As mentioned in the cons, giving team res disrupts game speed, but as individual res doesn't affect the progression of the game, but does affect the team strength, just individual RFK would allow teams to become stronger through good performance but not make the game go too fast.
I don't think a lessening of high level strategic importance is a bad thing, currently it's easily the biggest thing in the game which is quite disproportionate given that only one player per team actually controls it.
Taking the reliance off hunting res nodes and putting it more on playing well as a team and fighting enemies effectively would improve the game I think.
If you cut personal res flow a little, and add RFK, it would make players get stronger based on performance in combat, while teams as a whole get stronger by strategic control.
I gotta admit I don't get the RFK for kills argument. It seems like a solution looking for a problem. Looking at the pros and cons, I don't see that the pros are actually fixes:
* harvester recycle problem : negated by later decision that RFK is personal res only.
* marine relocate trick : ditto.
* early fade or hive : ditto, because these are now more team-res limited.
* turn around a losing battle : debatable. After all, we can't forget that the winning team was getting RFKs while building that lead! So this isn't actually a fix, it's at most neutral. And since early game effects are typically more important than late-game effects (RTS theory 101), I'd actually say that RFK REDUCES the chance of a comeback, since it puts the losing team in a bigger hole early.
* turn around a losing battle part 2 : In addition to the above, I think the whole premise is flawed. You mount a comeback by playing better, and improving your position on the board, not by an artificial point system. That is, if you are outplaying your opponent, you will be gaining an advantage in lifeforms, tech, or terrain. If this ISN'T happening, if superior play alone isn't enough, then the game design is broken on a deeper level and needs to be fixed. RFKs just paper over the deeper problem.
* what's wrong with suicide rushes? meat-grinder attrition is a valid tactic, just ask the Russians. Why penalize for it?
* "rewarding" or "encouraging" good play? Is this a problem? Are there players who would otherwise want to suck? No. And commanders will gift the best weapons to the best players, RFK or not. Again, if you have to "bribe" players to play well, the game design is broken on a much deeper level, and RFK won't fix it.
* Recouping your investment with static D? Is this a problem? No. There's already a reason for investment in static D, and that's to WIN THE GAME. This ain't "SIM NS." Again, if you have to "bribe" players to play well, the game design is broken. And does this game need MORE static D? Is that what we want?
* Encouraging players to ambush and not die? Again, bribery is broken.
* This is NOT a strategic bonus. It's a tactical bonus. Kill the other guy, don't die yourself. That's as tactical as you can get. And how much sense does it make thematically, if something called PERSONAL res was strategically-based? Thats a by-definition contradiction.
* There is already WAY too many personal res in the game, we already know that this is going to be nerfed. So why even think about P-res boosters at this point? Maybe later, but not now.
-----
The CONS, however, are quite real:
* Coding and testing RFK won't be free, time spent on it is time not spent on a different game feature.
* It can cause the runaway effect in the midgame. Fade, kill, kill, kill, die, spend the RFKs to Fade again. Repeat.
* Marginalizes the Skulk even more, because RFK reduces the effective cost of higher, more RFK-efficient lifeforms.
* If you thought NS2 was newbie-hostile before, wait until poor play can have a NEGATIVE effect on a team. We will be able to see the "GTFO NOOB" flames from space.
------
tldr:
IMO, this is a feature that will consume development time and not bring any real benefit. I'm totally against features unless they solve a problem. Feature-creep is the number one killer in software development.
I definitely liked a lot of things RFK did in NS1, but I think a lot of those things are either gone or at least iffy in NS2. Some are also probably better done through some other means rather than the RFK.
Some thingys I like(d) in NS1:
RFK creates variation without being necessarily a random thing. Almost every alien timing was affected by the RFK. The rest of the NS resoucre model is pretty simple compared to most RTS games (no worker saturations, no interrupted mining time, no balancing between multiple resoucre types, ect ect), so RFK did a good job at breaking up the patterns. It also forces decisions: Should we get the hive before the fade goes up? (without RFK both the hive and fade would be hitting 50 res simultaneously).
RFK is a teamwork factor at best. A good team controls the RFK flow. For example a RFK for fade goes to a res pool that stays inactive as long as the fade is alive. Meanwhile a RFK for skulk goes to a pool that can be used effectively at any point. You can also try to direct skulk frags to a certain skulk to hit some certain timing earlier. Things like this could've probably developed a lot further if the competetive scene would've had time and activity to keep going at full speed longer.
RFK creates some strategy. For example as a 2nd hive fade I might sometimes simply harass the marine start and try to rack up frags for a while. Once I hit 50 res through RFK I can afford to refade, which then again means that I can play more aggressive and take more risks and for example try to break the 3rd hive free more effectively.
