250 brought many changes, many of which i like, some i even love <3
There are however, some problems, which are immediately apparent that don't require weeks of playing to get a good grasp of.
Marines
1) GL : Using it like a shotgun at point blank range and surviving the blast yet doing devastating damage to aliens. Even if you die from your own grenade, someone can just pick up your GL making it cost effective if you take out a higher lifeform in the process.
possible solution : Make detonate on impact activate at a certain distance, if the grenades hit an alien within that distance then the grenades will just bounce.
2) FL : This weapon is no longer merely a support weapon, it melts skulks in 3 seconds flat, this weapons is now extremely powerful and its most noticeable on combat servers were its obvious to everyone that its overpowered
possible solutions : Give the Flamethrower a weakness, maybe make skulks immune to flames, or make flamethrowers do damage to only life not cara, or only cara not life. Maybe remove the energy zapping, or lower cost to 15 like the GL and give it a nerf. (either way something needs to be done, i hope we can have a debate about this rather than sweep the issue under the rug)
3) early GL + FL : This compounds issues 1) and 2). GL and FL no longer get any benefit from weapon upgrades, so as a result they inherently do alot of damage so they remain relevant late game. These weapons do far too much damage for early game. Possible strategies that could become popular is to ignore weapon upgrades entirely, and rush JP and FL/GL. This way you can do a strong timing attack with 3 marines (3 buy JP, 3 buy GL/FL and drop the weapons for the JPers) This problem has the potential of becoming alot worse as the meta catches up.
Possible solutions : If the FL has been rebalanced (say for instance that skulks were immune to flames) then you could keep FL at 1 CC and GL at 2 cc ? maybe increase research time/cost of advanced armory ?
4) JP on 1 cc : I can understand why we have this, its for comebacks, however aliens struggle against early jetpacks as they dont have fades/leap yet. Early JP also compound early GL/FL
possible solution : Make the initial jetpack a jumppack instead, then make a new upgrade at the protolab for full on jetpacks ?
5) EXO : Can we have a debate on this ? i dont really like the new EXO and its hard to describe what it is. (i also didnt like the old exo's either) Maybe its the fact they do so much damage when marines already have alot of stuff that does alot of damage ? Its like they step on the toes of other marine tech. Currently we see pain trains that are really hard for aliens to stop because the damage output is just insane, onos just melt in a head on clash with EXO's for example.
possible solution : either EXO's need an overhaul (perhaps make them more like heavy armor from NS1 ? with the minigun/railguns as purchasable upgrades that would reduce tank as a tradeoff ? ) or aliens need some more counters (ONOS Bone Shield anyone ?![:)]( ":)")
) im sure others would come up with some better ideas though.
6) Weapon/equiment drops : These need to be brought in line similar to lifeform drops in terms of cost. Also .... it just kinda bugs me how EXO's ... this huge mech thats bigger than most marine structures .... can instantly appear, yet everything else has to be slowly built ? It may just be a plot hole, but it does seem a little unfair that aliens have to wait alot for egg drops and evolving yet marines have EXO's instantly.
Aliens
7) Crags : HEAL SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SLOOOOOWWWW
possible solutions : come on, up the healing rate, they no longer stack after all
8) Cara : compounds issue 7) .... why get cara if it will take you longer to heal up ?
Possible solutions : fix issue 7) and maybe make crags heal carapace Before HP ? or both at the same time ?
9) Shadowstep : am i a noob or does shadowstep seem like a waste ? it seems like it removes all momentum to me ? or am i doing it wrong ? Ive gotten pretty good with the new movement mechanics and i find with blink its just far superior to shadowstep. So im a bit perplexed about shadowstep, what situations would you use it for where blink isnt suitable ? For a fade upgrade do you guys think shadowstep is in a good place ?
10) vortex : i still think vortex is useless ... anyone with me ? D:
edit:
Possible solution: maybe make vortex work on alien lifeforms and structures, thus we can have vortex used defensively to save hives/structures under heavy attack, or save an onos trying to escape ... the possibilities are endless![:D]( ":D")
11) egg drops : i think these were nerfed far too much, not only do they cost alot more, they now take ages to construct and evolve into.
possible solutions : make the egg drop deploy time instant and just keep the normal evolving (as in as if you would evolve into a lifeform with p res)
Well thats all the things that bug me so far. I m sure others will come up with better solutions than me, and perhaps not all the issues i brought up even need to be fixed, maybe they will resolve themselves from other fixes.
