Problems of the current resource model
Raza.
Join Date: 2004-01-24 Member: 25663Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2004-01-24 Member: 25663Members, Constellation
NS1 had two different team resource models, which didn't scale well with player numbers and made balancing difficult. For NS2 the resource models have been unified, to solve these problems. I'd say UWE has accomplished their goal, the economy works pretty much identical on both sides. However, I'm not quite happy with some of the side-effects. I feel that the resource model is limiting tactical decisions and makes the game less fun.
Here are some of my observations, feel free to add your own.
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro--><b>1. Few trade-off decisions</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Resource investments fall into several categories, like economy, tech, weapons, support or expansion. For NS2 economy = RTs, tech = upgrade structures and research, weapons = weapons/lifeforms and support = med/ammo/catalyst and some other stuff. Expansion = investing in forward bases with PGs and turrets.
In NS1 (and most RTS games), the commander has to decide where to invest to get to a specific goal. A shotgun rush is a heavy investment into weapons, while ignoring the economy. High risk, high reward. An example on a smaller scale is delaying research of a new technology to drop lots of meds and hold a position.
NS2 in comparison requires far less decisions from the commander. The separated resource types eliminate a lot of the trade-offs. Tech, weapons and support are completely separate from each other now. Players buy weapons with their own personal resources, tech is bought with team resources and support depletes the commander's personal resources. One of the few decisions that the commanders can still make is whether or not to invest in stationary defences. Finally there is economy vs. tech, unfortunately that is also the least interesting area. As long as the team has a few RTs, teching is no problem.
Overall this feels dumbed down and boring.
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro-->
<b>2. Excessive amounts of team resources once everything is researched</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Once teching is done, team resources are starting to pile up. In NS1 those could be spend on support and weapons, but not in NS2. Occasionally, an RT needs to be replaced. Forward bases also require some investments. However, this is usually not enough to use up all team resources.
The logical consequence is spamming defence structures: turrets, crags, whips.
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro--><b>3. Personal resources for team support</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
The marine commander* buys meds, ammo, weapons, MACs and ARCs with his personal resources. Not only does that seem weird from a conceptual point, but it also doesn't work that great in the game.
Meds and ammo alone drain most of the resources. Dropping a weapon in the field can be useful, but is rarely worth the cost. I've seen comms asking other players to buy ARCs for them, because they were low on resources, which is just awkward.
The problem here is that the personal resources need to balanced for two very different things: weapon supply for the field players and the support role of the commander.
*(I'm focusing on the marine side, because the alien commander is still mostly using energy.)
Here are some of my observations, feel free to add your own.
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro--><b>1. Few trade-off decisions</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Resource investments fall into several categories, like economy, tech, weapons, support or expansion. For NS2 economy = RTs, tech = upgrade structures and research, weapons = weapons/lifeforms and support = med/ammo/catalyst and some other stuff. Expansion = investing in forward bases with PGs and turrets.
In NS1 (and most RTS games), the commander has to decide where to invest to get to a specific goal. A shotgun rush is a heavy investment into weapons, while ignoring the economy. High risk, high reward. An example on a smaller scale is delaying research of a new technology to drop lots of meds and hold a position.
NS2 in comparison requires far less decisions from the commander. The separated resource types eliminate a lot of the trade-offs. Tech, weapons and support are completely separate from each other now. Players buy weapons with their own personal resources, tech is bought with team resources and support depletes the commander's personal resources. One of the few decisions that the commanders can still make is whether or not to invest in stationary defences. Finally there is economy vs. tech, unfortunately that is also the least interesting area. As long as the team has a few RTs, teching is no problem.
Overall this feels dumbed down and boring.
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro-->
<b>2. Excessive amounts of team resources once everything is researched</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Once teching is done, team resources are starting to pile up. In NS1 those could be spend on support and weapons, but not in NS2. Occasionally, an RT needs to be replaced. Forward bases also require some investments. However, this is usually not enough to use up all team resources.
The logical consequence is spamming defence structures: turrets, crags, whips.
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro--><b>3. Personal resources for team support</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
The marine commander* buys meds, ammo, weapons, MACs and ARCs with his personal resources. Not only does that seem weird from a conceptual point, but it also doesn't work that great in the game.
Meds and ammo alone drain most of the resources. Dropping a weapon in the field can be useful, but is rarely worth the cost. I've seen comms asking other players to buy ARCs for them, because they were low on resources, which is just awkward.
The problem here is that the personal resources need to balanced for two very different things: weapon supply for the field players and the support role of the commander.
*(I'm focusing on the marine side, because the alien commander is still mostly using energy.)
