End Game Recycling
Soul_Rider
Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
<div class="IPBDescription">It's just not fun :(</div>I used to hate end games as Marine in NS1 where we were getting hammered, we know the alien onslaught is going to come and then, bam, the base has been sold, game over.
I was hoping with NS2 that would be gone, but in the last couple of days, I have started to have this experience again. My shock at dying and finding myself looking at a base in which there only sat a CC. We had 2 marines attacking the comm chair trying to get the comm out, so I all chatted the aliens to clear up the base.
For me, the whole game is about the end game battle, the whole game is the build up to the big destructive finale. To deny that from players either on the winning or the losing team, is something I thought had been left in NS1.
The aliens were annoyed, they had 6 of evolving to Onos, while 2 fades and a lerk came up and took out the CC.
Aliens cannot recycle their base, it has to be destroyed. I really do not want to see this play creeping into NS2, so I'd like to make a suggestion to stop recycling when all is lost. To recycle the last IP, you have to have a fully built CC at another tech-point. This enables a relocation attempt, but can't be done by a comm from the chair trying to recycle his own base in late game.
I just get so annoyed at not being able to play out the climax of the battle, for better or worse. Sure I love to win, but I love to play the game to it's conclusion more, winning or losing.
I was hoping with NS2 that would be gone, but in the last couple of days, I have started to have this experience again. My shock at dying and finding myself looking at a base in which there only sat a CC. We had 2 marines attacking the comm chair trying to get the comm out, so I all chatted the aliens to clear up the base.
For me, the whole game is about the end game battle, the whole game is the build up to the big destructive finale. To deny that from players either on the winning or the losing team, is something I thought had been left in NS1.
The aliens were annoyed, they had 6 of evolving to Onos, while 2 fades and a lerk came up and took out the CC.
Aliens cannot recycle their base, it has to be destroyed. I really do not want to see this play creeping into NS2, so I'd like to make a suggestion to stop recycling when all is lost. To recycle the last IP, you have to have a fully built CC at another tech-point. This enables a relocation attempt, but can't be done by a comm from the chair trying to recycle his own base in late game.
I just get so annoyed at not being able to play out the climax of the battle, for better or worse. Sure I love to win, but I love to play the game to it's conclusion more, winning or losing.
Comments
Rogue commander recycling everything can be a problem in pub games. I would suggest an anti-griefing measure, that stops all recyling in progress once an eject commander vote is initiated.
But I do like the idea of not being able to recycle the infantry portal.
Rogue commander recycling everything can be a problem in pub games. I would suggest an anti-griefing measure, that stops all recyling in progress once an eject commander vote is initiated.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The only problem I can see with that is if you intitiate a relocation to a safer location, and know the IP would get eaten flat-out at the old location, you should be able to sell the IP to get resources to pay for a new IP on the relocation, to remove recycling on the IP means you would have to consider removing/lowering the cost, and then start adding a whole other set of problems.
I think mine works out simpler in the long run as there are less repercussions. You are restricting all IP's from being recycled, yet if you have a comm who doesn't know what he is doing and spams 4Ip's you want to be able to recycle 2 or 3 to get the res back.
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->InfantryPortal:CanRecycle()
if ip = 1 then
if builtCC < 2 then
return false
end
else
return true
end<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
It would be relatively simple to code as well.
+1 to cancel recycling while ejecting vote in progress.
When the game gets bigger and we start having an influx of griefers doing it for less-than-noble reasons, the only proper way to deal with it will be to have admins in servers to ban them (just like with any similar annoyances).
At the same time, cancelling recycles while an eject vote is going on seems fine. In fact, if you could mirror that to the aliens, I think an alien recycle option would be good too. However, I think ejecting commanders ultimately did more harm than good in NS1 (because it leads to cliques and other nonsense in pubs, where you have to be one of the superfriends to play commander even though it's just a stupid pub). I'd prefer if someone sat down for a while and thought of a better way to accomplish the same thing.
Dragging out a game of NS (or Starcraft, or TF2, or...) is, to some people, the worst thing you can do. Some people might find it fun to have "epic long games" or whatever, but I prefer to start a new game with fresh teams and try again from a state where we have a snowball's chance in hell of winning. Admitting defeat and moving on is a useful skill to develop :)
This also kinda goes back to my topic about<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=116006" target="_blank"> 'when the game ends'</a> - the win conditions in NS have always been sorta silly and prone to unnecessarily long games. It's worse with the addition of power nodes and the removal of RFK - a team defending perfectly from their last controlled area doesn't get anything for the multitude of kills they're racking up, as long as the other team has an unbreakable containment (phase gates, whips, turrets etc), because it still takes an eternity to purchase guns/lifeforms even though your team is playing great and the other team is playing like garbage. At the same time, the players on the attacking team (in control of 95% of the map) run out of resources quickly if they die while using guns/armor/lifeforms, and the game reverts to a boring low-tech state for them even though they're winning by a considerable margin.
