<!--quoteo(post=1815203:date=Dec 11 2010, 11:14 PM:name=Kouji_San)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kouji_San @ Dec 11 2010, 11:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1815203"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--coloro:#ff0000--><span style="color:#ff0000"><!--/coloro-->Turrets now have a targeting ability it seems (might have had that already, I dunno), however their spinning gun animation doesn't play when manually targeting some area<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How do you mean? You mean a 'rotate gun to aim at this location' thing? They had that last version.
Why can a lerk spam 100's of spikes that 'appear' to do as much if not actually a lot more DPS than a LMG, when a Marine spends 50% of his combat time fumbling with reload clips, trying to work out which end fits in which hole and why he is in the IP again ? ... same with the spore spam, the attacks dont cost enough energy ( adrenalin ?) compared to the small ammo mags ( at very least have upgraded ammo mag ( or double taped mags ) as a research option for LMGs and Pistols ). A Lerk can sit and happily spam spores and spikes with very little concern for its enrgy levels.
Now the aliens, they need some manner to pick out a Marine in the powered down areas, its suppose to be alien turf but its very hard to find and orientate on a marine in the red light district :P
Does the hitbox lag behind the model , or is it ahead of the model...coz it sure as hell aint on the model guys... either that or some joker fills up my loadout with blanks ( on a server < 100 ms ( netstat showed 236ms which then slowly dropped to 115ms as the game progressed ) ). Double sounds when shooting is back for me... arrgh.
We also need to hear the skulks , when they are running... this is very important, at the moment you can only aquire them visually and at that speed its damn hard to survive.
I also suggest mappers avoid vents that drop straight down as its all too easy for a lerk to play peek a boo spore spam right into marines start ( rockdown I believe its called ).
Its hard to kill aliens with blanks, I mean if it was just my bad aim I wouldnt sweat it but I have some experience in FPS gaming and can aim, and more importantly I used to have less problems in prior builds hitting aliens for some reason. Is there some trick to hitting in NS 2 now ? Do we have to lead more ?
<!--quoteo(post=1815212:date=Dec 11 2010, 11:54 PM:name=ASnogarD)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ASnogarD @ Dec 11 2010, 11:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1815212"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Its hard to kill aliens with blanks, I mean if it was just my bad aim I wouldnt sweat it but I have some experience in FPS gaming and can aim, and more importantly I used to have less problems in prior builds hitting aliens for some reason. Is there some trick to hitting in NS 2 now ? Do we have to lead more ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's pretty random I think, I can smack people in the nuts as a fade and have it go right through them, along with my character for some reason.
<!--quoteo(post=1815212:date=Dec 11 2010, 04:54 PM:name=ASnogarD)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ASnogarD @ Dec 11 2010, 04:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1815212"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Its hard to kill aliens with blanks, I mean if it was just my bad aim I wouldnt sweat it but I have some experience in FPS gaming and can aim, and more importantly I used to have less problems in prior builds hitting aliens for some reason. Is there some trick to hitting in NS 2 now ? Do we have to lead more ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
idk, i was hitting fine yesterday though. was killing most of the alien team with the shotty, and few fades here and there. you have to add in the fact that a lot of the players are playing with high pings too. I can hardly ever hit those guys. warp warp warp.
Kouji_SanSr. Hινε UÏкεεÏεг - EUPT DeputyThe NetherlandsJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited December 2010
<!--quoteo(post=1815207:date=Dec 11 2010, 11:37 PM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Dec 11 2010, 11:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1815207"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How do you mean? You mean a 'rotate gun to aim at this location' thing? They had that last version.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> No it can shoot at a piece of cookie on the floor, if that is the attack target you set. But the gun wont spin, while it does indeed make that cookie crumble! It's a simple animation error, nothing more...
<!--quoteo(post=1815225:date=Dec 12 2010, 12:24 AM:name=Kouji_San)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kouji_San @ Dec 12 2010, 12:24 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1815225"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->No it can shoot at a piece of cookie on the floor, if that is the attack target you set. But the gun wont spin, while it does indeed make that cookie crumble! It's a simple animation error, nothing more...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Really? Odd.
Having a marine control I can kinda get, but comms? Can't see any use for that.
I am reposting this from another post, but here we go:
I still think this is a problem of simplifying things down to damage based balance.
Essentially you have two teams, both upgrade to sufficient levels, big stale mate occurs. Because <b>Alien damage = Marine damage</b>. Games do end, but they are just slogathons. There are no real negatives or positives to the marines weapons (like there are with aliens) and both teams lack weapon sets that are effective against structures.
The ARC and Onos come late game, so if you have to wait until then to effectively move into an area... it is a little tedious. So far all I have seen is damage based balance, not 'tools for the job that is required'. Everything is effective against everything. Nothing is very good or very bad at certain jobs.
Sentry - Moderate at everything, therefore rubbish.
Same for a lot of the high tier marine weapons, and late alien classes and abilities.
<b>Flame thrower</b>
Essentially feels like a 'flame sword' that is moderately effective against everything.
<b>Grenade Launcher </b>
Terrible against aliens, and still fairly bad against structures...
Worst of all, they are cheap.
If you are wanting weapons from early in the game being appropriate throughout - make the more powerful weapons have as big a negatives as positives.
Maybe the commander should buy the higher tier weapons only? Drops a flame thrower for a 3 man squad. It has terrible friendly fire, burns you if you fire close to yourself - the realisms of a WW2 style flamethrower, and just as powerful.
But if your team mates are not defending you - it will be a big waste of resources. Once you have dropped below 0hp you run around for a few seconds before exploding in a fireball.
More cinematic, creates a sense of an organised attack going on, makes balancing a little easier, creates a real sense of danger for the teams...
The problem with FPS/RTS is that in RTS you can basically balance things because of reliable maths. FPS (people) are not reliable maths... you can't say for example, that 4 fades will take a base with 2 marines with shotguns in it. They should do, but they might not.
I think this is why you need to introduce those 'see saw' moments, like the tank in L4D2 for instance.
You could have one for each tier, but gets more powerful as you go up them - and more expensive.
<!--quoteo(post=1815234:date=Dec 12 2010, 01:06 AM:name=Runteh)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Runteh @ Dec 12 2010, 01:06 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1815234"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I am reposting this from another post, but here we go:
I still think this is a problem of simplifying things down to damage based balance.
Essentially you have two teams, both upgrade to sufficient levels, big stale mate occurs. Because <b>Alien damage = Marine damage</b>. Games do end, but they are just slogathons. There are no real negatives or positives to the marines weapons (like there are with aliens) and both teams lack weapon sets that are effective against structures.
The ARC and Onos come late game, so if you have to wait until then to effectively move into an area... it is a little tedious. So far all I have seen is damage based balance, not 'tools for the job that is required'. Everything is effective against everything. Nothing is very good or very bad at certain jobs.
Sentry - Moderate at everything, therefore rubbish.
Same for a lot of the high tier marine weapons, and late alien classes and abilities.
<b>Flame thrower</b>
Essentially feels like a 'flame sword' that is moderately effective against everything.
<b>Grenade Launcher </b>
Terrible against aliens, and still fairly bad against structures...
Worst of all, they are cheap.