Comments
On the marine side, I'd like to see MACs and ARCs changed to costing TRes instead of PRes. IMO, PRes should solely be used for direct help to marines, such as weapon/med/ammo drops. I think that would help with the too much TRes/too little PRes problem.
Also, I'm kind of fond of the increasing cost for multiple structures way of reducing structure spam. For example, you could have the cost of sentries/crags/whips/hydras increase by 1 for every one of those structures currently built. It would make map-wide spam prohibitively expensive.
Wrt point 3, I like that personal resources are used for team support, honestly. But specifically only for medpacks, ammo and equipment; or any commander 'abilities' like catalyst. I do believe that MACs and ARCs should be a team expenditure.
Point 1 is hard to address, but on the whole, I agree. It's an unfortunate side-effect really.
I suggested some time ago that tech points should give you team resources, while res nodes would give you personal resources. It would change up the dynamic considerably, while keeping the same kind of expenditure model. Of course, costing and income would have to change some: for example, resource towers would have to be cheaper and more expendable, and given the high number of res nodes in a standard map, each resource tower couldn't produce too many personal resources or else you'd have an abundance. But I don't know how well that would solve the situations you're describing.
Mechanic is a bit clunky, but it might introduce the strat tradeoffs youre talking about.
Resource investments fall into several categories, like economy, tech, weapons, support or expansion. For NS2 economy = RTs, tech = upgrade structures and research, weapons = weapons/lifeforms and support = med/ammo/catalyst and some other stuff. Expansion = investing in forward bases with PGs and turrets.
In NS1 (and most RTS games), the commander has to decide where to invest to get to a specific goal. A shotgun rush is a heavy investment into weapons, while ignoring the economy. High risk, high reward. An example on a smaller scale is delaying research of a new technology to drop lots of meds and hold a position.
NS2 in comparison requires far less decisions from the commander. The separated resource types eliminate a lot of the trade-offs. Tech, weapons and support are completely separate from each other now. Players buy weapons with their own personal resources, tech is bought with team resources and support depletes the commander's personal resources. One of the few decisions that the commanders can still make is whether or not to invest in stationary defences. Finally there is economy vs. tech, unfortunately that is also the least interesting area. As long as the team has a few RTs, teching is no problem.
Overall this feels dumbed down and boring.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've repeating this a bit excessively on a few threads already, but it partitially overlaps with the lack of tradeoffs and I feel it hasn't been explained or solved very thoroughly yet. My game isn't really playable so please correct me if I've missed some crucial detail that solves all the issues.
In alien team you're always heading up the lifeform ladder with your res (apart from the niche role of gorge turret farming). This leads to two things:
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro--><b>Skulk has no strategical role</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Whatever a skulk does, fade does better.
In NS1 the fades were a big investment and often tied with responsibility to stay alive and fight for the key locations and most dangerous marine groups. Skulks had less direct responsibilty and they could roam around, harass economy and in general just disposable and look for ways to hurt the marine team.
In NS2 way fewer players are investing in alien economy and tech buildings. As a results you've got more lifeforms. Basially the original skulk role exists, but since everyone is burning their res on lifeforms anyway you might as well put a fade to do the skulk job. It's not efficient, but you really have no better alternatives for using the res. Skulk turns into a lifeform that you use when your actual lifeform is dead and you can't afford a new one.
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro--><b>Aliens reach late game army composition very early</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
As aliens spend very little individual res to build the tech and econ, it all goes to lifeforms. A 6 player alien team might reach it's optimal desired composition the very moment people start affording fades. After that only progression is adding onoses and researching tech. In Starcraft 2 terms this would equal something like being maxed out with a good late game composition right when you get past the early game.
If aliens reach their 'maxed out' composition as soon as fades kick into play, how are they going to scale into late game? Adding onoses and upgrades is probably going to help to some extend, but I'm not very convinced it could save the whole thing.
Marines are facing a bit similar situation, but at least so far the gun composition has been a lot more momentarily thing that variates and requires consistent res flow to maintain. Are aliens going to become equally disposable? Does that work with the alien hit and run nature that puts a lot of emphasis in staying alive (or at least so far has done so)?
As you wrote before, the ability to spend team res for one thing, personal res for something else takes away some depth (for tactical decisions). I would promote the following idea:
- make all costs for a commander be team resources (med packs, ARCs etc.)
