Balance-based Spawns

w0dk4

<div class="IPBDescription">an L4D inspiration</div>So, I think everyone agrees that there is nothing more boring in NS than the situation, where one team clearly is winning and the other is simply getting bashed.
In this case, pretty much both teams dont have any fun, except for a few players (the fade that kills all rines, the random rine getting a lucky kill of a winning-team fade).

So, being inspired by Left 4 Dead, when the survivors perform exceptionally well, a boss enemy is being spawned to slow them down. This could be adapted for NS:

If one team is basically getting bashed, there could be a desperation event for the losing team, i.e. all of a sudden the hive spews out an onos.
On the marine side, it could be a re-inforcement supply by the headquarters, like equipment or some HAs.

ozbirdboy

interesting, i like it. I don't think this should be 100% implemented but if this was turned into a server option where server admins choose if they want it on the server or not that would be good. I also think this should be a random event, i wouldn't want to see this happen every single game.

Sirot

I am actually cooking up a similar idea to what you posted and it is basically redundant if I posted it in its own thread.

Since the resource systems are getting unified, which means the aliens will probably have more resource to use; the onoes could become too common to incite the kind of fear that it should. What I am thinking is that the Onoes could be a Alien Commander "weapon" that could be stocked. For example, the Alien Command could buy 3 "Onoes" - which allows 3 players (whoever first) to go transform into Onoes by spending some of their own resources. This allows the Alien Commander to give climaxes to the encounters and it also could become a way to help out starting out Commanders. If a Commander is considered to be doing poorly, he could receive Onoes stocks if the team is really suffering for it. This could be in some way for the Marines as well, but the overall idea is to give players a chance to compensate for not so strong commander.

locallyunscene

When I read this topic I thought of Kharaa Panic{<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=103604" target="_blank">Thread Link</a>}{<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=103362&view=findpost&p=1669122" target="_blank">NS Paint Link</a>}.

Hawkeye

Perhaps when hives are struck, all aliens which spawn within 30 seconds of that time gain a boon of celerity and faster attack speed (lasting until at most 30 seconds after the hive was struck). In this way it is sort of a 'desperation' measure by the hive as if it were something the hive were doing to protect itself (I think of how ants behave when they sense danger from a predator). Slow attacks on the hive or attacks done by solo ramboers would be incredibly bad tactically.

It'd encourage more teamwork by the marines to put up all sieges immediately and efficiently. And to counterbalance the boon given to aliens, I reiterate my idea of lowering the effectiveness of a hive's 'chamber' ability by the amount of life of that hive. That is to say, a hive at 50% will give all aliens half benefit of whatever chamber it supports.

ratclaw

There are two possible outcomes to implementing this.

1. A bad alien team goes down fast in the first few minutes. They get a few free upper life forms and die off just as fast. The end result, a team that feels cheated by a stacked team.

2. A match has been going on for an hour or so and the players just want it to end. One team gets the upper hand, but is fought off by the handicap given to the other team. The match continues until players start to leave.

I don't think this idea will hold out too well. A better idea would be to give the admin a command to change spawn times of teams in-game. The admin could then balance a match of inexperienced players against competent players a little better.

Bacillus

I can't see any good reasons for forcing a prolonged game rather than getting a new one and making it a long one because the teams are equal.

I might even agree with a system that gives the presumably weaker team extra res flow or high end rfk, but I wouldn't reward the losing team for playing worse than the other.

TrC

Rather than prolonging the game, we should just make a simple way of ending it like a vote whether to continue or not.

ratclaw

<!--quoteo(post=1694670:date=Nov 30 2008, 06:47 AM:name=TrC)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TrC @ Nov 30 2008, 06:47 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1694670"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Rather than prolonging the game, we should just make a simple way of ending it like a vote whether to continue or not.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Your idea gets my vote <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />

This could allow a server to move on to the next map when there are lamers that camp the last spawn point on either team yet won't actually finish the map.