---
Those are all kind of characteristic things for the NS1 alien res model. I think there the RFK was highly beneficial, at least on smaller games. Meanwhile I'm not totally convinced on the reasoning NS2 has for RFK. The res model is different and for example almost every res on individual pools is spent on pure fighting strength instead of economy or tech. All in all I'm not sure at how good it will work when both teams are sort of cross bred between individual and team res pools.
I agree with Bacillus on RFK. I doubt it will give us the same emergent gameplay because of the split resource system.
On commanders dropping weapons:
In NS1 a commander could drop 5 medpacks for every shotgun. Given that NS2 uses personal res for weapons, you can now drop 12.5 medpacks for every shotgun, which makes medding more efficient than dropping weapons in almost every circumstance. What will be done to balance this?
<!--quoteo(post=1849142:date=May 30 2011, 03:07 AM:name=Squidget)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squidget @ May 30 2011, 03:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1849142"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->* If you thought NS2 was newbie-hostile before, wait until poor play can have a NEGATIVE effect on a team. We will be able to see the "GTFO NOOB" flames from space.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, Feeding dynamics do not create helpful cooperative teams, they build selfish players looking to jack frags.
Again, WHY JUST KILLS? Shouldn't players be rewarded equally for being good builders, ground-holders, res-cappers, etc.?
<!--quoteo(post=1849237:date=May 30 2011, 04:50 PM:name=KuBaN)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (KuBaN @ May 30 2011, 04:50 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1849237"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah, Feeding dynamics do not create helpful cooperative teams, they build selfish players looking to jack frags.
Again, WHY JUST KILLS? Shouldn't players be rewarded equally for being good builders, ground-holders, res-cappers, etc.?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, if you ARE going to provide an RFK system, then I agree it should include things other than kills. Call it "RFK+".
Of course that means someone has to design a good award system. The current point system is probably not sufficient, so more work is needed.
Also, I think RFK+ has the same problem as RFK: it doesn't solve an obvious problem, so shouldn't be included.
Saint RawJoin Date: 2011-05-18Member: 99414Members
RFK.
Finally a good reason to stay alive instead of going japanese rambo kamikaze aliens/marines. Having to stay alive to deny the other team some resources is more effective than the few seconds you're forced out of the game.
Skulks will be used more as an harass class, falling from walls and ###### camping out strategic positions instead of leaping around attacking groups of marines for that 1 kill you could get.
It was good in ns1, and if implemented correctly it will be good in ns2.
<!--quoteo(post=1849237:date=May 31 2011, 07:50 AM:name=KuBaN)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (KuBaN @ May 31 2011, 07:50 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1849237"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah, Feeding dynamics do not create helpful cooperative teams, they build selfish players looking to jack frags.
Again, WHY JUST KILLS? Shouldn't players be rewarded equally for being good builders, ground-holders, res-cappers, etc.?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The thing is though, a player who builds stuff, holds ground and caps res nodes IS getting rewarded. Those actions are going to lead to either advantages for his team or disadvantages for the enemy team, which in turn is going to lead directly to that player having access to more resources and more toys to play with. The current resource model encourages all those elements you mentioned because that's what you have to do to get res. RFK corrodes that. With RFK, a player has two options to gain resources to spend on juicy upgrades: work as a team or kill stuff. Most players in today's FPS market are going to pick option 2. Solution? Don't provide an option 2, or, as the current system does, disguise it heavily and make it a secondary objective.
Games like Bad Company 2 or Brink reward the player for actions through experience, but those games use unlock systems. In other objective based games like TF2, your reward for playing as a team is success. Seems to be reward enough in and of itself. I never liked RFK in NS1 and I see no need for it in NS2. Frankly, it's a deal breaker for me.
I there are quite a few unsanwered questions with the whole res model. At least I'd have much easier time discussing RFK if I understood how the res flow as a whole is supposed to work.
If aliens are not spending their individual res on building, how are we going to encourage lifeform diversion enough? Right now it would seem somewhat reasonable to have something like 3 lerks and 3 fades in a 6 player team. If you really have to, drop one lerk or fade off and add a gorge. Nobody has a reason to stay skulk.
Hopefully some skulk upgrades are worth investing regularly, so that you have at least some alternatives to rushing higher lifeforms. I guess in a way the problematic gorge role is backfiring to skulks too; in NS1 the skulk had ability to gorge, use up it's res and proceed with the skulking.
<!--quoteo(post=1849282:date=May 30 2011, 11:37 PM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ May 30 2011, 11:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1849282"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I there are quite a few unsanwered questions with the whole res model. At least I'd have much easier time discussing RFK if I understood how the res flow as a whole is supposed to work.