- disable personal res income for a commander as long as you are sitting in a comm chair / hive
- adjust team res income therefor
the pros are obvious, it solves some problems which are described a few posts before. My only concern is that alien comms would never be able to access higher live forms. (Marine comms could still drop equipment for themselves)
to solve this problem and to add some more strategic depth to aliens we could try the following:
- implement an upgrade called something like "hive gestation"
- once upgrade is researched, every player is allowed to gestate inside the hive
- the alien comm has the option to fill a stockpile of team res which could be used for higher life forms
- "hive gestation" once researched activates a button called "fill gestation stockpile" which puts some amount of res to that stockpile
- all players have the option to use this stockpile then if they cannot afford a life form (difference will be payed from stockpiled res)
- players are limited to use only a reasonable amount of res at once from this stockpile (20 res per gestation per minute?)
pros:
- alien comms can access higher life forms
- alien comm can make active decision to invest into armoury (life forms) instead of economy (res towers) or support (crag, whip)
- since "hive gestation" is an upgrade, its not avaible at the early beginning (30 secs research?) to prevent first minute lerk / fade rush
- aliens can use their t.res in lategame...
cons:
- can be confusing to maintain such a "stockpile", needs to be implemented very clear in the commander gui and should be indicated somehow to other players
(something like "gestation stockpile filled with XX res")
- scales not with team size. smaller teams have a higher amount of res per player avaible. this could be solved by several restrictions to individual players
edit: i forgot to mention: adjust personal res income. see personal res only as an addition. very low income rate and through rfk as a reward for playing well. when the
p.res income is low enough, marine comm weapon drop, alien comm gestation stockpile will be the main source of armoury, at least is significant for the game flow. p.res is then
something that scales with team size and a personal reward. giving the illusion that you can make some decisions on your own instead of depending on a comm.
I like this, because in NS1 supporting your team (especially in public games) was cut off, or very limited, because commanders wanted to focus on teching, expanding etc.
A quote from jiriki(head of ENSL):
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->MEDPACK! This isn't public!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Now supporting is not gonna be cut off, but still limited.
And I think this is why UWE chose this new resource system for NS2. Great job!
Just make ARCs cost Team Resources, that would be a fix the problem with too few Personal Resources.
I have never dropped a weapon in B178 because ARCs cost Personal Resources. And I dropped VERY few medpacks/ammopacks. Taking down alien structures is simply higher priority.
MACs/Med/Ammo/Weapons/Catalyst should still cost Personal Resources, since they all support the marines. MACs support via building/welding etc.
ARCs are not a direct support to your marines, but its a mid-late game siege weapon, therefore it makes more sense to make it cost Team Resources.
As for the alien commander, make his chambers trigger abilities cost Personal Resources. (since they >support< his troops)
Maybe also make Drifters and Infestation(hope the name doesn't change :( ) cost Personal Resources.
We also need upgrading Harvesters/Extractors back in the game. For Personal Resources at least, not sure if they increased TRes flow? In my opinion they shouldn't. You should sacrifice 5 TRes(Teching, Expanding etc.) for a better flow of PRes(Support, Weapons and Lifeforms).
All this would also decrease the need for several commanders(Hey, can you buy an ARC for us?). I don't like the idea of more than one commander at all.
[...]
Also, I'm kind of fond of the increasing cost for multiple structures way of reducing structure spam. For example, you could have the cost of sentries/crags/whips/hydras increase by 1 for every one of those structures currently built. It would make map-wide spam prohibitively expensive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My main concern is not the spam itself, but that there is no alternative to it. It's better to build turrets than to save up res that you can't spend otherwise. Sure, excessive TRes are mostly a problem in the late-game and it's not uncommon in other strategy games to float in res by that time (if you are on the winning side). But you can't invest those res into a final push to end the game, static defences are the only option. And more defences will likely force the commander to spend more of his scarce PRes on support, ARCs alone won't survive long without it. Seems like a factor that favours end-game stalemates.
<!--quoteo(post=1851953:date=Jun 12 2011, 04:38 AM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Jun 12 2011, 04:38 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1851953"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Part of the problem with point 2 is that not all researches and structures are in the game yet, nor are the game-ending structure-destroyers which would work to put a drain on enemy team resources.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Honestly, I'm not sure how much of a difference that'll make. What structures and researches are left on the marine side? I can only think of the prototype lab (are we getting one?) and the jetpack and exo technologies. Might postpone the problem for a few additional minutes, but it's still there. Guess we'll have to see what kind of impact ARCs, bile bomb and whips(?) are going to make.
<!--quoteo(post=1852026:date=Jun 12 2011, 11:11 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Jun 12 2011, 11:11 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1852026"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I've repeating this a bit excessively on a few threads already, but it partitially overlaps with the lack of tradeoffs and I feel it hasn't been explained or solved very thoroughly yet. My game isn't really playable so please correct me if I've missed some crucial detail that solves all the issues.
