I Sometimes go commander and yeah, turrets really help to secure the base easily. They souldnt.
I Wonder if the dev team should add a Powergrid to the nodes, only allowing a certain amout of buildings in the area, ofc those could be upgraded to provide more power and maybe give small efficiency bonus like faster building time.
What about making CC's the old Turret Factory? Every CC would have a range to be able to put turrets which would make them finite, protect against base rushes, and give marines strong holds while denying hives.
<!--quoteo(post=1928569:date=Apr 22 2012, 08:51 PM:name=RisingSun)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RisingSun @ Apr 22 2012, 08:51 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1928569"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What about making CC's the old Turret Factory? Every CC would have a range to be able to put turrets which would make them finite, protect against base rushes, and give marines strong holds while denying hives.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> uhm, the only reasonable thing for turrets is to hold outposts, since public players don't move fast enough to defend locked down areas. Your proposal would make the only viable option for turrets turtling. which is exactly what shouldn't be happening with turrets.
I'm a mix of the previously described "supporter" and "builder." Supporting an assault for me consists of getting as many guns on the line for as long of a period as I can; phasegates to forward operating bases, armories dropped as close to an active assault as possible, and a gang or two of 2-4 MACs running around building things so that marines don't have to, letting the marines spend most of their time doing what they're best suited for: assaulting something.
Frequently, that means I'll have turrets dropped at that forward operating base to shred up skulks that come in from the side/behind, and shoot the lerks flying past trying to shut down the whole operation. Just as frequently, it means I have a few turrets covering side routes to prevent sneak attacks and keep from having to pull marines off the line to defend res towers (how exciting!).
When 20 Tres gets you 4 MACs, that's as good (IMO) as spending 20 Tres to get an extra player on your team for purposes of building. Throwing down a few more Tres to turret up a spot that you're having to use 1-2 marines to defend properly isn't "spam," it's a good use of a continuously supplied resource (Tres) to free up a limited resource (players). If you have 2-4 marines on your team who feel that they can't leave the main base because it's continually getting hit-and-run by lerks or skulks, your front line collapses. A few turrets can solve that problem, and that's basically what they're intended to do: take the onus of map control off the shoulders of the marines and automate it so that the battle can move to the front line as the area you control grows larger.
The problem comes when you compare this to the Alien equivalents and counterparts. Hydras and whips are, to put it mildly, ineffective when compared to turrets at securing an area against a coordinated assault of low-cost enemies: concentrated LMG fire destroys whips and hydras rapidly, and having an Armory right around the corner takes away the cost (health loss and ammunition expenditure) of doing this job with inefficient tools. There's no real equivalent to this on the alien side: skulks die too fast and/or take too long to heal for "concentrated" assaults on a bank of turrets, which outrange them and can be refocused in any direction by a commander who's on the ball. While bilebomb is nasty, it requires a somewhat fragile Lerk to have to fly over the target and blob it, as compared to the "hop and pop" of a grenade launcher or the sheer nastiness of an ARC barrage from out of Line of Sight. Onii stomps are effective but require coordination and represent significant Pres investments being put at risk, especially during endgame assaults on the last marine base.
What I'm looking forwards to seeing is how Babblers and some of the hallucinations off the Shade interact with turret farms. Hopefully, they do so in an effective manner (Babblers drawing turret fire off skulks in a wave assault where the sheer number of bodies/targets overwhelms the turrets, hallucinations drawing that same fire through empty air). Hopefully they bring about more interesting solutions to turret farms than the current gameplay options we've got.
<!--quoteo(post=1928570:date=Apr 22 2012, 07:58 PM:name=Biglines)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Biglines @ Apr 22 2012, 07:58 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1928570"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->uhm, the only reasonable thing for turrets is to hold outposts, since public players don't move fast enough to defend locked down areas. Your proposal would make the only viable option for turrets turtling. which is exactly what shouldn't be happening with turrets.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
SO because people are bad dont add this feature is what you are saying. This would force more hive denial since you need an outpost in a tech point or you use your rines to hold awkward area. This would cure turret spam and add a soft limit to turrets.