If aliens are not spending their individual res on building, how are we going to encourage lifeform diversion enough? Right now it would seem somewhat reasonable to have something like 3 lerks and 3 fades in a 6 player team. If you really have to, drop one lerk or fade off and add a gorge. Nobody has a reason to stay skulk.
Hopefully some skulk upgrades are worth investing regularly, so that you have at least some alternatives to rushing higher lifeforms. I guess in a way the problematic gorge role is backfiring to skulks too; in NS1 the skulk had ability to gorge, use up it's res and proceed with the skulking.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Not to get bogged down in strategy, but 3 lerk / 3 fade is not a great build. You don't "have to" add a gorge, you SHOULD add a gorge. Fades with gorge healing are the best seige weapon aliens currently have.
As far as skulks:
This is a longstanding problem, there's simply no reason to be a skulk unless you are too poor to upgrade. It's something I hope will be corrected over time. And, as I mentioned before, RFK will make skulks even WORSE, not better.
I wish skulks had a support ability that made them valuable in a group. Frankly, if they could pull an incap move like L4D's Hunter or Jockey, I think they would be awesome. Then groups with skulks could actually work, with the skulk being the ambusher/incapacitor, and the others making the kill.
<!--quoteo(post=1849404:date=Jun 1 2011, 02:32 AM:name=Squidget)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squidget @ Jun 1 2011, 02:32 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1849404"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As far as skulks:
This is a longstanding problem, there's simply no reason to be a skulk unless you are too poor to upgrade. It's something I hope will be corrected over time. And, as I mentioned before, RFK will make skulks even WORSE, not better.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> If you copypaste the NS1 RFK model into NS2 directly it favours higher lifeforms. I'm more thinking about cherry picking some things out of it and mixing in some new features if necessary.
I think in NS1 styled res model for the alien RFK benefits skulks to some extend. They've got a good access to the acquired RFK while higher lifeforms are simply hoarding the RFK until they die. Then again the marine RFK favours the use of higher lifeforms.
I believe that with the right combination you could actually make skulks a bit more valuable and unique units. Possibly you could even weight the RFK in favour of skulks to make them more viable. However, I don't know if it's good if the skulk gets a boost on the economical game only to allow it stop being a skulk. These are exactly the things that keep puzzling me because I can't see the big plan anywhere.
---
As for the strategy, I think the gorge role will be contested a bit more when the chambers get updated. Regen upgrade is already planned and the alien commanders are learning the field use of crags to further boost the field healing. Alien commander will probably have some spells that help the damage mitigation too. I'm still running NS2 at 15 FPS, so I can't argue much outside theorycrafting on this one though. If you think the gorges are worth it, they probably are.
All good points. Yes, due to marine RFK, skulks are not a good idea. You have the same problem I have: how do you get a handle on RFK without understanding the big picture? I phrase that as "not seeing the problem" that RFK would solve.
Yeah, I've seen the value of gorges in real games. For example, Rockdown often devolves into marines only holding marine start, then putting turrents all over it. Fades and lerks can assault constantly from marine expansion, but with say 5-6 players they'll have trouble keeping momentum. Shotties repel the fades and flamers repel the lerks.
Ideally, the alien comm can fortify that the with crags, but that means the alien team has to hold it. The problem is that when the marines push back, the aliens typically give ground and lose Marine Expansion. Gorges allow the assault team to hold their staging area, using healspray and sometimes hydras. This is lot more effective then retreating to West hive.
We had a cool game where the assault team was 3 fades, 1 lerk, and 2 gorges. The gorges literally used up all their juice constantly healspraying fades and each other. We were never kicked out of marine expansion, and eventually destroyed marine start with almost no causualties. It was glorious.
swalkSay hello to my little friend.Join Date: 2011-01-20Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
edited June 2011
Im afraid that pustules wont work so well gameplay wise. It might be easier for marines to kill the pustules(and remove infestation, and have alien buildings kill themselves) instead of the buildings(harvesters etc.). I liked the old idea alot more; You need to have a flamethrower to remove the DI. With the new marine tech tree it isn't so hard(you needed more res before) to get flamethrowers. This pustule idea makes flamers alot less needed, which is sad in my opinion. I have always imagined the future DI to work this way: Alien commander should be able to push the infestation towards a point. He uses that ability on the ground(near a res nozzle) and the nearest infestation starts growing toward the point where he used the ability. The further away the point is from other DI, the longer it will take for it to get there. Over time infestation crawls up on walls, cielings and makes a larger AOE of the infestation, slowly but automaticly. The counter to infestation is a flamethrower. If you burn the edges of infestation, it slowly shrinks. If you burn the infestation on a more forward point in the alien territory, you can "cut the infestation off" and potentially kill alot of infestation if the aliens dont react. To cut if off, you should have to free all the geometry of infestation so its not linked anywhere(walls, cielings etc.). Now the infestation behind you will retract fast, because its not connected to a hive. This way you would sometimes have to burn the corridors to cut it off, because your flamer cant reach the cieling in large rooms. That would also make more sense in the territory control gameplay. The closer the infestation is to a hive, the more HP it should have. That takes alot of testing to get right.
