NS2 Wide open area discussion.
Corpsey
Join Date: 2011-07-02 Member: 107538Members
Join Date: 2011-07-02 Member: 107538Members
There are a number of areas that bother me about tier1 vs tier1 and how the game is progressing for far in general.
1) Skulks can't close distance very well at some times, and they're great at doing it other times but I feel that either way the aliens have more casualties.
2) Lerks are weak. They're just so weak. Why do they cost so much res when the hive makes eggs for no energy cost and no resource cost? Also, in NS1 they became quite useless as the game progressed. People would still go lerk after 4 heavy armors were up for some odd reason. Why? They could have spent their res so much better on so many other things. Well.. I find that lerks are liabilities in the mid-late game. They're great early game though......
3) Aliens are at a disadvantage in open areas. Even with cloak.. once they bite, if they don't have other cloaked teammates with them they're pretty much asking to get shot up like Peter Weller in the opening scene of robocop.
4) In NS1, usually once the marines tech'd passed the point where they got JP/HA, it was over for the aliens unless they aliens had very skilled assassins, and even then the game could prolong and eventually lead to marine victory simply because the marines had the extra player as commander, and the commander could do a lot of useful things that the aliens can't.. Like build AI-using structures that were very effective. The best the aliens ever got in terms of building was the hive itself.. and they were also the most vulnerable if left unguarded. I feel like NS2 is going down this path, and while it makes for interesting gameplay.. the more open the map is the less effective the Onos becomes and if you're on the aliens you find yourself going
"Okay I could go in as skulk but I'd die.. I could go gorge but I'd be kind of useless at this point.. I could go lerk but I wouldn't get any res return... I could go fade but then I'll be chased down by jetpackers constantly, and the marines that aren't jetpackers wil fill me with lead any chance they get.. and I can barely go onos but with all the firepower on the marine team a jetpacker could potentially chase me down and potentially just follow me into the hive, kill me and deal damage to the hive."
So what option do you take? Any choice and you failed sadly....... I think the game should be more balanced for open area fighting.. because even in close quarters in NS2, the marines have the shotgun which lets face it, it's just the marines long-range bite. I think the aliens need a unit to counter the shotgun/flamethrower, and if you're thinking onos.. well then the aliens need <b>something</b> to counter a jetpacker with a larger weapon than those.. because otherwise the marines have the advantage in such a way that a jetpacker unit can attempt to solo hives with "that weapon that deals a lot of damage to lifeforms, and still damages structures". Think about some more open-spaced maps that you know and try to apply NS to it....... if they're too small, the marines can win with just a quick Obs, if they're moderately larger, the marines can win with Obs and Arms Lab, moderately larger again and the game may drag out but it will still be pretty much just OBs, Arms Lab, Robotics Factory...... All scenarios in which the aliens have to fight really hard to get tier 2 or be forced to close the distance between themselves and marines with terrible odds.
I really can't think of any way to balance this.... It's either like bring back mini-leap, or have the alien structures able to be "used" and on top of that, don't take the commanders ability to use them away (because the commander gets discounted energy for group) and also display the energy of the structures to the aliens.. I think that would be useful for letting them know where they might need another building. I can't really think right now but just think if you put skulks and lerks vs marines on blood gulch or a map like that.. the marines have an advantage I think. There are things the aliens can do to be sneaky but with the marines scan ability, that gets taken away quite quickly. So once cloak is gone for skulk and lerk, what do they have then? especially if there's a commander.. marine commander can drop meds, alien commander can just watch or attempt to drop building, spray umbra, use frenzy, use cloak.. all things that aren't entirely as useful as supplying health or energy. Perhaps that can be a solution.. energy recharging is quickened on infestation.
Anyways share your thoughts, I know that maps that are open aren't exactly NS-feeling.. but it would be nice if they felt more balanced. It just seems like you can keep distanced really easily as a marine.
1) Skulks can't close distance very well at some times, and they're great at doing it other times but I feel that either way the aliens have more casualties.
2) Lerks are weak. They're just so weak. Why do they cost so much res when the hive makes eggs for no energy cost and no resource cost? Also, in NS1 they became quite useless as the game progressed. People would still go lerk after 4 heavy armors were up for some odd reason. Why? They could have spent their res so much better on so many other things. Well.. I find that lerks are liabilities in the mid-late game. They're great early game though......
3) Aliens are at a disadvantage in open areas. Even with cloak.. once they bite, if they don't have other cloaked teammates with them they're pretty much asking to get shot up like Peter Weller in the opening scene of robocop.
