Don't forget that the bilebomb is much more effective at range now too. Gorges can pretty much deal with turrets on their own, and then we have the other drawbacks as well...
<!--quoteo(post=1982426:date=Sep 24 2012, 03:22 PM:name=Toumal)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Toumal @ Sep 24 2012, 03:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982426"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Don't forget that the bilebomb is much more effective at range now too. Gorges can pretty much deal with turrets on their own, and then we have the other drawbacks as well...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I just saw where your NS2 signature pic came from, and I need Eye Bleach.
<!--quoteo(post=1982437:date=Sep 24 2012, 04:56 PM:name=godrifle)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (godrifle @ Sep 24 2012, 04:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982437"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I just saw where your NS2 signature pic came from, and I need Eye Bleach.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I suggest kidbleach.com :) (And yes that's an actual site, and SFW) Besides you know the rules. If it exists, there is graphic depiction of reproduction-related actions with it.
<!--quoteo(post=1982452:date=Sep 24 2012, 05:48 PM:name=zeep)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (zeep @ Sep 24 2012, 05:48 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982452"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Lots of good suggestions in this thread. UWE is silent..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's kinda disappointing really. I wish they'd at least say "No we hate sentries" or something like that. Preferably "yeah gonna be in a patch" of course...
<!--quoteo(post=1982466:date=Sep 25 2012, 03:20 AM:name=Toumal)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Toumal @ Sep 25 2012, 03:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982466"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's kinda disappointing really. I wish they'd at least say "No we hate sentries" or something like that. Preferably "yeah gonna be in a patch" of course...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Did you watch the recent Q&A? Charlie pretty much said "I hate sentries, but an aliens vs marines game should have them because Aliens 2 had them, so this current version is an attempt to somehow keep them in for genre loyalty reasons without breaking gameplay".
I guess he succeeded - seeing as they are currently too useless to bother with, they are technically in the game, but they aren't breaking gameplay.
<!--quoteo(post=1982470:date=Sep 24 2012, 06:26 PM:name=shad3r)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (shad3r @ Sep 24 2012, 06:26 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982470"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Did you watch the recent Q&A? Charlie pretty much said "I hate sentries, but an aliens vs marines game should have them because Aliens 2 had them, so this current version is an attempt to somehow keep them in for genre loyalty reasons without breaking gameplay".
I guess he succeeded - seeing as they are currently too useless to bother with, they are technically in the game, but they aren't breaking gameplay.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I guess it'll be up to the modders to make the sentries useful again then...
IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
The directional sentries was probably the biggest step in having the tower defense problem. Let them rotate 360 degrees again and slap on the ns1 stats.
<!--quoteo(post=1982358:date=Sep 24 2012, 05:47 AM:name=Xarius)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Xarius @ Sep 24 2012, 05:47 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982358"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Definitely looks interesting but how would you address the problem of spammability? This changes nothing about the fact that sentries when spammed are troublesome/not fun to deal with, which is really the ONLY problem with commander placed sentries. So you're basically fixing a problem that doesn't exist, by putting sentries on p.res. Marines can spam mines, which is already annoying , no reason why they couldn't spam sentries instead.
Also, it takes away commander control when it comes to proper defences, and sentry positioning is very important so it's something better left to one person (with top down perspective) rather than 10 different ones. (Not to mention marine's have less understanding of power node mechanics and may end up placing sentries outside power node ranges and what not) Lastly, there's a very big likelihood that a change like this would make sentries an offensive rather than a defensive weapon of choice. At such a point you may as well just have a marine manned deployable HMG.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1982365:date=Sep 24 2012, 06:39 AM:name=statikg)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (statikg @ Sep 24 2012, 06:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982365"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you feel theres going to be a spamming problem, create a 4 sentry cap per room (there is really no economical justification for more then 4 sentries in a room).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1982374:date=Sep 24 2012, 07:21 AM:name=Cee Colon Slash)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Cee Colon Slash @ Sep 24 2012, 07:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982374"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If UWE is going to great lengths to avoid capping the maximum number of structures because it is BAD BAD BAD, then why can gorges only place three hydras maximum?
If UWE is nerfing sentries to avoid spam, then why can the alien commander spam whips and crags?
Fix the sentry so it acquires targets reasonably fast, and delivers reasonable damage to them. Then, either: 1. Adjust the cost so sentries aren't so spammable, and/or 2. Allow X sentries per power node.