In alien team you're always heading up the lifeform ladder with your res (apart from the niche role of gorge turret farming). This leads to two things:
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro--><b>Skulk has no strategical role</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
[...]
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro--><b>Aliens reach late game army composition very early</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
[...]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, I'm a bit disappointed how the res model impacts gameplay regarding the army composition. NS1 favoured diversity, because some players had to save for RTs, chambers or hives (skulks, gorges) while others dealt the damage (lerks, fades). Since the alien comm builds all structures now, those individual roles are gone, everyone just invests into lifeforms. Everyone saving for fade is probably a decent strategy in NS2.
So being forced to use crappy lifeforms because you can't spend your money without breaking the game for your entire time is better than being able to pick a lifeform you like and play the game with it?
Interesting view to take.
No, it's not too early. Adding a new lifeform here or some upgrades there has no influence on the resource model. And some of my points can't be "fixed" by balancing costs at all.
<!--quoteo(post=1852121:date=Jun 12 2011, 05:24 PM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Jun 12 2011, 05:24 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1852121"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So being forced to use crappy lifeforms because you can't spend your money without breaking the game for your entire time is better than being able to pick a lifeform you like and play the game with it?
Interesting view to take.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, that's not what I said. The NS1 system was far from perfect, it was very fragile and a few wrong decisions could ruin everything. However, it required the player to actually make those decisions. You could invest into RTs, you could invest into upgrade chambers or a hive, you could invest into higher lifeforms. At least you had to choose. In NS2, the question whether or not to evolve into a better lifeform is often answered simply by the amount of available personal resources. Like Bacillus said, what's the point of staying Skulk now, instead of going Fade?
At least my idea is that you partitially build the tech tree on top of the res model. I'd say it's a lot easier to have a good base structure which can then be decorated with all kinds of nice tech than it is to have a dozen nice decorative items that you somehow ductape together because there's no system that really suits them all.
It's all good if their tech tree plan solves some or all of the problems discussed here. If they don't, it's about time these get discussed. Every change they make in the res model changes the context of almost every RTS aspect of the game. It's better to get the res model right as soon as possible.
Regarding point nr1, the issue is now much better now since there're several options available for the commander, a big improvement from the previous patch. While I'd like to see weapons from team resources pool (point nr1), I still see points 2 and 3 as much greater short-term issues.
<!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro--><b>Skulk has no strategical role</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
Whatever a skulk does, fade does better.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So give the Skulk some useful ability that the Fade won't have.
Example: Hitting an enemy with Leap resets the enemy's speed or reduces his max speed the same way landing slows you down in NS1.
<!--quoteo(post=1852026:date=Jun 12 2011, 05:11 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Jun 12 2011, 05:11 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1852026"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--coloro:#4169E1--><span style="color:#4169E1"><!--/coloro--><b>Aliens reach late game army composition very early</b><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
As aliens spend very little individual res to build the tech and econ, it all goes to lifeforms. A 6 player alien team might reach it's optimal desired composition the very moment people start affording fades. After that only progression is adding onoses and researching tech. In Starcraft 2 terms this would equal something like being maxed out with a good late game composition right when you get past the early game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Split the efficacy of each upgrade into multiple levels of that upgrade (Frenzy Level 1 - 5) and have <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=113766" target="_blank">Chamber upgrades scale with Chamber count</a>. Commanders will have to spend more res to reach the same level as before.
And I don't like that.
The two-resource model has grown on me. I think it <u>can</u> work well.
However, a long time ago I suggested a single (team) resource system, which would represent "real wealth", and personal currency, which would just be "representational currency". The team would gain resources, by res towers and RFK; the grunts would receive an income (depending on res towers) or a bounty (depending on kills). Grunts spending personal currency would also consume team resources, while the commander would only (generally) consume team resources. The team would have a minimum "reserve" (a floor) that the grunts could not spend out of, so the team/commander would always take priority.
Basically, it's a <b>single resource system</b> which <i>prioritises the team over the grunts</i> and <i>operates on a somewhat "first come first serve" basis</i>; with grunts' <b>personal expenditure limits imposed</b> by personal (kills) and team (towers) performance.
Example: Hitting an enemy with Leap resets the enemy's speed or reduces his max speed the same way landing slows you down in NS1.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What kind of strategical role the leap slowdown give skulk? Fade is a direct combatant and harasser, lerk is ranged support, gorge is healing support and possibly bombardment. Onos is probably a tank and position breaker. Even with slowdown skulk would still heavily overlap with the fade. I could see skulk being a JP counter, but that's more of a small situational role rather than a solid position.
