<!--quoteo(post=1992129:date=Oct 15 2012, 11:57 PM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Oct 15 2012, 11:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992129"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Prove it. Oh wait you can't, you are just saying things in an attempt to be right.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> You're retarded. Competitive NS is played 6v6 and you're sitting here telling me with a straight face and telling me that teamwork isn't a a make-or-break part of the game? Are you seriously suggesting that there exists some sort of technical FPS skill secret conspiracy dedicated to ensuring the common pubber never finds out the top FPS players are all-aim-no-brain and steering game design towards something they will excel at? Aim and movement are the basics. You can't offer an informed opinion on a game if you don't have a grasp of the basics. Pretty much every video game genre has a set of basic skills you have to develop before you hit the more complex aspects of the game. Outsiders to fighting games think it's all button-mashing. Outsiders to RTSs think it's all build-orders and spamming units. Outsiders to MOBAs think it's all farming and denying. I'm sure you can see how it applies to whatever games you play, assuming you're not completely terrible at all of them.
My completely subjective and unfounded opinion/hunch is that weapon damage upgrades are too powerful to be balanced in an extended game with skulks but are required to deal with the onos. Also: marines have no bad upgrades, aliens do and the alien commander can pick the bad one for you.
If hivesight were to exist closer to ns1's by showing more informative HUD indicators then it would help organize the slightly more chaotic situation pub aliens are in. A lot of time is spent in the overview map which is <b>not a good feature</b> for an FPS game. This issue can be fixed.
Aside from 'deadliness' being subjective, it is generally X having an advantage over Y. In this case, impeded upgrades, slow response times, poor map control, commander role capability, and then some role imbalances as causes all come to mind. A majority of the time spent in a match as aliens is as a skulk. In mid and later game, skulks can fail to scale as well and as easily as a marine.
A lone good marine can deny aliens of resources by poking at the alien defense until finding an unprotected upgrade structure. Alone, you can sometimes manage to multitask the usual slow pub alien response as well as the upgrade structure. The amount of time to complete killing the upgrade and possibly a responsive alien is not too long. This forces the alien commander to spend resources inefficiently as the commander can not force a clueless new player to defend the base by putting them back in the base (beacon). As for the lone good alien counterpart; they have less options and are dependent on the alien commander to make sure their resource sink in higher lifeforms is worthwhile.
tldr; A lone good marine on a pub server can deny more of the alien team's resources than a lone good alien can to the marine's team resources. A lone good marine commander can deny more of the map easier than a lone good alien commander. Map awareness is done via the overview significantly more than ns1 and is a bad mechanic for a FPS game trying to achieve immersion. Requiring the overview map to be successful is NOT new player friendly and impedes aliens more than marines.
<!--quoteo(post=1992334:date=Oct 16 2012, 03:59 PM:name=mR.Waffles)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (mR.Waffles @ Oct 16 2012, 03:59 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992334"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Crikey, this is a 15 page long thread about the most important aspect to the long term health of the game! I am saddened that we don't see a developer response in this thread given the amount of feed back provided, but I am still optimistic for the game and will be there on launch day with the rest of you louts.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Just because we don't respond in some of these threads does not mean we aren't aware of the problems that exist or that we are not working on thinking about and implementing fixes for them.
It is not like there is a list of 3 changes that we can sit down and make and suddenly everything is going to be both balanced and fun and everyone is going to be happy. There are many different tools to use in balancing the game, from adjustments to player health/armor/damage output/movement speed to changes to spawn rates or the economy. At this stage even slight adjustments to one aspect of the game can ripple through the entire system and cause very large, sometimes unintended consequences. As we've seen, something as simple as a bug that causes marines to be knocked back when bitten by skulks can have a very large effect on balance and player frustration. With time running out until release we have to be very careful about every little adjustment we make, and can't jump to too many kneejerk reactions, otherwise the game will keep ping ponging all over the place balance wise.
Also, being in feature lockdown means we can't be making large changes such as swapping Lerk spores back to hive 1 (though we may revisit that again after 1.0) . But there will be some number tweaks and other fixes on a variety of areas in the game for the next patch that will hopefully bring things back to be a little more in line with the balance that we'd like to see.
fanaticThis post has been edited.Join Date: 2003-07-23Member: 18377Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
edited October 2012
Shouldn't really be surprising; with increasing game performance comes increasing marine performance.
<b>Some relevant 6v6 comparisons:</b>
NS1: Fades typically out at around 4 minutes into the game (300hp/150armor). NS2: Fades typically out at around 10 minutes into the game (250hp/50armor).
NS1: Lerk out at around 1:30 (very capable support unit that saps marine health and economy). NS2: Lerk out at around 4 minutes (fairly weak combat unit, debatable if it's even an upgrade over the skulk (mainly a problem with low bite dps and flap/spike energy cost)).
NS1: Shotguns rarely seen until 4-5 minutes into the game, except for single sg drops to kill RTs. NS2: Shotguns figuratively everywhere as soon as they are researched.
NS1: Hive teleportation. NS2: No hive teleportation
NS1 vs. NS2: Skulk movement speed advantage over marines roughly 30% smaller in NS2.
There are some other differences that go the other way though, such as NS2 aliens typically getting second hive and leap up 3 minutes earlier than in NS1, and the huge Onos hp/armor values in NS2 (guess why comp teams rush early onos).
<!--quoteo(post=1992680:date=Oct 17 2012, 12:46 AM:name=fanatic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fanatic @ Oct 17 2012, 12:46 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992680"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Shouldn't really be surprising; with increasing game performance comes increasing marine performance.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think you are right on this one for sure. Marines were always extremely powerful, it's just that most players did not have the performance to capitalize on it. With the fixing of hit-reg, the removal of gimmicks like 1min leap it becomes very clear.