End of problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
@Xarius: Yes, I agree the personal sentries would not address the problem of spammability. This is why the SBAD idea would work so well. Even the SBAD doesn't address the problem of spammability. Which is exactly how I believe it should work. If you really wanted to, you should be able to place 10 turrets in a room. Why? Because it is a possible strategy. The problem with this strategy, which they would have to weigh in before deciding to do it, is the maintenance factor. If you had 10 sentries which all functioned on the ammo system, they would all run out, and would have to all be re-armed. The commander could probably drop a couple SBADs somewhere and help with that, but the longer the aliens push a base, the less the sentries will be able to work. It should turn turtling into a strategy with such drawbacks, that it would only be used in short instances, and would be a jumping point to reach other strategies.
Whether the commander could purchase a sentry with t.res as he would a shotgun for a marine I don't know. On one hand, you keep to the system if you do, but it would also make it easier for the commander to load the room with Sentries.
I don't believe positioning to be much of a problem personally. While the commander does get a grand scope view of the base, he is restricted to the top-down view, while the Marine could see the little things that the commander couldn't. But the commander could always just drop an SBAD at a particular spot and tell the marine to place the sentry next to it so I'm not sure it would be as much of a problem as it sounds.
@Statikg: While I have made it known how much I am against this idea because of various reasons, I have also realized this would have severe problems in a technicality point of view. The idea is that having them limit to # per room, you would first have to define the room. We have this done when the mapper defines location volumes for the particular room. The problem comes in when the room is either gigantically huge (Goliath), or the connecting hallways also count as being part of the room (That west hallway in the south tech point Summit). The number of sentries would have to be tailored dynamically to the size of the entity of the room it is in, or it will just not work.
@Cee Colon Slash: I am against the hydra cap as well. I once heard someone's idea to make it so the commander could buy a hydra off of the gorge, and the gorge could place more. I thought this was a good idea and have liked it ever since. Tuning the price of hydras to accommodate would most likely have to happen though.
1. This is actually what the SBAD idea is doing. But the price isn't controlling the number of sentries, it is controlling the efficiency of sentries, and the number by extension. 2. As I mentioned above, there are technical problems with # sentries per power node, and would have to be defined by volume if this were to be the case. This would also be very difficult to find the right number of sentries per volume because the larger the room gets, the more complicated the design can be.
@Blasphemy - I see the problem with sentries per node. So then how about linking them to sentries per CC, that way there can be an absolute hard cap, as opposed to sentries per robo factory, where so long as you build enough robo factories you'll have a spammable problem.
@Cee Colon Slash: I suppose that could work, but it wasn't very good when it was like that for the gorge. I don't imagine it would be any different with the sentries.
Although we still seem to be thinking that fixing sentry spam will be what fixes/returns sentries. It really isn't the case. The real problem is that they were only used as a turtle device, and were always used as a turtle device. What they are now definitely fixes that, but now no one really wants to use them anymore. Returning the sentry stats to normal and giving them a limit won't fix the problem. They will still be used to turtle and always used to turtle. Sentries aren't really broken if you think about it. It is actually the commander which we need to fix.
We need to make him not think of sentries as a turtle device, but rather an automatic stationary gun. Will this gun be used on the front lines as a fire support? Or will it be used to deter aliens from munching on important marine structures? These are the things a commander should be thinking of when considering using sentries.
<!--quoteo(post=1982437:date=Sep 24 2012, 11:56 AM:name=godrifle)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (godrifle @ Sep 24 2012, 11:56 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982437"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I just saw where your NS2 signature pic came from, and I need Eye Bleach.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Dear God you have soiled my mind.
<!--quoteo(post=1982638:date=Sep 25 2012, 01:45 AM:name=Cee Colon Slash)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Cee Colon Slash @ Sep 25 2012, 01:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982638"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->@Blasphemy - I see the problem with sentries per node. So then how about linking them to sentries per CC, that way there can be an absolute hard cap, as opposed to sentries per robo factory, where so long as you build enough robo factories you'll have a spammable problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't think there is a spam-problem with robo factories. If you can place only 3 sentries in a radius around the robo, the bulky model of the robo will make any spaming useless. With every additional robo you create another blind spot for an alien to destroy that robo or another building. Add this to the cost for additional robos and I don't think you will see spamming happen.
Again, sentries can be made useful as defense. As long as they are counter-able by every life form. Only mechanics like "This room is perfectly save against 1 or 2 skulks." make them unfun.
