Grissi's ns2 thoughts
Grissi
Join Date: 2003-08-28 Member: 20314Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Join Date: 2003-08-28 Member: 20314Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">Document</div>Hey guys
When I started to play ns2 again I began to write down my thoughts into a private document, it allowed me to have easier time thinking about possible ns2 problems and future balance issues.
This document is now up to 20+ pages so I desided to make this public, hopefully there is some useful information in there that might give a different perspective on the game. Maybe someone can make use of it.
Here is the link:
<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/14A0m_U_CJxZ3xJwjfN94Lh2f7B9Jv5F3oqxHhunbDd4/edit" target="_blank">https://docs.google.com/document/d/14A0m_U_...qxHhunbDd4/edit</a>
Some parts may be outdated and I still haven't written details about others. This is just a baseline of thoughts and not nesacerry right. It's not uncommon for me to think completely different about a issue after getting more experience with it.
Anyways, hope this can be of some use.
EDIT:
Finished ns1 gameplay, going to add ns2 gameplay after I have played next patch a bit.
When I started to play ns2 again I began to write down my thoughts into a private document, it allowed me to have easier time thinking about possible ns2 problems and future balance issues.
This document is now up to 20+ pages so I desided to make this public, hopefully there is some useful information in there that might give a different perspective on the game. Maybe someone can make use of it.
Here is the link:
<a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/14A0m_U_CJxZ3xJwjfN94Lh2f7B9Jv5F3oqxHhunbDd4/edit" target="_blank">https://docs.google.com/document/d/14A0m_U_...qxHhunbDd4/edit</a>
Some parts may be outdated and I still haven't written details about others. This is just a baseline of thoughts and not nesacerry right. It's not uncommon for me to think completely different about a issue after getting more experience with it.
Anyways, hope this can be of some use.
EDIT:
Finished ns1 gameplay, going to add ns2 gameplay after I have played next patch a bit.
Comments
Thanks for sharing this with the community!
<b>EDIT:</b>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Maybe infestation should only show players if shades hive is active.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is actually a fantastic idea. Maybe it could be a khamm upgrade? Not only does it give aliens more reason to pick shade instead of always crag first, but it allows marines to be sneaky again if they do things right - atleast if the aliens don't have this upgrade. I also think this would work best if marines had no feedback on whether they were being tracked by the infestation.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Obs
Works very well currently, but I think it should receive a 2nd upgrade such as motion to tracking to create another tech path.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Would be awesome if comm and marines could only see skulks on the minimap with some sort of tech researched. Currently it feels a little cheap having players able to spot skulks hiding right away because they're visible on the minimap. (I'd still prefer if they took it out altogether, but at least as an upgrade it would be more defendable, see the marine ESP thread)
Similarly, giving infestation only minimap tracking with shade hive would be great as well.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Aliens definitely need more stuff to use team res on.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is HUGE and arguably the most important thing that needs to happen in order to put aliens and marines more or less on equal footing. The Khamm also needs more p.res sinks. And I agree that making gorge buildings and cysts free may become a problem in itself (no p.res sink for gorge players, allowing them to go fade or onos late in the game, all players going gorge to build hydras, etc) A better approach to the gorge would just be lowering the p.res costs of his buildings imo. (1 for cysts, 3 or 5 for hydra with a cap/hive and 2/3 for goo wall, etc)
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Might be interesting to have drifters have abilities connected to the hive, such as more hp with crag and more speed with Shift.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Could allow them to build under camouflage with Shade.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Whips
Fine right now.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I must say I disagree with this. I feel that in their current hybrid state there's very little purpose to them, other than countering a GL rush. Hydras do a better job at deterring a marine from getting too close to an important structure,. Whips are too easily ignored and there's very little purpose to building a group of them to siege a base with bombard. (Which is really expensive at 20 t.res per when a 10 t.res ARC will just wipe them out easily) Could make their bombard better versus ARCs, at least then ARCs and Whips would be somewhat on even terms in their ability to take one another out. (I.e if ARCs are rushed in a hive the mature whips would easily deal with them, if the ARCs stay at a safer range the Whips will get wrecked. Alien khamm would then have the ability to rush some Whips to intercept ARCs.)
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Should make buildings invincible without using the ability.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I assume this was supposed to be invisible :p. Definitely agree, allow shades to permanently cloak buildings (not players, just automatically cloak spawning players for a said duration) It's really tedious and kind of pointless having to spam that button as a commander. (Phantasm could still be a khamm click-able, once they figure out what it will do)
+1 to invisible cysts with shade as well, maybe as an upgrade on the shade. (More upgrades is a good thing, more t.res sinks for the Khamm)
First of all, the document formatting and writing is really good. It was easy to read and understand. Everyone should give feedback like this.