The problem is coming up with an ability that actually makes skulk interesting and valuable without overkilling the whole lifeform somehow. You can't buff skulk to the fade level in combat capabality because that would wreck the idea of investing in lifeforms and thus giving res game big importance.
And even if there is an ability, are you just going to hoard the res while skulking? The idea of a res model where you only spend on lifeforms doesn't work properly with a free starting lifeform. I think skulk is pretty similar to a lvl 1 character in some RPG right now. You play it at first because you that's all you've got, but once you get some experience (in this case res) you're not going to look back because any level above it is simply extra use for the party.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Split the efficacy of each upgrade into multiple levels of that upgrade (Frenzy Level 1 - 5) and have <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=113766" target="_blank">Chamber upgrades scale with Chamber count</a>. Commanders will have to spend more res to reach the same level as before.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That seems a pretty limiting makeshift fix for a lot more complicated issue. Even if you actually get the aliens to scale enough somehow (I think it's going to be difficult with so many fades bursting into game simultaneously), it's a pretty nasty option for the gameplay:
<ul>* There's no change in lifeform composition for the vast majority of the game (Fades all over the place all game long). Having absolutely no progress except the 'invisible' upgrades is probably pretty confusing for the newbies too. With same composition all game long you've also got massive pressure towards the fight mechanics; if you do fading or fight fades the whole time every game it better be ridiculously awesome and fun doing that.
* There aren't many dynamics with the lifeform play when they're so numerous. For example there's hardly any decisions involved in fade positioning on the map when you can have a couple of them everywhere around.
* The lifeform diversity is still horrid: Lots of lerks, lots of fades, maybe a gorge and some onos later on. NS1 had a pretty good diversion with the 4 lifeforms despite the onos being almost useless. In NS2 the bias is towards higher lifeforms because the smaller ones have lost all their unique economical value.</li></ul>
<!--quoteo(post=1852504:date=Jun 14 2011, 05:14 AM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Jun 14 2011, 05:14 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1852504"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Seems like the "solution" if you could call it that, is to just regress to the NS1 resource model. That's the direction the rest of the game is taking anyway.
And I don't like that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't think anyone is directly talking about going back to NS1 model. Obviously it's used in examples because apart from the scaling and team dependency it did a lot of things quite brilliantly right.
Also, I think a lot of solutions still end up being pretty close to NS1 model, no matter what. Part of the problem with NS2 is that the res model is so different from NS1 and yet the units and gameplay often closely resemble NS1. If they want to mimic NS1 gameplay elements, they may also have to mimic the NS1 res model quite a bit or the whole thing isn't going to work. NS1 had a very fragile structure and many parts of it fall apart without the support of the res model, I think.
I think it would be awesome if we could find a res model that supports the gameplay without being too direct copy of NS1 model, but I still find resorting to unoriginal solutions better than collapsing the whole game structure while trying to look unique. The best thing we can do is to keep throwing suggestions and discussing and maybe there will be at least some new, unique and yet functional solutions.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The two-resource model has grown on me. I think it <u>can</u> work well.
However, a long time ago I suggested a single (team) resource system, which would represent "real wealth", and personal currency, which would just be "representational currency". The team would gain resources, by res towers and RFK; the grunts would receive an income (depending on res towers) or a bounty (depending on kills). Grunts spending personal currency would also consume team resources, while the commander would only (generally) consume team resources. The team would have a minimum "reserve" (a floor) that the grunts could not spend out of, so the team/commander would always take priority.
Basically, it's a <b>single resource system</b> which <i>prioritises the team over the grunts</i> and <i>operates on a somewhat "first come first serve" basis</i>; with grunts' <b>personal expenditure limits imposed</b> by personal (kills) and team (towers) performance.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think on this system I'd be spending all the res as a comm, nothing would go over the treshold that allows marines to get their share. At least NS1 was never about being able to spend the res, it was more about carefully managing the res you've got.
On a quick glance I can't see why the system couldn't work, but I don't know if it actually provides much more options than having the NS1 commander pool (in case the res never goes above the treshold) or having the whole commander based on tres while marines have pres (in case you still want marines to buy their guns) and then tweaking and twisting the res distribution betweeen tres and pres until it looks desirable.
All in all, such systems are a possible solution, but they still have a lot the issues mentioned in this thread. For example the system still lacks tradeoffs as long as marines are supposed to buy their guns.
You don't make 4 star generals buy tanks out of pocket.