More game modes are a possible way to alleviate this, too - for instance, a territorial control style where the first team to X points wins (and holding res towers gives points, but respawning takes away points). There are lots of ways to make a game like NS work and feel like an RTS without having to kill every single major building of the opposing team.
Griefing is a server administration issue, <b>NOT</b> a game design issue.
It's interesting how different the NS and Starcraft communities are about this. It's my understanding that in Starcraft people would be pissed at you if you didn't surrender when you know the game is over (because any play after that is really just a waste of time). Whereas in NS, everyone seems to want to waste a whole bunch of time doing the final mop up, even after the game is over. Let's be honest here, what are your chances of winning when the aliens control all the tech points except one, and you are left with your single res node (which is probably out of res). Why waste everyone's time forcing the aliens to defeat you (which may take some time, depending on how good you are at teamwork), when instead you could be starting a new game where the outcome hasn't yet been decided.
Stuff like this is why competitive play exists, though - it's a nightmare for developers to decide on how to approach this without telling a giant chunk of the playerbase "NO YOU'RE WRONG"
the only fair thing you can do is try to educate people by pointing out how boring unwinnable games are
<!--quoteo(post=1900473:date=Feb 6 2012, 10:51 PM:name=Harimau)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau @ Feb 6 2012, 10:51 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1900473"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I guess the game needs to be designed so that the time between the outcome being decided and the game actually ending is as close to instant as possible. I don't know if you can achieve this with any game with a positive feedback loop (rich get richer), though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
that feedback loop is good, and a good way to create it is by limiting the resources available at each site (like in starcraft, as I mentioned in my thread)
I'm sure there are other ways of achieving it, too. This is something that I think should really have some effort put into it, because 90% of people who buy this game won't enjoy playing 3 hour games where they spend most of their time as an LMG/skulk.
also you have to be careful about knowing "when the game is decided" or else you get crybabies who recycle the instant they lose a resource tower, like idra leaving games in sc2 because he's afraid of playing from a disadvantage. This is why it's best to find a way for the game to manage it independently of the players (i.e. more win conditions).
1) make it so that the game ends when the outcome is decided
1.1) {and if it doesn't then end, then reset the playing field}.
More win conditions (or even approaches), especially win conditions (or approaches) that become easier or more attractive to a team as it falls behind, would approach the issue from another angle:
2) make it so that the outcome is never decided until the end.
2.1) no lead is ever too great to overcome, or any lead in one area is a lag in another.
Should I make a big joke thread mapping control systems concepts to game mechanics?
Just one person, the Commander has the power to end the game in such a manner. What if the majority of the players do not wish to end the game abruptly using this method? Surely, if the game is truely, truely lost, couldn't everyone just RR?
In most competitive games, a forfeiture must require the consensus of the majority of one team. I think it should also be the case in NS2. I'm confident the vote menu will provide that function.
This is still a server admin issue.
Not game design.
Different server communities will have different standards for when concession is ok and how it works. Trying to enfore One Standard in the game design is foolish.
1. Institute a open-ended surrender vote where people vote to surrender until a threshold is reached (rather than a timed vote)
2. Comm can't recycle the last IP
3. Make this server toggleable variables (so some servers can allow comms to recycle the last IP)
1. Institute a open-ended surrender vote where people vote to surrender until a threshold is reached (rather than a timed vote)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think HoN did a pretty neat little thing with this. Instead of finishing the game right away after the concede vote, they created the overrun scene where you still get to wreck your opponent all the way to the final survivor. Obviously it's not an epic last hold by no means, but it offers some kind of conclusion to people who want that while still keeping the 'ineffective' play time at minimal.
i can see this being an issue though... happenned in ns1.... but i'd rather have a short OP game than a long, drawn-out OP game...
If you control %75-ish, x-minute ticker starts counting down.
If it is canceled for some reason, it slowly refills, in case the interruption was only luck. or you could make it reset 100%, encouraging suicide attacks.
also, I guess this would be easy enough to implement as a mod, server-side even. But fancy countdown timer with ominous sound-effects is a must imo :).
I think the idea of having a vote to end the game sounds nice in theory but the fact is that there will always be people who don't want the game to end (just play any game and watch when the base gets recycled to see people crying about it). Either because they don't understand that the game is a lost cause or just because they are having fun / have time invested in the game and don't want it to be over.
I have played on servers where we tried to get people to all join the ready room and it was always a huge pain in the ass with half the team not joining and the players who did want to start a new game sitting around doing nothing. It's simply too difficult to get a group of players to all agree. It's so much easier for the commander to be able to recycle everything and just start a new game.
+1 for halting recycling if commander is being voted against
+1 for having server option for 'minimum IPs'
+1 for having server option for area control % declaring victory after a timer
I'm all in favor of recycling once the game is clearly lost in order to get a new game under way, why drag it out?