2 things I really miss from NS1, having been refreshed by playin a few games of NS2c:
-Aliens had upgrades like 1 minute into the game and had 3 different upgrades available to them instantly. This varied the gameplay so much and made early marine VS skulk very fun and full of surprises in the early game (from both marine and skulk perspective). In NS2, while you can go early upgrade (though it's out of style atm), you only get 1 to choose from. Most games you don't even get your first upgrade till 5-8 minutes in, let alone get any variety in them :/ (not to mention there are only a handful of useful upgrades to begin with)
-Aliens had so much more res. Losing an RT as aliens in NS2 is so unbelievably unforgiving. So much so that taking RTs as aliens is generally a great liability and so most teams try to get by on bare-bones res income.
<!--quoteo(post=1992679:date=Oct 17 2012, 08:35 AM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Oct 17 2012, 08:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992679"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Just because we don't respond in some of these threads does not mean we aren't aware of the problems that exist or that we are not working on thinking about and implementing fixes for them.
It is not like there is a list of 3 changes that we can sit down and make and suddenly everything is going to be both balanced and fun and everyone is going to be happy. There are many different tools to use in balancing the game, from adjustments to player health/armor/damage output/movement speed to changes to spawn rates or the economy. At this stage even slight adjustments to one aspect of the game can ripple through the entire system and cause very large, sometimes unintended consequences. As we've seen, something as simple as a bug that causes marines to be knocked back when bitten by skulks can have a very large effect on balance and player frustration. With time running out until release we have to be very careful about every little adjustment we make, and can't jump to too many kneejerk reactions, otherwise the game will keep ping ponging all over the place balance wise.
Also, being in feature lockdown means we can't be making large changes such as swapping Lerk spores back to hive 1 (though we may revisit that again after 1.0) . But there will be some number tweaks and other fixes on a variety of areas in the game for the next patch that will hopefully bring things back to be a little more in line with the balance that we'd like to see.
<!--quoteo(post=1992684:date=Oct 17 2012, 08:00 AM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Oct 17 2012, 08:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992684"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->-Aliens had upgrades like 1 minute into the game and had 3 different upgrades available to them instantly. This varied the gameplay so much and made early marine VS skulk very fun and full of surprises in the early game (from both marine and skulk perspective). In NS2, while you can go early upgrade (though it's out of style atm), you only get 1 to choose from. Most games you don't even get your first upgrade till 5-8 minutes in, let alone get any variety in them :/ (not to mention there are only a handful of useful upgrades to begin with)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, the upgrade system and general alien comm is not so great right now. An easy fix though would be to favor upgrade first over hive-leap first and to try to balance a bit the upgrades, so that there is some room for variations in early game. So make upgrade first cheap and quick; nine (potential) choices are better than one.
<!--quoteo(post=1992679:date=Oct 17 2012, 04:35 PM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Oct 17 2012, 04:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992679"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Just because we don't respond in some of these threads does not mean we aren't aware of the problems that exist or that we are not working on thinking about and implementing fixes for them.
It is not like there is a list of 3 changes that we can sit down and make and suddenly everything is going to be both balanced and fun and everyone is going to be happy. There are many different tools to use in balancing the game, from adjustments to player health/armor/damage output/movement speed to changes to spawn rates or the economy. At this stage even slight adjustments to one aspect of the game can ripple through the entire system and cause very large, sometimes unintended consequences. As we've seen, something as simple as a bug that causes marines to be knocked back when bitten by skulks can have a very large effect on balance and player frustration. With time running out until release we have to be very careful about every little adjustment we make, and can't jump to too many kneejerk reactions, otherwise the game will keep ping ponging all over the place balance wise.
Also, being in feature lockdown means we can't be making large changes such as swapping Lerk spores back to hive 1 (though we may revisit that again after 1.0) . But there will be some number tweaks and other fixes on a variety of areas in the game for the next patch that will hopefully bring things back to be a little more in line with the balance that we'd like to see.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Lock down means no moving spores from 2nd to 1st hive? I thought it meant no new features being implemented and just tweaking. I would have thought swapping between 1st and 2nd hive could fall under balance tweaking.
<!--quoteo(post=1992707:date=Oct 17 2012, 11:00 AM:name=hakenspit)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (hakenspit @ Oct 17 2012, 11:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992707"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Lock down means no moving spores from 2nd to 1st hive? I thought it meant no new features being implemented and just tweaking. I would have thought swapping between 1st and 2nd hive could fall under balance tweaking.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1992684:date=Oct 17 2012, 02:00 AM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Oct 17 2012, 02:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992684"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->-Aliens had upgrades like 1 minute into the game and had 3 different upgrades available to them instantly. This varied the gameplay so much and made early marine VS skulk very fun and full of surprises in the early game (from both marine and skulk perspective). In NS2, while you can go early upgrade (though it's out of style atm), you only get 1 to choose from. Most games you don't even get your first upgrade till 5-8 minutes in, let alone get any variety in them :/ (not to mention there are only a handful of useful upgrades to begin with)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I forgot all about that in NS1. This would be great if we could get this option back again. It would definitly make game play more dynamic and interesting.
<!--quoteo(post=1992757:date=Oct 17 2012, 03:11 PM:name=MiniH0wie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MiniH0wie @ Oct 17 2012, 03:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992757"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I forgot all about that in NS1. This would be great if we could get this option back again. It would definitly make game play more dynamic and interesting.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The situation in NS1 wasn't really comparable though. It may seem like an isolated system, but in fact things like upgrades, resource generation and higher lifeforms were all interwoven. Dropping 3 upgrade chambers required 2 gorges, who would then have absolutely no resources. This meant that in order to get any harvesters, more players would have to go gorge. If you don't get at least 2 additional harvesters, players are going to be getting resources very slowly. That is already 4 alien players who are now essentially ineligible for evolution to higher lifeforms like fades.
<!--quoteo(post=1992759:date=Oct 17 2012, 08:17 AM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Oct 17 2012, 08:17 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992759"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The situation in NS1 wasn't really comparable though. It may seem like an isolated system, but in fact things like upgrades, resource generation and higher lifeforms were all interwoven. Dropping 3 upgrade chambers required 2 gorges, who would then have absolutely no resources. This meant that in order to get any harvesters, more players would have to go gorge. If you don't get at least 2 additional harvesters, players are going to be getting resources very slowly. That is already 4 alien players who are now essentially ineligible for evolution to higher lifeforms like fades.
