endarJoin Date: 2010-07-27Member: 73256Members, Squad Five Blue
It's said above, but i think I'll reiterate what I think is the biggest "change".
This is in response to: marines went from winning 41% of the time to 53%: yet there were only 2 minor balance changes listed in the changelog!
The balance changelog is only intended changes/fixes, you are not taking into account the fact that carapace was bugged for fades, and brought their max armour down from 150 to 80.
This reason alone is a game changer. Marines thinking they can aim better? I don't think so its more the fact that less bullets are required to kill the fade.
Why aliens are winning is really quite simply due to two glaringly obvious imbalances. 1) Suicide gorges (cloaked is better). Bilebomb is obviously overpowered with one gorge able to end the game or seriously cripple marines just by running in like a madman, jumping and bilebombing powernodes or cc's. This literally makes 2nd hive a garunteed win and not because of fades. 8 metres is way too wide and 300 dmg is way too much. It's not that CC's have too little health but that aliens do too much damage to buildings in general. Nerfing lerk damage to buildings is pretty obviously needed as well. 2) Lerk rushes. Garuntees a win on 1 hive. The only thing stopping this happen more often is gentlemanly or unco-ordinated aliens. And yes they are incredibly powerful when backed by a gorge in good positioning.
Alien's have two options that guarantee a win regardless of what marines do, Neither are reasonably counterable except by superhuman marine effort, repeatedly lucky scans, and investment in sentry spam (which only slows down marine loss anyway).\
<!--QuoteBegin-"Zeikko"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ("Zeikko")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Fade armor<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I tend to disagree that fade armour is too much. Not only was 80 armour heading into dangerous territory where engaging marines was more a gamble than any kind of calculated decision, but 30 cara from 3 shells was incredibly cost inefficient. Again, what needs tweaking is <b>Frenzy</b>, the res model and/or fade blink not so much fade hp. It's already the case that a bad blink can cause a fade to die to two shotgun blasts within the 1 second blink cd.
<!--QuoteBegin-"Zeikko"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ("Zeikko")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Not lockable doors<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Doors are loud and easily heard. I can see how having 5 doors and balancing a map around them being lockable has balance issues but in summit i dont see this imbalance.
<!--QuoteBegin-"Zeikko"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ("Zeikko")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Double the marine rate (this is pretty recent fix and i'm not personally sure if the numbers are the perfect)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> That sounds like a nice change. What server is this on!!
<!--QuoteBegin-"wilson"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ("wilson")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> -Increasing the difficulty to learn something does not make for better gameplay. I personally am growing to like fade blink dynamics - its easy to learn but harder to make use of effectively given low hp and blink cd. Its the ability for the fade to heal back up so quickly from frenzy, regen, gorges that make them hard to press back. -Also, commanders can already check the hp of their units by selecting them and looking at their hp ring. -Your right about momentum. Would love to see a bit more horizontal. The momentum we have currently feels more vertical
AsranielJoin Date: 2002-06-03Member: 724Members, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
There are more factors for that. Aliens have abusive strategies they can use, even when they are loosing the game to turn it around.
There is the lerk rush (the whole team goes lerk and kills the CC). Lerks just do too much damage against buildings. Marines have a very hard time to counter this. Shade rush. The whole teams stands around a shade, gets cloacked and then can run trough the WHOLE map cloacked. They wont get uncloacked by observatories.
Strategies like that can really screw the statistics. Same things goes for modded servers. Some of the biggest servers run balance mods
IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
Yeah, was just playing on a server with the marines having total map domination. And then 3 lerks rolled up and steamrolled the main base and eventually broke into the quickly put together secondary base. Their damage output is crazy.
<!--quoteo(post=1897233:date=Jan 25 2012, 08:00 AM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Jan 25 2012, 08:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897233"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Doors are loud and easily heard.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I can't even hear a skulk that's 5 ft behind me never mind a door opening around the corner. All the sounds are so quiet and distant.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->-Increasing the difficulty to learn something does not make for better gameplay. I personally am growing to like fade blink dynamics - its easy to learn but harder to make use of effectively given low hp and blink cd. Its the ability for the fade to heal back up so quickly from frenzy, regen, gorges that make them hard to press back. -Also, commanders can already check the hp of their units by selecting them and looking at their hp ring. -Your right about momentum. Would love to see a bit more horizontal. The momentum we have currently feels more vertical<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I didn't say to increase the difficulty of the fade - the problem is the mechanics lack depth at the moment. A good player will only die if they get over confident and stay too long. As long as you know when to blink away you can never be killed.
No ###### the commanders can check the HP, but it's very cumbersome and thus lots of commanders don't see when you need it. The health circles should be displayed at all times and a little icon should be displayed when you request a med or ammo, as well as the com getting notifications and blips on the minimap to grab his attention.
<!--quoteo(post=1897238:date=Jan 25 2012, 04:28 AM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jan 25 2012, 04:28 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897238"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I can't even hear a skulk that's 5 ft behind me never mind a door opening around the corner. All the sounds are so quiet and distant.
I didn't say to increase the difficulty of the fade - the problem is the mechanics lack depth at the moment. A good player will only die if they get over confident and stay too long. As long as you know when to blink away you can never be killed.