They mentioned 500hp a while ago, but that might have changed by now... dunno.
500hp, no weapon upgrades: 50 lmg, 25 pistol, 17 altpistol, ~4nades, ~3shotgun, ~10sec flamethrower, 2 arc hits - or something like that if im not wrong.
PS: im happy that marines arent forced to research ft asap anymore, that wasnt fun - especially since its more a support weapon.
swalkSay hello to my little friend.Join Date: 2011-01-20Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
Exactly what I meant, pustules have less health than alien buildings, so we will have easy takedowns on alien buildings(early game) and a spam of pustules(late-game). That's not a good gameplay mechanic in my opinion. But I hope that im wrong.
swalkSay hello to my little friend.Join Date: 2011-01-20Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
edited June 2011
I know that I havent tested it. But those are my thoughts. And im afraid that they might be real, because they can be real. It would be wierd if the best way to kill a harvester is to blast the hell out of a pustule. Other than that, they might be annoying to walk on, like hydras are atm. :) And if they had more health than a harvester, they might be overpowered, hence my thoughts of it having lower health.
Edit: And if proves that im right, pustules could be used as infestation growth amplifiers. So a commander could build them with a drifter instead. And the further away from the a hive the infestation is, the slower it should grow.
With pustules, I agree there might be an issue of scaling as the game progresses.
In the beginning of the game, pustules should be somewhat hard to kill, but less abundant. Later in the game, they should be more abundant, but easier to kill (with right equipment, flamethrower).
Its hard to imagine how they could pull this off, but its possible. For starters, pustules could have low hitpoints, but relatively high health regen. In the beginning of the game, the regen is fast enough to even stave of single marine with a sg...and with upcoming reduced point blank sg damage, this is easier to imagine. Two marines however should be able to take one down. This allows marines to take out overly ambitious and isolated pustule placement, but a single marine can not go on a pillage rampage and take down every pustule he comes across.
Later in the game, as the pustules get "older" and spread more and more infestation, they naturally upgrade their health and regen, making it harder to kill. Think of the infestation as the roots nourishing the tree (pustule). More roots means a healthier, more resilient tree. Additionally, the alien comm can tech up pustule health/regen upgrades as well. A fully "matured" and upgraded pustule would be near impossible to kill with regular small firearms. A flamethrower however could be used to reduce the DI originating from the pustule, which would also reduce the pustule's regen. Depending on how much of the DI is burned off, it would be enough so that the marine (or another marine helping him) can easily kill it.
For those who need lore justifications, think of the pustule as your liver or skin. Both of the liver and skin can regenerate itself even when large pieces of itself are cut out. Both are also more structurally simple and homogenous organs when compared to the brain for instance, so its easier to repair. Pustules are simple blob structures, and are also easier to repair than a more complicated hive structure.
Yea...this is all a solution to a problem that might not exist....but its near the end of the patch cycle and its something to talk about.
RFK is ok if the values will be balanced, like doing a alien PRespool again and then giving the Pres to the aliens, like in NS1. Each alien gets a differen precentage from this pool ( gorge a bit more and onos almost nothing) so playing skulk would still have a scence because he may get more res from the pool than than a Fade. Or bite gives 3 pres and slash only 1.
For the Marines i would say killing a Skulk should give less Res than killing a Onos whit a MAC. And maybe giving Pres for a kill when you aren't in a Squad, and giving PRes and TRes if you are linked to a Squad.
So that are just ideas and I didn't really thought much about then.
So RFK can be a really good feature and forcing team play if its well balanced and tested.
I know everyone is going to shout SC2 rip off, but you could just make postules "disappear" into DI once they're fully matureed. To reveal them so the marines can kill them you would either need to use a beacon or torch them with a flamethrower. Just a thought.
<!--quoteo(post=1849617:date=Jun 2 2011, 10:55 AM:name=OutlawDr)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (OutlawDr @ Jun 2 2011, 10:55 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1849617"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->For starters, pustules could have low hitpoints, but relatively high health regen. In the beginning of the game, the regen is fast enough to even stave of single marine with a sg...and with upcoming reduced point blank sg damage, this is easier to imagine. Two marines however should be able to take one down. This allows marines to take out overly ambitious and isolated pustule placement, but a single marine can not go on a pillage rampage and take down every pustule he comes across.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is sort of how I was hoping it would turn out anyways. Infestation provides FAST regeneration, but being On Fire would either prevent regeneration altogether or slow it down such that a lot less net damage is required to take entities down (I'm suggesting 'the Fire DoT be a % of Total Health per second'). In this way, the Flamethrower would still keep it's utility against Dynamic Infestation, and Kharaa regeneration in general, but would still remain a support weapon (used to spread dangerous flames, but typically bad at 1-on-1 conflict).