The situations can't really be compared.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So what if required multiple gorges. If you have at least 12 players, then there are 8 left who can evolve. You do realize that some people actually like playing gorge and don't mind evolving to a higher life form if they feel they are providing support for their team?
Plus, gorges don't drop upgrades or harvesters in NS2 so it doesn't matter anyways. All I'm saying is that if we could have the option of getting multiple upgrades from a single hive it would provide much more different game play for everyone.
<!--quoteo(post=1992684:date=Oct 17 2012, 01:00 AM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Oct 17 2012, 01:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992684"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->-Aliens had upgrades like 1 minute into the game and had 3 different upgrades available to them instantly. This varied the gameplay so much and made early marine VS skulk very fun and full of surprises in the early game (from both marine and skulk perspective). In NS2, while you can go early upgrade (though it's out of style atm), you only get 1 to choose from. Most games you don't even get your first upgrade till 5-8 minutes in, let alone get any variety in them :/ (not to mention there are only a handful of useful upgrades to begin with)
-Aliens had so much more res. Losing an RT as aliens in NS2 is so unbelievably unforgiving. So much so that taking RTs as aliens is generally a great liability and so most teams try to get by on bare-bones res income.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think these two really go hand in hand. Comparatively with most marine structures (namely the arms lab) the upgrade chambers are extremely vulnerable and cost a huge chunk of res. So when they get sniped it puts a huge burden on the economy, where as a second hive is immensely easier to defend. So working in tandem with alien RTs being a huge risk, the second hive really is the better choice of the two. It isn't necessarily that the chamber upgrades are bad (though they need work, more in a moment) it is just a large and punishable investment. It really should be the other way around, the quick 2nd hive should be the risky choice not the quick upgrades.
Now concerning upgrade chambers, here is where I'd like to see a revert back to the NS1 style and earlier NS2 builds. When you drop a shell it should unlock all crag upgrades and be back on the tiered system with 3 ranks. Each additional shell should provide the next tier much like defense chambers did in NS1. This allows for proper alien scaling in the current model. The onos' base armor can be toned down and the carapace tiers can be adjusted to fit. This prevents the 7 minute onos from coming out and being absolutely outrageous to kill without weapon upgrades on the marine team. The same can be tuned with other chamber upgrades (some like feign death and hypermutation will be difficult). Chamber build time and cost will need to be adjusted to compensate. This isn't the only approach to this. Rather than requiring multiple upgrade chambers we can keep just one and make the upgrade tiers researchable. However, the chamber will need a SIGNIFICANT health and armor buff to match comparable marine tech buildings.
One of the fundamental problems with the alien team in my mind is how their scaling works and the fact that they really have none on hive 1 tech. Allowing tiered upgrades will open a tech path for the alien team that doesn't entirely depend on the second hive.
edit: Another thing that could be done to expand on the 1 chamber design, is rather than having 1 upgrade research that brings everything up to the next tier, have it so each individual upgrade has a research option. So when say the shell is dropped, all baseline upgrades are unlocked allowing the players on the ground choices, and then the commander can choose to researched an improved version of regeneration for example.
I think the alien upgrade system worked well in NS1, but it was very one dimensional in terms of a tech tree. I really enjoy the idea that a khaamander needs to wisely pick and invest in specific upgrades. I think the issues with this are that the marines can easily see what chamber is what (oh theres the cara shell, i'll ignore that regen shell) and that the upgrades may not be good enough to make their investment worth it.
I would like to see more upgrades available overall to the khaamander with basic things like spiked structures that reflect melee damage (the visual on this could be awesome) and would force marines to use their ammo on structures. Maybe an upgrades to allow buildings to burrow intot he ground and require a scan to see. Or maybe being able to mature an upgrade chamber to improve its specific upgrade, so a matured (leveled up) carapace chamber may give you 5 or 10 more armor as a skulk. This would greatly increase the alien tech tree and maybe help load off all the late game khaam lifeform egg snowballs.
Err, how is the alien commander getting the same 2-3 upgrades every game not more one-dimensional than only have to get three chambers of the same type.
I don't see much strategic depth in choosing between upgrades on a chamber. What difference does it make to choose between carapace and regen, or between celerity and adrenaline, strategy wise?
Does it forces a specific response from the marines ? Does it allow mind games ?
<!--quoteo(post=1992792:date=Oct 17 2012, 09:00 AM:name=Shaker)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shaker @ Oct 17 2012, 09:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992792"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think the alien upgrade system worked well in NS1, but it was very one dimensional in terms of a tech tree. I really enjoy the idea that a khaamander needs to wisely pick and invest in specific upgrades. I think the issues with this are that the marines can easily see what chamber is what (oh theres the cara shell, i'll ignore that regen shell) and that the upgrades may not be good enough to make their investment worth it.
I would like to see more upgrades available overall to the khaamander with basic things like spiked structures that reflect melee damage (the visual on this could be awesome) and would force marines to use their ammo on structures. Maybe an upgrades to allow buildings to burrow intot he ground and require a scan to see. Or maybe being able to mature an upgrade chamber to improve its specific upgrade, so a matured (leveled up) carapace chamber may give you 5 or 10 more armor as a skulk. This would greatly increase the alien tech tree and maybe help load off all the late game khaam lifeform egg snowballs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It still is a flat tech route I agree. However, most khamms will invest in only certain upgrades so most never see the light of day. With gaining all baseline upgrades from the chamber type being unlocked immediately this adds more variety to the players actually out skulking. You can keep the decisions for the khamm by making it so they choose which upgrade they want to increase the effectiveness of with research (in the single chamber model). Moving away from the current model could open up a bit more scaling which could fix some other issues with the alien team. My previous example being the 7 minute onos and another being with late game skulk effectiveness.
Hell, you could even make it so the hive research to make say a shift hive, unlocks all the baseline shift upgrades and the spur has research to increase the effectiveness. Granted the hive type research time will need to be increased as well as the res cost, but it's a thought.