If you are wanting weapons from early in the game being appropriate throughout - make the more powerful weapons have as big a negatives as positives.
Maybe the commander should buy the higher tier weapons only? Drops a flame thrower for a 3 man squad. It has terrible friendly fire, burns you if you fire close to yourself - the realisms of a WW2 style flamethrower, and just as powerful.
But if your team mates are not defending you - it will be a big waste of resources. Once you have dropped below 0hp you run around for a few seconds before exploding in a fireball.
More cinematic, creates a sense of an organised attack going on, makes balancing a little easier, creates a real sense of danger for the teams...
The problem with FPS/RTS is that in RTS you can basically balance things because of reliable maths. FPS (people) are not reliable maths... you can't say for example, that 4 fades will take a base with 2 marines with shotguns in it. They should do, but they might not.
I think this is why you need to introduce those 'see saw' moments, like the tank in L4D2 for instance.
You could have one for each tier, but gets more powerful as you go up them - and more expensive.
Aliens: Could be attacks for activated abilities by the commander for Tier 1 - Skulk, Tier 2 - Fade, Tier 3 - Onos.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Half agree and half not.
I think starting with no anti-structure capability is a good thing, but only if you limit structure placement. At the start, bases should be hard to destroy, because people need to be able to expand easily. As the game progresses, they should be easier and easier to destroy, to the point where, apart from specific locations on the map that favour defence, it should require an active, well equipped, decent sized garrison to counter a sizeable attack on a base, and even then the base should sustain damage and possibly require rebuilding, although the area remains under the control of the relevant faction.
At the start a couple of skulks might be able to take down an extractor, three might be able to attack a base and kill the armory and annoy marines for a while, two or three marines might be able to hamper alien expansion into an area by shooting structures as they drop, killing drifters and things, and resisting lone or pairs of skulks trying to clear them out, but nothing more serious than that. Late in the game, two or three skulks should be able to take out most of a base if it's only defended by rifle marines, three or four mixed aliens should be able out a base defended by two or three mixed equipment marines, although the marines should be able to hold the area and rebuild if the aliens don't press the advantage. That sort of escalation means games can only drag as far as the tech tree goes, and during that time the constantly improving equipment and lifeform choices should keep the game interesting.
Weapons do need downsides, but I think they should all be balanced to compete with each other. No weapon is more powerful, it simply does something else. The flamethrower can be easy to aim but it has very limited range, and its damage type is effective against different units than the shotgun or the rifle. To boost damage output you should instead make the global upgrades steadily boost damage over health, so as the game progresses to tier 3 upgrades, everything has more health but everything does considerably more damage, including to structures, which helps destabilise the game because if structures go down and stay down, an area becomes hard to hold. Eventually combat is so destructive that it becomes hard to keep structures up in all locations.
Maps do need 'wall' locations to allow teams to control the flow of the map, things like long corridors for marines, alcove rich areas with no power node for aliens, weldable doors, all of those can be used to create modifiable layouts and allow teams to change the way the map plays, by making an area very hard to attack and encouraging alternate routes. The generally indestructable hive problem (and indestructible marine base, theoretically) should not be present however.
Make structures tough at the start, but make expansion slow, so you can't simply land grab and wait for victory, instead both teams should slowly encroach on the centre of the map with their bases, but their players can be out blowing up resource expansions, killing each other, hampering expansion etc, and as the game progresses, slowly start destroying bases and eventually pushing through. It rewards good play all the way through, denying an enemy expansion will slow them down and help you build an advantage faster, a very good team might be able to entirely tech lock an enemy team at tier 2 for example, thus making the game end quite quickly, but players should always be able to get some expansion, and the game should always go through a couple of different phases with weapons and capabilities and whatnot.
schkorpioI can mspaintJoin Date: 2003-05-23Member: 16635Members
there is absolutely no point talking balance until EVERY feature is implemented - we've only got 1/2 the game currently. The biggest feature to balance will be Dynamic Infestation and the mist feature that follows it - this will really make alien areas become alien friendly.
THen of course ONOS and EXO suit and all of those upgrades both marine and alien comms have, there are even some builds to come too. just no point yet.
From looking at tram I do actually think it would help marines out a lot.
The lockable doors can basically seal off half the map routes for the aliens, and marines have an excellent first expansion point, as well as two excellent further expansion routes to gain plenty of res and a third tech point.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think starting with no anti-structure capability is a good thing, but only if you limit structure placement. At the start, bases should be hard to destroy, because people need to be able to expand easily.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not saying you can just 'hand out' a flame thrower or grenade launcher at the start... maybe I am?
But if these have to be researched, and then handed out at a real cost (maybe the difference between moving into tier 2 weaponry) at the risk - that may pay off - of burning down the first two hives as a squad. Why not? It would certainly make games more dramatic, whereby before each team decides to move into the next tier a decisions is made.
"Shall we go for the kill, or move into the next tier to counter and try to defend if they special attack us?"
Shotgun, LMG and pistol could then be used throughout the game as an upgradeable set. The back bone of the marines for pushing forward - but not the do or die 'mega weapons' that would be the grenade launcher or flame thrower.. etc.
It would be so cool to have those little L4D2 tank momments in NS2. Maybe 'skulk rush' could be a commander activated ability for tier 1. So everyone spawns at the nearest hive and runs at their base with increased attack speed, r.o.f, leap and damage.
But then maybe the marines have sentries... so perhaps you go for their second cc outpost they are setting up? Or take down the sentries first..
It'd also turn the game into win or loss based on whether you guessed right, which is kind of silly.
Tanks do usually result in a total party kill on expert unless you have a very good team. Having something like that in a competitive multiplayer game is not an exciting moment, it's a cheap overpowered tactic.
It is not a cheap overpowered tactic... what does that even mean? Seriously, just played a game on tram for the past hour.. it still has not ended.
This is how it pans out:
# I kill you.
# You kill me.
# Repeat.
# Nothing dramatic changes.
# x 60mins +
# Get bored, quit.
It actually reminded me of how poor some NS1 games 'could' be, and apparently Tram is a small map? Imagine how this will be on larger maps...
Making the decision to take a risk would be the strategy... This is an RTS (maths) FPS (human) game, and you take a guess commanding every game, because people are both very good and very bad. With this, everyone can be a 'game ender' - if they are playing as a team and support each other.
In RTS you pretty much know - 10 Units of X > 10 Units of Y. In this, it does not. Now weapons balance has all be watered down... what do we get? Long stale mates.
I think you need stuff like suggested to unbalance the game, create some excitement...
I think if they go down the route of balancing simply of damage, NS2 will just become NS1 slogathons. It will get boring, and no one wants to play 1 hour games really. They were fun on public, but only because one team (after an hour of work) would just push harder than the other to create a break in play. The actual fun part was tearing down their base at the end.
Yes you need to add anti structure capabilites to end games.
No you don't need to make it some big choice.
Like I said, just shift everything more powerful as the game progresses, structures will start dying simply because there's hordes of aliens and marines with really powerful weapons running around near them. You will be able to destroy them with your basic weapons, although obviously you would also get some special weapons which are better against them like grenade launchers and the onos.