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=Design Decision Log)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Design Decision Log)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->5. Using the flamethrower on infestation will set it on fire. The fire should immediately spread around it, getting all the way to the pustule and setting it on fire within a few seconds. When the infestation is on fire, it will do damage over time to the pustule. When the pustule is on fire, it will take additional damage. The idea here is that you can attack the infestation with the flamethrower (only) and have some effect, but you can be the most effective when you attack the pustule directly.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Isn't the appeal of Fire (as a weapon) it's propensity to spread and become unmanageable?
Shouldn't then setting fire to multiple entities, rather than focusing fire on one entity, be the desired strategy with Flamethrowers?
Every other weapon's skillset revolves around precise aim and focus-firing. It seems like the Flamethrower would be a more distinct weapon if it's intended use was to set as much on Fire as possible.
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=Design Decision Log)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Design Decision Log)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->6. Only the hive ability can create pustules. It uses hive energy to do so. We could add another ability on to the pustule later (something where it speeds infestation growth temporarily?) but I want the core infestation growth to be chained to the hive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Why not change it to a Personal Res cost, so that a Commander's ability to spread infestation is actually affected by his team's success (defending ResTowers, which provides more P.Res), instead of using the static Energy-regeneration rate?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->- Thinking about having Gorge temporary infestation/growth become permanent if it links up to hive (not sure about server perf. yet<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If this gets in i would start playing the "picasso"-style gorge <3
Comments
As mentioned in the cons, giving team res disrupts game speed, but as individual res doesn't affect the progression of the game, but does affect the team strength, just individual RFK would allow teams to become stronger through good performance but not make the game go too fast.
I don't think a lessening of high level strategic importance is a bad thing, currently it's easily the biggest thing in the game which is quite disproportionate given that only one player per team actually controls it.
Taking the reliance off hunting res nodes and putting it more on playing well as a team and fighting enemies effectively would improve the game I think.
If you cut personal res flow a little, and add RFK, it would make players get stronger based on performance in combat, while teams as a whole get stronger by strategic control.
* harvester recycle problem : negated by later decision that RFK is personal res only.
* marine relocate trick : ditto.
* early fade or hive : ditto, because these are now more team-res limited.
* turn around a losing battle : debatable. After all, we can't forget that the winning team was getting RFKs while building that lead! So this isn't actually a fix, it's at most neutral. And since early game effects are typically more important than late-game effects (RTS theory 101), I'd actually say that RFK REDUCES the chance of a comeback, since it puts the losing team in a bigger hole early.
* turn around a losing battle part 2 : In addition to the above, I think the whole premise is flawed. You mount a comeback by playing better, and improving your position on the board, not by an artificial point system. That is, if you are outplaying your opponent, you will be gaining an advantage in lifeforms, tech, or terrain. If this ISN'T happening, if superior play alone isn't enough, then the game design is broken on a deeper level and needs to be fixed. RFKs just paper over the deeper problem.
* what's wrong with suicide rushes? meat-grinder attrition is a valid tactic, just ask the Russians. Why penalize for it?
* "rewarding" or "encouraging" good play? Is this a problem? Are there players who would otherwise want to suck? No. And commanders will gift the best weapons to the best players, RFK or not. Again, if you have to "bribe" players to play well, the game design is broken on a much deeper level, and RFK won't fix it.
* Recouping your investment with static D? Is this a problem? No. There's already a reason for investment in static D, and that's to WIN THE GAME. This ain't "SIM NS." Again, if you have to "bribe" players to play well, the game design is broken. And does this game need MORE static D? Is that what we want?
* Encouraging players to ambush and not die? Again, bribery is broken.
* This is NOT a strategic bonus. It's a tactical bonus. Kill the other guy, don't die yourself. That's as tactical as you can get. And how much sense does it make thematically, if something called PERSONAL res was strategically-based? Thats a by-definition contradiction.
* There is already WAY too many personal res in the game, we already know that this is going to be nerfed. So why even think about P-res boosters at this point? Maybe later, but not now.
-----
The CONS, however, are quite real:
* Coding and testing RFK won't be free, time spent on it is time not spent on a different game feature.
* It can cause the runaway effect in the midgame. Fade, kill, kill, kill, die, spend the RFKs to Fade again. Repeat.
* Marginalizes the Skulk even more, because RFK reduces the effective cost of higher, more RFK-efficient lifeforms.