I don't see the point in needing several robo's when they're already linked to power nodes. But vortexing or destroying the robotic factory should disable the sentries as well. (Gives another avenue for aliens to take down sentry farms, but to be fair they already have plenty ways to do so even now)
<!--quoteo(post=1982393:date=Sep 24 2012, 09:14 AM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Sep 24 2012, 09:14 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982393"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yes, but what wilson said is, that the game is more fun with broken, not used sentries than with sentries that lock the default-alien class out of parts of the map. And I'm with him. Seeing how unfun games with working sentries were. Not to mention, that they were essential in marine turtles and that the typical noob-com will spam sentries.
I think they can work with a cap, that denies a placement without weak points. They should always be beatable by the default skulk if not defended by marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Leap behind a turret as skulk should work... there are no res for massive turret spam if they increase the costs and even if, a single gorge hiding in a vent or smthg. could easily take out a whole bunch of turrets, so marines would have wasted many res. Even multiple skulks could take out the most defistating turrets securing other turrets from being killed, so I don't see a real lockdown by turrets protecting each other.
Spam isn't fun, that right. But that's the balance discussion again: Make turrets effective (at least against skulks) but expensive (but not too expensive), than there won't be spam. It worked in NS1, there's no reason (anymore, 'coz gorge got bilebomb again) why it shouldn't work in NS2.
Bit late to this party but I want to add my support to the general concept of sentries having ammo caps and regenerating ammo.
I've no idea what the general policy on cross-posting is here but before I saw this thread I'd just finished a pro-ammunition post in Blasphemy's thread that I'm rather proud of.
Yea i fully support the ammo resupply idea. It prevents overpowered spamming of turrets and doesn't require a hard cap. Will lead to several VERY interesting tactics of what is the perfect ratio to use for a situation do u want lots of turrets but VERY limited in amount of time they can hold (lots of bullets down range fast) or a far more sustainable defenece with much less punch.
Please i very much ask the devs to give this a good go. Will allow for turrets to be useful vs players and NOT be OP. :)
But it wouldn't be manual.... the battery would be turned into an ammo re-supplier which is built separately which supplies at a fixed rate so more turrets means less ammo around...etc
The whole resupply business is messy and tries to address a problem that doesn't exist in the first place. I and others have said it over and over now, in various threads, simply reverting the sentries to their NS 1 situation in a future build will suffice in putting the sentries in a good place. The 'spammability' issue existed in a time where lerks had bilebomb, gas didn't block them yet and power nodes were much harder to take down. Spamming them will not be a viable tactic because: - Their cost at 10 t.res (old cost) is restrictive enough upto the point where marines have nothing else to spend res on (the occasional game that goes beyond the 30 minute mark) - Gorge bilebomb (WAY more effective than lerk bilebomb) - Vortex (AOE disable means turret farms can easily be crippled), additionally you could have vortexing the TF affect sentries - Lerk gas AND Umbra - Onos is way tougher than in those old builds where sentry farms occurred - Power nodes go down easier
If you honestly don't believe all this will suffice in not only restricting sentry spam in most game but also simply making it unviable against an alien team that isn't entirely incompetent then you must be blind, or ignorant. It WILL work and I doubt you would even need a hardcap per powernode, but if UWE is really that scared of having sentries destroy gameplay despite the aforementioned arguments that they won't, then by all means, throw a cap of 4 per power node in as well.
<!--quoteo(post=1983706:date=Sep 27 2012, 06:59 AM:name=Xarius)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Xarius @ Sep 27 2012, 06:59 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1983706"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The whole resupply business is messy and tries to address a problem that doesn't exist in the first place.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->C-c-c-crosspostin' <!--quoteo(post=1983676:date=Sep 27 2012, 05:37 AM:name=Splicer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Splicer @ Sep 27 2012, 05:37 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1983676"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The short version is that burst damage is easier to balance. If you can output enough damage to kill one skulk in 12 seconds without stopping it's hard to work out how actually "useful" that is. If there's a continuous wave of skulks coming by every few seconds it's way more useful than if skulks are coming by every five minutes. So what do you price a turret around, tres-wise? Do you price it for something that kills 5 skulks a minute or one skulk every five minutes? High-variability of usefulness is absolute murder to balance for.