Turrets arent needed in Pub or Competitive play. They are just being used now because people havent figured out how to play. Noob com = turret spam. CC Turret Factory would force better placement.
but that would need people to invest in a cc, pg AND turrets to lock down a hive. The one thing turrets are right for (locking down hives or respoints) would cost too much.
The only way I would agree with that would be if UWE bring back the old 2 CC for tier 2, and 3 CC for tier 3 tech, MAKING pub rine teams gain map control.
I agree with your point about limiting turrets in positions, but limiting them to the main base would be the opposite of where they should be forced to be made tbh. Also it would make outposts in tech points or forward bases impossible to keep.
I'd say tie them to power points with a limit of 3-4 per power point. This would allow locking down map control, but would make base turtling less frustrating.
<!--quoteo(post=1928578:date=Apr 22 2012, 09:02 PM:name=Biglines)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Biglines @ Apr 22 2012, 09:02 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1928578"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->but that would need people to invest in a cc, pg AND turrets to lock down a hive. The one thing turrets are right for (locking down hives or respoints) would cost too much.
The only way I would agree with that would be if UWE bring back the old 2 CC for tier 2, and 3 CC for tier 3 tech, MAKING pub rine teams gain map control.
I agree with your point about limiting turrets in positions, but limiting them to the main base would be the opposite of where they should be forced to be made tbh. Also it would make outposts in tech points or forward bases impossible to keep.
I'd say tie them to power points with a limit of 3-4 per power point. This would allow locking down map control, but would make base turtling less frustrating.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good point and i see what you are saying now. I hate hard limits of this many turrets only but they do need to be limited. Maybe do as you say and then expand the zone where they cant have another turret?
Any limits need to differ depending on the number players per side.
Marine players buy and deploy turrets. Players can only deploy 1 turret at a time. Limit is effectively based on the number of players on marine side.
If needed, turret limit per room should also be based on the number of marine players...for example (#marines/2). In a 6v6, its 3 per room. 10v10, its 5, ect...
Turrets are generally a large investment to make on the marine team unless it's a last ditch effort to hold off the aliens for a stealth phase to a hive. If your team spends res on turrets the chances are they will not have weapons or armor upgrades... they may also lack scan or phase gates as well. So, theres obviously a huge tradeoff to using sentries especially early game. Once the marine commander has gotten all upgrades and has res to afford turrets then I say go all out. If the aliens allow you to have the res to afford turrets then that is their own fault. I don't like the idea of having a limit on sentries since the game by default has no limit. Setting up key rooms with sentries is not noobish or cheap. There are easy ways to counter sentry nests. 4 turrets is usually all you need in a room... any more and it becomes a shooting gallery for bile bomb and lost tres.
People who are overly critical of commanders using turrets simply have a superiority complex of sorts. Turrets are a viable and highly strategic element to the game. They are essential for holding down resource points far from base that are vulnerable to attack. And since turrets are cheaper than phase gates they can be a good trade off for map control / entrenchments.
But in the end... if your team can aim and is very skillful... then buying turrets is only a waste of resources and slows the inevitable alien victory (But not always).
The aliens can spam whips and crags and all sorts of structures to entrench themselves... so why shouldn't the marines have that ability as well? They need it more than aliens anyhow. People complain about turrets because they are annoying and tedious to remove from an area... but that is what their purpose is for. They really are easy to counter if the alien team uses teamwork to clear an area. All you need is an onos as a meat shield while a couple lerks bile bomb.
It's these easy strategies that most people in public games don't think to do. So, instead of using their brains to outsmart the stupid AI turrets they choose to complain.
I too believe sentries right now are somewhat balanced, though i cant really think of any problems off that bat. the reason which was mentioned before is people dont coordinate their attacks on a turtled base. think about it, they have 1 res node, every building destroyed will take quite a bit of time to replace. onos stomp, gorge heal, lerk bomb and destroy their items 1 by 1.
turrets are not the problem it seems, it's teamplay, or moreso lack thereof.