I've noticed people don't care about their team goals anymore, they just want to go on a Rambo killing spree to go get personal res and get heavy weapons/Fade as soon as possible. The commander handing out weapons was better and gave a more tactical edge to the commander function. When do I buy heavy weapons/what kind of weapons do I buy for my team?
Teamplay > personal glory
You don't make 4 star generals buy tanks out of pocket.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree, this is one of the biggest mistakes in the current res setup.
NS1 style was great.
However, everything the comm does should come out of the Tres pool. If the comm chair is making it happen, it needs to cost Tres.
Probably need to go back to carbon / plasma etc. But a blended model might address some of the OP's points.
What kind of strategical role does the Skulk have currently? If the Fade is outshining everyone else, perhaps some things that ARE (the Fade being an allegedly direct combatant and harasser) need to reconsidered and possibly changed to make design space for things that COULD BE.
Regardless, there is a large difference between the Fade's intended role and the Fade's effective role. It may function currently as a direct combatant, but it was designed to be a guerrilla fighter that utilizes stealth and hit and run tactics. With that in mind, I'd say the Fade is as unfinished a product as the Skulk, and with everything else being equally fluid in this game I don't see how, "but X lifeform already has this capability," is even a valid point. Perhaps it doesn't need that capability. Still, maybe it does, but your argument doesn't seem to even consider this.
The MMO Holy Trinity (Tank, DPS, Healer) cannot function optimally without one of it's members. Lifeforms can be adjusted to follow this philosophy. <b>The goal should be to give each Lifeform some distinct but limited functionality whose full potential is only attainable via teamwork.</b>
Make the Fade Energy dependent in Solo combat, and allow the abilities of his other teammates to alleviate this strain. Example:
Increase Energy cost of Swipe and/or slow the Fade's move speed down. In solo combat, Fades should be highly dependent on Blink to catch Marines (if you have to increase Blink speed, so be it), such that they're forced to retreat more often than another other class that is better equipped at slowing Marines down without exhausting itself.
Then give skill-based solutions the Fade's problem to other Life-forms. Skulk Leap slowing down or knocking back Marines could be one solution, and the planned Rifle-butt Knockback would be a possible counter. Obviously this group effort attack would require more incentive than that of either individual attack (otherwise why wouldn't the Skulk just bite the Marine to death instead of Leaping at him?). Maybe Swarm should become a Skulk-specific Upgrade so that Skulks Bite can be made much weaker by default, which would force Skulks to either work in packs (relying on Swarm to deal the majority of the damage) or group up with a Fade to take care of the damage.
<!--quoteo(post=1852527:date=Jun 14 2011, 03:36 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Jun 14 2011, 03:36 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1852527"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The problem is coming up with an ability that actually makes skulk interesting and valuable without overkilling the whole lifeform somehow. You can't buff skulk to the fade level in combat capability because that would wreck the idea of investing in lifeforms and thus giving res game big importance.
And even if there is an ability, are you just going to hoard the res while skulking? The idea of a res model where you only spend on lifeforms doesn't work properly with a free starting lifeform. I think skulk is pretty similar to a lvl 1 character in some RPG right now. You play it at first because you that's all you've got, but once you get some experience (in this case res) you're not going to look back because any level above it is simply extra use for the party.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But you don't only spend res on lifeforms, you also spend it on Upgrades. At this point there are no lifeform-specific-upgrades, and the chamber-specific-upgrade buy costs are negligible, but if there was enough to unlock, they would be what brings that starting lifeform back up to par with the other forms. You can justify having all of the classes equally effective by end-game because you control lifeform costs and lifeform-specific-upgrade costs individually.
<!--quoteo(post=1852527:date=Jun 14 2011, 03:36 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Jun 14 2011, 03:36 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1852527"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That seems a pretty limiting makeshift fix for a lot more complicated issue. Even if you actually get the aliens to scale enough somehow (I think it's going to be difficult with so many fades bursting into game simultaneously), it's a pretty nasty option for the gameplay:
<ul>* There's no change in lifeform composition for the vast majority of the game (Fades all over the place all game long). Having absolutely no progress except the 'invisible' upgrades is probably pretty confusing for the newbies too. With same composition all game long you've also got massive pressure towards the fight mechanics; if you do fading or fight fades the whole time every game it better be ridiculously awesome and fun doing that.
* There aren't many dynamics with the lifeform play when they're so numerous. For example there's hardly any decisions involved in fade positioning on the map when you can have a couple of them everywhere around.