If you make the game about big strategic decisions however that ruins the FPS. If you with the FPS because the commander researched something that happens to be extremely good against what the aliens happened to research, then what's the fun? You are killing aliens with a weapon that is way too powerful and the aliens are dying because they have no real means to fight against it.
That's not a good thing, it's not really a good thing in RTS games either, it's a very old and crappy method of introducing 'strategy' to a game, but nowadays we have the technology to make strategy actually strategic, by having things like terrain advantages and situational power, rather than simply having 'this unit beats that unit and that unit beats the other unit'.
Compare with a good strategy like total war, in total war you never guess, you watch what the enemy does and organise your units accordingly, if the enemy rushes a flank with cavalry, bring your reserve spearmen to protect it, if the enemy has a weak point, exploit it with your units to rout the army. There is a degree of rock paper scissors but it falls mainly on the distribution of units, you can beat a swordsman army with spearmen if you have enough of them and if you can flank them and use charges to cause rolling morale losses, you can beat an evenly matched army 20 to 1 if you distribute your forces correctly. You CAN win by guessing but you will be guaranteed a victory if you organise your troops better than the enemy, and because of that it is a far more strategic game than say, starcraft.
That sort of organisation lends itself well to an RTSFPS, because players CAN organise themselves, that's the entire point of having players in fact, they are allegedly more intelligent than bots, so take advantage of that. Give victory to the team who can outmaneuver the enemy, who can control the map best, and who can shoot better than the enemy. Give it to the team who can make better use of the tools afforded to both teams evenly, not to the team whose commander guessed right at the start.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's not a good thing, it's not really a good thing in RTS games either, it's a very old and crappy method of introducing 'strategy' to a game, but nowadays we have the technology to make strategy actually strategic, by having things like terrain advantages and situational power, rather than simply having 'this unit beats that unit and that unit beats the other unit'.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is my point... you don't want this - which is currently where NS2 is sitting.
I'm not suggesting that this is 'the answer' to be all answers. I am suggesting that there need to be see saw moments, because tools are used well.
My main point was that (for example) a flame thrower would have big positives, but also bug negatives associated with it.
So you would make it invulnerable from the front (pretty much a 8m stream of death) but make the user slower aiming/moving when firing, can't fire near himself, vulnerable from the rear and explodes a few seconds after death. But at big resource cost to the team.
That way if you moved as a team and defended this guy, he would be effective and would tip the balance - but on his own would die to skulks of most levels.
This is currently what is happening (power nodes) but not on a 'weapon' level. So whilst you can take away power very quickly, you can't destroy a base quickly.
Maybe we just need to wait until the building destroying units are introduced.. I just hope that things like the ARC and EXO as well as the ONOS are not 'very late game' units, and would prefer to see these sort of units throughout the game. But being a bigger decider each time on outcome, whilst still having their negative pitfalls.
It would tackle the issue of games playing out slowly, and with no 'great' and 'exciting' moments - that if used well as team - tip the balance.
This could also be because you can spawn 20 build bots/drifters at the moment, and repair the whole base very easily.
<!--quoteo(post=1815240:date=Dec 12 2010, 03:46 AM:name=schkorpio)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (schkorpio @ Dec 12 2010, 03:46 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1815240"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->there is absolutely no point talking balance until EVERY feature is implemented - we've only got 1/2 the game currently. The biggest feature to balance will be Dynamic Infestation and the mist feature that follows it - this will really make alien areas become alien friendly.
THen of course ONOS and EXO suit and all of those upgrades both marine and alien comms have, there are even some builds to come too. just no point yet.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--coloro:#ffff00--><span style="color:#ffff00"><!--/coloro-->+1<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> from me. Well knowing, that listening to the voice of reason is not as much fun as having fruitless thought experiments on hypothetical game states ;-)Â Â
The cost for abilities from structures like crag and whip with this new res model is a bit over the top. Activate umbra from crag or pick a new resnode hmmm... Unless its late in the game and its going by alien favor with excess res it seems theese abilities won't be used by the alien comm, he simply cannot afford it.
Even though they have the 'resource' icon, structure abilities use structure energy (building macs, umbra, etc).
Right now flamer shoots through walls, has an insane fire cone and range (MUCH farther than the particle effect!), and because of how it's animated, aliens can't tell which up/down direction it's firing. Some sort of splash effect where the flames actually hit would help, as well as a decreased fire cone. I would also support making its damage type 'light' and 'structural', so it does x2 damage against structures, and 1/4 damage against armor points. That way, structure dps can stay high while anti armor dps is lower. Plus, with one or two (or more) res nodes, it's basically free every spawn anyway.
With the flamer buffed against structures (to b156 100dps levels), I'd like to see the fade's secondary "stealth" fire given a 2x boost against structures. Since it slows you to a crawl while firing, and is useless against aware enemies, (and does the same DPS as the primary attack), I'd like to see it have an anti structure role. Plus, if you want to switch back to the first weapon (you see a marine coming, say), you have the 1 or 2 second weapon switching delay.
I think per-player plasma income is way too high, as a starved team with only one res node can still afford reasonable numbers of weapons and upgrades. Upgrading the team to a new lifeform or weapon is almost like giving the team 'free' access to that weapon or upgrade. While I don't totally support dividing plasma among players a-la NS1 (hard to balance at different player counts), I think plasma income per player is still too high to make it matter much, giving "winning" and "losing" teams a similar purchasing power... making it hard for either team to press an advantage in territory. The plasma you build up while teching to T2 or T3 can be blown pretty easily on all sorts of upgrades, making the economy mostly meaningless after a time. Yes, if we're targeting 30 minute games, having 1 hour of plasma income will lead to high numbers... but the team with a lot of territory should force the losing team to curtail their excessive buying habits so they can force an advantage.
Sentry ROF should be buffed significantly, and use carbon instead of plasma. Why? It's restricted to only 90 degrees, so it can only attack enemies while they're in front of it... this suggests that a x4 ROF compared to NS1 would help it seal off areas. Right now, best strategy for turrets is to put them in a corner so aliens attacking a room or a base are in front of the turrets as long as possible (since they cannot stop an alien rushing the turret down a corridor).. or to exploit the plasma-cost bug to select multiple macs to build x4 turrets on the same location. Building x7 turrets in one room to defend it from all sides is wasteful of server FPS and wasteful of resources, compared to the case where one turret could defend a hallway coming into a room.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1815240:date=Dec 11 2010, 05:46 PM:name=schkorpio)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (schkorpio @ Dec 11 2010, 05:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1815240"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->there is absolutely no point talking balance until EVERY feature is implemented - we've only got 1/2 the game currently. The biggest feature to balance will be Dynamic Infestation and the mist feature that follows it - this will really make alien areas become alien friendly.
THen of course ONOS and EXO suit and all of those upgrades both marine and alien comms have, there are even some builds to come too. just no point yet.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I disagree. Onos and exo suits are not going to change early game assault rifle marine vs skulks balance. Nor will any of the additional features likely make the flamethrower less HUD blinding. There need not be a lot of work done on balance now, but certain things, like the early game dynamics, probably could use a bit of balance tweaking to at least make our current testing a bit easier.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The first problem, which is probably related to Rockdown being so small, is the strength of the first alien attack on the marine start. This has a tendancy of ending games extremely quickly, as the marine team often only has a handful of players spawning in initially, with the rest being in the respawn queue waiting for an IP that half the time never arrives.