And it's not just the variability that's a turret problem, it's also what the variability favours. Since more aliens = more useful, Turrets are always going to be the most useful in a Turtle situation, because a continuous alien assault is going to be the one with the highest number of targets. If you've priced Turrets for Turtle-level usefulness then Turrets are only useful for Turtling. Placing them when not in a Turtle situation saps Tres from useful areas, increasing your chances of losing ground and ending up in a Turtle scenario to begin with. If you price Turrets for non-Turtle use then they become brokenly good for Turtling, meaning if Marines are losing then a Turtle scenario is pretty inevitable.
Moving on, there's the issue of a balancing how long should it take a Turret to kill a Skulk in the first place. 15 seconds? 30? 5? If it takes too long then Turrets are just point-farms, since your skulk can just stroll up and chow down at his leisure. If you up the damage to decrease the time-to-kill then you're not just killing each skulk faster, you're increasing the total number of skulks-per-minute in a rush situation dramatically.
Now let's look at Burst damage (numbers for demonstration purposes only). Keeping it at one skulk for 12 seconds of fire, but with a max fire time of 60 seconds and a five minute load time (either because of an automatic reloader or because that's about how long it will take a Marine to get there with an ammo pouch or whatever) to fully reload. The amount of variability has gone down dramatically (while still having enough present that a good commander will get more out of his turrets than a bad, obviously). A turret is now operating at peak capacity as long as it gets at least five skulks every five minutes, whether they show up one every minute or a group of five all at once or one followed by three followed by another one. This makes it much, much easier to price a Turrets usefulness in the hands of a competent commander.
Since the skulks-per-minute of a turret is limited by the reload time rather than the number of Aliens present the exponentially-more-useful-in-turtles problem mentioned above just... goes away. Ammunition on it's own doesn't quite cover the "more turrets = better" scenario, but certain implementations might, and it solves plenty of other problems on it's own!
Finally, and possibly most importantly, the amount of Dev control over Turret effectiveness has increased dramatically. As it stands the Devs basically have a sliding bar labelled "DPS" to play with, which is not enough variables to attempt meaningful balance with. Ammunition adds two further bars, "Maximum Capacity" and "Cost to Reload"("Cost" can refer to "time" or "pres" or "tres" or even intangibles like "player attention"). By moving these bars in relation to each other it becomes possible to manipulate Turrets into something actually usable. The easiest example of this is the time-to-kill problem listed above; with ammunition included this becomes trivial. Just increase the damage while proportionally reducing the ammo capacity, leaving the Cost to Reload alone. This leaves the skulks-per-minute almost untouched while drastically increasing how quickly an individual Skulk falls down. Skulks falling down too fast, tweak them the other way. Compare to how it works at present; it's not just harder to tweak time-to-kill with little follow-on consequences, it's actually impossible.
I had a few other things that ammunition makes easier but I'm already getting a bit tl;dr. Please note that here I'm discussing the general concept of ammunition, not any specific example listed so far (which is why I used "Cost to Reload" rather than "Time to Reload"). I do have some personal preferences but the above applies to most implementations of the basic idea (I would favour Sentries having a certain amount of slow, automatic ammo regeneration which Marines can increase through expending effort in dire situations)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1983706:date=Sep 27 2012, 10:59 AM:name=Xarius)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Xarius @ Sep 27 2012, 10:59 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1983706"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The whole resupply business is messy and tries to address a problem that doesn't exist in the first place.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's exactly what I was saying! Splicer, Blasphemy, and myself have been discussing these turrets in <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=121229" target="_blank">the other sentry thread</a> in I&S.
They are getting caught up in what in my opinion is an overly elaborate limited-ammo-sentry solution. I offered an alternative solution that greatly simplifies the situation while still allowing for versatility. In very short summary (since the idea is already laid out in full in that thread), sentries are purchased and placed by individual marines. They can be placed anywhere, but the more sentries placed within close proximity of each other, the more the effectiveness of each is reduced, while still having a combined effectiveness marginally better than a single sentry.
@Xarius: Also to note the sentry is a lot easier to kill than in previous builds, although it may have been beefed up a bit in these more recent ones. I remember when it would take a couple dozen onos smashes to kill the sentry, and when it was nano-shielded you may as well have just given up. Boy did it ever drive me mad.
One thing to point out is that although the aliens are having more ways to deal with sentries, it does not necessarily mean that it will solve the problem of frequent turtling. While they are good ways for the different classes to deal with sentries in their own little ways, I still believe it is possible for sentries to still get taken out of control if they were to return to previous values. Bear in mind that I do recognize the potential of particular skills, some being more of a suppressant while others being more of a kill. But you must also consider the possibility of some skills not being researched in time, or in place of another, or even at all. A lot of the time it looks as though the lerk won't get spores, or the fade won't get vortex. Sometimes bile bomb doesn't even come in until late game. Most of these methods of dealing with the sentry problem have to be researched, and with the possibility of them not even getting into a match, there needs to be an external inhibitor to sentry capability that is not affected by the alien research tree.