No ###### the commanders can check the HP, but it's very cumbersome and thus lots of commanders don't see when you need it. The health circles should be displayed at all times and a little icon should be displayed when you request a med or ammo, as well as the com getting notifications and blips on the minimap to grab his attention.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
definitely +1 to icons for requests. when you're looking at a squad with multiple ammo/health requests it's difficult to tell who requested what.
Yeah, blink and frenzy make it very difficult to kill a cautious fade. Frenzy and regen make them able to almost constantly harass/slaughter marines. I often see fades blink in, kill one marine (which gives them some bonus health/armor), then blink away. They can take a single marine down so quickly that this works even for a room full of marines. If they take too much damage before killing the marine, they can just blink away then try again about 30 seconds later.
ZeikkoJoin Date: 2007-12-16Member: 63179Members, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester
<!--quoteo(post=1897233:date=Jan 25 2012, 11:00 AM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Jan 25 2012, 11:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897233"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->1) Suicide gorges (cloaked is better). Bilebomb is obviously overpowered with one gorge able to end the game or seriously cripple marines just by running in like a madman, jumping and bilebombing powernodes or cc's. This literally makes 2nd hive a garunteed win and not because of fades. 8 metres is way too wide and 300 dmg is way too much. It's not that CC's have too little health but that aliens do too much damage to buildings in general. Nerfing lerk damage to buildings is pretty obviously needed as well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Very good point. According to the design doc UWE is already aware of this and are fixing it.
<!--quoteo(post=1897233:date=Jan 25 2012, 11:00 AM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Jan 25 2012, 11:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897233"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I tend to disagree that fade armour is too much. Not only was 80 armour heading into dangerous territory where engaging marines was more a gamble than any kind of calculated decision, but 30 cara from 3 shells was incredibly cost inefficient. Again, what needs tweaking is <b>Frenzy</b>, the res model and/or fade blink not so much fade hp. It's already the case that a bad blink can cause a fade to die to two shotgun blasts within the 1 second blink cd.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree with you about the Frenzy. However I like Frenzy as an ability, the numbers are just way off atleast for the Fade. I like the way how Frenzy works/worked with Schimmels balance mod. With the mod Frenzy regenrated your life slowly after everytime you got a kill. This made it harder to own a big group of marines.
<!--quoteo(post=1897233:date=Jan 25 2012, 11:00 AM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Jan 25 2012, 11:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897233"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Doors are loud and easily heard. I can see how having 5 doors and balancing a map around them being lockable has balance issues but in summit i dont see this imbalance.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ever wondered where the 6 lerks appeared to your base without anyone noticing? Usually the answer is not the shade but the crossroads door. :S
<!--quoteo(post=1897233:date=Jan 25 2012, 11:00 AM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Jan 25 2012, 11:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897233"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That sounds like a nice change. What server is this on!!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those changes are on teamArchaea.net server, which is hosted on Koruyo's computer and is not up 24/7. You can join the gather in ensl.org to get to play with the balance changes we have made.
What might add to the longer lifetimes of Skulks and especially Lerks and Fades might be the somewhat awkward hitreg in Build 193, it got way worse compared to 191/192. Right after 193 was released Marines could barely hit any skulk as they "dived" into Marines and were pretty hard to hit. As of now most people adapted to it and it appears to be less of a problem the higher the pings are for everyone.
On the other topics:
Lerk`s high movement speeds alongside with the way off hitreg and the Hide buff leads to pretty much invincible Lerks. Without Hide its still hard to kill em but if you manage to cut off their way theyre usually dead. If Hide is still on theres literally no way to kill a lerk until you get to Weapons 2 and SGs and manage to Ambush it with 3 Marines (which is way out of balance, 30 Pres shouldnt require 75 t-res and 10(or 15 cant recall right now) p-res to be handled.
As long as those Lerks are up theres pretty much no way to start any attack on anything so all you can do is camp up in Base and wait for your doom (Fades and Bilebombs)
Fades have the same hitreg issue, along with Frenzy being way too strong. Frenzy at least shouldnt kick in Armor regeneration to make the Fade more of a get in, get a Single kill and retreat to get Armor up again to not be mawn down instantly.
Considering Bilebomb: right now a single gorge can eradicate a Marine Base in about 30s entirely. Along with the ability to kill mines and annihilate Power Nodes from relative safety it was a bit of offerbuffed. Maybe just get CC health up or at least Welders in, because other then Hives, CCs dont reg HP unless you spend additional 25 t-res to get a MAC fix it.
<b>Build 190</b> looked "pretty good" because of mine spam. (public games) 53% marine wins in public,<b> but >70% marine wins in organized games...</b> (just ensl gather experience, and thats not competitive clan niveau)
The amount and dmg of mines was so great that aliens couldnt really fight back all the mines anymore - so they either died by trying to get rid of them or getting instakilled by walking into them (~2-4mines meant dead fade for 10-20pres)
The marine game wasnt about aiming anymore it was only about placing mines.
<b>192,193</b> brought lerk hide, fade armor, and nerfed mines in damage amount and prescost, so they are not really used anymore - because lerks got so tanky, it was easy to destroy the little amount of mines if marines researched them.
