I want to start the debate on removing alien abilities once the 2nd hive dies.

If you're fighting 2-2 or 3-2 marines that are capable of killing a hive in the first place, you have no umbra, leap, bone shield, charge, adv metabolise to face the onslaught of catpack and perma 2-2 or 3-2 marines.

If marines can kill the 2nd hive, all they need to do is pick lifeforms and any future lifeforms won't benefit. That should be balance enough.

If marines can take 1 of the hives, they'll EASILY be able to take the 2nd hive. It would be a massive snowball effect.

Increase their "boost" duration and allow it to work in all movement directions, this will make them much more effective in combat or when retreating they become much less of a target.

this is kind of an old video I think, but this is it (ice's ns1 lmg)

Shit happens, gameplay gets frantic, hives die

The reduced cost for lifeforms was introduced to make losing lifeforms more forgiving, which in itself was an unnecessary and bad change that has messed up lower division gameplay. Now, in addition, you want to introduce losing abilities with lost biomass, massively punishing hive losses. As a result, it will be proportionally harder to stay alive for lifeforms (ESPECIALLY taking into account the planned biomass hp buff), and if they die, they're even more fucked than before.

I don't understand the thinking behind this. I genuinely don't.

Losing your lifeform SHOULD be punished harshly because more pressure on individual people makes for more exciting gameplay, and on the flipside, it means killing a lifeform opens a big enough window for marines to actually be able to gain their well deserved advantage.

Losing a hive on the other hand should be a blow to the team and open up a window for marines as well, but not start a massive snowball effect with lifeforms dying left and right afterwards.

Do you have any idea what this would mean for divisions where gameplay isn't always perfect, where mistakes might happen and hives might get ninja'd? I think you do. The question is do you care.

I am a bit torn.

The mission statement with the competitive mod was following (taken from Zeframs previous post in another topic concerning the statement of a balance mod)

"If this community is to stay, and not just be sustained on life support, we need to do something to keep this game fresh, engaging, and fun. "

This has resulted in the above. I dont see the coalition between "balance" and "fresh, engaging and fun", but that might just be me. Apart from that, I do not question that this statement is streamlined very well with the 1st. 2nd. or 3rd possible iteration, but is it streamlined with NS2?

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I believe that the changes should be cut down to the core - that the changes are thought out by, executed by and only partly used by high division players (those are the people i see on these posts generally). I personally know players who come to the competitive scene for the social part. "How does social match up with competitive?" you ask - it doesn't. But this is the only league out there. If you are bored of the game (im looking at you, higher divisions, which i am myself a part of), evolve - but be careful. This game needs to be kept simple.

HMG would work with weapon upgrades right?

You still have a huge window to get work done after killing a lifeform, you just have to kill the lifeform faster.

For those worried about the changes i dont get it its the same game evolving since years why you suddenly afraid that it change more ? As long as the changes go in the right direction witch most are it keep the game fresh.