I agree with most problems and suggestions.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><ul>Grenade launcher</li><li>I think explosive damage should be lowered a little bit to lifeforms. I think skulks should be survive the aoe from the nade(even with just 1hp) but die on direct hit.</li><li>Friendly fire will fix many problems with the current grenade launcher in competitive play(and make whips even more awesome to counter them).</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
1.) I think the explosion aoe should kill you, otherwise it would be weird to not be able to kill the low hp skulk, even though he was standing right in the explosion radius.
Maybe the aoe splash damage should be shared with all life forms that are hit by it.
+ Increase the aoe splash radius, but decrease the overall damage.
+ direct hit does more damage
--> the skulks wouldn't always instantly die by 1 nade
--> team work gets more important
2.) may be as a server plugin, so you can have it disabled on pubs, because friendly fire grenades would definitely ruin the fun for marines.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Mines
Suggested changes
<ul><li>I don’t think skulks should be able to parasite mines.</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think it's okay how it is at the moment. It takes a long time to shoot 10 parasites into the mine. In some cases you are even faster, if you just defuse it by jumping on it. When the mines are properly planted, it takes for ever to kill them all. Skulks shouldn't be the only ones not being able to do something against them, even though the mines are a direct counter to skulks. The draw back of killing mines is the time you waste not killing marines.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Shade
<ul><li>Will probably be least used chamber.</li><li>Should make buildings invincible without using the ability.</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
1.) I imagine the hallucinating ability quite strong. Faking another hive when you are planting your second hive will be really interesting. Kind of like the shell game.
2.) typo I think
One thing I think gets overlooked a lot:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This could be made interesting, let’s say a marine team concede the game it could activate a self destruct that takes 2-3 mins to go off. At the same time all marine structures go offline, marines could try to hold off to get a morale victory :). Not sure what could be done on the alien side.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've had an idea similar to this, which is essentially dynamic victory conditions. Something would trigger an evacuation event, for instance, like if one team controls 80% of the RTs or all the extra hive locations. A timer would start and the advantaged team would have ~5 minutes to clear out the enemy's base or else the enemy would successfully "evacuate" the area... which isn't a victory or even a draw really, but not a total loss either. This would theoretically encourage the losing team not to instantly give up and keep fighting, but also not prolong the game any more than necessary. There could potentially be other dynamic victory conditions - the core idea is that when a team is clearly going to lose, but it might take them 20 minutes to lose, give them a new objective to strive for which is less desirable than total victory, but not as bad as complete destruction.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->"I feel the loss of the lerk shotgun skill, was very fun to play with"<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I feel you on this one. I actually miss snipe more than the shotgun though! :(
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->"Drifters need the ability to move through vents and place structures there. The ability to place structures in vent is to have the ability to drop forward structures with low risk. The ability to move through vents is needed to place these structures and allow mapmakers to create another routes for drifters to get to hives/rts"<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This used to be possible, but when they changed the pathing system to a mesh type system, this got nerfed as a side effect I believe. I think mappers might be able to path it out? I'm not sure though since I'm no mapper. There is a command to see the pathing in-game! I believe it's nav_debug .
It has less DPS, the only thing you gain from using it, is saving your ammo.
Burst damage is always better, even though you can save ammo with the alt fire its better to kill things faster. That's why the alt fire won't be used.
Thanks for sharing this with the community!
<b>EDIT:</b>
This is actually a fantastic idea. Maybe it could be a khamm upgrade? Not only does it give aliens more reason to pick shade instead of always crag first, but it allows marines to be sneaky again if they do things right - atleast if the aliens don't have this upgrade. I also think this would work best if marines had no feedback on whether they were being tracked by the infestation.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like the idea of making the infestation (which is a rather large role of the khamm) work in relation to the current alien tech. Why not do it for all chambers? Make the aliens only move faster on infest if they have a shift, make the infest only heal aliens if they have a crag/shell, make the infest only give hive sight if they have a veil/shade. Would give the khamm kind of a base building role. I believe the devs said they wanted him to be more of a passive hand in things, what better way than to shape the environment through infestation?
I agree, I have already added more about this subject under mechanics.
Make RT power rooms. In most marine rooms the only structure up is the RT. This allows marines to run buildings without the powernode up in the room, but it still presents a vulnerability for aliens to attack and end games. It reduces the number of areas per room the marines are forced to defend.
Make it so RTs power emergency lighting, but not full lighting. I like the idea of powernodes being used to run auxiliary abilities: full lighting, minimap radar, motion tracking, doors/fans, slowing/stopping/reversing infestation, and maybe even a electrifying building ability. However the more the powernode is responsible for, the more the map makers influence game balance.
Was going to write more about it but tried ns1 again and played it accidentally for 2 hours. It was just to much fun :)
Anyways even though I just started the gameplay part you can already see the difference in possible strategy/tactics. I'll probably try to do more detailed writeup about the maps and power system after I finish the gameplay part.