<!--quoteo(post=1928686:date=Apr 22 2012, 08:25 PM:name=1dominator1)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (1dominator1 @ Apr 22 2012, 08:25 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1928686"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How the hell did the marines afford that many sentries? Are they not 15 res each?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> 10 res each, but this build they need to be free with instant build and their own personal power pack to give marines a chance.
<!--quoteo(post=1928682:date=Apr 22 2012, 10:05 PM:name=JuCCi-PuCCi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JuCCi-PuCCi @ Apr 22 2012, 10:05 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1928682"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is needed for res towers. Nano just don't cut it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Now that Lerks have bile bomb at the six minute mark of the game, and I don't see UWE moving bile bomb back to the gorge, I agree. It's very difficult for Marines to hold down resource nodes.
The lobbed bilebomb (gorge style) was better at removing sentry farms because you didn't have to expose yourself to much fire to put a bilebomb on-target, and because you could use that cover to heal (crag farm, self-heal on gorge, etc) between volleys. The current lerk implementation requires exposing a somewhat fragile (albeit high-velocity) target to sentry fire. Again, the game will (hopefully) get more interesting than "suicide lerk or big onos rush" once we get things like babblers, hallucination, and (maybe?) acid rocket in, but we aren't feature complete at the moment and a huge amount of rebalancing for the turret-related aspects of the game right now isn't likely to yield much benefit.
As stated before, the first problem is the hitreg. The second is the lerk and his bile bomb. And this results in the third problem: sentry spam.
Marines can't hold out against two or three lerks attacking a base. Most people can't hit them with this hitreg. So they build sentries. Sentries hit lerks. Enough sentries in a base and no lerk will come out of the base alive after dropping some bbs.
Sure, with the right teamplay and a coordinated and timed attack it will be possible. But this is simply not the case on pubs. AND the game should not have a "dead end", when the teams can't manage to play on such a coordinated level.
On a side note and to come to possible solutions for only the third problem. I like the following mentioned ideas: <ul><li>4 sentries per robotfactory</li><li>an energy resource per room, only viable of powering so much buildings</li></ul>
What about making the commander placed sentry that is a strong but expensive and weaker (cheap) ones a marine can buy at the Armory like mines? Sentry and Personal Sentry?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Turrets arent needed in Pub or Competitive play. They are just being used now because people havent figured out how to play. Noob com = turret spam. CC Turret Factory would force better placement.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
After being bile bombed rush in one of our game yesterday we started to get 2 turrets in marine start around the time the bile bomb come, it was quite efficient. Even if the marine can aim having to cover the main base and weld everything takes on or two marines what are needed elsewhere to kill the fades. Since we go for arc late game anyway it's not a huge investment.
ZeikkoJoin Date: 2007-12-16Member: 63179Members, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester
Yuuki nailed it. As long as aliens are able to have 100% of the players of the team as the fastest and the best anti-structure unit in the game turrets are the only answer. Otherwise lerks can hit the marine base everytime marines leave it. It doesn't matter how much better aim, skill or tech the marines have because they cannot leave their base.
Flamethrower is not a counter to lerk because the lerk can always get away as flapping does not cost adrenaline.
Now that we have seen lerk rushes become the dominant alien strategy you can easily see why there aren't many games that include a super mobile siege unit.
Sentrys drain energy from the power node, more sentrys, more energy.
I see two ways now:
1.- The sentry has cooldown based on the energy, If you've a lot sentrys they takes a lot of time recharge their energy (win vs one rush fail vs waves) 2.- If you drain so much energy from a power node, you've fluctuations -> your sentrys fail. Erractic aim (unintuitive, i know), erratic fire (reduces its effectiveness with the sound as feedback).
As always: KISS principle, <i>Keep It Short and Simple</i>.
Sentrys drain energy from the power node, more sentrys, more energy.