<!--quoteo(post=1992797:date=Oct 17 2012, 09:08 AM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Oct 17 2012, 09:08 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992797"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't see much strategic depth in choosing between upgrades on a chamber. What difference does it make to choose between carapace and regen, or between celerity and adrenaline, strategy wise?
Does it forces a specific response from the marines ? Does it allow mind games ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think it opens up aliens to conform to different play styles. With the carapace/regen example, it would be a more tanky direct style versus hit and run. As it is now the upgrade structure is too tightly controlled by the khamm and outside of expensive lifeforms the aliens don't quite have the individual customization of the marine team (open to objections on that point).
<!--quoteo(post=1992797:date=Oct 17 2012, 10:08 AM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Oct 17 2012, 10:08 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992797"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't see much strategic depth in choosing between upgrades on a chamber. What difference does it make to choose between carapace and regen, or between celerity and adrenaline, strategy wise?
Does it forces a specific response from the marines ? Does it allow mind games ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Its a bigger investment, like I said. The upgrades are worth more in resources, as they are more scarce. This is why the aliens actually have tech strategy choices to make, while the marines are pretty straight forward. Your biggest decision to make as marines is shotguns or mines first.
I would say no, no hive upgrade path forces any change out of the marines and thats unfortunate. But like I said, I think the upgrades are not good enough. The abilities from 2nd hive far outweigh the upgrades chambers.
<!--quoteo(post=1992799:date=Oct 17 2012, 11:12 AM:name=Industry)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Industry @ Oct 17 2012, 11:12 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992799"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hell, you could even make it so the hive research to make say a shift hive, unlocks all the baseline shift upgrades and the spur has research to increase the effectiveness. Granted the hive type research time will need to be increased as well as the res cost, but it's a thought.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1992799:date=Oct 17 2012, 10:12 AM:name=Industry)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Industry @ Oct 17 2012, 10:12 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992799"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hell, you could even make it so the hive research to make say a shift hive, unlocks all the baseline shift upgrades and the spur has research to increase the effectiveness. Granted the hive type research time will need to be increased as well as the res cost, but it's a thought.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This is actually one of many ideas that came from our little focus group months ago. We even had resource calculations and timings with it :). Going to quote part of it:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Chamber Upgrades Alien upgrades need to be a compromise between each of the upgrades for that chamber. All upgrade have to be viable and worth using. Current implementation on the chambers upgrades is to linear. Alien commander simply get 1 upgrade per hive because other upgrades are not needed. This means that only upgrades that are useful to all the lifeforms in the team are used. We suggest that a single upgrade chamber would allow all upgrades of that type. So if the alien commander would drop a Shell the players would be able to get both carapace and regeneration. To prevent this to be too powerful in the beginning the shell could have 3 tiers of evolution. So level 1 shell would give lvl 1 regen/carapace. If upgraded to level 2 shell players would have level 2 carapace/regen, and the same with level 3 upgrades. This allows the alien team to scale with resources and gives more choices to the players. When the chamber is upgraded it could gain extra hp/armor. Also it’s size could increase to make it visible for the marines what the current level is.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This would allow multiple upgrade choices earlier in the game for aliens without removing any resource balance from the alien commander. It also gives more room to tweak its scaling. However with 2 weeks to release it kinda does not matter, it would take to much time to put in the game and adjust it.
<!--quoteo(post=1992803:date=Oct 17 2012, 09:21 AM:name=Shaker)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shaker @ Oct 17 2012, 09:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992803"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is actually a cool idea<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It has problems still however. Being tied to the hive directly means they only way the marines can snipe those upgrades is to take down the hive, which piles more and more onto alien hive dependence. Unless you'd rather go with when they lose the chamber they lose the effectiveness and the baseline stays until the hive dies. That's why personally I'd rather see the "baseline" upgrades not be available until the chamber is dropped with the chamber having research to increase the effectiveness of each individual upgrade. This allows the upgrades to still be taken out by marines in a feasible manner while still leaving the contingency of the chamber's hive being taken out and not losing access till the chamber dies itself.
General framework of what I would like to see:
<ul><li>Each hive can evolve into a chamber type.</li><li>Once a chamber is dropped all abilities are available from the get go.</li><li>The chamber has a research path for each upgrade to increase their viability. ex. Each tier of carapace provides more armor, each tier of silence reduces the sounds made eventually to zero</li><li>Chamber health and res cost are increased to keep them inline with their power</li><li>If the chamber dies upgrades of that type are no longer available (much as it is now)</li><li>If the hive dies chambers of that type are not longer buildable (much as it is now)</li></ul>
Pros of the system:
<ul><li>Opens up scaling possibilities for balance with multiple levels of upgrades</li><li>Tech seems slightly less narrow for players on the ground</li><li>Similar system shown to work generally well in NS1</li><li>Still allows for some Khammander choice</li></ul>
Cons of the system:
<ul><li>Some upgrades might not scale properly</li><li>some tier 1 upgrades may end up really shallow and still not used (though then it is more a problem with that individual perk)</li></ul>
<!--quoteo(post=1992809:date=Oct 17 2012, 09:44 AM:name=Grissi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Grissi @ Oct 17 2012, 09:44 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992809"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This would allow multiple upgrade choices earlier in the game for aliens without removing any resource balance from the alien commander. It also gives more room to tweak its scaling. However with 2 weeks to release it kinda does not matter, it would take to much time to put in the game and adjust it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Very cool, didn't think I was the first one to think of it anyway. :P
Yeah, this definitely isn't something that can make it into 1.0. Honestly, the game is fun and that is one of two things, the other being performance, that need to be locked down for launch for it to be successful. However, to keep people playing afterwards there needs to be a deep rewarding gameplay experience. As such I think a good place to start is the alien upgrade system. As it is now it is very polarized as there is no scaling. You either have carapace (or insert other upgrade here) or you don't, and as such it seems a lot of lifeforms might be balanced around that. (harkening back to the 7 minute onos)
Despite a lot of the negativity I see around, I personally think the game is getting to a better place and as long as it stays on that path we will get more than just a fun game on launch but a game that keeps a playerbase around for years to come.