Suggestion: Game start timer like NS1, during which time you would spawn in without an IP.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed, though now that the game is more playable on Tram and I have gotten in a few matches it is essentially the same thing even though Tram is a little bigger. The skulks can cut through the middle of the map and catch marines either building the IP or just completely off guard it can end the game early.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If the Marine side can get a second CC up, then the Aliens essentially are living on borrowed time. They have to kill the marine team quickly, because once Flamethrowers come out, it's all over. The flamethrower as it stands is just too powerful, for a number of reasons. It epitomises spray and pray; just wave it in the general direction of the enemy and they're screwed. That's nothing though compared to it's blinding effect; a lot of the time higher tier lifeforms could well escape, if it weren't for the flamethrower blocking their vision completely.
Before the damage of the flamethrower is looked at, it's blinding effect MUST be first priority. Hell, disable the flames altogether until a better particle system is worked out. At least that way we could get some meaningful testing of mid-game damage done.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually I think it's just really the whole blinding effect that is making it to powerful right now. It's damage seems to be perfect, it's just the fact that either tier 1 aliens (Skulk, Gorge, Lerk) are unable to quickly do an about face and get out of there to heal and possibly set up for an ambush attack. Or the fact that when the Fade is on fire it can take the direct damage from the flame thrower for a lengthy period of time before it has to think about escaping. But because it's blinded it has little to no chance of killing the marine with the flame thrower or even escaping for that matter.
I say it's damage seems to be perfect because it doesn't do a heck of a lot of damage to structures. The hydras it can clear out fairly quickly but the crags and whips the marine literally has to just stand there at a safe distance and go through a clip, sometimes a clip and a half to take out just one of those structures. These leaves him very vulnerable to attacks from behind or even a gutsy leap by the flame, or lerk zoomed attack from a distance. It's damage to the hive is just so little that it's not really worth having a marine or even two burning the hive...they would be better off guarding a team of shot gunners or grenade launchers....hell I think the Axe (knife) takes the hive down quicker then the flame thrower.
Also I can see the Flame Thrower to be the deterrent against the Tier 1 Aliens. I mean how much do you really think things as small as the Skulk, Lerk and Gorge could really take against a weapon like that. Especially if the flame is constantly on it. And it's "on fire" damage isn't really all that much. As said above the Fade can take a real good beating from the Flame Thrower...it just can't see who's doing the beating...the player just knows it's on fire. I can only think how little damage the Flame Thrower will do to the Onos when it is put into the game.
So yeah my final opinion on the FT is that it's damage is right where or very very close to where it needs to be...it's blinding effect though needs to be lowered. Not 100% off because I think your vision should be some what impaired. But yeah not what it is now.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Coversely, if the marine team doesn't get a second CC up early, they tend to be the ones who get screwed. Marine tier 1 is poor at best against the Alien team, not least because Aliens are so good at taking down Marine structures, but Marines are so poor at taking down Alien structures. One major reason for that is Sentry guns; their limited field of fire is supposed to be balanced by their higher damage, but I can tell you that I've seen lone whips stopping entire Marine teams. 1 sentry is a laughable threat by comparison. Even when they do fire, their damage is hardly anything to be feared, especially considering the higher mobility of the alien team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Regarding the Sentry's. Yeah, I think they need some work. Honestly I think a 180 degree field of view would work a lot better and balance them out a bit more. 90 degree's just makes it so you have to buy so many to be able to cover every portion of your base. Even then, Skulks and Lerks are able to get into certain areas where the sentries are now useless. Skulks can just leap over them before they spin up and begin to fire and then just chomp them down. Lerks can hit them out of their range of fire. Which I think is ok because this is just another reason why having the Lerk as a ranged class (yes I am talking about not bringing back bite because it would make the Lerk useless) is proving very useful to the Alien Team. But something has to be done with the Sentries. It's proving to costly for the marine team and at the same time they are easily taken down.
<!--quoteo(post=1816094:date=Dec 15 2010, 02:11 PM:name=OPIE)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (OPIE @ Dec 15 2010, 02:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1816094"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So yeah my final opinion on the FT is that it's damage is right where or very very close to where it needs to be...it's blinding effect though needs to be lowered. Not 100% off because I think your vision should be some what impaired. But yeah not what it is now.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This.
Sorry in advance for upcoming wall of text
Flamers are very effective against light armored targets such as Skulks, Gorges and Lerks, once you try to burn down a fade it takes a decent amount of time to get through its armor until you actually hurt it. So Flamer damage all in all is pretty good, tho it might need some sort of bit slowed down movement, cuz right now u cant outrun a Flamer which is pretty annoying due to its massive damage to health and the vast amount of time ur on fire. And maybe a bit less range, cuz right now you can shoot Lifeforms out of the Vents at Elevator Transport on Tram which entrances are like 5m up on the ceiling.
Grenade Launcher are, as they are right now a pretty good tradeoff for your Riflebutt secondary. You gain the ability to blow up clustered structures pretty well from a safe distance but are more vulnerable to skulks rushing at you. Damage might need a little tone so u dont need so spend 5 of your 8 (or 9?) grenades on a single Crag.
Shotguns are fine, once FPS and lags are all gone especially with tons of Hydras/Turrets placed they are pretty much the best thing to get down fades due to their massive burst damage.
Skulks are fast and deadly but killed easy, well balanced and lots of fun to play and play against.
Gorges are fun to play, pure support, pretty squishy, self healing need a tune. Hydras basicly only causing Serverlag and not opposing a real threat
Lerks are a little hard to hit due to occasional FPS drops / lags and its high speed, probably easier to kill once new Pistol is in. Awesome support Unit with gas and sniping
Fades are devastating, blink in kill 1 or 2 Marines and blink out, watch out for your armor when facing flamers and everything is fine.
The thing which leads to unbalancing right now is basicly the missing research cost and time for aliens compared to those implemented for rines.
Assuming both teams start with 50 Carbon and 1 RT like it is right now :
Early to Midgame: - Marines have to get a second CC for 20 Carbon and have to spend 20 Carbon for upgrading to a CF which takes about 1 min (just estimating) - Marines need an IP (20 Carbon) and an Armory (10 Carbon) just to get a base started - Marines should get a few RTs by now or they`ll just starve on Res(only Carbon for 1 RT remaining, second takes crucial time to get the Res to place) - Marines get upgrades (15 Carbon for A1/W1 each and about 30s to research) or go for fast tech (second CC or 15 Carbon for SG)
- Aliens have to get a second Hive for 20 Carbon and just have to wait about that estimated 1 min for Hive Mass to finish - Meanwhile Alien Commander can drop 2 additional RTs which boost Alien res income massively - Aliens drop a Crag and a Whip (10 Carbon each) to get M1/A1 for no cost and no time - Hive Mass goes up, M2/A2 is researched at no cost, Running leap can be researched for 5 Carbon in about 15s, Fades now available
Mid to Endgame: - Marines get A2/W2 by now once they got their CF up and can afford it or get AA upgraded(15 Carbon, and sometimes renders AA unaccessable) for Flamers (15 Carbon) - Marines try to get some more RTs or try to get up 3rd CC to go for T3 ups - Marines grab tons of flamers and try to burn through an Alien controlled map hive by hive
- Aliens need that third hive and this time need those 20 Carbon which at least gives some balance, 1 min as well to finish - Aliens get M3/A3 for free once again and now got huge respool - Lots of Fades go out and rape Marine base
This is basicly what happens all the time except for those Games where a single Commander has to drop, build and defend the IP for his fellow teammates to spawn in.