4) In NS1, usually once the marines tech'd passed the point where they got JP/HA, it was over for the aliens unless they aliens had very skilled assassins, and even then the game could prolong and eventually lead to marine victory simply because the marines had the extra player as commander, and the commander could do a lot of useful things that the aliens can't.. Like build AI-using structures that were very effective. The best the aliens ever got in terms of building was the hive itself.. and they were also the most vulnerable if left unguarded. I feel like NS2 is going down this path, and while it makes for interesting gameplay.. the more open the map is the less effective the Onos becomes and if you're on the aliens you find yourself going
"Okay I could go in as skulk but I'd die.. I could go gorge but I'd be kind of useless at this point.. I could go lerk but I wouldn't get any res return... I could go fade but then I'll be chased down by jetpackers constantly, and the marines that aren't jetpackers wil fill me with lead any chance they get.. and I can barely go onos but with all the firepower on the marine team a jetpacker could potentially chase me down and potentially just follow me into the hive, kill me and deal damage to the hive."
So what option do you take? Any choice and you failed sadly....... I think the game should be more balanced for open area fighting.. because even in close quarters in NS2, the marines have the shotgun which lets face it, it's just the marines long-range bite. I think the aliens need a unit to counter the shotgun/flamethrower, and if you're thinking onos.. well then the aliens need <b>something</b> to counter a jetpacker with a larger weapon than those.. because otherwise the marines have the advantage in such a way that a jetpacker unit can attempt to solo hives with "that weapon that deals a lot of damage to lifeforms, and still damages structures". Think about some more open-spaced maps that you know and try to apply NS to it....... if they're too small, the marines can win with just a quick Obs, if they're moderately larger, the marines can win with Obs and Arms Lab, moderately larger again and the game may drag out but it will still be pretty much just OBs, Arms Lab, Robotics Factory...... All scenarios in which the aliens have to fight really hard to get tier 2 or be forced to close the distance between themselves and marines with terrible odds.
I really can't think of any way to balance this.... It's either like bring back mini-leap, or have the alien structures able to be "used" and on top of that, don't take the commanders ability to use them away (because the commander gets discounted energy for group) and also display the energy of the structures to the aliens.. I think that would be useful for letting them know where they might need another building. I can't really think right now but just think if you put skulks and lerks vs marines on blood gulch or a map like that.. the marines have an advantage I think. There are things the aliens can do to be sneaky but with the marines scan ability, that gets taken away quite quickly. So once cloak is gone for skulk and lerk, what do they have then? especially if there's a commander.. marine commander can drop meds, alien commander can just watch or attempt to drop building, spray umbra, use frenzy, use cloak.. all things that aren't entirely as useful as supplying health or energy. Perhaps that can be a solution.. energy recharging is quickened on infestation.
Anyways share your thoughts, I know that maps that are open aren't exactly NS-feeling.. but it would be nice if they felt more balanced. It just seems like you can keep distanced really easily as a marine.
Comments
In NS1 lerks were kind of crap in late game yes, but they did have a couple of pretty essential functions. Umbra and spores were both things you couldn't duplicate with any other class, one lerk in an assault would make it go a lot smoother, as umbra is a very powerful ability when there are a lot of hit points for it to protect, either in the form of high HP units, or lots of smaller ones. Spores also were pretty good against jetpackers if only because it's hard to hit them with other things. I would say lerks were less useless, and more useful in small numbers, much like gorges.
Otherwise NS has never been particularly balanced, at least not really on a unit vs unit basis. Like most asymmetric games it places massive emphasis on your ability to play well, so that while a skulk may be worse than a marine or a marine may be worse than a skulk, it doesn't strictly matter because what will determine victory is who is better at being a skulk or marine. NS1 does this by making more or less everything high damage high precision, so if you can aim the LMG you can kill millions of skulks, whereas if you can run the game at 70fps and avoid blinking for prolonged periods of time, you can control the skulk properly and kill loads of marines.
It's probably not possible to balance the actual sides against each other, because they are so different that their strengths are massively situational. Like you said, aliens suck in open spaces, so anywhere on the map that has open spaces, aliens are going to be at a major disadvantage. Which is probably why nobody in their right mind places a hive in heliport or crossroads, both of those having very exposed entrances and exits and long sightlines in general, whereas surface access is a lot more folded up so aliens can actually fight in there.
On the other hand, anywhere that is more enclosed will favour aliens, it might not do them much good against marines throwing grenades and shotguns around but it will tip the scales further in their favour. And you can't really do anything about that without turning aliens into marines, or making all maps exactly the same everywhere.
As the game performs pretty terribly at the moment it's kind of hard to get any skill involved, unless you count finding weird exploits or quirks in the implementation, such as the fade being able to attack before it exits blink, and then going on to use them constantly as skill. So the balance is pretty crap at the moment and probably will continue to be until the game itself is sorted out. You might be able to get an average of 50/50 wins/losses for marines and aliens, but that doesn't mean the game is balanced, it means the unbalances are evenly distributed, you'll still have most elements of the game being useless and only a few exploit-ish approaches being worth using.
Ultimately the goal of the game should be to make everything worth using, and to have a 50/50 win ratio, and I doubt you'll end up with that until people can actually play the game properly.
The counter to shotgunners and flamers should be lerk imo. If you keep distance well right now you can take them out, but it should be even easier in the next patch once the range has been increased. The shotgun is actually really weak at any kind of distance, you can take multiple shots and still have plenty of health. If you keep distance and fly backwards while shooting you can kill them quite easy.