There are however, some problems, which are immediately apparent that don't require weeks of playing to get a good grasp of.
Marines
1) GL : Using it like a shotgun at point blank range and surviving the blast yet doing devastating damage to aliens. Even if you die from your own grenade, someone can just pick up your GL making it cost effective if you take out a higher lifeform in the process.
possible solution : Make detonate on impact activate at a certain distance, if the grenades hit an alien within that distance then the grenades will just bounce.
2) FL : This weapon is no longer merely a support weapon, it melts skulks in 3 seconds flat, this weapons is now extremely powerful and its most noticeable on combat servers were its obvious to everyone that its overpowered
possible solutions : Give the Flamethrower a weakness, maybe make skulks immune to flames, or make flamethrowers do damage to only life not cara, or only cara not life. Maybe remove the energy zapping, or lower cost to 15 like the GL and give it a nerf. (either way something needs to be done, i hope we can have a debate about this rather than sweep the issue under the rug)
3) early GL + FL : This compounds issues 1) and 2). GL and FL no longer get any benefit from weapon upgrades, so as a result they inherently do alot of damage so they remain relevant late game. These weapons do far too much damage for early game. Possible strategies that could become popular is to ignore weapon upgrades entirely, and rush JP and FL/GL. This way you can do a strong timing attack with 3 marines (3 buy JP, 3 buy GL/FL and drop the weapons for the JPers) This problem has the potential of becoming alot worse as the meta catches up.
Possible solutions : If the FL has been rebalanced (say for instance that skulks were immune to flames) then you could keep FL at 1 CC and GL at 2 cc ? maybe increase research time/cost of advanced armory ?
4) JP on 1 cc : I can understand why we have this, its for comebacks, however aliens struggle against early jetpacks as they dont have fades/leap yet. Early JP also compound early GL/FL
possible solution : Make the initial jetpack a jumppack instead, then make a new upgrade at the protolab for full on jetpacks ?
5) EXO : Can we have a debate on this ? i dont really like the new EXO and its hard to describe what it is. (i also didnt like the old exo's either) Maybe its the fact they do so much damage when marines already have alot of stuff that does alot of damage ? Its like they step on the toes of other marine tech. Currently we see pain trains that are really hard for aliens to stop because the damage output is just insane, onos just melt in a head on clash with EXO's for example.
possible solution : either EXO's need an overhaul (perhaps make them more like heavy armor from NS1 ? with the minigun/railguns as purchasable upgrades that would reduce tank as a tradeoff ? ) or aliens need some more counters (ONOS Bone Shield anyone ?
) im sure others would come up with some better ideas though.6) Weapon/equiment drops : These need to be brought in line similar to lifeform drops in terms of cost. Also .... it just kinda bugs me how EXO's ... this huge mech thats bigger than most marine structures .... can instantly appear, yet everything else has to be slowly built ? It may just be a plot hole, but it does seem a little unfair that aliens have to wait alot for egg drops and evolving yet marines have EXO's instantly.
Aliens
7) Crags : HEAL SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SLOOOOOWWWW
possible solutions : come on, up the healing rate, they no longer stack after all
8) Cara : compounds issue 7) .... why get cara if it will take you longer to heal up ?
Possible solutions : fix issue 7) and maybe make crags heal carapace Before HP ? or both at the same time ?
9) Shadowstep : am i a noob or does shadowstep seem like a waste ? it seems like it removes all momentum to me ? or am i doing it wrong ? Ive gotten pretty good with the new movement mechanics and i find with blink its just far superior to shadowstep. So im a bit perplexed about shadowstep, what situations would you use it for where blink isnt suitable ? For a fade upgrade do you guys think shadowstep is in a good place ?
10) vortex : i still think vortex is useless ... anyone with me ? D:
edit:
Possible solution: maybe make vortex work on alien lifeforms and structures, thus we can have vortex used defensively to save hives/structures under heavy attack, or save an onos trying to escape ... the possibilities are endless
11) egg drops : i think these were nerfed far too much, not only do they cost alot more, they now take ages to construct and evolve into.
possible solutions : make the egg drop deploy time instant and just keep the normal evolving (as in as if you would evolve into a lifeform with p res)
Well thats all the things that bug me so far. I m sure others will come up with better solutions than me, and perhaps not all the issues i brought up even need to be fixed, maybe they will resolve themselves from other fixes.