Static MACs auto weld marines.
Xerond
Undefined Join Date: 2004-07-09 Member: 29817Members, Constellation
Undefined Join Date: 2004-07-09 Member: 29817Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Make mac placement important parts of commanding.</div>I think it would be easy to give incentive for marines to actively protect that which easily and always welds them (rather than sometimes screaming at a team-mate in game to weld you).
Anytime a MAC is not currently within the orders of a commander(while standing still) and a marine walks up to the mac, it welds him unless the commander gives it an order to do otherwise.
Commanders could augment a AA with a MAC stationed near it(would weld marines faster in combo with the Armory).
Or place a mac resting towards a forward position. The marines will still require med assistance from the comm... I think this encourages better comm+marine gameplay.
As a comm, trying to move a mac towards a moving marine to weld him creates obstacles and problems for marine movement. Instead, let the comm place the mac at an appropriate location(against a wall, out of walking interference). And the marines can then walk or move towards the mac at their own choosing.
Gives incentive for comms to use macs for more than turtle tactics, could make an offensive mac a better supporting role. Gives incentive for marines to pay more attention to macs, and to protect them for their greater value. Gives incentive for aliens to consider macs as a greater threat.
Anytime a MAC is not currently within the orders of a commander(while standing still) and a marine walks up to the mac, it welds him unless the commander gives it an order to do otherwise.
Commanders could augment a AA with a MAC stationed near it(would weld marines faster in combo with the Armory).
Or place a mac resting towards a forward position. The marines will still require med assistance from the comm... I think this encourages better comm+marine gameplay.
As a comm, trying to move a mac towards a moving marine to weld him creates obstacles and problems for marine movement. Instead, let the comm place the mac at an appropriate location(against a wall, out of walking interference). And the marines can then walk or move towards the mac at their own choosing.
Gives incentive for comms to use macs for more than turtle tactics, could make an offensive mac a better supporting role. Gives incentive for marines to pay more attention to macs, and to protect them for their greater value. Gives incentive for aliens to consider macs as a greater threat.
Comments
The second mode would be called soldier assistant mode; when activated it allows marines to have very rudimentary control over the macs. They can click use on one them and the mac will automatically follow the marine and weld him when he is out of combat and not moving; the marine can also use the mac to deploy its mines too. This will allow squads to get the assistance of a mac without the commander having to baby sit it every moment.
Of course, in both mods it wouldn't be very smart. If attacked it won't react making a commander controlled mac always better. There also would be a clear graphical indicator. Maybe change the color of his eyes, have a different antenna pop up from his head, and have him say something like, "Ready to serve you soldier" for the soldier assistance mode or "I can handle it commander" for the commander assistance mode.
Also, to keep people from mac weld stacking, just enforce a rule that any damaged object, buildings and marines, can only be repaired by a single person or mac.
This would allow the commander to activate a mac and be able to leave it momentarily to focus on more pressing matters, but if ignored under intense combat situations, it will probably die quickly.
That would be very useful.
But some limit would have to occur, so we don't see stacks of MACs making marines invincible.
And in my opinion a MAC welding a marine should be slower than a marine welding a marine.
Personally I don't see the point, I'd just drop an armory and tell them to build it, it costs about as much as a mac and is far more durable, as well as faster to deploy given that I can drop it out of thin air wherever the marines are, plus it restores health, ammo, and armor.
Now if you gave me an mobile armory, that I'd use, but macs? What's the point?
Personally I don't see the point, I'd just drop an armory and tell them to build it, it costs about as much as a mac and is far more durable, as well as faster to deploy given that I can drop it out of thin air wherever the marines are, plus it restores health, ammo, and armor.
Now if you gave me an mobile armory, that I'd use, but macs? What's the point?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A commander should watch his marines as much as possible, it increases their survivability; medpacks.
It's an RTS/FPS blend, spending your time on both marines and buildings as commander is crutial.
In my opinion it is much more fun trying to keep your marines alive with medpacks, rather than researching upgrades or expanding.
An armory here and there will end up being too expensive compared to dropping medpacks and having a MAC weld marines.
Having a mobile armory would be a bit too OP, don't you think? A building that can replenish health, armor and ammo, now also mobile?
But having MACs fly around and just repairing armor would be fine.
Two MACs are alot more durable then an armory, at the same cost. They keep marines alive, and each other alive.
And keeping each other alive is something MACs are doing quite well right now, with the current repair rate they have.
No alien can kill two MACs unless the commander fails his micro management. Hence my thread about repair rates.
If MACs autorepaired each other, they would litterally be invincible.
Even though, it seems they are staying with the current repair rate, but I guess they will realize that this <i>is</i> a problem later on.
Personally, I'm just waiting for some Korean guy to prove this for me ^^
Personally I don't see the point, I'd just drop an armory and tell them to build it, it costs about as much as a mac and is far more durable, as well as faster to deploy given that I can drop it out of thin air wherever the marines are, plus it restores health, ammo, and armor.