* The lifeform diversity is still horrid: Lots of lerks, lots of fades, maybe a gorge and some onos later on. NS1 had a pretty good diversion with the 4 lifeforms despite the onos being almost useless. In NS2 the bias is towards higher lifeforms because the smaller ones have lost all their unique economical value.</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
All of the listed items are your observations of what is occurring currently, but none of them are arguments against what I'm suggesting, which in fact isn't too different from what NS1 did with the D/M/S upgrades.
Instead of spending 10 T.Res on a Whip, and 15, 25, and then 35 T.Res for Melee Upgrades (85 T.Res total), you spend 10 T.Res for a Whip (which unlocks Level 1 Swarm and Frenzy) and 20-25 T.Res to upgrade it to a Mature Structure (which unlocks the passive Melee #1 upgrade as well as Bombard). Subsequent Whips unlock Swarm and Frenzy levels 2 - 5, and subsequent Mature Whips unlock Melee levels 2 and 3.
This:<ul><li> Encourages Overlords to build more Structures, initially to further their evolution, and in the later-game for the security of redundancy</li><li> Allows upgrades like Swarm, Frenzy, Carapace, Regen to scale with the Team's progression</li><li> Puts a needed strain on Alien T.Res</li><li> Enables Marines to hinder Kharaa evolution by tactically targeting Structures.</li></ul>
The current resource system is inflexible because the resources have exclusive roles. If this weren't the case, every problem with the resource model would be solved. The limitations on what you can buy with each resource must be removed.
This would mean that resources controlled by an individual player could be invested in not just weapons, but economy and tech as well. But since the commander is the only one who can spend resources on economy and tech, individuals would need to be able to donate their res to the commander.
However, this creates another problem. There are inherent disadvantages in having distributed resources over pooled resources. There's a lot of idle res between the players and it's difficult to make large investments alone. So the prevailing strategy will be to just donate your resources to the team pool and have the commander spend it. And since this would always be the best thing to do, why have the option? Have it all automatically go to the commander to begin with! Now we're back to the NS1 model.
It is inevitable
Yeah. I was actually considering doing some calculation on how much res was RFK'd and how much of res went to medpacking in some old commander demos. I think ENSL has at least some Peach's commander demos which should be pretty much top notch medpacking when it comes to efficiency. My own demos (if I find any) are probably quite a bit more inefficient and spam happy. It might be interesting to do some comparsion if I find the necessary demos.
As for Kuban's response: I'll get to that post at some point. I tried writing a response and it went into so many directions that it would take some CIA wondermachine to decode it. I'll look back into it when I've got time. :)
- I don't like the idea of less choices, but I don't want to go back to the old NS1 resource model either. I'd rather have less depth then make the overall game balance fragile and difficult to manage. The idea is that the team IS making strategic trade-offs here though: the commander has to decide whether to research shotguns or not, and that costs team resources. I think that weapon-research may just be too cheap though, that might improve tradeoffs nicely. It probably won't ever be at the RTS/NS1 level where the commander totally chooses the amount of offense, but that's the tradeoff inherent in this model. To me it's more important that the overall balance and pacing scale properly with players, and that players don't get tech-starved because there are too many players on the server (ie, there aren't enough shotguns to go around). One major difference between NS1 and NS2 is that NS1 sometimes gave a higher priority to the RTS experience and NS2 will probably always give priority to the FPS experience (which makes sense because more players are experiencing it as a FPS).
- Commander "support" abilities cost personal res so general strategies, build orders and timing doesn't change depending on the number of players on your team (it's my stupid idea, thank you very much). The relative cost of a medpack changes completely between a 6x6 and a 12v12 in that model.
- I'm coming around to the idea of ARCs costing team resources, I'll probably change this.
- I will definitely address the "Whatever a Skulk does, a Fade does better" argument (ouch). My first thought is to increase Fade swipe energy usage enough that he can't sustain attacks against structures. Or increasing Skulk damage with repeated hits so they can take out structures faster. Let's try to keep this out of this thread though.
- I like the idea of infestation and drifters costing personal res and would fulfill my goals of having multiple commanders change the game. 2-3 commanders could spread infestation 2-3x (at a cost of less offense) and that would really change the game in a cool way. <b>Update:</b> Although the current Hive/energy system planned for this in that you're not supposed to be able to use a Hive's energy-abilities if you're not in it (but it's a bit clunky).
The game works fine with one commander, if there was a reason to use more than one commander it would be used, it's useful to be able to hop into a hive and do some small thing that the main commander might be too busy to do, but by and large one commander can take care of the entire team quite easily with the current playercounts.