* If you thought NS2 was newbie-hostile before, wait until poor play can have a NEGATIVE effect on a team. We will be able to see the "GTFO NOOB" flames from space.
------
tldr:
IMO, this is a feature that will consume development time and not bring any real benefit. I'm totally against features unless they solve a problem. Feature-creep is the number one killer in software development.
Some thingys I like(d) in NS1:
RFK creates variation without being necessarily a random thing. Almost every alien timing was affected by the RFK. The rest of the NS resoucre model is pretty simple compared to most RTS games (no worker saturations, no interrupted mining time, no balancing between multiple resoucre types, ect ect), so RFK did a good job at breaking up the patterns. It also forces decisions: Should we get the hive before the fade goes up? (without RFK both the hive and fade would be hitting 50 res simultaneously).
RFK is a teamwork factor at best. A good team controls the RFK flow. For example a RFK for fade goes to a res pool that stays inactive as long as the fade is alive. Meanwhile a RFK for skulk goes to a pool that can be used effectively at any point. You can also try to direct skulk frags to a certain skulk to hit some certain timing earlier. Things like this could've probably developed a lot further if the competetive scene would've had time and activity to keep going at full speed longer.
RFK creates some strategy. For example as a 2nd hive fade I might sometimes simply harass the marine start and try to rack up frags for a while. Once I hit 50 res through RFK I can afford to refade, which then again means that I can play more aggressive and take more risks and for example try to break the 3rd hive free more effectively.
---
Those are all kind of characteristic things for the NS1 alien res model. I think there the RFK was highly beneficial, at least on smaller games. Meanwhile I'm not totally convinced on the reasoning NS2 has for RFK. The res model is different and for example almost every res on individual pools is spent on pure fighting strength instead of economy or tech. All in all I'm not sure at how good it will work when both teams are sort of cross bred between individual and team res pools.
So a shotgun goes from doing 222% of a skulk's effective HP in one shot to 200% of its effective HP.
...yeah.
On commanders dropping weapons:
In NS1 a commander could drop 5 medpacks for every shotgun. Given that NS2 uses personal res for weapons, you can now drop 12.5 medpacks for every shotgun, which makes medding more efficient than dropping weapons in almost every circumstance. What will be done to balance this?
Remove the luck factor by giving fixed amounts per class/weapon.
Yeah, Feeding dynamics do not create helpful cooperative teams, they build selfish players looking to jack frags.
Again, WHY JUST KILLS? Shouldn't players be rewarded equally for being good builders, ground-holders, res-cappers, etc.?
Again, WHY JUST KILLS? Shouldn't players be rewarded equally for being good builders, ground-holders, res-cappers, etc.?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, if you ARE going to provide an RFK system, then I agree it should include things other than kills. Call it "RFK+".
Of course that means someone has to design a good award system. The current point system is probably not sufficient, so more work is needed.
Also, I think RFK+ has the same problem as RFK: it doesn't solve an obvious problem, so shouldn't be included.
Finally a good reason to stay alive instead of going japanese rambo kamikaze aliens/marines.
Having to stay alive to deny the other team some resources is more effective than the few seconds you're forced out of the game.
Skulks will be used more as an harass class, falling from walls and ###### camping out strategic positions instead of leaping around attacking groups of marines for that 1 kill you could get.
It was good in ns1, and if implemented correctly it will be good in ns2.
Res for actions for the marines.
If you're killing in the area the comm told you to guard, you get res. Or welding a door, or whatever.
Again, WHY JUST KILLS? Shouldn't players be rewarded equally for being good builders, ground-holders, res-cappers, etc.?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The thing is though, a player who builds stuff, holds ground and caps res nodes IS getting rewarded. Those actions are going to lead to either advantages for his team or disadvantages for the enemy team, which in turn is going to lead directly to that player having access to more resources and more toys to play with. The current resource model encourages all those elements you mentioned because that's what you have to do to get res. RFK corrodes that. With RFK, a player has two options to gain resources to spend on juicy upgrades: work as a team or kill stuff. Most players in today's FPS market are going to pick option 2. Solution? Don't provide an option 2, or, as the current system does, disguise it heavily and make it a secondary objective.
Games like Bad Company 2 or Brink reward the player for actions through experience, but those games use unlock systems. In other objective based games like TF2, your reward for playing as a team is success. Seems to be reward enough in and of itself. I never liked RFK in NS1 and I see no need for it in NS2. Frankly, it's a deal breaker for me.
or: alien RFK goes to personal res, marine RFK goes to team res?
It already seems that aliens need more p-res for lifeforms, and marines have a broader tech tree needing more t-res.