I also got more insight into the problems of the current resource system, hoping to find a good solution to that as well.
Thanks for all the feedback.
Very interesting new additions.
After writing it though I Realised few things I need to update in the main document, will probably go into that after I finish up ns2 gameplay. It will make it easier to compare the two games.
Whoa, this is an awesome idea! something like;
"Nuke it from orbit" button, takes 2-3 minutes to charge a nuke that will fire from a ship in orbit, but all structures are offline for that time :) Aliens still win the game of course, but like you said a morale victory for marines. This is such a cool idea, will really fix the problem where marines are down to their last base and turtle in it for half an hour for no reason, they would be much more likely to just do this.
It could be a commander option, and when he selects it at least half the team has to accept it or something by pressing a key
Some nitpicky comments:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->ARMS LAB: This is probably the most common tech pah in ns1. This gives marines the extra advantage they need on the field. Early on players usually upgraded armor 1 so marines could survive a extra bite from skulk even when parasite. However as the players got better more commanders started to go for weapons one and sometimes even weapons 2 before armor 1.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Going w1 before a1 was pretty much a novelty strat used during short periods of time by certain teams. It didn't have anything to do with skill, it was just a case of certain people (erroneously) thinking that one less bullet to kill a skulk is better than denying skulk para-2bite kills in the early game.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->MOTION TRACKING: Costs 80 res to start. You need to build a IP, armory, observatory and get the upgrade started. This hurts your early res a lot but is very rewarding with good marines. Very risky and very important that you get your initial rts up. Very low on res for med/ammo and not much room for mistakes. Many strong teams liked this beginning.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The MT rush was another novelty strat. Very rarely used and had nothing to do with being a "strong team".
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->PHASE TECH: Costs 60 res to start. You need an IP ,armory, observatory and the upgrade. There is relatively low risk involved and you have res for med/ammo. Each pg costs 15 res and it’s important to get them up early and hold them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
PGs were almost always used. Outside of certain novelty strats like early shotgun rushes and whatnot, I can't think of a single game between good teams where PGs weren't used by the marines.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->ADV ARMORY: Phase tech usually follows the early adv armory and hmgs are used to maintain map control, this allows 1 marine to defend both base and the pgs while the rest pressures.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
PG tech was always researched before AA, unless you were doing a novelty strat like JP rush or early HMGs.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->THE JP RUSH: All in jet pack rush, marines will go for early res and map control. Meanwhile the commander goes straight for adv armory then proto + jet packs. The marine team has to play with very low med support in the beginning to make this work. Costs around 200 res. High risk high reward.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There were two ways to JP rush; (1) what you described, and (2) a planned long game with jp-hmg vs. 2-hive aliens. The idea of (2) was that jp-hmg would gradually overpower alien advanced lifeforms while a few jp-sgs would deny alien rts, eventually res-starving the aliens, culminating in a hive rush when the aliens were short of advanced lifeforms.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->SHOTGUN RUSH: This was usually considered 50/50 chance of winning, teams even had a high chance of taking a win against much better teams with a shotgun rush.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Definitely not a 50/50. 20/80 in favor of the aliens is probably more accurate. There are many different ways to early shotgun rush as well, not just the one you described, but I guess it isn't necessary to list them all.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Very risky but very rewarding. Usually map dependant whether marines tried to relocate or not. It was very popular to relocate to double res in old ns_caged since it was rather easy to do and very rewarding.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Another novelty strat, that you overrate the success rate of. Relocations were extremely rare in competitive play, because not only did it carry with it extreme risks during the relocation, but most of the time it also delayed your economy so much that you were put at a great disadvantage during the mid-game. There were a few teams who used relocations successfully for very specific purposes on very specific maps (the sproggalots on ns_eclipse is a good european example), but like I said, it was very rare.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->While the aliens have both fade and lerk up its near impossible to get into the hive to shoot it down vs a good team. If however the healing gorge gets picked out they do have a chance to break the defence and get into the hive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not really the case. Most capable marine teams equipped with shotguns and upgrades, and with med support from the commander, had a good chance to chase the fades away (if not killing them outright) and taking the hive down while the fades were healing.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Very rarely used. There were some strategies where all skulks went redemption to prevent marines from getting res from kills.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Redemption was nearly useless for skulks because, in 95% of cases, they would die before the redemption kicked in. I've only ever seen redemption used as a joke in competitive play between capable teams.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A fade should never go 1v1 versus a hmg, the hmg will simply destroy the fade.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not really. Because of the low burst damage of the HMG, a fade will win, or at least survive, most 1v1 against an hmg equipped marine, as long as the players are of equal skill and the teams have equal quality upgrades.