I see two ways now:
1.- The sentry has cooldown based on the energy, If you've a lot sentrys they takes a lot of time recharge their energy (win vs one rush fail vs waves) 2.- If you drain so much energy from a power node, you've fluctuations -> your sentrys fail. Erractic aim (unintuitive, i know), erratic fire (reduces its effectiveness with the sound as feedback).
As always: KISS principle, <i>Keep It Short and Simple</i>.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A simpler idea would be to just limit the amount of sentries you can power per power node (so each node can only power X turrets in the room that the power node gives power to), I think 6 is a good number.
Problem with a limit like this, if you make it too small, you will have trouble protecting a large room (think Warehouse on Tram, or Cargo on Turtle), if you make it too big, then you risk having 10+ turrets in a tiny room (think Observation on Tram)
nobody thought about bring back turret factories, really?
a turret factory would limit turret spam most likely, not only would it create extremely costly process but turrets could only be built in limited space from the turret factory itself. So if you want to build lots in single room, you would need lots of turret factories, which be very costly process.
I really don't care how it makes sense with power nodes, you either limit turrets, increase turret cost or bring back turret factories. I haven't seen much choices throughout this thread differ from these three options.
Just bring back turret factories and increase turrets cost. So if the commander wants to secure an area it will be costly price but he can't secure everything by spamming turrets in the whole room. Bring back some sort of strategy placement.
If we're going down the turret factory route, then let's just get rid of power. One of the very few reasons i've seen for keeping power-nodes is that they can break turtles.
Turret factories will make you require MORE turrets aswell, because turret factories are huge and create a nice shield for skulks to hide behind, so not only do you have to try and cover existing buildings with your turrets, while also wrestling with the map geometry to get everything in the turrets line-of-sight, but adding the factory is just another thing splitting up line of sight.
Not to mention it's simply more crap that you have to get your marines to build (which is boring for them) it also ties them up from doing anything else like attacking the enemy team which is already an issue for the marine team.
I'd like to see TF come back for turret farms, though that would probably make power nodes pointless indeed. (But then again, power nodes need a redesign anyway)
Why add TF when Power Node already acts as a turret factory? They would only need to limit how many Sentries (and other structures) the Power Node can power, as said...
I think the NS1 TF promoted turret spam anyway. When the team invested so much res, time and effort in a (probably electrified) TF, it was a given to build a bunch of turrets with it too. I like how you can place turrets more independently in NS2. Just get rid of the spam.
Comments
I Wonder if the dev team should add a Powergrid to the nodes, only allowing a certain amout of buildings in the area, ofc those could be upgraded to provide more power and maybe give small efficiency bonus like faster building time.
:)
uhm, the only reasonable thing for turrets is to hold outposts, since public players don't move fast enough to defend locked down areas. Your proposal would make the only viable option for turrets turtling. which is exactly what shouldn't be happening with turrets.
Frequently, that means I'll have turrets dropped at that forward operating base to shred up skulks that come in from the side/behind, and shoot the lerks flying past trying to shut down the whole operation. Just as frequently, it means I have a few turrets covering side routes to prevent sneak attacks and keep from having to pull marines off the line to defend res towers (how exciting!).
When 20 Tres gets you 4 MACs, that's as good (IMO) as spending 20 Tres to get an extra player on your team for purposes of building. Throwing down a few more Tres to turret up a spot that you're having to use 1-2 marines to defend properly isn't "spam," it's a good use of a continuously supplied resource (Tres) to free up a limited resource (players). If you have 2-4 marines on your team who feel that they can't leave the main base because it's continually getting hit-and-run by lerks or skulks, your front line collapses. A few turrets can solve that problem, and that's basically what they're intended to do: take the onus of map control off the shoulders of the marines and automate it so that the battle can move to the front line as the area you control grows larger.