Flame thrower should a be more powerful, as a tier one weapon against structures.
Just played a 1 v 2 (me as alien) against a reasonable marine side on Tram.
They kept taking structures down, but I kept erecting hives, whips and crags until they began securing every point. I was loosing, but would have gone on for another half hour or so, and had already been going for around 40 minutes. This was 1 v 2 as well remember, they had better odds.
This is the issue at the moment with stalemates, because there are no structure clearing weapons yet. They set up an armoury outside the hives, then kept flaming/grenading the base. I kept fighting back and securing it.
If it was a weapon that was very powerful, interfered with the users view, was slow move/aim whilst firing, required squad cover... etc. We would not have these problems as much.
There needs to be an effective weapon each tier for this kind of work, but as you go up a tier it has less negatives and more positives.
To beat the other side at the moment you have to secure every tech node 100%, which is a long and slow (boring) game.
<!--quoteo(post=1816137:date=Dec 15 2010, 06:06 PM:name=GohanZeta)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GohanZeta @ Dec 15 2010, 06:06 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1816137"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Early to Midgame: - Marines have to get a second CC for 20 Carbon and have to spend 20 Carbon for upgrading to a CF which takes about 1 min (just estimating) - Marines need an IP (20 Carbon) and an Armory (10 Carbon) just to get a base started
...etc<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Marines are supposed to start with an IP, but for some reason this is only the case when cheats are on. Personally I think Hives should cost more since they double as (mass) spawn points.
Comments
How do you mean? You mean a 'rotate gun to aim at this location' thing? They had that last version.
Why can a lerk spam 100's of spikes that 'appear' to do as much if not actually a lot more DPS than a LMG, when a Marine spends 50% of his combat time fumbling with reload clips, trying to work out which end fits in which hole and why he is in the IP again ?
... same with the spore spam, the attacks dont cost enough energy ( adrenalin ?) compared to the small ammo mags ( at very least have upgraded ammo mag ( or double taped mags ) as a research option for LMGs and Pistols ).
A Lerk can sit and happily spam spores and spikes with very little concern for its enrgy levels.
Now the aliens, they need some manner to pick out a Marine in the powered down areas, its suppose to be alien turf but its very hard to find and orientate on a marine in the red light district :P
Does the hitbox lag behind the model , or is it ahead of the model...coz it sure as hell aint on the model guys... either that or some joker fills up my loadout with blanks ( on a server < 100 ms ( netstat showed 236ms which then slowly dropped to 115ms as the game progressed ) ).
Double sounds when shooting is back for me... arrgh.
We also need to hear the skulks , when they are running... this is very important, at the moment you can only aquire them visually and at that speed its damn hard to survive.
I also suggest mappers avoid vents that drop straight down as its all too easy for a lerk to play peek a boo spore spam right into marines start ( rockdown I believe its called ).
Is there some trick to hitting in NS 2 now ? Do we have to lead more ?
Is there some trick to hitting in NS 2 now ? Do we have to lead more ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's pretty random I think, I can smack people in the nuts as a fade and have it go right through them, along with my character for some reason.
Something is definitely a bit off.
Is there some trick to hitting in NS 2 now ? Do we have to lead more ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
idk, i was hitting fine yesterday though. was killing most of the alien team with the shotty, and few fades here and there. you have to add in the fact that a lot of the players are playing with high pings too. I can hardly ever hit those guys. warp warp warp.
No it can shoot at a piece of cookie on the floor, if that is the attack target you set. But the gun wont spin, while it does indeed make that cookie crumble! It's a simple animation error, nothing more...
Really? Odd.
Having a marine control I can kinda get, but comms? Can't see any use for that.
Being able to build covers over the things would work better.
I still think this is a problem of simplifying things down to damage based balance.
Essentially you have two teams, both upgrade to sufficient levels, big stale mate occurs. Because <b>Alien damage = Marine damage</b>. Games do end, but they are just slogathons. There are no real negatives or positives to the marines weapons (like there are with aliens) and both teams lack weapon sets that are effective against structures.
The ARC and Onos come late game, so if you have to wait until then to effectively move into an area... it is a little tedious. So far all I have seen is damage based balance, not 'tools for the job that is required'. Everything is effective against everything. Nothing is very good or very bad at certain jobs.
Sentry - Moderate at everything, therefore rubbish.
Same for a lot of the high tier marine weapons, and late alien classes and abilities.
<b>Flame thrower</b>
Essentially feels like a 'flame sword' that is moderately effective against everything.
<b>Grenade Launcher </b>
Terrible against aliens, and still fairly bad against structures...
Worst of all, they are cheap.
If you are wanting weapons from early in the game being appropriate throughout - make the more powerful weapons have as big a negatives as positives.
Maybe the commander should buy the higher tier weapons only? Drops a flame thrower for a 3 man squad. It has terrible friendly fire, burns you if you fire close to yourself - the realisms of a WW2 style flamethrower, and just as powerful.
But if your team mates are not defending you - it will be a big waste of resources. Once you have dropped below 0hp you run around for a few seconds before exploding in a fireball.
More cinematic, creates a sense of an organised attack going on, makes balancing a little easier, creates a real sense of danger for the teams...
The problem with FPS/RTS is that in RTS you can basically balance things because of reliable maths. FPS (people) are not reliable maths... you can't say for example, that 4 fades will take a base with 2 marines with shotguns in it. They should do, but they might not.
I think this is why you need to introduce those 'see saw' moments, like the tank in L4D2 for instance.
You could have one for each tier, but gets more powerful as you go up them - and more expensive.
Marines: Tier 1 - grenade launcher/Flamer, Tier 2 - ARC, Tier 3 - Exo
Aliens: Could be attacks for activated abilities by the commander for Tier 1 - Skulk, Tier 2 - Fade, Tier 3 - Onos.
I still think this is a problem of simplifying things down to damage based balance.
Essentially you have two teams, both upgrade to sufficient levels, big stale mate occurs. Because <b>Alien damage = Marine damage</b>. Games do end, but they are just slogathons. There are no real negatives or positives to the marines weapons (like there are with aliens) and both teams lack weapon sets that are effective against structures.
The ARC and Onos come late game, so if you have to wait until then to effectively move into an area... it is a little tedious. So far all I have seen is damage based balance, not 'tools for the job that is required'. Everything is effective against everything. Nothing is very good or very bad at certain jobs.
Sentry - Moderate at everything, therefore rubbish.
Same for a lot of the high tier marine weapons, and late alien classes and abilities.
<b>Flame thrower</b>
Essentially feels like a 'flame sword' that is moderately effective against everything.
