Alternative to Medpack/Ammo Spamming
zex
Join Date: 2009-10-07 Member: 68978Members
Join Date: 2009-10-07 Member: 68978Members
<div class="IPBDescription">this is a suggestion for an alternative to medpack/ammo spamming</div>Someone posted in another thread something to the effect that the commander's ability to teleport medpacks and ammo into battle seems cheap and has no real counter.
So my suggestion here, in order to make the ability more RTS'y and more deeply strategic while maintaining the spirit of the NS1 gameplay element, is a new building or AI unit that acts as a "teleport beacon" for ammo and medpacks. Within a certain radius of this unit, the commander can teleport medpacks and ammo, but outside the effective radius nothing can be dropped. I imagine this to be something like a Whip in the sense that it's a building that's also slightly mobile. This adds more strategy as it must be built and placed, and can also be destroyed by aliens in order to counter.
So my suggestion here, in order to make the ability more RTS'y and more deeply strategic while maintaining the spirit of the NS1 gameplay element, is a new building or AI unit that acts as a "teleport beacon" for ammo and medpacks. Within a certain radius of this unit, the commander can teleport medpacks and ammo, but outside the effective radius nothing can be dropped. I imagine this to be something like a Whip in the sense that it's a building that's also slightly mobile. This adds more strategy as it must be built and placed, and can also be destroyed by aliens in order to counter.
Comments
Could it be a (mobile) power node? It seems odd, and unfair that the Marine commander has the ability to drop stuffs anywhere on the map.
This way you can lay a good siege on an alien hive, if you just make sure to repair the node at the same time your rines attack, while you cant do it on the alien main base, or if the aliens stop you from repairing the node. It also makes the powergrid matter more as a territorial control.
It's a problem for some people, clearly. I think there is much room for improvement personally, especially in the area of allowing aliens to counter it.
There is no elegance or strategy to the spamming of anything.
This way you can lay a good siege on an alien hive, if you just make sure to repair the node at the same time your rines attack, while you cant do it on the alien main base, or if the aliens stop you from repairing the node. It also makes the powergrid matter more as a territorial control.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+1
It costs res. That directly links it to the strategy. Either you're 'spamming' to buy some kind of advantage on the field or you're spamming because your previous actions have put you into such dominant position that you can afford to throw away res.
It's not uncommon in RTS games that two players choose to do the exact same large scale strategy (in NS' case many of the large strategical decisions were even quite obvious). At that point the difference between a good player and a bad player comes from being able to do the little things in right ways on smaller scale strategical, tactical and mechanical play. In NS medpacks were one of the important things that a good commander did better than a person simply mimicing the stratgical outline. A good commander could afford one more upgrade in the long run OR take the map dominance with a momentarily med heavier play while a bad commander could only spam or upgrade instead of adapting to the situation.
As usual, I don't want to force medpacks in to a game they don't suit, but it's important to see both the positives and negatives of them <b>and then</b> possibly consider if there are better alternatives for NS2 and its design - whatever it is or ends up being.
As for me - without having even the slightest bit of idea how the game is supposed to work RTS level - I'd like to see the role of meds developed further and adjusted instead of just directly minimized. In NS1 they're roughly the only direct influence the commander has on marines. In NS2 maybe for example catalysts could be designed to offer more alternatives and interaction with the marines and MACs designed to offer commander different kind of micromanagement decisions. I think it would be sweet if the babysitting effect could be removed without interfering too much with the ability to make actual decisions in fights.
It's not uncommon in RTS games that two players choose to do the exact same large scale strategy (in NS' case many of the large strategical decisions were even quite obvious). At that point the difference between a good player and a bad player comes from being able to do the little things in right ways on smaller scale strategical, tactical and mechanical play. In NS medpacks were one of the important things that a good commander did better than a person simply mimicing the stratgical outline. A good commander could afford one more upgrade in the long run OR take the map dominance with a momentarily med heavier play while a bad commander could only spam or upgrade instead of adapting to the situation.
As usual, I don't want to force medpacks in to a game they don't suit, but it's important to see both the positives and negatives of them <b>and then</b> possibly consider if there are better alternatives for NS2 and its design - whatever it is or ends up being.
As for me - without having even the slightest bit of idea how the game is supposed to work RTS level - I'd like to see the role of meds developed further and adjusted instead of just directly minimized. In NS1 they're roughly the only direct influence the commander has on marines. In NS2 maybe for example catalysts could be designed to offer more alternatives and interaction with the marines and MACs designed to offer commander different kind of micromanagement decisions. I think it would be sweet if the babysitting effect could be removed without interfering too much with the ability to make actual decisions in fights.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Medpacks only cost 2 personal res in NS2, which is far too cheap. They use to cost "team resources" in NS1, so spamming would have been ill-advised.
Most of time, dropped med packs in NS2 are not picked up, and end up just as littering on the floor. This is neither fun for the commander nor the marines (who couldn't walk on med packs to save his own skin).