The problem comes when you compare this to the Alien equivalents and counterparts. Hydras and whips are, to put it mildly, ineffective when compared to turrets at securing an area against a coordinated assault of low-cost enemies: concentrated LMG fire destroys whips and hydras rapidly, and having an Armory right around the corner takes away the cost (health loss and ammunition expenditure) of doing this job with inefficient tools. There's no real equivalent to this on the alien side: skulks die too fast and/or take too long to heal for "concentrated" assaults on a bank of turrets, which outrange them and can be refocused in any direction by a commander who's on the ball. While bilebomb is nasty, it requires a somewhat fragile Lerk to have to fly over the target and blob it, as compared to the "hop and pop" of a grenade launcher or the sheer nastiness of an ARC barrage from out of Line of Sight. Onii stomps are effective but require coordination and represent significant Pres investments being put at risk, especially during endgame assaults on the last marine base.
What I'm looking forwards to seeing is how Babblers and some of the hallucinations off the Shade interact with turret farms. Hopefully, they do so in an effective manner (Babblers drawing turret fire off skulks in a wave assault where the sheer number of bodies/targets overwhelms the turrets, hallucinations drawing that same fire through empty air). Hopefully they bring about more interesting solutions to turret farms than the current gameplay options we've got.
SO because people are bad dont add this feature is what you are saying. This would force more hive denial since you need an outpost in a tech point or you use your rines to hold awkward area. This would cure turret spam and add a soft limit to turrets.
Turrets arent needed in Pub or Competitive play. They are just being used now because people havent figured out how to play. Noob com = turret spam. CC Turret Factory would force better placement.
The only way I would agree with that would be if UWE bring back the old 2 CC for tier 2, and 3 CC for tier 3 tech, MAKING pub rine teams gain map control.
I agree with your point about limiting turrets in positions, but limiting them to the main base would be the opposite of where they should be forced to be made tbh. Also it would make outposts in tech points or forward bases impossible to keep.
I'd say tie them to power points with a limit of 3-4 per power point. This would allow locking down map control, but would make base turtling less frustrating.
The only way I would agree with that would be if UWE bring back the old 2 CC for tier 2, and 3 CC for tier 3 tech, MAKING pub rine teams gain map control.
I agree with your point about limiting turrets in positions, but limiting them to the main base would be the opposite of where they should be forced to be made tbh. Also it would make outposts in tech points or forward bases impossible to keep.
I'd say tie them to power points with a limit of 3-4 per power point. This would allow locking down map control, but would make base turtling less frustrating.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good point and i see what you are saying now. I hate hard limits of this many turrets only but they do need to be limited. Maybe do as you say and then expand the zone where they cant have another turret?
Marine players buy and deploy turrets. Players can only deploy 1 turret at a time. Limit is effectively based on the number of players on marine side.
If needed, turret limit per room should also be based on the number of marine players...for example (#marines/2). In a 6v6, its 3 per room. 10v10, its 5, ect...
Turrets are generally a large investment to make on the marine team unless it's a last ditch effort to hold off the aliens for a stealth phase to a hive. If your team spends res on turrets the chances are they will not have weapons or armor upgrades... they may also lack scan or phase gates as well. So, theres obviously a huge tradeoff to using sentries especially early game. Once the marine commander has gotten all upgrades and has res to afford turrets then I say go all out. If the aliens allow you to have the res to afford turrets then that is their own fault. I don't like the idea of having a limit on sentries since the game by default has no limit. Setting up key rooms with sentries is not noobish or cheap. There are easy ways to counter sentry nests. 4 turrets is usually all you need in a room... any more and it becomes a shooting gallery for bile bomb and lost tres.
People who are overly critical of commanders using turrets simply have a superiority complex of sorts. Turrets are a viable and highly strategic element to the game. They are essential for holding down resource points far from base that are vulnerable to attack. And since turrets are cheaper than phase gates they can be a good trade off for map control / entrenchments.
But in the end... if your team can aim and is very skillful... then buying turrets is only a waste of resources and slows the inevitable alien victory (But not always).
The aliens can spam whips and crags and all sorts of structures to entrench themselves... so why shouldn't the marines have that ability as well? They need it more than aliens anyhow. People complain about turrets because they are annoying and tedious to remove from an area... but that is what their purpose is for. They really are easy to counter if the alien team uses teamwork to clear an area. All you need is an onos as a meat shield while a couple lerks bile bomb.