Another problem is that hivecost was reduced to 75 (sneaky unannounced), lerks without carapace and hide are already almost unkillable and dominating the whole game - but now you could even go a super safe route and research carapace + regeneration 3 before droping the 2nd hive.
In theory all you need to do in the current build is go mass lerks(~5min into the game) ignore marines and just kill the commandstation(s).
---- balance changes we did for ensl gather---- Hivecost: 100 Lerk Hide = 0 Fade armor reduced by 20 (10 basic 10carapace) Fade movement mod, fade keeps momentum after blink (but it need some more tweaking, higher energy costs)
Now you got a chance as marine to do something in early game again, but the fade problem is still there... <b>The fade problem is frenzy</b>! Frenzy is too good on fades, you can solo the whole marine team without getting low on health. (and if they are down all you need to do is jump form ip to ip until the rest of your team comes.
Remove frenzy, bring back metabolize... then wait if armor needs to be increased again.
PS: IF you balance for global stats(public), the game wont be balanced at all. You need to focus more on the organized games. (but thats not really something you can filter) PPS: Random spawn is another problem.
Looking at public stats for average Fade lifetime could be dangerous - depending on the duration of the alien's second hive and when it's built all the "good" players could have been forced to go lerk to even get the second hive up, leaving fading to "bad" players, or fades could die super quick when operating on one hive rather than two.
Basically fade statistics are probably more vulnerable to externalities than other lifeforms.
QuovatisTeam InversionJoin Date: 2010-01-26Member: 70321Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited January 2012
I think the ideal win percentage for PUBLIC games is about 55% wins for aliens. The marine commander is a large component of a marine victory. Most public marine commanders aren't that great, so it should be expected that aliens should win slightly more in public games. In a competitive setting, the victories should be as close to 50/50 as possible, as it is assumed the marine commander is experienced and skilled.
I think some of the stats are also misleading. For example, long, drawn-out alien victories usually won't show up in the stats because the server dies before the aliens can win due to all the cyts, etc eating away at the tickrate.
I think the early skulk rushes (and lerk to some extent) are skewing the numbers. I would like to see the win/loss stats on games that are longer than 5-10 minutes. I suspect they would be far more equal.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Cranking up bile bomb range and splash to help with alien end-game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> What is this. I dont even... 300 dmg and 8 metres wasnt enough?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Waypoint system<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> If you implement this, please put a user option to disable it. I feel that the waypointing system described is too specific as to who goes where and spams other marines with redundant information. As a ground marine I don't want or need to know that specificplayer 1, 2, and 3 are going to crossroads. It looks neat to play with for a while but i can see this becoming annoying clutter on screen and hindering free flowing emergent pub play when employed heavily. I'm also wondering how the commander is going to quickly specify number of marines for each waypoint without it being slow and clunky.
This system also fails when marines start having high turnover. Let's say max04 and squeallikeapig die but you survive enroute to crossroads. Under the proposed system, other marines nearby will fall into a "not my business, not my concern" or "i have my own waypoint to go to" mindset and will not actively engage in map awareness to redirect to crossroads as necessary.
I would suggest that the commander instead has the ability to mark Res points he wishes captured, and buildings he wishes to be built so that they appear on marine minimaps as general zones of interest. This better conveys the bigger picture to on the ground marines. As you can tell, i never really liked the squad system in as much as i didnt see it working as intended in naturally unco-ordinated pub play.
As always, would need to play it to see how it is, but these are my first thoughts.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It would be nice if marines could see when a resource nozzle couldn’t be built, because the team didn’t have enough resources.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm not sure if this is even necessary. You can already see team resources. If its less than 10, it cant be built. I feel this should be the concern of commanders not ground marines, and if ground marines are interested to know if an RT can be built its pretty easy to glance and see that <10 is no.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Allow marines to press or hold “e†to not teleport during distress beacon<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I like this! Allows for preemptive baconing before the other guy has finished building the forward pg. Otherwise, seems a bit out of place and clunky where new players building resource towers, powernodes etc will not release e and thus not be beaconed.
I don't know whether being able to ignore beacons will add to the game or detract from it, but since UWE seems to be giving it some thought, I thought I'd post some thoughts I had on the topic a while ago in an old thread.
<!--quoteo(post=1884133:date=Nov 7 2011, 01:45 PM:name=Techercizer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Techercizer @ Nov 7 2011, 01:45 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884133"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I like the idea of some sort of action the Marine can take (via an as-of-yet-unused button, perhaps) to reject the beacon.
In my mind, you'd have about a second after you see the warning to press the button and opt out of the beacon. The alarm and warning will continue to go for another second past that as all other players are beaconed, and in this time the com will get a noticeable hud pop-up saying "NS2Player is rejecting recall command. Press X for manual override". The com can then choose to call NS2Player back against his wishes (for instance, if NS2Player is a known rambo or is just running around somewhere empty), or to trust NS2Player and let him stay (Which a good com would do if NS2Player was known to be skilled and capable of making intelligent decisions). If the com waits past a second (for a potential total active beacon time of 2x the current period) without overriding, the Marine does not get beaconed. It is not possible to circumvent the commander's override.