@Splicer: That is a very explanatory post you have there! Not to mention the reasoning of allowing greater dev control by adding more sliders to tune balance is a very easy to comprehend, and persuasive argument. I believe those extra variables would allow more balance tuning opportunities, and I imagine would be very compelling to Charlie.
Also having an ability for the players to manipulate the regenerative values of a sentry is very compelling as well. I can see it working for both upgrading SBAD regen rates, or the idea of sentries generating their own ammo reserves. One possibility I imagine this could be used in, is an upgradable alternative such as how you would upgrade Weapons or Armor through the arms lab. Maybe a research level option named something along the lines of "Energy Regen" which could also apply to the armory. This would undoubtedly complicate things further, and I am not too sure how well you guys would respond to this accompanied with SBADs.
@Bad Mojo: This is a fair alternative as well. It would be less complicated than the SBAD idea, but I am concerned as to how you would be able to explain to the players why the individual sentry would become less effective when there are more sentries nearby. It doesn't seem very intuitive that the sentry would gradually get worse, and without the proper visual indicators, could possibly influence even greater sentry spam. Ex: "Why aren't these sentries doing anything? Are they working at all? Maybe I should place another one."
<!--quoteo(post=1983729:date=Sep 27 2012, 07:52 AM:name=Bad Mojo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bad Mojo @ Sep 27 2012, 07:52 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1983729"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's exactly what I was saying! Splicer, Blasphemy, and myself have been discussing these turrets in <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=121229" target="_blank">the other sentry thread</a> in I&S.
They are getting caught up in what in my opinion is an overly elaborate limited-ammo-sentry solution. I offered an alternative solution that greatly simplifies the situation while still allowing for versatility. In very short summary (since the idea is already laid out in full in that thread), sentries are purchased and placed by individual marines. They can be placed anywhere, but the more sentries placed within close proximity of each other, the more the effectiveness of each is reduced, while still having a combined effectiveness marginally better than a single sentry.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is a bit apples and oranges though. Your suggestion is a potential way to reduce the direct scaling of "more sentries = better than less sentries", but that's only one aspect of the general Turret Problem, and the one which I specifically called out as not being (directly) affected by the introduction of ammunition. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it does boil down to just another way to manipulate the DPS bar; useful, but not in isolation.
Comments
I just saw where your NS2 signature pic came from, and I need Eye Bleach.
I suggest kidbleach.com :) (And yes that's an actual site, and SFW)
Besides you know the rules. If it exists, there is graphic depiction of reproduction-related actions with it.
<!--quoteo(post=1982452:date=Sep 24 2012, 05:48 PM:name=zeep)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (zeep @ Sep 24 2012, 05:48 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982452"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Lots of good suggestions in this thread. UWE is silent..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's kinda disappointing really. I wish they'd at least say "No we hate sentries" or something like that. Preferably "yeah gonna be in a patch" of course...
Did you watch the recent Q&A? Charlie pretty much said "I hate sentries, but an aliens vs marines game should have them because Aliens 2 had them, so this current version is an attempt to somehow keep them in for genre loyalty reasons without breaking gameplay".
I guess he succeeded - seeing as they are currently too useless to bother with, they are technically in the game, but they aren't breaking gameplay.
I guess he succeeded - seeing as they are currently too useless to bother with, they are technically in the game, but they aren't breaking gameplay.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I guess it'll be up to the modders to make the sentries useful again then...
Also, it takes away commander control when it comes to proper defences, and sentry positioning is very important so it's something better left to one person (with top down perspective) rather than 10 different ones. (Not to mention marine's have less understanding of power node mechanics and may end up placing sentries outside power node ranges and what not) Lastly, there's a very big likelihood that a change like this would make sentries an offensive rather than a defensive weapon of choice. At such a point you may as well just have a marine manned deployable HMG.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1982365:date=Sep 24 2012, 06:39 AM:name=statikg)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (statikg @ Sep 24 2012, 06:39 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982365"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you feel theres going to be a spamming problem, create a 4 sentry cap per room (there is really no economical justification for more then 4 sentries in a room).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1982374:date=Sep 24 2012, 07:21 AM:name=Cee Colon Slash)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Cee Colon Slash @ Sep 24 2012, 07:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1982374"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If UWE is going to great lengths to avoid capping the maximum number of structures because it is BAD BAD BAD, then why can gorges only place three hydras maximum?