I think part of the reason lerks become more useless as the game goes on is that their spikes do less damage to armour. The marines keep getting more and more armour and afaik the aliens melee damage upgrades don't effect the lerk spikes.
Keeping distance as marine is easy when the aliens run in 1 at a time down long corridors towards you. It's a lot harder when you are trying to push a hive and a lerk is spraying gas everywhere and you can't see anything.
I think the lerks biggest problem right now is the grenade launcher. It's just way overpowered against all alien lifeforms. The range and damage is crazy. It's fine being strong against buildings but I think it should be significantly weaker against aliens. It's really difficult to dodge them with the splash damage being so big.
Your conclusions tend to be off of assumptions. I've played plenty of games with 3 hives vs end tech. It wasn't about the progress of the game but the skill of the players in NS1 to determine which team won.
Your conclusions tend to be off of assumptions. I've played plenty of games with 3 hives vs end tech. It wasn't about the progress of the game but the skill of the players in NS1 to determine which team won.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Indeed, but bad comms and having half the players aloof aside.. Lerks wont fair that well in very open maps. If the lerk is gassing, it's likely to get shot by LMG fire and if the lerk is still to launch spikes, it's an immediate target for pistols. Not to mention the lerks don't have any really explosive attack that doesn't leave them vulnerable to more than 1 marine.. in which case the marine commander can just supply medpacks anyways because they're so cheap and once the lerk is down the marines have a way easier time against the then skulk that will be sacrificing himself trying to get scraps of kills so he can at least lerk again....
You're also right that my conclusions are a bit of assumptions but I try not to assume as much as possible and just throw the statistics in ways that will inevitably occur. It's a simple fact after all that an onos that can't reach a jetpacker will just get shot in the face, and in NS1 with motion tracking you could visibly see any other lifeform trying to flank you and easily stop them.
However I'm not talking about that really because in NS2 the fades can go invincible anyways so that's already one other thing that's crazy about the balance.. instead of decreasing longevity of the fade by decreasing the amount of time it was invincible, UWE just gave the fade less HP so fade is just a nuisance to both sides because turrets aren't going to be balanced with this mechanic. Turrets will just wait for the fade to become whole and deal damage to them anyways, and fades can't do much damage to the turrets so they can't progress into marine start/large corridors without taking, for them, a large amount of damage. And you couldn't take them out as skulk because there's a large chance you'll die, for one, and then even if you do take one out a mac will be sent to repair any damage you did and build a new one. Not to mention this is just the static defense.. a marine could easily walk over and his dexterity can provide a boost to defense by just being present. The more he makes the skulk/fade hiding behind the turret(s) walk into them, the less likely that skulk/fade/lerk/gorge is likely to live because more and more damage starts being applied.
While this can also be true for marines walking into alien bases.. marines at least have AOE damage weapons that can decimate into locations slowly but inevitably.
Anyways another key thing that has changed is the marines sprinting ability in NS2 which allows for squads to reestablish WAY quicker than in NS1.. Like I find in NS2 you can easily run all the way across the map in no time. In fact I think I timed it once and it was just less than 50 seconds to get into alien start on Summit, taking the safest possible route (distancing from any flanking locations). Without sprint it's more like 1:25 or so, AND you wouldn't be able to out-strafe aliens so easily. I don't know but I feel like this is one of those things that really makes this game feel less like NS1 and more like COD.
So my balance changes would be:
Lower Lerk cost (20~25?)
Give lerk a close range attack (Bite)
Remove Marine Sprint
Give fade 300 hp again, and make it less invincible
Give skulks mini-leap, for energy cost
Allow aliens to see structure energy
Allow aliens to "use" structures
Have the infestation provide alien energy
The reason for these is mostly because one side has to win.. While you might think that these make aliens OP, it's just like you stated "It wasn't about the progress of the game but the skill of the players in NS1 to determine which team won." All this would do is make it easier for aliens to close the gap without being so suicidal.. because while some players may be used to games of Close range VS. Longe range (Zombie shooters, other alien-related games) the ones that are unfamiliar will need to learn how to close or keep distance.. Like a good marine team will still know when and where to keep distance and still destroying the aliens progress safely and effectively, while good alien players can then close the gap between themselves and the marines and be able to use the cost of their lifeform effectively.. Another thing that this addresses is the fact that marines can pick up their weapons while aliens can't.. I think decreasing the cost of lerk would help this because then it's more intuitive to be an assualter as skulk then evolve to fade, vs. people who know that they will make a good lerk for the whole round but might die just because the marine weapons get quite powerful as the arms lab upgrades, they can then re-lerk without worrying about res.. and if things turn sour they can are able to go fade if they see an opportunity to save a location and prevent the marines from gathering some of their more expensive weaponry. Perhaps one more thing you could do is just make lerk egg time longer.. after all that skulk/gorge has to grow wings lol.