<!--quoteo(post=1992679:date=Oct 17 2012, 02:35 AM:name=Squeal_Like_A_Pig)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Squeal_Like_A_Pig @ Oct 17 2012, 02:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992679"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Just because we don't respond in some of these threads does not mean we aren't aware of the problems that exist or that we are not working on thinking about and implementing fixes for them.
It is not like there is a list of 3 changes that we can sit down and make and suddenly everything is going to be both balanced and fun and everyone is going to be happy. There are many different tools to use in balancing the game, from adjustments to player health/armor/damage output/movement speed to changes to spawn rates or the economy. At this stage even slight adjustments to one aspect of the game can ripple through the entire system and cause very large, sometimes unintended consequences. As we've seen, something as simple as a bug that causes marines to be knocked back when bitten by skulks can have a very large effect on balance and player frustration. With time running out until release we have to be very careful about every little adjustment we make, and can't jump to too many kneejerk reactions, otherwise the game will keep ping ponging all over the place balance wise.
Also, being in feature lockdown means we can't be making large changes such as swapping Lerk spores back to hive 1 (though we may revisit that again after 1.0) . But there will be some number tweaks and other fixes on a variety of areas in the game for the next patch that will hopefully bring things back to be a little more in line with the balance that we'd like to see.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hey Cory, thank you for the response. I really appreciate it. I know we're in feature lock down but I do believe that the initial enjoyment of playing aliens will be the most key aspect of NS2's launch success and long term viability. You play Space Marines in almost every game. Every game has men shooting men. Granted, there's a strategic overview that changes the experience, but shooters are shooters are shooters. The aliens, now that's what makes NS2 unique and special. If the alien experience is one of absolute terror and frustration people won't stick around, regardless how awesome the marine experience is.
As far as there not being a list of 3 things that will fix the game, I have to disagree. We've seen the primary issue
1) Scaling 2) Vulnerability of alien investments/resource retention in marine investments 3) Focus
Just the inclusion of focus an option would go a long way to improving the competitiveness and fun of being an alien. Five bites to kill an SMG marine, who can kill in 7 shots at 3/3, is an awful large efficiency gap.
Also, there's been a lot of talk about how collision improvements will dramatically alter the skulk experience. I don't know if in isolation this will go far enough, but I do know focus is needed right this second.
It really does seem like marines can get phase tech too early on, and it overpowers the aliens. Building an observatory seems like a necessary tech path and is one of the first things every commander does in any area. Phase gates start appearing within the first few minutes of every game.
I seem to remember that in NS1 you had to wait for a while to get an Observatory, and then research motion tracking. Before that time, there was a substantial period where you were vulnerable to cloaked aliens. I don't remember if phase tech was linked to obs in NS1, but the point is the same. Why is it so cheap, fast, and necessary for marines to get the overpowering combination of motion tracking+scanning+phase tech?
I think there should be some trade-offs as to what order marines research things. Maybe we need to make the research more expensive or take a lot longer. Right now phase gate tech just steamrolls aliens, it's so hard to fight against a team that can be everywhere at once.
Agreed. mandatory buildings like the obs are damaging the strategical options. Maybe if an advanced armory is needed for phase gates... But this creates just another kind of mandatory building. I don't know.
Phase gates are so cheap and easy to get because sentries are so terrible. Without sentries, phase gates are the only way marines can possibly hold an area, so they had to become quick to get and cheap.
Uwe has acknowledged that early phase is too much of a no-brainer, so hopefully once sentries are a little better phase can be weakened in some way, allowing for two strategies for holding an area instead of just one.
Comments
You're retarded. Competitive NS is played 6v6 and you're sitting here telling me with a straight face and telling me that teamwork isn't a a make-or-break part of the game? Are you seriously suggesting that there exists some sort of technical FPS skill secret conspiracy dedicated to ensuring the common pubber never finds out the top FPS players are all-aim-no-brain and steering game design towards something they will excel at? Aim and movement are the basics. You can't offer an informed opinion on a game if you don't have a grasp of the basics. Pretty much every video game genre has a set of basic skills you have to develop before you hit the more complex aspects of the game. Outsiders to fighting games think it's all button-mashing. Outsiders to RTSs think it's all build-orders and spamming units. Outsiders to MOBAs think it's all farming and denying. I'm sure you can see how it applies to whatever games you play, assuming you're not completely terrible at all of them.
If hivesight were to exist closer to ns1's by showing more informative HUD indicators then it would help organize the slightly more chaotic situation pub aliens are in. A lot of time is spent in the overview map which is <b>not a good feature</b> for an FPS game. This issue can be fixed.
Aside from 'deadliness' being subjective, it is generally X having an advantage over Y. In this case, impeded upgrades, slow response times, poor map control, commander role capability, and then some role imbalances as causes all come to mind. A majority of the time spent in a match as aliens is as a skulk. In mid and later game, skulks can fail to scale as well and as easily as a marine.
A lone good marine can deny aliens of resources by poking at the alien defense until finding an unprotected upgrade structure. Alone, you can sometimes manage to multitask the usual slow pub alien response as well as the upgrade structure. The amount of time to complete killing the upgrade and possibly a responsive alien is not too long. This forces the alien commander to spend resources inefficiently as the commander can not force a clueless new player to defend the base by putting them back in the base (beacon). As for the lone good alien counterpart; they have less options and are dependent on the alien commander to make sure their resource sink in higher lifeforms is worthwhile.
tldr;
A lone good marine on a pub server can deny more of the alien team's resources than a lone good alien can to the marine's team resources.
A lone good marine commander can deny more of the map easier than a lone good alien commander.
Map awareness is done via the overview significantly more than ns1 and is a bad mechanic for a FPS game trying to achieve immersion. Requiring the overview map to be successful is NOT new player friendly and impedes aliens more than marines.
Lets tie weapon and armor upgrades to tech points.
Aaaaand.. GO.
Marines can spawn lock the aliens very easy even with level 1 weapons
Lets tie weapon and armor upgrades to tech points.