It adds a bit more depth to the beacon mechanic, furthers the tactical complexity of the commander/marine relationship, and preserves the com's final authority over his squad.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Making Bile Bomb stronger doesn't seem like a good idea to me, taking out the power node in marine start is already very, very powerful. Please don't... Being able to ignore beacons sounds great. I like Techercizers idea, too. Definitely not E, because this will result in people accidentally rejecting it. The waypointsystem looks promising so far.
I kinda get a feeling uwe is focusing so much on the use key because a possible future xbox version has controllers => limited buttons? (doesnt really make any sense otherwise - sry)
Its really a pain if a weapon is lying in front of a powernode, player, armory whatever and instead of repairing/building etc you constantly pickup and drop weapons... (so you have to wait for it to despawn in worst case scenarios where you sometimes cant just reposition yourself, eg. powernodes)
<!--quoteo(post=1898474:date=Jan 31 2012, 10:53 PM:name=Koruyo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Koruyo @ Jan 31 2012, 10:53 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1898474"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I kinda get a feeling uwe is focusing so much on the use key because a possible future xbox version has controllers => limited buttons? (doesnt really make any sense otherwise - sry)
Its really a pain if a weapon is lying in front of a powernode, player, armory whatever and instead of repairing/building etc you constantly pickup and drop weapons... (so you have to wait for it to despawn in worst case scenarios where you sometimes cant just reposition yourself, eg. powernodes)
<u>This needs some reworking please :)</u><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+1
I think everybody is used to "G" for dropping weapons.
+1, G drops weapon and not holding a weapon in that slot auto picks it up if you run over it. You'll never accidentally pick up a weapon unless you drop your current weapon first.
<!--quoteo(post=1897282:date=Jan 25 2012, 10:34 AM:name=Koruyo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Koruyo @ Jan 25 2012, 10:34 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897282"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Remove frenzy, bring back metabolize<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know people like to harp on how NS2 isn't NS1, but this is a really elegant way to solve the fade's balance problem. Why? The weaker alien classes don't benefit as much from frenzy, and they often attack in groups much more vigorously, and with weaker more rapid attacks (meaning swarm is the more useful whip upgrade to them regardless). At the same time, the fade stands to gain the most from individual triggers of frenzy, and it also makes the class ridiculously powerful/easy.
Adding metabolize also brings the fade closer to the skill floor it has in NS1 - you need to use metabolize, swipe and blink all the time in order to be effective, but your adrenaline is limited and you have to engineer each situation with your 3 complementary skills.
Then when we see how hard it is to manage adrenaline with no movement chamber and flamethrowers everywhere........aaah, I'm getting off topic.
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited January 2012
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How to differentiate Bombard and BileBomb abilities?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Whip Bombard damage is too low to be effective at anything right now. If Bombard damage is increased reasonably, Mature Whip could fill the roles of Area Denial, as well as Siege Weapon.
Bile Bomb, on the other hand, has a ridiculous splash radius for a player weapon.
I think these two rules should help balance the game for variable player counts:
<!--coloro:#00FF00--><span style="color:#00FF00"><!--/coloro-->1. Players should not have powerful AOE damage weapons. The power (damage, radius, DPS) of an AOE weapon should be inversely proportional to its sustainability (ammo) and availability (cost). 2. Strategic weapons (that cost T.Res, eg ARC, Sentry, Whip) SHOULD be AOE. This would make them scale well across player count.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<!--quoteo(post=1898513:date=Feb 1 2012, 12:00 PM:name=twiliteblue)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (twiliteblue @ Feb 1 2012, 12:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1898513"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Whip Bombard damage is too low to be effective at anything right now. If Bombard damage is increased reasonably, Mature Whip could fill the roles of Area Denial, as well as Siege Weapon.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not only that, but actually getting the whip to hit what you want is incredibly fiddly at this point as it doesn't seem to take into account any objects in its way for the trajectory of its bombard ball.
I think that this new system sounds a bit like the recently discussed pheromones. Why not take this time to unify the marine and alien waypoint systems? What reason is there not to?
Yeah I think that the commander has problems getting marines to even obey his waypoints let alone fulfil them.
As a commander I'm always frustrated when I'm telling a whole team of marines to go to a certain place and they ignore it, since they want to chase down where the aliens are.
But I don't think this is necessarily just being uncooperative.
A lot of this seems to happen: Commander assigns to marines to move to a location, the marines move there but they don't get another order. After a brief wait, the marines then do whatever they want, splitting up and probably die. The order to move stays there and it has grown 'stale' but it led to a death for them last time - so the marines don't know whether to really follow it or not. Some still do, while others don't, dividing the team.
A few ideas to get around this problem some of which have been discussed: Being able to 'queue' multiple waypoint commands. Being able to set the 'urgency' of a waypoint, this could be by doing rapid right clicks when assigning the task. Being able to set a 'dont go here' or 'avoid this area' marker, this might induce better control of marines. A wider selection of waypoint types, such as 'rally at this point', 'dont go in this area' (but this will probably just confuse things). The ability for marines to place or remove waypoints which the commander 'approves' of. Like a previous poster said, be able to place multiple 'points of interest' such as 'I want to build this res node' etc.
I'd like to see a 'dont go here' or 'avoid this area' marker. It will make marines think twice as they will assume it is too dangerous to go there alone.