It's these easy strategies that most people in public games don't think to do. So, instead of using their brains to outsmart the stupid AI turrets they choose to complain.
turrets are not the problem it seems, it's teamplay, or moreso lack thereof.
This is needed for res towers. Nano just don't cut it.
10 res each, but this build they need to be free with instant build and their own personal power pack to give marines a chance.
Now that Lerks have bile bomb at the six minute mark of the game, and I don't see UWE moving bile bomb back to the gorge, I agree. It's very difficult for Marines to hold down resource nodes.
Marines can't hold out against two or three lerks attacking a base. Most people can't hit them with this hitreg. So they build sentries. Sentries hit lerks. Enough sentries in a base and no lerk will come out of the base alive after dropping some bbs.
Sure, with the right teamplay and a coordinated and timed attack it will be possible. But this is simply not the case on pubs. AND the game should not have a "dead end", when the teams can't manage to play on such a coordinated level.
On a side note and to come to possible solutions for only the third problem. I like the following mentioned ideas:
<ul><li>4 sentries per robotfactory</li><li>an energy resource per room, only viable of powering so much buildings</li></ul>
Sentry and Personal Sentry?
After being bile bombed rush in one of our game yesterday we started to get 2 turrets in marine start around the time the bile bomb come, it was quite efficient. Even if the marine can aim having to cover the main base and weld everything takes on or two marines what are needed elsewhere to kill the fades. Since we go for arc late game anyway it's not a huge investment.
Flamethrower is not a counter to lerk because the lerk can always get away as flapping does not cost adrenaline.
Now that we have seen lerk rushes become the dominant alien strategy you can easily see why there aren't many games that include a super mobile siege unit.
Power node has a current limit.
Sentrys drain energy from the power node, more sentrys, more energy.
I see two ways now:
1.- The sentry has cooldown based on the energy, If you've a lot sentrys they takes a lot of time recharge their energy (win vs one rush fail vs waves)
2.- If you drain so much energy from a power node, you've fluctuations -> your sentrys fail. Erractic aim (unintuitive, i know), erratic fire (reduces its effectiveness with the sound as feedback).
As always: KISS principle, <i>Keep It Short and Simple</i>.
Power node has a current limit.
Sentrys drain energy from the power node, more sentrys, more energy.
I see two ways now:
1.- The sentry has cooldown based on the energy, If you've a lot sentrys they takes a lot of time recharge their energy (win vs one rush fail vs waves)
2.- If you drain so much energy from a power node, you've fluctuations -> your sentrys fail. Erractic aim (unintuitive, i know), erratic fire (reduces its effectiveness with the sound as feedback).
As always: KISS principle, <i>Keep It Short and Simple</i>.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A simpler idea would be to just limit the amount of sentries you can power per power node (so each node can only power X turrets in the room that the power node gives power to), I think 6 is a good number.
Problem with a limit like this, if you make it too small, you will have trouble protecting a large room (think Warehouse on Tram, or Cargo on Turtle), if you make it too big, then you risk having 10+ turrets in a tiny room (think Observation on Tram)
a turret factory would limit turret spam most likely, not only would it create extremely costly process but turrets could only be built in limited space from the turret factory itself. So if you want to build lots in single room, you would need lots of turret factories, which be very costly process.
I really don't care how it makes sense with power nodes, you either limit turrets, increase turret cost or bring back turret factories. I haven't seen much choices throughout this thread differ from these three options.
Just bring back turret factories and increase turrets cost. So if the commander wants to secure an area it will be costly price but he can't secure everything by spamming turrets in the whole room. Bring back some sort of strategy placement.
Not to mention it's simply more crap that you have to get your marines to build (which is boring for them) it also ties them up from doing anything else like attacking the enemy team which is already an issue for the marine team.
I think the NS1 TF promoted turret spam anyway. When the team invested so much res, time and effort in a (probably electrified) TF, it was a given to build a bunch of turrets with it too. I like how you can place turrets more independently in NS2. Just get rid of the spam.