If aliens are not spending their individual res on building, how are we going to encourage lifeform diversion enough? Right now it would seem somewhat reasonable to have something like 3 lerks and 3 fades in a 6 player team. If you really have to, drop one lerk or fade off and add a gorge. Nobody has a reason to stay skulk.
Hopefully some skulk upgrades are worth investing regularly, so that you have at least some alternatives to rushing higher lifeforms. I guess in a way the problematic gorge role is backfiring to skulks too; in NS1 the skulk had ability to gorge, use up it's res and proceed with the skulking.
If aliens are not spending their individual res on building, how are we going to encourage lifeform diversion enough? Right now it would seem somewhat reasonable to have something like 3 lerks and 3 fades in a 6 player team. If you really have to, drop one lerk or fade off and add a gorge. Nobody has a reason to stay skulk.
Hopefully some skulk upgrades are worth investing regularly, so that you have at least some alternatives to rushing higher lifeforms. I guess in a way the problematic gorge role is backfiring to skulks too; in NS1 the skulk had ability to gorge, use up it's res and proceed with the skulking.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not to get bogged down in strategy, but 3 lerk / 3 fade is not a great build. You don't "have to" add a gorge, you SHOULD add a gorge. Fades with gorge healing are the best seige weapon aliens currently have.
As far as skulks:
This is a longstanding problem, there's simply no reason to be a skulk unless you are too poor to upgrade. It's something I hope will be corrected over time. And, as I mentioned before, RFK will make skulks even WORSE, not better.
I wish skulks had a support ability that made them valuable in a group. Frankly, if they could pull an incap move like L4D's Hunter or Jockey, I think they would be awesome. Then groups with skulks could actually work, with the skulk being the ambusher/incapacitor, and the others making the kill.
This is a longstanding problem, there's simply no reason to be a skulk unless you are too poor to upgrade. It's something I hope will be corrected over time. And, as I mentioned before, RFK will make skulks even WORSE, not better.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you copypaste the NS1 RFK model into NS2 directly it favours higher lifeforms. I'm more thinking about cherry picking some things out of it and mixing in some new features if necessary.
I think in NS1 styled res model for the alien RFK benefits skulks to some extend. They've got a good access to the acquired RFK while higher lifeforms are simply hoarding the RFK until they die. Then again the marine RFK favours the use of higher lifeforms.
I believe that with the right combination you could actually make skulks a bit more valuable and unique units. Possibly you could even weight the RFK in favour of skulks to make them more viable. However, I don't know if it's good if the skulk gets a boost on the economical game only to allow it stop being a skulk. These are exactly the things that keep puzzling me because I can't see the big plan anywhere.
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As for the strategy, I think the gorge role will be contested a bit more when the chambers get updated. Regen upgrade is already planned and the alien commanders are learning the field use of crags to further boost the field healing. Alien commander will probably have some spells that help the damage mitigation too. I'm still running NS2 at 15 FPS, so I can't argue much outside theorycrafting on this one though. If you think the gorges are worth it, they probably are.
Yeah, I've seen the value of gorges in real games. For example, Rockdown often devolves into marines only holding marine start, then putting turrents all over it. Fades and lerks can assault constantly from marine expansion, but with say 5-6 players they'll have trouble keeping momentum. Shotties repel the fades and flamers repel the lerks.
Ideally, the alien comm can fortify that the with crags, but that means the alien team has to hold it. The problem is that when the marines push back, the aliens typically give ground and lose Marine Expansion. Gorges allow the assault team to hold their staging area, using healspray and sometimes hydras. This is lot more effective then retreating to West hive.
We had a cool game where the assault team was 3 fades, 1 lerk, and 2 gorges. The gorges literally used up all their juice constantly healspraying fades and each other. We were never kicked out of marine expansion, and eventually destroyed marine start with almost no causualties. It was glorious.
How big are these pustules on a players camera view?
e.g size of the base of the hydra?
And how much health will a pustule have, To calculate how many rounds will a lvl 0 lmg take to kill one?
I liked the old idea alot more; You need to have a flamethrower to remove the DI. With the new marine tech tree it isn't so hard(you needed more res before) to get flamethrowers.
This pustule idea makes flamers alot less needed, which is sad in my opinion.
I have always imagined the future DI to work this way:
Alien commander should be able to push the infestation towards a point. He uses that ability on the ground(near a res nozzle) and the nearest infestation starts growing toward the point where he used the ability. The further away the point is from other DI, the longer it will take for it to get there.
Over time infestation crawls up on walls, cielings and makes a larger AOE of the infestation, slowly but automaticly.
The counter to infestation is a flamethrower. If you burn the edges of infestation, it slowly shrinks. If you burn the infestation on a more forward point in the alien territory, you can "cut the infestation off" and potentially kill alot of infestation if the aliens dont react. To cut if off, you should have to free all the geometry of infestation so its not linked anywhere(walls, cielings etc.). Now the infestation behind you will retract fast, because its not connected to a hive.