For example say I have 4 marines who have just built a res tower for me, if I then assign them the waypoint of 'defend this res tower' since it's obvious aliens are abouto come, they will almost definitely ignore it and continue onwards. But if I place a 'dont go this way' which has a big red x in front of them, then they might think twice.
I never looked into the marine commander chair, but.. Can you <b>cancel orders</b>? That would solve the problem you mentioned above. I don't think we need a "don't go here" marker or something, but if the situation changes, the commander should be able to easily overview the active orders/waypoints and should be able to cancel them.
When he can do this, and he also communicates with teammates, it will be just fine.
Completed* orders need to inform/alarm the commander. *What conditions for completion?
Global markers are definitely a step in the right direction. The idea of selecting "units" (players) and sending them to a location died on the border between RTS and RTS-FPS.
Waypoints could still work with <b>persistent</b>* squads, but otherwise, global markers are a far superior method of giving human players orders. *How to enforce persistence?
<!--quoteo(post=1900174:date=Feb 6 2012, 01:59 PM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Feb 6 2012, 01:59 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1900174"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Completed* orders need to inform/alarm the commander. *What conditions for completion?
Global markers are definitely a step in the right direction. The idea of selecting "units" (players) and sending them to a location died on the border between RTS and RTS-FPS.
Waypoints could still work with <b>persistent</b>* squads, but otherwise, global markers are a far superior method of giving human players orders. *How to enforce persistence?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If we are allready ditching the idea of selecting individual units and giving them individual tasks why not add a few different kind of "global markers" the marine commander can place around the map?
That way the commander wouldn't be placing waypoints that give marines directions to follow but he would rather be distributing "objectives" around the map. Objectives could include stuff like: Defend area, build in area move on (res caping), clear out area (attack move) and maybe even something like a "stay clear of this area for now" markers.
This way the marine commander could basicly "paint the map" with different objective markers and marines have an easier time understanding the overall picture on the map. It would also give the individual marine more options for doing different usefull things that still fit into the overall plan of the commander.
But it's kind of an drastic idea and i guess something like that would be very difficult to implement, especially considering that marine commander gameplay right now mostly works pretty well.
The proposed method in the design log is close to this objective system. "Need 3 marines here." I just don't like this accept/deny quest thing. And I'm not sure how the commander will give orders so specific (i.e. how many marines, and what are they going to do) - how will he specify that? Waypoints are simple in this respect because you select a group of marines, and you set a location, and it's mostly all context-sensitive. Objectives would be similarly as simple, but would not have fine control such as 'Need <b>this many</b> marines here'. With objectives, though, you're just kind of setting strategic mission objectives, and letting the marines on the ground decide how best to approach them.
Comments
This is in response to:
marines went from winning 41% of the time to 53%: yet there were only 2 minor balance changes listed in the changelog!
The balance changelog is only intended changes/fixes, you are not taking into account the fact that carapace was bugged for fades, and brought their max armour down from 150 to 80.
This reason alone is a game changer. Marines thinking they can aim better? I don't think so its more the fact that less bullets are required to kill the fade.
1) Suicide gorges (cloaked is better). Bilebomb is obviously overpowered with one gorge able to end the game or seriously cripple marines just by running in like a madman, jumping and bilebombing powernodes or cc's. This literally makes 2nd hive a garunteed win and not because of fades. 8 metres is way too wide and 300 dmg is way too much. It's not that CC's have too little health but that aliens do too much damage to buildings in general. Nerfing lerk damage to buildings is pretty obviously needed as well.
2) Lerk rushes. Garuntees a win on 1 hive. The only thing stopping this happen more often is gentlemanly or unco-ordinated aliens. And yes they are incredibly powerful when backed by a gorge in good positioning.
Alien's have two options that guarantee a win regardless of what marines do, Neither are reasonably counterable except by superhuman marine effort, repeatedly lucky scans, and investment in sentry spam (which only slows down marine loss anyway).\
<!--QuoteBegin-"Zeikko"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ("Zeikko")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Fade armor<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I tend to disagree that fade armour is too much. Not only was 80 armour heading into dangerous territory where engaging marines was more a gamble than any kind of calculated decision, but 30 cara from 3 shells was incredibly cost inefficient. Again, what needs tweaking is <b>Frenzy</b>, the res model and/or fade blink not so much fade hp. It's already the case that a bad blink can cause a fade to die to two shotgun blasts within the 1 second blink cd.
<!--QuoteBegin-"Zeikko"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ("Zeikko")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Not lockable doors<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Doors are loud and easily heard. I can see how having 5 doors and balancing a map around them being lockable has balance issues but in summit i dont see this imbalance.
<!--QuoteBegin-"Zeikko"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ("Zeikko")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Double the marine rate (this is pretty recent fix and i'm not personally sure if the numbers are the perfect)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That sounds like a nice change. What server is this on!!
<!--QuoteBegin-"wilson"+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ("wilson")</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
-Increasing the difficulty to learn something does not make for better gameplay. I personally am growing to like fade blink dynamics - its easy to learn but harder to make use of effectively given low hp and blink cd. Its the ability for the fade to heal back up so quickly from frenzy, regen, gorges that make them hard to press back.