If UWE is nerfing sentries to avoid spam, then why can the alien commander spam whips and crags?
Fix the sentry so it acquires targets reasonably fast, and delivers reasonable damage to them. Then, either:
1. Adjust the cost so sentries aren't so spammable, and/or
2. Allow X sentries per power node.
End of problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
@Xarius: Yes, I agree the personal sentries would not address the problem of spammability. This is why the SBAD idea would work so well. Even the SBAD doesn't address the problem of spammability. Which is exactly how I believe it should work. If you really wanted to, you should be able to place 10 turrets in a room. Why? Because it is a possible strategy. The problem with this strategy, which they would have to weigh in before deciding to do it, is the maintenance factor. If you had 10 sentries which all functioned on the ammo system, they would all run out, and would have to all be re-armed. The commander could probably drop a couple SBADs somewhere and help with that, but the longer the aliens push a base, the less the sentries will be able to work. It should turn turtling into a strategy with such drawbacks, that it would only be used in short instances, and would be a jumping point to reach other strategies.
Whether the commander could purchase a sentry with t.res as he would a shotgun for a marine I don't know. On one hand, you keep to the system if you do, but it would also make it easier for the commander to load the room with Sentries.
I don't believe positioning to be much of a problem personally. While the commander does get a grand scope view of the base, he is restricted to the top-down view, while the Marine could see the little things that the commander couldn't. But the commander could always just drop an SBAD at a particular spot and tell the marine to place the sentry next to it so I'm not sure it would be as much of a problem as it sounds.
@Statikg: While I have made it known how much I am against this idea because of various reasons, I have also realized this would have severe problems in a technicality point of view. The idea is that having them limit to # per room, you would first have to define the room. We have this done when the mapper defines location volumes for the particular room. The problem comes in when the room is either gigantically huge (Goliath), or the connecting hallways also count as being part of the room (That west hallway in the south tech point Summit). The number of sentries would have to be tailored dynamically to the size of the entity of the room it is in, or it will just not work.
@Cee Colon Slash: I am against the hydra cap as well. I once heard someone's idea to make it so the commander could buy a hydra off of the gorge, and the gorge could place more. I thought this was a good idea and have liked it ever since. Tuning the price of hydras to accommodate would most likely have to happen though.
1. This is actually what the SBAD idea is doing. But the price isn't controlling the number of sentries, it is controlling the efficiency of sentries, and the number by extension.
2. As I mentioned above, there are technical problems with # sentries per power node, and would have to be defined by volume if this were to be the case. This would also be very difficult to find the right number of sentries per volume because the larger the room gets, the more complicated the design can be.
Although we still seem to be thinking that fixing sentry spam will be what fixes/returns sentries. It really isn't the case. The real problem is that they were only used as a turtle device, and were always used as a turtle device. What they are now definitely fixes that, but now no one really wants to use them anymore. Returning the sentry stats to normal and giving them a limit won't fix the problem. They will still be used to turtle and always used to turtle. Sentries aren't really broken if you think about it. It is actually the commander which we need to fix.
We need to make him not think of sentries as a turtle device, but rather an automatic stationary gun. Will this gun be used on the front lines as a fire support? Or will it be used to deter aliens from munching on important marine structures? These are the things a commander should be thinking of when considering using sentries.
Dear God you have soiled my mind.
I don't think there is a spam-problem with robo factories. If you can place only 3 sentries in a radius around the robo, the bulky model of the robo will make any spaming useless. With every additional robo you create another blind spot for an alien to destroy that robo or another building. Add this to the cost for additional robos and I don't think you will see spamming happen.
Again, sentries can be made useful as defense. As long as they are counter-able by every life form. Only mechanics like "This room is perfectly save against 1 or 2 skulks." make them unfun.
(Gives another avenue for aliens to take down sentry farms, but to be fair they already have plenty ways to do so even now)
I think they can work with a cap, that denies a placement without weak points. They should always be beatable by the default skulk if not defended by marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Leap behind a turret as skulk should work... there are no res for massive turret spam if they increase the costs and even if, a single gorge hiding in a vent or smthg. could easily take out a whole bunch of turrets, so marines would have wasted many res. Even multiple skulks could take out the most defistating turrets securing other turrets from being killed, so I don't see a real lockdown by turrets protecting each other.