Now if you gave me an mobile armory, that I'd use, but macs? What's the point?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A good comm will spend as much time as he can over the marines... you can hotkey a structure and play "strategy" while you're hovering over marines. And if you know your hotkeys... you can drop any structure in an instant...
When you're hovering over marines, you can place meds <b>accurately</b> while they are in the middle of a fight and keep them alive. Being a marine and living through 4,5,6 bites because the comm was dropping precise meds in the middle of a firefight is exhilarating...
You may not have witnessed this in NS1 or had it happen to you in NS2 yet, but this is what a good comm should be doing.
When you're hovering over marines, you can place meds <b>accurately</b> while they are in the middle of a fight and keep them alive. Being a marine and living through 4,5,6 bites because the comm was dropping precise meds in the middle of a firefight is exhilarating...
You may not have witnessed this in NS1 or had it happen to you in NS2 yet, but this is what a good comm should be doing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If I wanted to do that I'd play a flash game that gives you points for clicking on a moving dot or something. Having to drop medpacks on top of marines is bad controls, not a feature. Being able to do it is arguably worse, because it means the alien can't do anything other than get shot because he's biting an invincible marine. Having it happen as a marine is stupid, woop de doo I won because the comm dropped a dozen medpacks on me. Aren't games fun when they give you god mode?
I play strategy games because I want to do strategy, like, thinking and stuff, not follow dots around and click on them lots.
If I wanted to do that, I'd be playing a marine and tracking skulks with my mouse.
It seems like making a suboptimal solution even more suboptimal, by introducing another element along the same lines.
Armories let marines take care of their own supply, which means no matter how many marines you have, your ability to supply them remains unchanged, as each marine devotes a bit of their own thinking-time to supplying themselves, thus meaning that as marine numbers increase, so does the amount of thinking-time devoted to supplying them, and each armory is a one time cost meaning that no matter how many marines use it it costs the same, you need one armory per front whereas you need several medpacks per marine in trouble. Marines in trouble increase with every new player, whereas it is unlikely you would ever have more than three fronts or less than one (possibly two). Therefore armories are an ideal, self sustaining solution, medpacks are a time intensive, unsustainable solution.
If NS2 is supposed to be 16v16, there is no way in hell I can keep up with every marine on the map and micromanage them with medkits and macs, but I can quite easily drop an armory every time they take a new bit of ground. Giving me plenty of time to do useful things with my time like give them orders, take new refs, control arcs, that sort of thing, the sort of thing that the command position is good at.
Welding Center (marines can request MACs to weld them [only on at the time] with 1/3 of the normal weld rate)
Costs: 10 res
I play strategy games because I want to do strategy, like, thinking and stuff, not follow dots around and click on them lots.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Really? You never noticed that it costs a commander lots of personal res to keep a marine alive, if he ends up getting bitten 4-6 times?
That right there, is a strategic value, and leaves the comm to make a decision. You know, like thinking and stuff..
It is neither bad controls, or a 'god-mode'. Medpacks can miss, and a comm easily can run out of res if he is not careful with the amounts.
Your marines are your units, you should do the best you can to support them, and keep them alive.
It would be annoying losing your "expensive" marines(they bought weapons) to low tier lifeforms because they are away from an armory.
Dropping two or three armories in the early-mid game would be a very bad decision, that is almost always resources down the drain.
And if you do drop those armories, you will most likely get behind in upgrades, and lose the game. And most likely lose the armories on the frontlines anyway.
This game is meant for both 6v6 and 16v16. With higher player counts, an armory at the frontlines could be a viable option to keep them alive, but you will still get behind in upgrades, so maybe not such a viable strategy anyway.
This is not purely a strategy game, it's an RTS/FPS hybrid, and you will have to focus on both sides of the genre to be good at it.
Because of this blend, it will never be pure strategy, and you will never have the same strategic freedom you have in other RTS games.
As most of your units are real players and not simple AI.
If support packs wasn't in the game, commander would be boring as hell. The time you use on chosing upgrades is very limited, and you will end up staring at your resources, just waiting for more. Current alien commander comes to mind.
<!--quoteo(post=1884882:date=Nov 14 2011, 10:23 AM:name=WizardHUN)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (WizardHUN @ Nov 14 2011, 10:23 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1884882"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That would be a possible upgrade in Robotics Factory:
Welding Center (marines can request MACs to weld them [only on at the time] with 1/3 of the normal weld rate)
Costs: 10 res<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
MACs already cost resources, this don't need to be an upgrade. MACs can already repair buildings when they first spawn, why not marines?
It would be easier to just make the MACs repair nearby marines, or have marines +use them for a weld. I agree that there needs to be a limit to how many MACs there can be on one marine, and even one building. Especially with the current repair rates, which seem to be staying, at least for a while.
I like this idea better, as I wouldn't want a cluster of macs to get in the way of combat.
Or using a 'weld request' key ala ns1 could be used to give a nearby stationary mac the order to weld you.
That right there, is a strategic value, and leaves the comm to make a decision. You know, like thinking and stuff..