I would like to see a cooldown placed on Medpacks, with stackable supplies (as suggested by <b>Harimau</b>), as well as an increase in Medpack cost.
How about: individual Marines spawn with one Medpack each as they spawn, and can use it at a time of their own choosing. The commander would only be able resupply the marines with Medpacks, thus reducing the emphasis on the commander to spam Medpacks. This would also stop Medpacks being the "superman drug" that allow light armour marines to soak ridiculous amounts of damage by simply standing still.
Most of time, dropped med packs in NS2 are not picked up, and end up just as littering on the floor. This is neither fun for the commander nor the marines (who couldn't walk on med packs to save his own skin).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
At that point there's an issue on the res model or medpack's role in it. One of the biggest ideas of medpack is that you buy momentarily map advantage at the cost of something else. Either personal res needs some other value or the meds should be moved to team res. Increasing the medpack cost is a solution also, but I think having a res pool too focused on medpacks is the core issue, at least if they want to mimic medpack's role in NS1.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I would like to see a cooldown placed on Medpacks, with stackable supplies (as suggested by <b>Harimau</b>), as well as an increase in Medpack cost.
How about: individual Marines spawn with one Medpack each as they spawn, and can use it at a time of their own choosing. The commander would only be able resupply the marines with Medpacks, thus reducing the emphasis on the commander to spam Medpacks. This would also stop Medpacks being the "superman drug" that allow light armour marines to soak ridiculous amounts of damage by simply standing still.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Once again, keeping marines supplied with medpacks outside the combat isn't that cool. It's babysitting mostly. As long as marine outside combat is worth supplying (which probably is a reasonable thing for the fun factor of the marine involved), there's very little decisionmaking involved and medpacking becomes a chore with very little actual depth in it. A lot of the medpacking challenge comes from being able to estimate the cost and value quickly and then reacting according to your strategy. Marines' personal use medpacks aren't one bit reactionary from commander's viewpoint.
Light armors soaking ridiculous amounts of meds should cost ridiculous amounts of res. At that point the aliens have already either allowed marines to have way too much or they're forcing marines to prioritize meds over everything else and probably allowing aliens to win in longer term game. Once again, there's only issue if the whole res pool is dedicated to medpacking and even then marines shouldn't be able to afford to spend it all at once in vast majority of cases.
Edit: And this is assuming the medpack has still somewhat similar role as in NS1. If they want to build the commanding around some other abilities, fine. However, I don't find a very good idea to just rework one major area of commanding without talking about its effects in larger scale. If you only change medpacks, you change a lot of the whole nature of commanding, which then brings us to a completely different debate instead of just focused talk on medpacks.
But it isn't like in NS1, Armor is being revived, too (by medpacks)
Most of time, dropped med packs in NS2 are not picked up, and end up just as littering on the floor. This is neither fun for the commander nor the marines (who couldn't walk on med packs to save his own skin).
I would like to see a cooldown placed on Medpacks, with stackable supplies (as suggested by <b>Harimau</b>), as well as an increase in Medpack cost.
How about: individual Marines spawn with one Medpack each as they spawn, and can use it at a time of their own choosing. The commander would only be able resupply the marines with Medpacks, thus reducing the emphasis on the commander to spam Medpacks. This would also stop Medpacks being the "superman drug" that allow light armour marines to soak ridiculous amounts of damage by simply standing still.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then this would be an argument for increasing their cost. However, I like the marines carrying medpacks idea. If you are going to increase medpack cost, then there should be a way for comms to ensure the marines get it.
The reason why you have to spam the medpacks is because 75% of the time the marine doesn't pick them up. Either they don't see it on the ground or its bugged (such as when you drop it on the marine or on invisible map geometry and it hovers in the air). That's why I find the most effective use of ammo/medpacks is just to spam them around the marine and hope they run over them as they fight.
These are good points, though. We don't really know what the RTS experience is envisioned to be. Also, I imagine the armor restoration on Healthpacks is an unintended oversight (at least I hope so)
Armor get a slight increase when medpack is received. Nice touch!
In regards to the spamming phenom, if instead meds are an allocation of a command consoles energy as opposed to a teams resource we might have a solution to two exploits..
other ideas I'm just throwing out there, are you could make it so you cant spawn medpacks next to aliens, so the commander cant really interfere with a fight, and he can only heal them once its over. You could make the medpacks slowly bring up the health, not a big fan of that idea. put a limit on how many you can spawn. to reduce waste, make it so you click on the marine to heal him, and add some fancy animation so that he and the alien knows.
In regards to the spamming phenom, if instead meds are an allocation of a command consoles energy as opposed to a teams resource we might have a solution to two exploits..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Also, if we did the opposite, removing Energy altogether and replacing it with Personal Res cost, commanders would not only have a use for personal res, but would also run out of it faster, therefore probably less likely to spam it as frequently.