Spam isn't fun, that right. But that's the balance discussion again: Make turrets effective (at least against skulks) but expensive (but not too expensive), than there won't be spam. It worked in NS1, there's no reason (anymore, 'coz gorge got bilebomb again) why it shouldn't work in NS2.
I've no idea what the general policy on cross-posting is here but before I saw this thread I'd just finished a pro-ammunition post in Blasphemy's thread that I'm rather proud of.
Please i very much ask the devs to give this a good go. Will allow for turrets to be useful vs players and NOT be OP. :)
But it wouldn't be manual.... the battery would be turned into an ammo re-supplier which is built separately which supplies at a fixed rate so more turrets means less ammo around...etc
- Their cost at 10 t.res (old cost) is restrictive enough upto the point where marines have nothing else to spend res on (the occasional game that goes beyond the 30 minute mark)
- Gorge bilebomb (WAY more effective than lerk bilebomb)
- Vortex (AOE disable means turret farms can easily be crippled), additionally you could have vortexing the TF affect sentries
- Lerk gas AND Umbra
- Onos is way tougher than in those old builds where sentry farms occurred
- Power nodes go down easier
If you honestly don't believe all this will suffice in not only restricting sentry spam in most game but also simply making it unviable against an alien team that isn't entirely incompetent then you must be blind, or ignorant. It WILL work and I doubt you would even need a hardcap per powernode, but if UWE is really that scared of having sentries destroy gameplay despite the aforementioned arguments that they won't, then by all means, throw a cap of 4 per power node in as well.
<!--quoteo(post=1983676:date=Sep 27 2012, 05:37 AM:name=Splicer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Splicer @ Sep 27 2012, 05:37 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1983676"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The short version is that burst damage is easier to balance. If you can output enough damage to kill one skulk in 12 seconds without stopping it's hard to work out how actually "useful" that is. If there's a continuous wave of skulks coming by every few seconds it's way more useful than if skulks are coming by every five minutes. So what do you price a turret around, tres-wise? Do you price it for something that kills 5 skulks a minute or one skulk every five minutes? High-variability of usefulness is absolute murder to balance for.
And it's not just the variability that's a turret problem, it's also what the variability favours. Since more aliens = more useful, Turrets are always going to be the most useful in a Turtle situation, because a continuous alien assault is going to be the one with the highest number of targets. If you've priced Turrets for Turtle-level usefulness then Turrets are only useful for Turtling. Placing them when not in a Turtle situation saps Tres from useful areas, increasing your chances of losing ground and ending up in a Turtle scenario to begin with. If you price Turrets for non-Turtle use then they become brokenly good for Turtling, meaning if Marines are losing then a Turtle scenario is pretty inevitable.
Moving on, there's the issue of a balancing how long should it take a Turret to kill a Skulk in the first place. 15 seconds? 30? 5? If it takes too long then Turrets are just point-farms, since your skulk can just stroll up and chow down at his leisure. If you up the damage to decrease the time-to-kill then you're not just killing each skulk faster, you're increasing the total number of skulks-per-minute in a rush situation dramatically.
Now let's look at Burst damage (numbers for demonstration purposes only). Keeping it at one skulk for 12 seconds of fire, but with a max fire time of 60 seconds and a five minute load time (either because of an automatic reloader or because that's about how long it will take a Marine to get there with an ammo pouch or whatever) to fully reload. The amount of variability has gone down dramatically (while still having enough present that a good commander will get more out of his turrets than a bad, obviously). A turret is now operating at peak capacity as long as it gets at least five skulks every five minutes, whether they show up one every minute or a group of five all at once or one followed by three followed by another one. This makes it much, much easier to price a Turrets usefulness in the hands of a competent commander.
Since the skulks-per-minute of a turret is limited by the reload time rather than the number of Aliens present the exponentially-more-useful-in-turtles problem mentioned above just... goes away. Ammunition on it's own doesn't quite cover the "more turrets = better" scenario, but certain implementations might, and it solves plenty of other problems on it's own!