<b>Grenade Launcher </b>
Terrible against aliens, and still fairly bad against structures...
Worst of all, they are cheap.
If you are wanting weapons from early in the game being appropriate throughout - make the more powerful weapons have as big a negatives as positives.
Maybe the commander should buy the higher tier weapons only? Drops a flame thrower for a 3 man squad. It has terrible friendly fire, burns you if you fire close to yourself - the realisms of a WW2 style flamethrower, and just as powerful.
But if your team mates are not defending you - it will be a big waste of resources. Once you have dropped below 0hp you run around for a few seconds before exploding in a fireball.
More cinematic, creates a sense of an organised attack going on, makes balancing a little easier, creates a real sense of danger for the teams...
The problem with FPS/RTS is that in RTS you can basically balance things because of reliable maths. FPS (people) are not reliable maths... you can't say for example, that 4 fades will take a base with 2 marines with shotguns in it. They should do, but they might not.
I think this is why you need to introduce those 'see saw' moments, like the tank in L4D2 for instance.
You could have one for each tier, but gets more powerful as you go up them - and more expensive.
Marines: Tier 1 - grenade launcher/Flamer, Tier 2 - ARC, Tier 3 - Exo
Aliens: Could be attacks for activated abilities by the commander for Tier 1 - Skulk, Tier 2 - Fade, Tier 3 - Onos.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Half agree and half not.
I think starting with no anti-structure capability is a good thing, but only if you limit structure placement. At the start, bases should be hard to destroy, because people need to be able to expand easily. As the game progresses, they should be easier and easier to destroy, to the point where, apart from specific locations on the map that favour defence, it should require an active, well equipped, decent sized garrison to counter a sizeable attack on a base, and even then the base should sustain damage and possibly require rebuilding, although the area remains under the control of the relevant faction.
At the start a couple of skulks might be able to take down an extractor, three might be able to attack a base and kill the armory and annoy marines for a while, two or three marines might be able to hamper alien expansion into an area by shooting structures as they drop, killing drifters and things, and resisting lone or pairs of skulks trying to clear them out, but nothing more serious than that. Late in the game, two or three skulks should be able to take out most of a base if it's only defended by rifle marines, three or four mixed aliens should be able out a base defended by two or three mixed equipment marines, although the marines should be able to hold the area and rebuild if the aliens don't press the advantage. That sort of escalation means games can only drag as far as the tech tree goes, and during that time the constantly improving equipment and lifeform choices should keep the game interesting.
Weapons do need downsides, but I think they should all be balanced to compete with each other. No weapon is more powerful, it simply does something else. The flamethrower can be easy to aim but it has very limited range, and its damage type is effective against different units than the shotgun or the rifle. To boost damage output you should instead make the global upgrades steadily boost damage over health, so as the game progresses to tier 3 upgrades, everything has more health but everything does considerably more damage, including to structures, which helps destabilise the game because if structures go down and stay down, an area becomes hard to hold. Eventually combat is so destructive that it becomes hard to keep structures up in all locations.
Maps do need 'wall' locations to allow teams to control the flow of the map, things like long corridors for marines, alcove rich areas with no power node for aliens, weldable doors, all of those can be used to create modifiable layouts and allow teams to change the way the map plays, by making an area very hard to attack and encouraging alternate routes. The generally indestructable hive problem (and indestructible marine base, theoretically) should not be present however.
Make structures tough at the start, but make expansion slow, so you can't simply land grab and wait for victory, instead both teams should slowly encroach on the centre of the map with their bases, but their players can be out blowing up resource expansions, killing each other, hampering expansion etc, and as the game progresses, slowly start destroying bases and eventually pushing through. It rewards good play all the way through, denying an enemy expansion will slow them down and help you build an advantage faster, a very good team might be able to entirely tech lock an enemy team at tier 2 for example, thus making the game end quite quickly, but players should always be able to get some expansion, and the game should always go through a couple of different phases with weapons and capabilities and whatnot.
The biggest feature to balance will be Dynamic Infestation and the mist feature that follows it - this will really make alien areas become alien friendly.
THen of course ONOS and EXO suit and all of those upgrades both marine and alien comms have, there are even some builds to come too. just no point yet.
The lockable doors can basically seal off half the map routes for the aliens, and marines have an excellent first expansion point, as well as two excellent further expansion routes to gain plenty of res and a third tech point.
I'm not saying you can just 'hand out' a flame thrower or grenade launcher at the start... maybe I am?
But if these have to be researched, and then handed out at a real cost (maybe the difference between moving into tier 2 weaponry) at the risk - that may pay off - of burning down the first two hives as a squad. Why not? It would certainly make games more dramatic, whereby before each team decides to move into the next tier a decisions is made.
"Shall we go for the kill, or move into the next tier to counter and try to defend if they special attack us?"
Shotgun, LMG and pistol could then be used throughout the game as an upgradeable set. The back bone of the marines for pushing forward - but not the do or die 'mega weapons' that would be the grenade launcher or flame thrower.. etc.
It would be so cool to have those little L4D2 tank momments in NS2. Maybe 'skulk rush' could be a commander activated ability for tier 1. So everyone spawns at the nearest hive and runs at their base with increased attack speed, r.o.f, leap and damage.
But then maybe the marines have sentries... so perhaps you go for their second cc outpost they are setting up? Or take down the sentries first..
I think it would be more dynamic like this.
Tanks do usually result in a total party kill on expert unless you have a very good team. Having something like that in a competitive multiplayer game is not an exciting moment, it's a cheap overpowered tactic.
This is how it pans out:
# I kill you.
# You kill me.
# Repeat.
# Nothing dramatic changes.
# x 60mins +
# Get bored, quit.
It actually reminded me of how poor some NS1 games 'could' be, and apparently Tram is a small map? Imagine how this will be on larger maps...
Making the decision to take a risk would be the strategy... This is an RTS (maths) FPS (human) game, and you take a guess commanding every game, because people are both very good and very bad. With this, everyone can be a 'game ender' - if they are playing as a team and support each other.
In RTS you pretty much know - 10 Units of X > 10 Units of Y. In this, it does not. Now weapons balance has all be watered down... what do we get? Long stale mates.
I think you need stuff like suggested to unbalance the game, create some excitement...
I think if they go down the route of balancing simply of damage, NS2 will just become NS1 slogathons. It will get boring, and no one wants to play 1 hour games really. They were fun on public, but only because one team (after an hour of work) would just push harder than the other to create a break in play. The actual fun part was tearing down their base at the end.
Actually it reminds me of this:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da3Xun-yGCQ" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da3Xun-yGCQ</a>
No you don't need to make it some big choice.
Like I said, just shift everything more powerful as the game progresses, structures will start dying simply because there's hordes of aliens and marines with really powerful weapons running around near them. You will be able to destroy them with your basic weapons, although obviously you would also get some special weapons which are better against them like grenade launchers and the onos.
If you make the game about big strategic decisions however that ruins the FPS. If you with the FPS because the commander researched something that happens to be extremely good against what the aliens happened to research, then what's the fun? You are killing aliens with a weapon that is way too powerful and the aliens are dying because they have no real means to fight against it.
