Shinova wrote:How's 3.0 anyway?
It's in the public beta 2 phase
Onos have 700/600 WITHOUT CARAPACE, but this was a necessary change due to the huge hitbox it has.
Fades are 300/150, not completely sure about the armor value~ It was upped because of the hitbox change, and now some people say it's too strong.
Acid rocket is down to 25 dmg/per, but it takes far less energy for each. So in essence it's worthless, especially in classic NS. You expect something decent for your 3rd hive.
Lerk flight system is sweet, it's like spectator mode, except you can bump into things. Lerk bite is nice, but it means that the aliens have no viable ranged attack for the entire game. Parasite and spit were always a joke for killing anything, and now acid rocket is the same way. In combat, it isn't too much of a problem for a lerk, because they can shoot umbra at the marine, get inside the cloud, and bite him to death. Umbra now blocks 66% of bullets, as it should
Combat is pretty fun, but there's horrible balance issues with jetpacks and grenade launchers. Launchers shoot hand grenades instead of the proper type, so they do more damage and explode much sooner. Seriously, you can shoot blindly down a hall in combat, not knowing wtf you're doing, and still kill most stuff that passes through the area. Marines can send waves of jetpacker/hmg/shotty on suicide missions until the hive goes down. Aliens have to coordinate their attacks to destroy a command chair, and it takes at least 3 onos to do it, AND the marines are usually making a last ditch effort at killing the hive at the same time.
Some of the maps suck a dick~ Ns_metal is just featureless and forgettable, ns_agora is 100% marine wins because the halls and rooms are almost 50 meters wide. I tried playing fade on this map in beta 1 and it was just impossible. They can see you coming from a mile away. It's an epic journey to get anywhere on that map. Ns_ayumi is a decent map, and the returned ns_nancy is ok, but still the alien biased map that I remember it to be from 1.x.
Co maps are a mixed bag, in terms of layout and lighting. The ready room in co_core is horribly noobish. The floating aliens/marines/spectator signs aren't aligned properly so they repeat themselves. The rest of the map is fine. Co_pulse has a badly designed marine start, and has nearly zero variation in lighting, so it looks very dull. Co_agnst is ok but has an alcove under the hive that allows marines to camp in it and rape everything. Co_faceoff is another dull looking map but very fun to play on. Then you have co_daimos, which IMO represents what combat is all about. There's a weldable door there that conceals a room with two indestructable phase gates. If that door is opened then marines have a big advantage, at least until a gorge and onos camp it with webs and devour
I think it'll shape up before it goes final
At the end, every HMG or grenade launcher on the map had passed through the entire team several times. In the end, one of our guys made it to Eclipse hive, which turned out to be criminally undefended, and we set up a second base there. And won. 
Hoo-rah!