Finally, and possibly most importantly, the amount of Dev control over Turret effectiveness has increased dramatically. As it stands the Devs basically have a sliding bar labelled "DPS" to play with, which is not enough variables to attempt meaningful balance with. Ammunition adds two further bars, "Maximum Capacity" and "Cost to Reload"("Cost" can refer to "time" or "pres" or "tres" or even intangibles like "player attention"). By moving these bars in relation to each other it becomes possible to manipulate Turrets into something actually usable. The easiest example of this is the time-to-kill problem listed above; with ammunition included this becomes trivial. Just increase the damage while proportionally reducing the ammo capacity, leaving the Cost to Reload alone. This leaves the skulks-per-minute almost untouched while drastically increasing how quickly an individual Skulk falls down. Skulks falling down too fast, tweak them the other way. Compare to how it works at present; it's not just harder to tweak time-to-kill with little follow-on consequences, it's actually impossible.
I had a few other things that ammunition makes easier but I'm already getting a bit tl;dr. Please note that here I'm discussing the general concept of ammunition, not any specific example listed so far (which is why I used "Cost to Reload" rather than "Time to Reload"). I do have some personal preferences but the above applies to most implementations of the basic idea (I would favour Sentries having a certain amount of slow, automatic ammo regeneration which Marines can increase through expending effort in dire situations)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
e: edited to sound less like a pretentious git.
e2: horrible grammar
That's exactly what I was saying! Splicer, Blasphemy, and myself have been discussing these turrets in <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=121229" target="_blank">the other sentry thread</a> in I&S.
They are getting caught up in what in my opinion is an overly elaborate limited-ammo-sentry solution. I offered an alternative solution that greatly simplifies the situation while still allowing for versatility. In very short summary (since the idea is already laid out in full in that thread), sentries are purchased and placed by individual marines. They can be placed anywhere, but the more sentries placed within close proximity of each other, the more the effectiveness of each is reduced, while still having a combined effectiveness marginally better than a single sentry.
One thing to point out is that although the aliens are having more ways to deal with sentries, it does not necessarily mean that it will solve the problem of frequent turtling. While they are good ways for the different classes to deal with sentries in their own little ways, I still believe it is possible for sentries to still get taken out of control if they were to return to previous values. Bear in mind that I do recognize the potential of particular skills, some being more of a suppressant while others being more of a kill. But you must also consider the possibility of some skills not being researched in time, or in place of another, or even at all. A lot of the time it looks as though the lerk won't get spores, or the fade won't get vortex. Sometimes bile bomb doesn't even come in until late game. Most of these methods of dealing with the sentry problem have to be researched, and with the possibility of them not even getting into a match, there needs to be an external inhibitor to sentry capability that is not affected by the alien research tree.
@Splicer: That is a very explanatory post you have there! Not to mention the reasoning of allowing greater dev control by adding more sliders to tune balance is a very easy to comprehend, and persuasive argument. I believe those extra variables would allow more balance tuning opportunities, and I imagine would be very compelling to Charlie.
Also having an ability for the players to manipulate the regenerative values of a sentry is very compelling as well. I can see it working for both upgrading SBAD regen rates, or the idea of sentries generating their own ammo reserves. One possibility I imagine this could be used in, is an upgradable alternative such as how you would upgrade Weapons or Armor through the arms lab. Maybe a research level option named something along the lines of "Energy Regen" which could also apply to the armory. This would undoubtedly complicate things further, and I am not too sure how well you guys would respond to this accompanied with SBADs.
@Bad Mojo: This is a fair alternative as well. It would be less complicated than the SBAD idea, but I am concerned as to how you would be able to explain to the players why the individual sentry would become less effective when there are more sentries nearby. It doesn't seem very intuitive that the sentry would gradually get worse, and without the proper visual indicators, could possibly influence even greater sentry spam. Ex: "Why aren't these sentries doing anything? Are they working at all? Maybe I should place another one."
They are getting caught up in what in my opinion is an overly elaborate limited-ammo-sentry solution. I offered an alternative solution that greatly simplifies the situation while still allowing for versatility. In very short summary (since the idea is already laid out in full in that thread), sentries are purchased and placed by individual marines. They can be placed anywhere, but the more sentries placed within close proximity of each other, the more the effectiveness of each is reduced, while still having a combined effectiveness marginally better than a single sentry.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is a bit apples and oranges though. Your suggestion is a potential way to reduce the direct scaling of "more sentries = better than less sentries", but that's only one aspect of the general Turret Problem, and the one which I specifically called out as not being (directly) affected by the introduction of ammunition. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but it does boil down to just another way to manipulate the DPS bar; useful, but not in isolation.
Seriously, fix sentries already please. This joke has gone on for long enough.
Are they removed? Edit: or just useless / expensive?
I don't play com.