That's not a good thing, it's not really a good thing in RTS games either, it's a very old and crappy method of introducing 'strategy' to a game, but nowadays we have the technology to make strategy actually strategic, by having things like terrain advantages and situational power, rather than simply having 'this unit beats that unit and that unit beats the other unit'.
Compare with a good strategy like total war, in total war you never guess, you watch what the enemy does and organise your units accordingly, if the enemy rushes a flank with cavalry, bring your reserve spearmen to protect it, if the enemy has a weak point, exploit it with your units to rout the army. There is a degree of rock paper scissors but it falls mainly on the distribution of units, you can beat a swordsman army with spearmen if you have enough of them and if you can flank them and use charges to cause rolling morale losses, you can beat an evenly matched army 20 to 1 if you distribute your forces correctly. You CAN win by guessing but you will be guaranteed a victory if you organise your troops better than the enemy, and because of that it is a far more strategic game than say, starcraft.
That sort of organisation lends itself well to an RTSFPS, because players CAN organise themselves, that's the entire point of having players in fact, they are allegedly more intelligent than bots, so take advantage of that. Give victory to the team who can outmaneuver the enemy, who can control the map best, and who can shoot better than the enemy. Give it to the team who can make better use of the tools afforded to both teams evenly, not to the team whose commander guessed right at the start.
That is my point... you don't want this - which is currently where NS2 is sitting.
I'm not suggesting that this is 'the answer' to be all answers. I am suggesting that there need to be see saw moments, because tools are used well.
My main point was that (for example) a flame thrower would have big positives, but also bug negatives associated with it.
So you would make it invulnerable from the front (pretty much a 8m stream of death) but make the user slower aiming/moving when firing, can't fire near himself, vulnerable from the rear and explodes a few seconds after death. But at big resource cost to the team.
That way if you moved as a team and defended this guy, he would be effective and would tip the balance - but on his own would die to skulks of most levels.
This is currently what is happening (power nodes) but not on a 'weapon' level. So whilst you can take away power very quickly, you can't destroy a base quickly.
Maybe we just need to wait until the building destroying units are introduced.. I just hope that things like the ARC and EXO as well as the ONOS are not 'very late game' units, and would prefer to see these sort of units throughout the game. But being a bigger decider each time on outcome, whilst still having their negative pitfalls.
It would tackle the issue of games playing out slowly, and with no 'great' and 'exciting' moments - that if used well as team - tip the balance.
This could also be because you can spawn 20 build bots/drifters at the moment, and repair the whole base very easily.
The biggest feature to balance will be Dynamic Infestation and the mist feature that follows it - this will really make alien areas become alien friendly.
THen of course ONOS and EXO suit and all of those upgrades both marine and alien comms have, there are even some builds to come too. just no point yet.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--coloro:#ffff00--><span style="color:#ffff00"><!--/coloro-->+1<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> from me. Well knowing, that listening to the voice of reason is not as much fun as having fruitless thought experiments on hypothetical game states ;-)Â Â
The cost for abilities from structures like crag and whip with this new res model is a bit over the top. Activate umbra from crag or pick a new resnode hmmm...
Unless its late in the game and its going by alien favor with excess res it seems theese abilities won't be used by the alien comm, he simply cannot afford it.
Right now flamer shoots through walls, has an insane fire cone and range (MUCH farther than the particle effect!), and because of how it's animated, aliens can't tell which up/down direction it's firing. Some sort of splash effect where the flames actually hit would help, as well as a decreased fire cone. I would also support making its damage type 'light' and 'structural', so it does x2 damage against structures, and 1/4 damage against armor points. That way, structure dps can stay high while anti armor dps is lower. Plus, with one or two (or more) res nodes, it's basically free every spawn anyway.
With the flamer buffed against structures (to b156 100dps levels), I'd like to see the fade's secondary "stealth" fire given a 2x boost against structures. Since it slows you to a crawl while firing, and is useless against aware enemies, (and does the same DPS as the primary attack), I'd like to see it have an anti structure role. Plus, if you want to switch back to the first weapon (you see a marine coming, say), you have the 1 or 2 second weapon switching delay.
I think per-player plasma income is way too high, as a starved team with only one res node can still afford reasonable numbers of weapons and upgrades. Upgrading the team to a new lifeform or weapon is almost like giving the team 'free' access to that weapon or upgrade. While I don't totally support dividing plasma among players a-la NS1 (hard to balance at different player counts), I think plasma income per player is still too high to make it matter much, giving "winning" and "losing" teams a similar purchasing power... making it hard for either team to press an advantage in territory. The plasma you build up while teching to T2 or T3 can be blown pretty easily on all sorts of upgrades, making the economy mostly meaningless after a time. Yes, if we're targeting 30 minute games, having 1 hour of plasma income will lead to high numbers... but the team with a lot of territory should force the losing team to curtail their excessive buying habits so they can force an advantage.
Sentry ROF should be buffed significantly, and use carbon instead of plasma. Why? It's restricted to only 90 degrees, so it can only attack enemies while they're in front of it... this suggests that a x4 ROF compared to NS1 would help it seal off areas. Right now, best strategy for turrets is to put them in a corner so aliens attacking a room or a base are in front of the turrets as long as possible (since they cannot stop an alien rushing the turret down a corridor).. or to exploit the plasma-cost bug to select multiple macs to build x4 turrets on the same location. Building x7 turrets in one room to defend it from all sides is wasteful of server FPS and wasteful of resources, compared to the case where one turret could defend a hallway coming into a room.
The biggest feature to balance will be Dynamic Infestation and the mist feature that follows it - this will really make alien areas become alien friendly.
THen of course ONOS and EXO suit and all of those upgrades both marine and alien comms have, there are even some builds to come too. just no point yet.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I disagree. Onos and exo suits are not going to change early game assault rifle marine vs skulks balance. Nor will any of the additional features likely make the flamethrower less HUD blinding. There need not be a lot of work done on balance now, but certain things, like the early game dynamics, probably could use a bit of balance tweaking to at least make our current testing a bit easier.
Suggestion: Game start timer like NS1, during which time you would spawn in without an IP.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed, though now that the game is more playable on Tram and I have gotten in a few matches it is essentially the same thing even though Tram is a little bigger. The skulks can cut through the middle of the map and catch marines either building the IP or just completely off guard it can end the game early.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If the Marine side can get a second CC up, then the Aliens essentially are living on borrowed time. They have to kill the marine team quickly, because once Flamethrowers come out, it's all over. The flamethrower as it stands is just too powerful, for a number of reasons. It epitomises spray and pray; just wave it in the general direction of the enemy and they're screwed. That's nothing though compared to it's blinding effect; a lot of the time higher tier lifeforms could well escape, if it weren't for the flamethrower blocking their vision completely.
Before the damage of the flamethrower is looked at, it's blinding effect MUST be first priority. Hell, disable the flames altogether until a better particle system is worked out. At least that way we could get some meaningful testing of mid-game damage done.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually I think it's just really the whole blinding effect that is making it to powerful right now. It's damage seems to be perfect, it's just the fact that either tier 1 aliens (Skulk, Gorge, Lerk) are unable to quickly do an about face and get out of there to heal and possibly set up for an ambush attack. Or the fact that when the Fade is on fire it can take the direct damage from the flame thrower for a lengthy period of time before it has to think about escaping. But because it's blinded it has little to no chance of killing the marine with the flame thrower or even escaping for that matter.