-Also, commanders can already check the hp of their units by selecting them and looking at their hp ring.
-Your right about momentum. Would love to see a bit more horizontal. The momentum we have currently feels more vertical
There is the lerk rush (the whole team goes lerk and kills the CC). Lerks just do too much damage against buildings. Marines have a very hard time to counter this.
Shade rush. The whole teams stands around a shade, gets cloacked and then can run trough the WHOLE map cloacked. They wont get uncloacked by observatories.
Strategies like that can really screw the statistics. Same things goes for modded servers. Some of the biggest servers run balance mods
I can't even hear a skulk that's 5 ft behind me never mind a door opening around the corner. All the sounds are so quiet and distant.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->-Increasing the difficulty to learn something does not make for better gameplay. I personally am growing to like fade blink dynamics - its easy to learn but harder to make use of effectively given low hp and blink cd. Its the ability for the fade to heal back up so quickly from frenzy, regen, gorges that make them hard to press back.
-Also, commanders can already check the hp of their units by selecting them and looking at their hp ring.
-Your right about momentum. Would love to see a bit more horizontal. The momentum we have currently feels more vertical<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I didn't say to increase the difficulty of the fade - the problem is the mechanics lack depth at the moment. A good player will only die if they get over confident and stay too long. As long as you know when to blink away you can never be killed.
No ###### the commanders can check the HP, but it's very cumbersome and thus lots of commanders don't see when you need it. The health circles should be displayed at all times and a little icon should be displayed when you request a med or ammo, as well as the com getting notifications and blips on the minimap to grab his attention.
I didn't say to increase the difficulty of the fade - the problem is the mechanics lack depth at the moment. A good player will only die if they get over confident and stay too long. As long as you know when to blink away you can never be killed.
No ###### the commanders can check the HP, but it's very cumbersome and thus lots of commanders don't see when you need it. The health circles should be displayed at all times and a little icon should be displayed when you request a med or ammo, as well as the com getting notifications and blips on the minimap to grab his attention.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
definitely +1 to icons for requests. when you're looking at a squad with multiple ammo/health requests it's difficult to tell who requested what.
I eagerly await the bile bomb and lerk nerfs.
Very good point. According to the design doc UWE is already aware of this and are fixing it.
<!--quoteo(post=1897233:date=Jan 25 2012, 11:00 AM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Jan 25 2012, 11:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897233"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I tend to disagree that fade armour is too much. Not only was 80 armour heading into dangerous territory where engaging marines was more a gamble than any kind of calculated decision, but 30 cara from 3 shells was incredibly cost inefficient. Again, what needs tweaking is <b>Frenzy</b>, the res model and/or fade blink not so much fade hp. It's already the case that a bad blink can cause a fade to die to two shotgun blasts within the 1 second blink cd.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree with you about the Frenzy. However I like Frenzy as an ability, the numbers are just way off atleast for the Fade. I like the way how Frenzy works/worked with Schimmels balance mod. With the mod Frenzy regenrated your life slowly after everytime you got a kill. This made it harder to own a big group of marines.
<!--quoteo(post=1897233:date=Jan 25 2012, 11:00 AM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Jan 25 2012, 11:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897233"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Doors are loud and easily heard. I can see how having 5 doors and balancing a map around them being lockable has balance issues but in summit i dont see this imbalance.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ever wondered where the 6 lerks appeared to your base without anyone noticing? Usually the answer is not the shade but the crossroads door. :S
<!--quoteo(post=1897233:date=Jan 25 2012, 11:00 AM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Jan 25 2012, 11:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1897233"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That sounds like a nice change. What server is this on!!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those changes are on teamArchaea.net server, which is hosted on Koruyo's computer and is not up 24/7. You can join the gather in ensl.org to get to play with the balance changes we have made.
On the other topics:
Lerk`s high movement speeds alongside with the way off hitreg and the Hide buff leads to pretty much invincible Lerks. Without Hide its still hard to kill em but if you manage to cut off their way theyre usually dead. If Hide is still on theres literally no way to kill a lerk until you get to Weapons 2 and SGs and manage to Ambush it with 3 Marines (which is way out of balance, 30 Pres shouldnt require 75 t-res and 10(or 15 cant recall right now) p-res to be handled.
As long as those Lerks are up theres pretty much no way to start any attack on anything so all you can do is camp up in Base and wait for your doom (Fades and Bilebombs)
Fades have the same hitreg issue, along with Frenzy being way too strong. Frenzy at least shouldnt kick in Armor regeneration to make the Fade more of a get in, get a Single kill and retreat to get Armor up again to not be mawn down instantly.
Considering Bilebomb: right now a single gorge can eradicate a Marine Base in about 30s entirely. Along with the ability to kill mines and annihilate Power Nodes from relative safety it was a bit of offerbuffed. Maybe just get CC health up or at least Welders in, because other then Hives, CCs dont reg HP unless you spend additional 25 t-res to get a MAC fix it.
53% marine wins in public,<b> but >70% marine wins in organized games...</b> (just ensl gather experience, and thats not competitive clan niveau)
The amount and dmg of mines was so great that aliens couldnt really fight back all the mines anymore - so they either died by trying to get rid of them or getting instakilled by walking into them (~2-4mines meant dead fade for 10-20pres)
The marine game wasnt about aiming anymore it was only about placing mines.