Aaaaand.. GO.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbwwq4LShA1r9xe5ro2_500.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Just because we don't respond in some of these threads does not mean we aren't aware of the problems that exist or that we are not working on thinking about and implementing fixes for them.
It is not like there is a list of 3 changes that we can sit down and make and suddenly everything is going to be both balanced and fun and everyone is going to be happy. There are many different tools to use in balancing the game, from adjustments to player health/armor/damage output/movement speed to changes to spawn rates or the economy. At this stage even slight adjustments to one aspect of the game can ripple through the entire system and cause very large, sometimes unintended consequences. As we've seen, something as simple as a bug that causes marines to be knocked back when bitten by skulks can have a very large effect on balance and player frustration. With time running out until release we have to be very careful about every little adjustment we make, and can't jump to too many kneejerk reactions, otherwise the game will keep ping ponging all over the place balance wise.
Also, being in feature lockdown means we can't be making large changes such as swapping Lerk spores back to hive 1 (though we may revisit that again after 1.0) . But there will be some number tweaks and other fixes on a variety of areas in the game for the next patch that will hopefully bring things back to be a little more in line with the balance that we'd like to see.
--Cory
<b>Some relevant 6v6 comparisons:</b>
NS1: Fades typically out at around 4 minutes into the game (300hp/150armor).
NS2: Fades typically out at around 10 minutes into the game (250hp/50armor).
NS1: Lerk out at around 1:30 (very capable support unit that saps marine health and economy).
NS2: Lerk out at around 4 minutes (fairly weak combat unit, debatable if it's even an upgrade over the skulk (mainly a problem with low bite dps and flap/spike energy cost)).
NS1: Shotguns rarely seen until 4-5 minutes into the game, except for single sg drops to kill RTs.
NS2: Shotguns figuratively everywhere as soon as they are researched.
NS1: Hive teleportation.
NS2: No hive teleportation
NS1 vs. NS2: Skulk movement speed advantage over marines roughly 30% smaller in NS2.
There are some other differences that go the other way though, such as NS2 aliens typically getting second hive and leap up 3 minutes earlier than in NS1, and the huge Onos hp/armor values in NS2 (guess why comp teams rush early onos).
I think you are right on this one for sure. Marines were always extremely powerful, it's just that most players did not have the performance to capitalize on it. With the fixing of hit-reg, the removal of gimmicks like 1min leap it becomes very clear.
2 things I really miss from NS1, having been refreshed by playin a few games of NS2c:
-Aliens had upgrades like 1 minute into the game and had 3 different upgrades available to them instantly. This varied the gameplay so much and made early marine VS skulk very fun and full of surprises in the early game (from both marine and skulk perspective). In NS2, while you can go early upgrade (though it's out of style atm), you only get 1 to choose from. Most games you don't even get your first upgrade till 5-8 minutes in, let alone get any variety in them :/ (not to mention there are only a handful of useful upgrades to begin with)
-Aliens had so much more res. Losing an RT as aliens in NS2 is so unbelievably unforgiving. So much so that taking RTs as aliens is generally a great liability and so most teams try to get by on bare-bones res income.
It is not like there is a list of 3 changes that we can sit down and make and suddenly everything is going to be both balanced and fun and everyone is going to be happy. There are many different tools to use in balancing the game, from adjustments to player health/armor/damage output/movement speed to changes to spawn rates or the economy. At this stage even slight adjustments to one aspect of the game can ripple through the entire system and cause very large, sometimes unintended consequences. As we've seen, something as simple as a bug that causes marines to be knocked back when bitten by skulks can have a very large effect on balance and player frustration. With time running out until release we have to be very careful about every little adjustment we make, and can't jump to too many kneejerk reactions, otherwise the game will keep ping ponging all over the place balance wise.
Also, being in feature lockdown means we can't be making large changes such as swapping Lerk spores back to hive 1 (though we may revisit that again after 1.0) . But there will be some number tweaks and other fixes on a variety of areas in the game for the next patch that will hopefully bring things back to be a little more in line with the balance that we'd like to see.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
HE RESPONDED! GET HIM!
Yeah, the upgrade system and general alien comm is not so great right now. An easy fix though would be to favor upgrade first over hive-leap first and to try to balance a bit the upgrades, so that there is some room for variations in early game. So make upgrade first cheap and quick; nine (potential) choices are better than one.
It is not like there is a list of 3 changes that we can sit down and make and suddenly everything is going to be both balanced and fun and everyone is going to be happy. There are many different tools to use in balancing the game, from adjustments to player health/armor/damage output/movement speed to changes to spawn rates or the economy. At this stage even slight adjustments to one aspect of the game can ripple through the entire system and cause very large, sometimes unintended consequences. As we've seen, something as simple as a bug that causes marines to be knocked back when bitten by skulks can have a very large effect on balance and player frustration. With time running out until release we have to be very careful about every little adjustment we make, and can't jump to too many kneejerk reactions, otherwise the game will keep ping ponging all over the place balance wise.
Also, being in feature lockdown means we can't be making large changes such as swapping Lerk spores back to hive 1 (though we may revisit that again after 1.0) . But there will be some number tweaks and other fixes on a variety of areas in the game for the next patch that will hopefully bring things back to be a little more in line with the balance that we'd like to see.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Lock down means no moving spores from 2nd to 1st hive? I thought it meant no new features being implemented and just tweaking.
I would have thought swapping between 1st and 2nd hive could fall under balance tweaking.
You can't say that on the internet...
I would have thought swapping between 1st and 2nd hive could fall under balance tweaking.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yea that confused me too.
I forgot all about that in NS1. This would be great if we could get this option back again. It would definitly make game play more dynamic and interesting.
The situation in NS1 wasn't really comparable though. It may seem like an isolated system, but in fact things like upgrades, resource generation and higher lifeforms were all interwoven. Dropping 3 upgrade chambers required 2 gorges, who would then have absolutely no resources. This meant that in order to get any harvesters, more players would have to go gorge. If you don't get at least 2 additional harvesters, players are going to be getting resources very slowly. That is already 4 alien players who are now essentially ineligible for evolution to higher lifeforms like fades.