It is neither bad controls, or a 'god-mode'. Medpacks can miss, and a comm easily can run out of res if he is not careful with the amounts.
Your marines are your units, you should do the best you can to support them, and keep them alive.
It would be annoying losing your "expensive" marines(they bought weapons) to low tier lifeforms because they are away from an armory.
Dropping two or three armories in the early-mid game would be a very bad decision, that is almost always resources down the drain.
And if you do drop those armories, you will most likely get behind in upgrades, and lose the game. And most likely lose the armories on the frontlines anyway.
This game is meant for both 6v6 and 16v16. With higher player counts, an armory at the frontlines could be a viable option to keep them alive, but you will still get behind in upgrades, so maybe not such a viable strategy anyway.
This is not purely a strategy game, it's an RTS/FPS hybrid, and you will have to focus on both sides of the genre to be good at it.
Because of this blend, it will never be pure strategy, and you will never have the same strategic freedom you have in other RTS games.
As most of your units are real players and not simple AI.
If support packs wasn't in the game, commander would be boring as hell. The time you use on chosing upgrades is very limited, and you will end up staring at your resources, just waiting for more. Current alien commander comes to mind.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If my commanding experience revolved around dropping medpacks I wouldn't touch the chair. Do you play much RTS? I find it hard to understand why you find alien commander boring, there's plenty of stuff you can be doing. Alien commander is the strongest commander role, precisely because it doesn't bother with any of the stupid 'marines can commander have to be CONNECTED' rubbish, as if this was some sort of self help game for needy people. Alien commander puts the commander in charge of all his stuff, and tells him to try to control the map. The best way to achieve this is to watch the map conditions and exploit opportunities, as well as creating your own. If players clear a room, colonise it. If they are having trouble somehwhere, drop a support base for them, if marines are attacking, tell the team to deal with it. If the alien commander has one failing is that it doesn't have any direct effectors on the field like marine ARCs or sentry guns. The proposed whip changes might fix that.
You can't make the commander strategy based if you keep trying to include players, so why bother? They only detract from the commander experience, give the commander his own stuff to do, strategic stuff, stuff other than 'who can click the marine most accurately' or 'who can memorise their key presses the best' or other nonesense that only serves to detract from the actual strategy part of the game. Medpacking marines has very little to do with strategy even though it costs money, because it has far more to do with how well you can aim it. If you can aim it well it's a useful thing, if you can't aim it well it's far less useful, whether it's fiscally sensible barely comes into it. Now if you replaced medpacks with an AOE healing power or something, that'd be a strategic decision, because you can decide when and where would be best to use it, and use it reliably, without putting stupid arbitrary control limitations in the game.
Dropping medpacks on marines is bunnyhopping for commanders, it's stupid and needs to go.
Dropping medpacks on marines is bunnyhopping for commanders, it's stupid and needs to go.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You are hilarious, think I'm just going to leave this here for the fun of it :)
For the discussion on mini-armories and the role of a commander regarding medpacking, please take it to the thread I have started since we've hijacked the original thread. <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=115428" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=115428</a>
Regarding the original idea though: Yes! Stationary macs repairing marines at a slowed rate would be a wonderful idea! Period. If a marine wants to stand still while a skulk is chomping on him so he can get a slow repair, let him be my dinner, er, guest! Even if every marine was standing by a mac, I doubt the aliens would complain too much given that they now have static targets. The stationary mac would help our dear marines recover AFTER a battle, which is what they should be doing. This without forcing other player to play doctor while being yelled at to weld someone. But that's just my two cents.
Would also really like AI units to have a 'push' index, so players can move them out of the way simply by walking into them. Also to prevent unit stacking, but I believe that is in 188?
As for dropping med packs, and ammo, I feel dropping ammo is fine, but dropping meds could be better, rather then dropping the pack, how about a full heal solution for rines that has a cool down between usages (on the same rine), this will prevent spamming, and will also reduce net lag, as all of you commanders have noticed before when dropping in a fight.
Solution to a problem that never existed in the first place?
Touche
I was just wondering (maybe I missed it, but I don't comm often or see people who know how to) can the comm use MACs to weld marines if he tells them to already? If anything, the commander should have more stuff to do (I don't really know what Chris spends time doing while in the chair if not watching marines...?) The problem with commanders in NS is they're by and large FPS nuts or casual RTS players -> all equivalent to sub-Masters level SC2 players. Why don't we <i>encourage</i> getting better at commanding rather than pandering to the "but I focus on <i>strategy</i> not your trivial APM-fest" crowd.
I'd rather keep welding and healing a comm micro-able ability. The commander should be the primary means of welding and healing. Marine-to-marine welding should be the one acting at a reduced rate. If there was a setting for MACs to auto-weld marines close-by that'd be cool and give them an offensive purpose while still rewarding a commander with more APM as they could perform weld-triage by microing the MACs (whereas auto-weld would just weld whoever).
Also it'll be interesting to see what happens when Exo-suits are introduced and welding becomes the larger proportion of marine "healing".