<b>192,193</b> brought lerk hide, fade armor, and nerfed mines in damage amount and prescost, so they are not really used anymore - because lerks got so tanky, it was easy to destroy the little amount of mines if marines researched them.
Another problem is that hivecost was reduced to 75 (sneaky unannounced), lerks without carapace and hide are already almost unkillable and dominating the whole game - but now you could even go a super safe route and research carapace + regeneration 3 before droping the 2nd hive.
In theory all you need to do in the current build is go mass lerks(~5min into the game) ignore marines and just kill the commandstation(s).
---- balance changes we did for ensl gather----
Hivecost: 100
Lerk Hide = 0
Fade armor reduced by 20 (10 basic 10carapace)
Fade movement mod, fade keeps momentum after blink (but it need some more tweaking, higher energy costs)
Now you got a chance as marine to do something in early game again, but the fade problem is still there...
<b>The fade problem is frenzy</b>! Frenzy is too good on fades, you can solo the whole marine team without getting low on health. (and if they are down all you need to do is jump form ip to ip until the rest of your team comes.
Remove frenzy, bring back metabolize... then wait if armor needs to be increased again.
PS: IF you balance for global stats(public), the game wont be balanced at all. You need to focus more on the organized games. (but thats not really something you can filter)
PPS: Random spawn is another problem.
Basically fade statistics are probably more vulnerable to externalities than other lifeforms.
I think some of the stats are also misleading. For example, long, drawn-out alien victories usually won't show up in the stats because the server dies before the aliens can win due to all the cyts, etc eating away at the tickrate.
What is this. I dont even... 300 dmg and 8 metres wasnt enough?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Waypoint system<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you implement this, please put a user option to disable it. I feel that the waypointing system described is too specific as to who goes where and spams other marines with redundant information. As a ground marine I don't want or need to know that specificplayer 1, 2, and 3 are going to crossroads. It looks neat to play with for a while but i can see this becoming annoying clutter on screen and hindering free flowing emergent pub play when employed heavily. I'm also wondering how the commander is going to quickly specify number of marines for each waypoint without it being slow and clunky.
This system also fails when marines start having high turnover. Let's say max04 and squeallikeapig die but you survive enroute to crossroads. Under the proposed system, other marines nearby will fall into a "not my business, not my concern" or "i have my own waypoint to go to" mindset and will not actively engage in map awareness to redirect to crossroads as necessary.
I would suggest that the commander instead has the ability to mark Res points he wishes captured, and buildings he wishes to be built so that they appear on marine minimaps as general zones of interest. This better conveys the bigger picture to on the ground marines. As you can tell, i never really liked the squad system in as much as i didnt see it working as intended in naturally unco-ordinated pub play.
As always, would need to play it to see how it is, but these are my first thoughts.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It would be nice if marines could see when a resource nozzle couldn’t be built, because the team didn’t have enough resources.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not sure if this is even necessary. You can already see team resources. If its less than 10, it cant be built. I feel this should be the concern of commanders not ground marines, and if ground marines are interested to know if an RT can be built its pretty easy to glance and see that <10 is no.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Allow marines to press or hold “e†to not teleport during distress beacon<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like this! Allows for preemptive baconing before the other guy has finished building the forward pg. Otherwise, seems a bit out of place and clunky where new players building resource towers, powernodes etc will not release e and thus not be beaconed.
<!--quoteo(post=1884133:date=Nov 7 2011, 01:45 PM:name=Techercizer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Techercizer @ Nov 7 2011, 01:45 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884133"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I like the idea of some sort of action the Marine can take (via an as-of-yet-unused button, perhaps) to reject the beacon.
In my mind, you'd have about a second after you see the warning to press the button and opt out of the beacon. The alarm and warning will continue to go for another second past that as all other players are beaconed, and in this time the com will get a noticeable hud pop-up saying "NS2Player is rejecting recall command. Press X for manual override". The com can then choose to call NS2Player back against his wishes (for instance, if NS2Player is a known rambo or is just running around somewhere empty), or to trust NS2Player and let him stay (Which a good com would do if NS2Player was known to be skilled and capable of making intelligent decisions). If the com waits past a second (for a potential total active beacon time of 2x the current period) without overriding, the Marine does not get beaconed. It is not possible to circumvent the commander's override.
It adds a bit more depth to the beacon mechanic, furthers the tactical complexity of the commander/marine relationship, and preserves the com's final authority over his squad.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Being able to ignore beacons sounds great. I like Techercizers idea, too. Definitely not E, because this will result in people accidentally rejecting it.
The waypointsystem looks promising so far.
Its really a pain if a weapon is lying in front of a powernode, player, armory whatever and instead of repairing/building etc you constantly pickup and drop weapons... (so you have to wait for it to despawn in worst case scenarios where you sometimes cant just reposition yourself, eg. powernodes)
<u>This needs some reworking please :)</u>
Its really a pain if a weapon is lying in front of a powernode, player, armory whatever and instead of repairing/building etc you constantly pickup and drop weapons... (so you have to wait for it to despawn in worst case scenarios where you sometimes cant just reposition yourself, eg. powernodes)
<u>This needs some reworking please :)</u><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+1
I think everybody is used to "G" for dropping weapons.