The situations can't really be compared.
The situations can't really be compared.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So what if required multiple gorges. If you have at least 12 players, then there are 8 left who can evolve. You do realize that some people actually like playing gorge and don't mind evolving to a higher life form if they feel they are providing support for their team?
Plus, gorges don't drop upgrades or harvesters in NS2 so it doesn't matter anyways. All I'm saying is that if we could have the option of getting multiple upgrades from a single hive it would provide much more different game play for everyone.
-Aliens had so much more res. Losing an RT as aliens in NS2 is so unbelievably unforgiving. So much so that taking RTs as aliens is generally a great liability and so most teams try to get by on bare-bones res income.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think these two really go hand in hand. Comparatively with most marine structures (namely the arms lab) the upgrade chambers are extremely vulnerable and cost a huge chunk of res. So when they get sniped it puts a huge burden on the economy, where as a second hive is immensely easier to defend. So working in tandem with alien RTs being a huge risk, the second hive really is the better choice of the two. It isn't necessarily that the chamber upgrades are bad (though they need work, more in a moment) it is just a large and punishable investment. It really should be the other way around, the quick 2nd hive should be the risky choice not the quick upgrades.
Now concerning upgrade chambers, here is where I'd like to see a revert back to the NS1 style and earlier NS2 builds. When you drop a shell it should unlock all crag upgrades and be back on the tiered system with 3 ranks. Each additional shell should provide the next tier much like defense chambers did in NS1. This allows for proper alien scaling in the current model. The onos' base armor can be toned down and the carapace tiers can be adjusted to fit. This prevents the 7 minute onos from coming out and being absolutely outrageous to kill without weapon upgrades on the marine team. The same can be tuned with other chamber upgrades (some like feign death and hypermutation will be difficult). Chamber build time and cost will need to be adjusted to compensate. This isn't the only approach to this. Rather than requiring multiple upgrade chambers we can keep just one and make the upgrade tiers researchable. However, the chamber will need a SIGNIFICANT health and armor buff to match comparable marine tech buildings.
One of the fundamental problems with the alien team in my mind is how their scaling works and the fact that they really have none on hive 1 tech. Allowing tiered upgrades will open a tech path for the alien team that doesn't entirely depend on the second hive.
edit: Another thing that could be done to expand on the 1 chamber design, is rather than having 1 upgrade research that brings everything up to the next tier, have it so each individual upgrade has a research option. So when say the shell is dropped, all baseline upgrades are unlocked allowing the players on the ground choices, and then the commander can choose to researched an improved version of regeneration for example.
I would like to see more upgrades available overall to the khaamander with basic things like spiked structures that reflect melee damage (the visual on this could be awesome) and would force marines to use their ammo on structures. Maybe an upgrades to allow buildings to burrow intot he ground and require a scan to see. Or maybe being able to mature an upgrade chamber to improve its specific upgrade, so a matured (leveled up) carapace chamber may give you 5 or 10 more armor as a skulk. This would greatly increase the alien tech tree and maybe help load off all the late game khaam lifeform egg snowballs.
I don't follow that at all.
Does it forces a specific response from the marines ? Does it allow mind games ?
I would like to see more upgrades available overall to the khaamander with basic things like spiked structures that reflect melee damage (the visual on this could be awesome) and would force marines to use their ammo on structures. Maybe an upgrades to allow buildings to burrow intot he ground and require a scan to see. Or maybe being able to mature an upgrade chamber to improve its specific upgrade, so a matured (leveled up) carapace chamber may give you 5 or 10 more armor as a skulk. This would greatly increase the alien tech tree and maybe help load off all the late game khaam lifeform egg snowballs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It still is a flat tech route I agree. However, most khamms will invest in only certain upgrades so most never see the light of day. With gaining all baseline upgrades from the chamber type being unlocked immediately this adds more variety to the players actually out skulking. You can keep the decisions for the khamm by making it so they choose which upgrade they want to increase the effectiveness of with research (in the single chamber model). Moving away from the current model could open up a bit more scaling which could fix some other issues with the alien team. My previous example being the 7 minute onos and another being with late game skulk effectiveness.
Hell, you could even make it so the hive research to make say a shift hive, unlocks all the baseline shift upgrades and the spur has research to increase the effectiveness. Granted the hive type research time will need to be increased as well as the res cost, but it's a thought.
<!--quoteo(post=1992797:date=Oct 17 2012, 09:08 AM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ Oct 17 2012, 09:08 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992797"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't see much strategic depth in choosing between upgrades on a chamber. What difference does it make to choose between carapace and regen, or between celerity and adrenaline, strategy wise?
Does it forces a specific response from the marines ? Does it allow mind games ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think it opens up aliens to conform to different play styles. With the carapace/regen example, it would be a more tanky direct style versus hit and run. As it is now the upgrade structure is too tightly controlled by the khamm and outside of expensive lifeforms the aliens don't quite have the individual customization of the marine team (open to objections on that point).
Does it forces a specific response from the marines ? Does it allow mind games ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
hello, you must be new here
I would say no, no hive upgrade path forces any change out of the marines and thats unfortunate. But like I said, I think the upgrades are not good enough. The abilities from 2nd hive far outweigh the upgrades chambers.
<!--quoteo(post=1992799:date=Oct 17 2012, 11:12 AM:name=Industry)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Industry @ Oct 17 2012, 11:12 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1992799"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hell, you could even make it so the hive research to make say a shift hive, unlocks all the baseline shift upgrades and the spur has research to increase the effectiveness. Granted the hive type research time will need to be increased as well as the res cost, but it's a thought.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is actually a cool idea
This is actually one of many ideas that came from our little focus group months ago. We even had resource calculations and timings with it :).
Going to quote part of it:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Chamber Upgrades
Alien upgrades need to be a compromise between each of the upgrades for that chamber. All upgrade have to be viable and worth using.
Current implementation on the chambers upgrades is to linear. Alien commander simply get 1 upgrade per hive because other upgrades are not needed. This means that only upgrades that are useful to all the lifeforms in the team are used.