This way you would sometimes have to burn the corridors to cut it off, because your flamer cant reach the cieling in large rooms. That would also make more sense in the territory control gameplay.
The closer the infestation is to a hive, the more HP it should have. That takes alot of testing to get right.
500hp, no weapon upgrades:
50 lmg, 25 pistol, 17 altpistol, ~4nades, ~3shotgun, ~10sec flamethrower, 2 arc hits - or something like that if im not wrong.
PS: im happy that marines arent forced to research ft asap anymore, that wasnt fun - especially since its more a support weapon.
You can only be wrong.
Just wait until you know some facts :) (better, until you tested it in some real games - friday could be the day)
And if they had more health than a harvester, they might be overpowered, hence my thoughts of it having lower health.
Edit: And if proves that im right, pustules could be used as infestation growth amplifiers. So a commander could build them with a drifter instead. And the further away from the a hive the infestation is, the slower it should grow.
In the beginning of the game, pustules should be somewhat hard to kill, but less abundant. Later in the game, they should be more abundant, but easier to kill (with right equipment, flamethrower).
Its hard to imagine how they could pull this off, but its possible. For starters, pustules could have low hitpoints, but relatively high health regen. In the beginning of the game, the regen is fast enough to even stave of single marine with a sg...and with upcoming reduced point blank sg damage, this is easier to imagine. Two marines however should be able to take one down. This allows marines to take out overly ambitious and isolated pustule placement, but a single marine can not go on a pillage rampage and take down every pustule he comes across.
Later in the game, as the pustules get "older" and spread more and more infestation, they naturally upgrade their health and regen, making it harder to kill. Think of the infestation as the roots nourishing the tree (pustule). More roots means a healthier, more resilient tree. Additionally, the alien comm can tech up pustule health/regen upgrades as well. A fully "matured" and upgraded pustule would be near impossible to kill with regular small firearms. A flamethrower however could be used to reduce the DI originating from the pustule, which would also reduce the pustule's regen. Depending on how much of the DI is burned off, it would be enough so that the marine (or another marine helping him) can easily kill it.
For those who need lore justifications, think of the pustule as your liver or skin. Both of the liver and skin can regenerate itself even when large pieces of itself are cut out. Both are also more structurally simple and homogenous organs when compared to the brain for instance, so its easier to repair. Pustules are simple blob structures, and are also easier to repair than a more complicated hive structure.
Yea...this is all a solution to a problem that might not exist....but its near the end of the patch cycle and its something to talk about.
For the Marines i would say killing a Skulk should give less Res than killing a Onos whit a MAC.
And maybe giving Pres for a kill when you aren't in a Squad, and giving PRes and TRes if you are linked to a Squad.
So that are just ideas and I didn't really thought much about then.
So RFK can be a really good feature and forcing team play if its well balanced and tested.
This is sort of how I was hoping it would turn out anyways. Infestation provides FAST regeneration, but being On Fire would either prevent regeneration altogether or slow it down such that a lot less net damage is required to take entities down (I'm suggesting 'the Fire DoT be a % of Total Health per second'). In this way, the Flamethrower would still keep it's utility against Dynamic Infestation, and Kharaa regeneration in general, but would still remain a support weapon (used to spread dangerous flames, but typically bad at 1-on-1 conflict).
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=Design Decision Log)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Design Decision Log)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->5. Using the flamethrower on infestation will set it on fire. The fire should immediately spread around it, getting all the way to the pustule and setting it on fire within a few seconds. When the infestation is on fire, it will do damage over time to the pustule. When the pustule is on fire, it will take additional damage. The idea here is that you can attack the infestation with the flamethrower (only) and have some effect, but you can be the most effective when you attack the pustule directly.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Isn't the appeal of Fire (as a weapon) it's propensity to spread and become unmanageable?
Shouldn't then setting fire to multiple entities, rather than focusing fire on one entity, be the desired strategy with Flamethrowers?
Every other weapon's skillset revolves around precise aim and focus-firing. It seems like the Flamethrower would be a more distinct weapon if it's intended use was to set as much on Fire as possible.
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=Design Decision Log)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Design Decision Log)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->6. Only the hive ability can create pustules. It uses hive energy to do so. We could add another ability on to the pustule later (something where it speeds infestation growth temporarily?) but I want the core infestation growth to be chained to the hive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why not change it to a Personal Res cost, so that a Commander's ability to spread infestation is actually affected by his team's success (defending ResTowers, which provides more P.Res), instead of using the static Energy-regeneration rate?
If this gets in i would start playing the "picasso"-style gorge <3