I say it's damage seems to be perfect because it doesn't do a heck of a lot of damage to structures. The hydras it can clear out fairly quickly but the crags and whips the marine literally has to just stand there at a safe distance and go through a clip, sometimes a clip and a half to take out just one of those structures. These leaves him very vulnerable to attacks from behind or even a gutsy leap by the flame, or lerk zoomed attack from a distance. It's damage to the hive is just so little that it's not really worth having a marine or even two burning the hive...they would be better off guarding a team of shot gunners or grenade launchers....hell I think the Axe (knife) takes the hive down quicker then the flame thrower.
Also I can see the Flame Thrower to be the deterrent against the Tier 1 Aliens. I mean how much do you really think things as small as the Skulk, Lerk and Gorge could really take against a weapon like that. Especially if the flame is constantly on it. And it's "on fire" damage isn't really all that much. As said above the Fade can take a real good beating from the Flame Thrower...it just can't see who's doing the beating...the player just knows it's on fire. I can only think how little damage the Flame Thrower will do to the Onos when it is put into the game.
So yeah my final opinion on the FT is that it's damage is right where or very very close to where it needs to be...it's blinding effect though needs to be lowered. Not 100% off because I think your vision should be some what impaired. But yeah not what it is now.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Coversely, if the marine team doesn't get a second CC up early, they tend to be the ones who get screwed. Marine tier 1 is poor at best against the Alien team, not least because Aliens are so good at taking down Marine structures, but Marines are so poor at taking down Alien structures. One major reason for that is Sentry guns; their limited field of fire is supposed to be balanced by their higher damage, but I can tell you that I've seen lone whips stopping entire Marine teams. 1 sentry is a laughable threat by comparison. Even when they do fire, their damage is hardly anything to be feared, especially considering the higher mobility of the alien team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Regarding the Sentry's. Yeah, I think they need some work. Honestly I think a 180 degree field of view would work a lot better and balance them out a bit more. 90 degree's just makes it so you have to buy so many to be able to cover every portion of your base. Even then, Skulks and Lerks are able to get into certain areas where the sentries are now useless. Skulks can just leap over them before they spin up and begin to fire and then just chomp them down. Lerks can hit them out of their range of fire. Which I think is ok because this is just another reason why having the Lerk as a ranged class (yes I am talking about not bringing back bite because it would make the Lerk useless) is proving very useful to the Alien Team. But something has to be done with the Sentries. It's proving to costly for the marine team and at the same time they are easily taken down.
This.
Sorry in advance for upcoming wall of text
Flamers are very effective against light armored targets such as Skulks, Gorges and Lerks, once you try to burn down a fade it takes a decent amount of time to get through its armor until you actually hurt it. So Flamer damage all in all is pretty good, tho it might need some sort of bit slowed down movement, cuz right now u cant outrun a Flamer which is pretty annoying due to its massive damage to health and the vast amount of time ur on fire. And maybe a bit less range, cuz right now you can shoot Lifeforms out of the Vents at Elevator Transport on Tram which entrances are like 5m up on the ceiling.
Grenade Launcher are, as they are right now a pretty good tradeoff for your Riflebutt secondary. You gain the ability to blow up clustered structures pretty well from a safe distance but are more vulnerable to skulks rushing at you. Damage might need a little tone so u dont need so spend 5 of your 8 (or 9?) grenades on a single Crag.
Shotguns are fine, once FPS and lags are all gone especially with tons of Hydras/Turrets placed they are pretty much the best thing to get down fades due to their massive burst damage.
Skulks are fast and deadly but killed easy, well balanced and lots of fun to play and play against.
Gorges are fun to play, pure support, pretty squishy, self healing need a tune. Hydras basicly only causing Serverlag and not opposing a real threat
Lerks are a little hard to hit due to occasional FPS drops / lags and its high speed, probably easier to kill once new Pistol is in. Awesome support Unit with gas and sniping
Fades are devastating, blink in kill 1 or 2 Marines and blink out, watch out for your armor when facing flamers and everything is fine.
The thing which leads to unbalancing right now is basicly the missing research cost and time for aliens compared to those implemented for rines.
Assuming both teams start with 50 Carbon and 1 RT like it is right now :
Early to Midgame:
- Marines have to get a second CC for 20 Carbon and have to spend 20 Carbon for upgrading to a CF which takes about 1 min (just estimating)
- Marines need an IP (20 Carbon) and an Armory (10 Carbon) just to get a base started
- Marines should get a few RTs by now or they`ll just starve on Res(only Carbon for 1 RT remaining, second takes crucial time to get the Res to place)
- Marines get upgrades (15 Carbon for A1/W1 each and about 30s to research) or go for fast tech (second CC or 15 Carbon for SG)
- Aliens have to get a second Hive for 20 Carbon and just have to wait about that estimated 1 min for Hive Mass to finish
- Meanwhile Alien Commander can drop 2 additional RTs which boost Alien res income massively
- Aliens drop a Crag and a Whip (10 Carbon each) to get M1/A1 for no cost and no time
- Hive Mass goes up, M2/A2 is researched at no cost, Running leap can be researched for 5 Carbon in about 15s, Fades now available
Mid to Endgame:
- Marines get A2/W2 by now once they got their CF up and can afford it or get AA upgraded(15 Carbon, and sometimes renders AA unaccessable) for Flamers (15 Carbon)
- Marines try to get some more RTs or try to get up 3rd CC to go for T3 ups
- Marines grab tons of flamers and try to burn through an Alien controlled map hive by hive
- Aliens need that third hive and this time need those 20 Carbon which at least gives some balance, 1 min as well to finish
- Aliens get M3/A3 for free once again and now got huge respool
- Lots of Fades go out and rape Marine base
This is basicly what happens all the time except for those Games where a single Commander has to drop, build and defend the IP for his fellow teammates to spawn in.
Just played a 1 v 2 (me as alien) against a reasonable marine side on Tram.
They kept taking structures down, but I kept erecting hives, whips and crags until they began securing every point. I was loosing, but would have gone on for another half hour or so, and had already been going for around 40 minutes. This was 1 v 2 as well remember, they had better odds.
This is the issue at the moment with stalemates, because there are no structure clearing weapons yet. They set up an armoury outside the hives, then kept flaming/grenading the base. I kept fighting back and securing it.
If it was a weapon that was very powerful, interfered with the users view, was slow move/aim whilst firing, required squad cover... etc. We would not have these problems as much.
There needs to be an effective weapon each tier for this kind of work, but as you go up a tier it has less negatives and more positives.
To beat the other side at the moment you have to secure every tech node 100%, which is a long and slow (boring) game.
- Marines have to get a second CC for 20 Carbon and have to spend 20 Carbon for upgrading to a CF which takes about 1 min (just estimating)
- Marines need an IP (20 Carbon) and an Armory (10 Carbon) just to get a base started
...etc<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Marines are supposed to start with an IP, but for some reason this is only the case when cheats are on.
Personally I think Hives should cost more since they double as (mass) spawn points.