We suggest that a single upgrade chamber would allow all upgrades of that type. So if the alien commander would drop a Shell the players would be able to get both carapace and regeneration.
To prevent this to be too powerful in the beginning the shell could have 3 tiers of evolution. So level 1 shell would give lvl 1 regen/carapace. If upgraded to level 2 shell players would have level 2 carapace/regen, and the same with level 3 upgrades. This allows the alien team to scale with resources and gives more choices to the players.
When the chamber is upgraded it could gain extra hp/armor. Also it’s size could increase to make it visible for the marines what the current level is.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This would allow multiple upgrade choices earlier in the game for aliens without removing any resource balance from the alien commander. It also gives more room to tweak its scaling. However with 2 weeks to release it kinda does not matter, it would take to much time to put in the game and adjust it.
It has problems still however. Being tied to the hive directly means they only way the marines can snipe those upgrades is to take down the hive, which piles more and more onto alien hive dependence. Unless you'd rather go with when they lose the chamber they lose the effectiveness and the baseline stays until the hive dies. That's why personally I'd rather see the "baseline" upgrades not be available until the chamber is dropped with the chamber having research to increase the effectiveness of each individual upgrade. This allows the upgrades to still be taken out by marines in a feasible manner while still leaving the contingency of the chamber's hive being taken out and not losing access till the chamber dies itself.
General framework of what I would like to see:
<ul><li>Each hive can evolve into a chamber type.</li><li>Once a chamber is dropped all abilities are available from the get go.</li><li>The chamber has a research path for each upgrade to increase their viability. ex. Each tier of carapace provides more armor, each tier of silence reduces the sounds made eventually to zero</li><li>Chamber health and res cost are increased to keep them inline with their power</li><li>If the chamber dies upgrades of that type are no longer available (much as it is now)</li><li>If the hive dies chambers of that type are not longer buildable (much as it is now)</li></ul>
Pros of the system:
<ul><li>Opens up scaling possibilities for balance with multiple levels of upgrades</li><li>Tech seems slightly less narrow for players on the ground</li><li>Similar system shown to work generally well in NS1</li><li>Still allows for some Khammander choice</li></ul>
Cons of the system:
<ul><li>Some upgrades might not scale properly</li><li>some tier 1 upgrades may end up really shallow and still not used (though then it is more a problem with that individual perk)</li></ul>
Very cool, didn't think I was the first one to think of it anyway. :P
Yeah, this definitely isn't something that can make it into 1.0. Honestly, the game is fun and that is one of two things, the other being performance, that need to be locked down for launch for it to be successful. However, to keep people playing afterwards there needs to be a deep rewarding gameplay experience. As such I think a good place to start is the alien upgrade system. As it is now it is very polarized as there is no scaling. You either have carapace (or insert other upgrade here) or you don't, and as such it seems a lot of lifeforms might be balanced around that. (harkening back to the 7 minute onos)
Despite a lot of the negativity I see around, I personally think the game is getting to a better place and as long as it stays on that path we will get more than just a fun game on launch but a game that keeps a playerbase around for years to come.
It is not like there is a list of 3 changes that we can sit down and make and suddenly everything is going to be both balanced and fun and everyone is going to be happy. There are many different tools to use in balancing the game, from adjustments to player health/armor/damage output/movement speed to changes to spawn rates or the economy. At this stage even slight adjustments to one aspect of the game can ripple through the entire system and cause very large, sometimes unintended consequences. As we've seen, something as simple as a bug that causes marines to be knocked back when bitten by skulks can have a very large effect on balance and player frustration. With time running out until release we have to be very careful about every little adjustment we make, and can't jump to too many kneejerk reactions, otherwise the game will keep ping ponging all over the place balance wise.
Also, being in feature lockdown means we can't be making large changes such as swapping Lerk spores back to hive 1 (though we may revisit that again after 1.0) . But there will be some number tweaks and other fixes on a variety of areas in the game for the next patch that will hopefully bring things back to be a little more in line with the balance that we'd like to see.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hey Cory, thank you for the response. I really appreciate it. I know we're in feature lock down but I do believe that the initial enjoyment of playing aliens will be the most key aspect of NS2's launch success and long term viability. You play Space Marines in almost every game. Every game has men shooting men. Granted, there's a strategic overview that changes the experience, but shooters are shooters are shooters. The aliens, now that's what makes NS2 unique and special. If the alien experience is one of absolute terror and frustration people won't stick around, regardless how awesome the marine experience is.
As far as there not being a list of 3 things that will fix the game, I have to disagree. We've seen the primary issue
1) Scaling
2) Vulnerability of alien investments/resource retention in marine investments
3) Focus
Just the inclusion of focus an option would go a long way to improving the competitiveness and fun of being an alien. Five bites to kill an SMG marine, who can kill in 7 shots at 3/3, is an awful large efficiency gap.
Also, there's been a lot of talk about how collision improvements will dramatically alter the skulk experience. I don't know if in isolation this will go far enough, but I do know focus is needed right this second.
It really does seem like marines can get phase tech too early on, and it overpowers the aliens. Building an observatory seems like a necessary tech path and is one of the first things every commander does in any area. Phase gates start appearing within the first few minutes of every game.
I seem to remember that in NS1 you had to wait for a while to get an Observatory, and then research motion tracking. Before that time, there was a substantial period where you were vulnerable to cloaked aliens. I don't remember if phase tech was linked to obs in NS1, but the point is the same. Why is it so cheap, fast, and necessary for marines to get the overpowering combination of motion tracking+scanning+phase tech?
I think there should be some trade-offs as to what order marines research things. Maybe we need to make the research more expensive or take a lot longer. Right now phase gate tech just steamrolls aliens, it's so hard to fight against a team that can be everywhere at once.
Maybe if an advanced armory is needed for phase gates...
But this creates just another kind of mandatory building. I don't know.
Uwe has acknowledged that early phase is too much of a no-brainer, so hopefully once sentries are a little better phase can be weakened in some way, allowing for two strategies for holding an area instead of just one.