 points to spawn? Is extremely fast, quite tanky, hits hard and has OK ranged attack, or I can look at the marines shotgun lol that also costs 20 (for some reason) and is only capable of one hit killing if you cram the shotgun down a skulks mouth and land every pellet or the teams have a specific research setup that makes it easier to one hit kill for a while

Otherwise you have a gun that has roughly the same time to kill as the starting AR and half the effective range, unless someone can explain why im wrong, the shotgun is hardly better than the AR and really should cost 15 points imo

The votes to concede barely after a match has started isnt encouraging either, it can be recovered from, but being able to lose so quickly causes you to spend almost as much time waiting for a game to happen than actually playing (most people dont want to play as comm)

Marines and aliens are supposed to play differently by design. The reason a shotgun costs 20 is because it can be recycled between players. If an alien kills a marine with a shotgun, another marine can pick it up, making the net p-res loss 0. If a marine kills a lerk, that lifeform is gone, making the p-res loss 21 minimum. Marines can also receive med packs directly from their commander anywhere on the map, making them have more survivability than aliens who require another life form to heal them at a much slower rate than marines can. Marines are not supposed to run off with a shotgun without other marines present, if you are doing so then the loss of the shotgun is on you.

Marines also use phase gates to travel, which require no restrictions other than power and can give them incredible map coverage. Aliens have to build tunnels on contaminated areas, requiring cyst chains that can easily be broken by marines. The game is essentially a race against time for marines, who have to beat back the aliens before they can get 3 hives and enough biomass for xenocide and contamination.

These are design philosophies that have evolved over the more than a decade of the game's existence. Without an OP game ending tech for aliens, marines can easily turtle for sometimes up to an hour, which was how a lot of games went back in the day. The marines excel at pushing, and the aliens excel at defending. It's one of the few actual asymmetrical multiplayer games on the market.

Originally posted by Akula Sub:

Originally posted by GamingWithSilvertail:

Xenocide finnishes games and stops marines from turtling.

If you let aliens get xenocide, you let them have three hives. And its been in NS1 (the mod) too...

What other games do is not relevant.

Im asking why the community think its normal to have

I also question the balance between the aliens and marines, as the marines dont really have an equivolent, and its not apparent to me that they are overpowered before the aliens have xenocide, the marines have to be aggressive in their ballpark the entire game, and arent exactly overpowered to begin with

Pretty sure aliens have a higher winrate in this game, and you cant say "but with pros the marines win more often" and thats a reason why this game rapidly fell off after its release, because the game caters to the veteran aspect of the community by default, not your average casual player which keeps the game going

This is obviously a noob take, but I can look at the lerk costing 21 points to spawn? Is extremely fast, quite tanky, hits hard and has OK ranged attack, or I can look at the marines shotgun lol that also costs 20 (for some reason) and is only capable of one hit killing if you cram the shotgun down a skulks mouth and land every pellet or the teams have a specific research setup that makes it easier to one hit kill for a while

Otherwise you have a gun that has roughly the same time to kill as the starting AR and half the effective range, unless someone can explain why im wrong, the shotgun is hardly better than the AR and really should cost 15 points imo

The votes to concede barely after a match has started isnt encouraging either, it can be recovered from, but being able to lose so quickly causes you to spend almost as much time waiting for a game to happen than actually playing (most people dont want to play as comm)

Maybe because video games do not equal real life?

Also if a lerk is tanky according to you, then you dont have weapons upgraded as marine.