I know people like to harp on how NS2 isn't NS1, but this is a really elegant way to solve the fade's balance problem. Why? The weaker alien classes don't benefit as much from frenzy, and they often attack in groups much more vigorously, and with weaker more rapid attacks (meaning swarm is the more useful whip upgrade to them regardless). At the same time, the fade stands to gain the most from individual triggers of frenzy, and it also makes the class ridiculously powerful/easy.
Adding metabolize also brings the fade closer to the skill floor it has in NS1 - you need to use metabolize, swipe and blink all the time in order to be effective, but your adrenaline is limited and you have to engineer each situation with your 3 complementary skills.
Then when we see how hard it is to manage adrenaline with no movement chamber and flamethrowers everywhere........aaah, I'm getting off topic.
Whip Bombard damage is too low to be effective at anything right now. If Bombard damage is increased reasonably, Mature Whip could fill the roles of Area Denial, as well as Siege Weapon.
Bile Bomb, on the other hand, has a ridiculous splash radius for a player weapon.
I think these two rules should help balance the game for variable player counts:
<!--coloro:#00FF00--><span style="color:#00FF00"><!--/coloro-->1. Players should not have powerful AOE damage weapons. The power (damage, radius, DPS) of an AOE weapon should be inversely proportional to its sustainability (ammo) and availability (cost).
2. Strategic weapons (that cost T.Res, eg ARC, Sentry, Whip) SHOULD be AOE. This would make them scale well across player count.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Not only that, but actually getting the whip to hit what you want is incredibly fiddly at this point as it doesn't seem to take into account any objects in its way for the trajectory of its bombard ball.
I think that this new system sounds a bit like the recently discussed pheromones. Why not take this time to unify the marine and alien waypoint systems? What reason is there not to?
As a commander I'm always frustrated when I'm telling a whole team of marines to go to a certain place and they ignore it, since they want to chase down where the aliens are.
But I don't think this is necessarily just being uncooperative.
A lot of this seems to happen:
Commander assigns to marines to move to a location, the marines move there but they don't get another order.
After a brief wait, the marines then do whatever they want, splitting up and probably die.
The order to move stays there and it has grown 'stale' but it led to a death for them last time - so the marines don't know whether to really follow it or not. Some still do, while others don't, dividing the team.
A few ideas to get around this problem some of which have been discussed:
Being able to 'queue' multiple waypoint commands.
Being able to set the 'urgency' of a waypoint, this could be by doing rapid right clicks when assigning the task.
Being able to set a 'dont go here' or 'avoid this area' marker, this might induce better control of marines.
A wider selection of waypoint types, such as 'rally at this point', 'dont go in this area' (but this will probably just confuse things).
The ability for marines to place or remove waypoints which the commander 'approves' of.
Like a previous poster said, be able to place multiple 'points of interest' such as 'I want to build this res node' etc.
I'd like to see a 'dont go here' or 'avoid this area' marker.
It will make marines think twice as they will assume it is too dangerous to go there alone.
For example say I have 4 marines who have just built a res tower for me, if I then assign them the waypoint of 'defend this res tower' since it's obvious aliens are abouto come, they will almost definitely ignore it and continue onwards.
But if I place a 'dont go this way' which has a big red x in front of them, then they might think twice.
When he can do this, and he also communicates with teammates, it will be just fine.
*What conditions for completion?
Global markers are definitely a step in the right direction. The idea of selecting "units" (players) and sending them to a location died on the border between RTS and RTS-FPS.
Waypoints could still work with <b>persistent</b>* squads, but otherwise, global markers are a far superior method of giving human players orders.
*How to enforce persistence?
*What conditions for completion?
Global markers are definitely a step in the right direction. The idea of selecting "units" (players) and sending them to a location died on the border between RTS and RTS-FPS.
Waypoints could still work with <b>persistent</b>* squads, but otherwise, global markers are a far superior method of giving human players orders.
*How to enforce persistence?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If we are allready ditching the idea of selecting individual units and giving them individual tasks why not add a few different kind of "global markers" the marine commander can place around the map?
That way the commander wouldn't be placing waypoints that give marines directions to follow but he would rather be distributing "objectives" around the map.
Objectives could include stuff like: Defend area, build in area move on (res caping), clear out area (attack move) and maybe even something like a "stay clear of this area for now" markers.
This way the marine commander could basicly "paint the map" with different objective markers and marines have an easier time understanding the overall picture on the map. It would also give the individual marine more options for doing different usefull things that still fit into the overall plan of the commander.
But it's kind of an drastic idea and i guess something like that would be very difficult to implement, especially considering that marine commander gameplay right now mostly works pretty well.
"Need 3 marines here."
I just don't like this accept/deny quest thing.
And I'm not sure how the commander will give orders so specific (i.e. how many marines, and what are they going to do) - how will he specify that? Waypoints are simple in this respect because you select a group of marines, and you set a location, and it's mostly all context-sensitive. Objectives would be similarly as simple, but would not have fine control such as 'Need <b>this many</b> marines here'. With objectives, though, you're just kind of setting strategic mission objectives, and letting the marines on the ground decide how best to approach them.