Crippling the commander's ability to buy important things by tying it to personal resources, solely for the purpose of forcing people to use more than one commander is not a good idea. Nor is using personal resources in general for commander things. I can understand the desire for a 'tech' resource and a 'stuff' resource, one of which is constant and dictates the progression of the game (team res) and one of which increases with player numbers and serves as a limiting factor on how many consumables you can have in play (guns, lifeforms etc). I do not, however, think that this is really neccesary in NS2.
ARCs, MACs, medpacks and gun drops are consumables in a sense, but they are TEAM consumables. Personal res is good because it means one player can manage his own resources, but the commander is managing the team's resources. Obviously a player on the ground should not be able to drain funds from the team, so you introduce personal res and that solves that, it gives players more choice and freedom and stops them getting in each other's hair. This does not extend to the commander however.
Assume for a moment everything the commander does costs team res, this doesn't really affect how the commander does things, if the commander is strapped for money, the best path is always to pursue technology unlocks, because this allows the players on the ground to use their far greater personal resource pool to buy consumables to buff the team up. This is true now and it would be true if everything cost team res, if you focus on building a robotics factory before you have shotguns, you're probably going to lose the game, because macs and arcs are not very useful on their own, and they still detract from your tech progression because you have to build the robotics factory which takes time and team resources.
Now imagine further down the line, you have taken a few resource nodes and more importantly, you have researched enough weaponry, upgrades, and built enough structures like phase gates and more IPs, so that you are at a point where tech progression is providing diminishing returns. At this point, you don't need to spend as much T res, and it becomes more advantageous to start spending it on consumables, such as sentry guns, or forward armories, or risky extractors, or even macs and arcs. Things you buy and risk in order to hurt the enemy directly, be it by buffing everyone in an area, getting a quick resource injection and blocking an extractor point, or shooting up their units/buildings, or taking the repair/build pressure off your marines.
Again this is the case regardless of whether some things cost personal res, really the only difference between a consumable and a tech structure is whether you already have one. If I drop a second base, the entire base is a consumable, because it doesn't make me more powerful, it basically just gives my old base a health buff because it makes the marines as a whole harder to wipe out, or maybe it gives my marines a faster deploy speed, or something like that. It doesn't <i>progress</i> the game like getting jetpacks does, it doesn't change the way it's played by opening up new parts of the game, it's paying for a stat buff, plain and simple.
I guess I just find the idea of stuff costing personal res for the commander pretty arbitrary, NS2 doesn't really have 'classes' of things like say, company of heroes does. Company of heroes has three resources and uses them for quite different things. Requisition is gotten from everything and is your basic 'money' resource, ammo is gotten more rarely and controls how often off and on map special powers are used, and fuel is rare and controls how many vehicles you get, vehicles being a very special kind of unit, invulnerable to conventional weapons but incredibly susceptable to AT weapons, essentially they are your siege breakers.
Obviously in that game, if you could just build vehicles freely, you would have little use for infantry, and if you could spend everything on support powers, you could just call in arty strikes on everything with all your cash and it'd kind of make a mess of the game. The different resources serve to balance the numbers of the three different classes, you fire arty strikes and build vehicles and infantry all at the same time, because you can't spend the arty money on vehicles or the vehicle money on infantry.
However, NS2 doesn't have that, NS2 doesn't have classes of stuff for the commander to buy, it all kind of blurs together. You build IPs because you need a spawn, you build phase gates wherever you want to send people, you build extractors wherever you have res nodes, you build armories wherever people need ammo, that sort of thing. It only has one thing for every purpose, it's not like COH where arty, vehicles, and infantry are all basically variations on the 'shoots stuff at the enemy' theme. You need every building in NS, and you also need at least one ARC (or at least it's a very good idea to build at least one, given how powerful they are) and you should have at least one MAC. ARCs don't stack well, because beyond a certain point they just clutter the place and if you hold one or two long enough, they'll get the job done, so you don't need to worry about overuse, and MACs suffer much the same issue.
Conversely on the alien side, you need to limit drifter and infestation production yes, but the simple energy approach does that fine, More hives = faster infestation and construction, why do you need to change that to repeatedly swapping out commanders = faster infestation and construction? What does it add other than an exploity, gimmicky annoyance that directly opposes the stated design goal of making the alien commander a 'soothing' experience?
I really don't understand what you're going for with the 'things must cost personal resources' approach. The best thing the comms can spend their personal resources on is a HA/dual minigun suit or a fade, so when they get an annoying marine or alien in the base they can hop out and murder them without having to recall the team. That's a perfectly good resource sink for P res on a commander, it doesn't need another one.
<b>Flayra:</b> Doing this would cause the team resources to not scale with players, causing build orders to change depending on game size.