I think if you are in that situation as a marine commander, give them 10-15 minutes to try and break you down, if not, sell the base. I'm sure additions to the game in future will be introduced that make this situation less likely to happen. But for now, I think that is what should happen.
I'm all in favor of recycling once the game is clearly lost in order to get a new game under way, why drag it out?
I think if you are in that situation as a marine commander, give them 10-15 minutes to try and break you down, if not, sell the base. I'm sure additions to the game in future will be introduced that make this situation less likely to happen. But for now, I think that is what should happen.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Never back down, never give up! I played as a fairly poor commander yesterday in a game and my team was fine with it overall. As the Kharaa slowly built its way to our main the team was mixed between shotguns/flamethrowers and jetpacks, so we decided to swarm out and attack hives (Which surprisingly, the soldiers took out two.)
It may make the game last longer than it needs to be, but I find it nobler to try and push out rather than give-up and get swarmed (Plus the enemy team seemed to be happy when they raided us with a swarm of gorge/Onos.) It's not as simple as being a gorge attempting to build a new base after they've been completely destroyed, or in SC2 where a barrack managed to fly to the corner of a map.
I would like to see a counter that has a certain amount of points as a goal. Each team may receive a point for holding a CC or RT every X seconds. Once the counter is full, the team won.
Wouldn't mind seeing a vote option, if the majority (2/3rd?) of players agree the game should end that seems a good metric.
If most of the people are 'crying' that the game shouldn't end, it probably shouldn't. If you want to be able to control a server at your personal whim, run your own.
Yes even on rounds that allready dragged on for hours with a totaly lamed up map....
Alien team right now can't really coordinate well while marines basicly play like NS1 marines with the added bonus of mobile sieges, nano shield, spammable scan and MAC's making the job even easier for the commander. Yes it can be tedious especially if aliens had tons of time to collect excess resources for higher lifeforms.
But the Khamm - Gorge mechanics currently in place make it really really difficult for the alien side of things as soon as the marine team got any kind of coordinated teamplay going trough the commander.
And if the alien team is coordinated enough to balance out the current imbalances then they should be able to coordinate a nice rush on the marine base even if it is all turtled up...
Onos for cover and the mega strong bilbebomb will take apart a marine base in seconds if the alien team coordinates to a certain degree. And last but not least: This is still a beta, part of the fun is messing around without min-maxing the gameplay experience to the shortest rounds possible.
I have to agree that its the commander's prerogative to read the mood of his team and the flow of the game, but that its also a server admin responsibility if its being abused. Recycling IP's can be both a good and a bad thing depending on the mindset of your team (fun or not) and whether they've played ns2 long enough to understand when a game is absolutely lost. As such I wouldn't like to see random blanket rules such as "you can't recycle your last ip".
And take this plausible scenario which I have seen before. Aliens have killed your starting RT in the early game and you have no res left to build another one unless you sell your armoury and ip's. A game that could still be winnable (although very slight) is now unwinnable due to the very rule that was supposed to protect the interests of 'never give up' marines.
I for one think the game should be played out to the end, however, I also feel that it shouldn't be necessary to recycle base, because when you have realised all is lost, it is very soon afterwards.
End game in NS currently doesn't mean end game. I just think what is the point of designing the onos, jetpacks, exosuits etc. Just say whoever researches 3rd tier first wins, because that is exactly what this mechanic leads to. For me I love playing onos, but if the com recycles when you get the 3rd hive, what is the point of adding the onos? They could have released this game months ago, just told you the jetpack and exo suit and onos exist, but in reality, 1st team to research it wins by default.
If that's the game you want to play then fine, but I'd rather get the chance to use the abilities I've spent the whole game earning. It's also a double standard as it cannot be done the other way around. I don't agree with recycling the base, but I also believe the end game should be over in 60secs, not another 60 mins.
If, the conceding team is not killed off, then the damage/armor bonus would be switched to the conceding team (although both could now build) for the rest of the match. In this way, the concede forces the opponent to either come out and end the game, or pay the price a few minutes later.
To keep concede from being used out of place, it could only be used when all of the following occur:
- At least 5 minutes into the game
- The conceding team only has one hive/cc and the other team has at least 2 hives/ccs
- The conceding team has two or less res nodes
P.S. There would be a 15 second countdown before the "concede" time starts, to give both teams a chance to get ready for the final battle.
If, the conceding team is not killed off, then the damage/armor bonus would be switched to the conceding team (although both could now build) for the rest of the match. In this way, the concede forces the opponent to either come out and end the game, or pay the price a few minutes later.
To keep concede from being used out of place, it could only be used when all of the following occur:
- At least 5 minutes into the game
- The conceding team only has one hive/cc and the other team has at least 2 hives/ccs
- The conceding team has two or less res nodes
P.S. There would be a 15 second countdown before the "concede" time starts, to give both teams a chance to get ready for the final battle.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sorry but that seems superfluous and stupid. If the team all want to quit, then I have no problem with the commander recycling. Or they could all just RR. Whats the point of making their deaths even quicker?