Lydda if you wanted a reply from me (I assume you are talking about me? - if not, replace with whoever you were talking about) you need to send a PM. I do not respond to every post here. To become vindictive because of a lack of response seems a bit unfair- It's been said time and time again that every single post here gets read and discussed. If you are looking for a reply in specific you need to say so when you post, otherwise how are we to know? Lack of response =/= ignoring.

In regards to your posts, here's my 2c (I also want to reiterate that everything I post here is just that, my personal opinion and not the "official stance" or whatever of cmod):

HMG:
The weapon does indeed scale in the same way as the other marine weapons do with weapon upgrades. It starts at 14 base damage and increases by 10% with each weapon upgrade (which I believe is +1.4 damage). The issues with early/mass HMGs should be alleviated somewhat by the recent change that returned the HMG's damage back to puncture type- meaning it will be less effective to have numerous HMGs on the field because it will leave you more susceptible to alien PvE.

Stab:
Being a 3rd hive ability this one didn't get as much attention as it deserved because like all hive 3 abilities, it's use in competitive games is extremely rare and unimpactful. We did try to fix some of the issues with it, however. Some of the movement penalties were removed, but I do agree with you that we could have gone further there. I would like to see all movement impairments completely gone with it. The stab itself, setting aside the movement quirks, is a pretty nice/viable hive 3 ability though, imo.


To speak to Mephilles' concerns while I'm at it:

Adrenaline:
It's never been anything more than a niche trait in ns2, even pre-metabolize most fades went with Celerity. Like you say, it's the most useful on gorges and late game lerks (for umbra spam)... and maybe some niche situations like leap skulk VS jetpacks or something like that. To make it more of a wanted upgrade, you'd need to increase energy management difficulty with most of the lifeforms... which probably wouldn't feel good. Brainstorming ideas about how to make it more wanted would be welcome- but for now it's used often enough that you can't consider it useless.

Webs:
The way webs work right now could be considered by some to be frustrating to see on Hive 2, which is why they're on Hive 3 (and available for no p-res cost). It did not seem like people would be open to having this on hive2. I think they could be pretty interesting to see, because they would encourage the use of a perma gorge more often, but you'd probably have to re-implement their p-res cost. Imo this is something that could be adapted back toward vanilla, since in the last patch they were moved to hive 2 in vanilla.

Cloaking:
Again like adrenaline it's pretty niche/situational. It was far too frustrating when it was also combined with silence, but I do agree it's easily the least attractive of the 3 shade upgrades. Any ideas welcome.

Babblers:
Virsoul pretty much explained the situation here. Their vanilla implementation was far to strong in terms of body-armor and they quickly became something of a hated feature in the competitive community. They've had to be dumbed down so much because there were so many complaints of frustration when they were any stronger than they are currently. And their damage aspect has never been anything more than novelty... again, suggestions welcome.


Laslty I would like to add that cmod is in "lockdown" for Season 5 so no big changes will be made until the season's conclusion. There's already a few things on the wish list to change but you will not be seeing anything more than small tweaks in the near future. Brainstorming and feedback is welcome regardless, as always.

I'm talking not to you rantology especially. I'm talking to who decides these changes. If I remember correctly that there were discussions about several things with only prem players (not the official meeting. rantology mentioned that in a post earlier). I know/guess they have the most insides about the game, but that should not cut of the work with the rest of the players, who are forced to use these changes and especially the persons, who are interested in to be a part of it.

What I would really like to see/read, is how some specific things were decided. How were they tested and what were the results of it. And I would really like to see representives of every div in a compmod team, who maybe testing balance changes for a week or smth and share afterwards the results to the community.

A thing what I dislike is, that a change happened shortly before the season 5 started. (as far as I know happened changes during the season 4, which should not happen. What about the matches before during the season? They should be annulled imo because of a lack of fairness and balanced matches). If there were a deadline about a week before a season starts everybody would appreciate that. I guess you thought about the last change before it happens and you could prepare for that. So, plz no changes until the season ends!

Stab ability:
Every lifeform has a strong ability on hive 3, which is needed, because aliens have and can hold so rarely a third hive. So, there is a change needed for the fade when the third hive goes up imo.

In the grand scheme, stab is a relatively low sum change. Hive 3 games usually are already over, so while it is good design to have everything useful and balanced, stab is pretty low in terms of importance.

It has been stated many times recently that the comp mod team is always open to more feedback and greater input.. however finding people who can dedicate time and effort to providing good input and feedback, but also doing so in a neutral way is not easy. If someone consistently proves the desire and willingness to put forth that effort, I have no doubt that they would become more involved.

Most changes of late have been accompanied with a short explanation of why the change was being made, and what it is to address. Is there specific changes you are confused about?

As for doing weekly changes with a team of 'balance testers', that is probably not remotely feasible. The only way would probably be if teams would volunteer for that, and we would need to hope that they are similarly skilled.

Dragon, is that simple to make HMG bullet decals in the same way as game has it with LMG, Pistol and SG?

rantology says

Webs:
The way webs work right now could be considered by some to be frustrating to see on Hive 2, which is why they're on Hive 3 (and available for no p-res cost). It did not seem like people would be open to having this on hive2. I think they could be pretty interesting to see, because they would encourage the use of a perma gorge more often, but you'd probably have to re-implement their p-res cost. Imo this is something that could be adapted back toward vanilla, since in the last patch they were moved to hive 2 in vanilla.

Suggestion: When a babber attacks a structure they attach to the structure and do damage faster rather than jumping at it harmlessly.

Any changes for Season 6 ? in the comp mod ? anything going on i realy miss the progress here.

please assaign an admin and state that you search people to work on the comp mod again

or make a new meeting so we can argue about what has to change


i hate this silence about the comp mod cause we all know its not optimized to perfection yet.

So about the cyst meta evolving:

I remember talking with you, rantology, a while back about some sort of solution, where the rate of growth and maturity rate of cysts increases (linearly, or exponentially tbd) with distance from a hive. Basically this will make cysts farther from a hive grow much slower. It's an idea I haven't thought completely through, but at first glance it seems a good solution to not hurt the early game (map dependent), but hopefully provide more control over the potential for cysts to become an out of control problem in the mid game for marines, especially on larger maps.

I feel like it's not too complicated to do from existing functionality of cysts, and actually adds to immersion.

There's no silence or secrecy, you know everything that has been going on since the last meeting- which is nothing =P

If there is enough demand we can propose some changes for season 6 and see what people think- namely on the top of the list would be something for cysts and FT.

Also regarding the current iteration, I think at the very least expect a new thread soon to discuss what worked and what didn't (for instance the FT I think was a complete failure).

Well I never saw a FT in action tbh. The 2 main problems I see with the FT atm is that it needs to be researched after AA and that the pistol is a very good anti lifeform weapon. I see a FT only being good with a HMG so a player has good structure damage with him. However this would be a 35 pres investment and again you would need to upgrade both after AA (though I believe HMG is fine where it is)