Thread: our 3.2 CO

I would like to see aliens get nerfed. Unless marines have a successful early rush, they're going to lose at least 2/3 of the time.
Why?
1. At level 10, you're going to have fades and onos better than than those same lifeforms in NS; at higher levels there's even more of a disparity. example: in NS, you can be cara+focus+cele fade; in CO at level 10 you can be cara+regen+redemp+focus+cele fade
2. dying as alien in CO has almost no penalty besides egging again; this again contrasts highly to NS, where dying as fade or onos might mean having to several minutes for res
3. web is brutal, especially on some maps (if you get GL, fades kill you; if you dont get GL, you get webbed and fades kill you; if someone else has a GL, they eventually die, webs go up, fades kill you)
4. level leaching; by this, I mean one person breaks the "threshold" and is able to fade, obtaining lots of kills b/c it's easy; the remainder of the team stays around this person and gets levels by proximity

to further address current plugins, which imo make it even harder:
5. more levels means tougher aliens (see argument #1), with marginally better marines (level 3 guns is great, but not when it means aliens are all onos and focus fade; I do like the plugin some servers have where you can buy further upgraded guns i.e. level 5 weapons in order to combat 4 carapace onos that extra levels causes)
6. late joiners get instant high levels, and can immediately onos (I like this for marines however, since you can grab a JP and get in the action since starting at level 1 means it's terribly hard to get any levels b/c of focus fades)

So I would propose (exclusive ideas):
1. Cut out the alien extra levels; imo, 10 is too much as it is since they're stronger than NS aliens anyway (8 levels gives you onos+cara+cel+sof or fade+focus+cara+cel or gorge+web+cara+adren or lerk+focus+cel+cara+umbra or skulk+whatever); marines need all the levels they can get since they are the attackers (jp+shotgun+lvl 3 guns is 9 levels; add in a gl+medpacks and it's 11)

a different idea that I think would make Combat more interesting and better for practicing (which is my purpose for playing Combat; if people want to fade/onos/whatever in Combat, no one will call them a res whore or complain if they die; this is very different in NS; hence, Combat is combat training)
2. Make dying as fade/onos matter; this could be something like if you spent 3 levels on going fade then died, you would lose those levels; in order to fade, you would have to spend 3 free levels
(example: you are level 7 and have 6 free upgrades; you go fade and die; you are now level 4 and go fade again; you are still level 4; you get xp and become level 7 getting carapace and focus; you die and become level 4 again; you need to earn level 7 to get 3 free levels in order to be fade again)
Why do this? b/c it matches NS's penalty for dying, and makes fading in Combat actually somewhat of a challenge and test; i.e. do you go level 4 fade , hoping you wont die, or do you grab early upgrades and then fade; this also makes fade and onos kills actually relevant, since one of the greatest frustrations in Combat is that "oh yes, finally killed the fade! oh, it's been 20 seconds, and he's fade again..." whereas it's (usually) very different in NS. This will also make better fades and onos, I would assume, since they won't be suiciding into marine start and will actually learn to hit and run like NS higher lifeforms would.

So the summary: As it is, aliens are terribly overpowered, since there is no penalty for dying and fades/onos are very cheap to buy (shotgun is 2 levels; fade is 3). Nerf aliens by giving them less levels than marines; perhaps add a mod where dying as higher lifeform takes away those levels to make dying matter.