Meh I give up, pointless to even try at this point....
As a final note if you read my post it was specifically about midrange skill levels (from where most pubs are at to most comp games currently) - I still think at the topmost level of skill the imbalances are not as severe/even slightly marine sided.
<!--quoteo(post=2059018:date=Jan 10 2013, 05:48 PM:name=fanatic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fanatic @ Jan 10 2013, 05:48 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2059018"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Damn, you're right. I wonder how we ever survived for eight years playing NS1 with only spawning one alien at a time every seven seconds.
Now I understand why nobody plays Counter-Strike 1.6, Source or Global Offensive. In those terrible games you sometimes have to wait several minutes to respawn if you die!
I wish we could all have your capacity for rational thought, RedDragon.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
At the very least I wish you had a greater capacity for reading comprehension. Or maybe some concept of what a logical fallacy is, but I suppose we can't all have what we want, can we?
<!--quoteo(post=2058987:date=Jan 10 2013, 04:22 PM:name=WasabiOne)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (WasabiOne @ Jan 10 2013, 04:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2058987"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->ok so I appreciate all the chat in here, some really good points. However; how many of you have actually played a few rounds of the mod to see the actual effects? All the TEAM#156 VEGAS servers are running the mod, please fill them up and play and then provide feedback.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is really the only way to see what these spawns will do. I just started a mid-game on a Team 156 server. I asked if it is running the balance mod and they all said they doubt it. Are you sure it is???
I tell you. This is what I saw: ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE IN SPAWN TIMES
I played aliens as well. I wait at most 10 seconds to spawn. And we lost too, which is rare nowadays. It was a great game, lasted a while with alot of back anf forth.
So..... give one of these servers a try. Assuming they are running the mod, I like it. I still need to play a game at start and see what happens. I tell you what, if it slows down the non-stop alien rush from hell that happens time and time again at game start, this is great. It may allow games that would end in a 2 minute alien win, to last a full game now.
UPDATE: I checked the server list again. All 3 "Team 156" servers are not yellow. So unless the balance mod doesn't count as making it yellow, these srvers are not modded. Sigh.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->O Shotgun uses now a symmetrical bullet spread pattern<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sounds good to me! From rudimentary offline testing it looks like the pellets are still random, but always centered on the crosshair and more or less evenly distributed. Hard to say how much of an impact the shotgun spread really had on marine play in practice, but it sure can't hurt.
Few more top row is old spread bottom row is new <img src="http://oi46.tinypic.com/jl2jr7.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
In my opinion, old shotgun spread is tighter and has more damage per pellet but a bit random in a smaller spread. Damage is 17x10 which would be 170 damage total. New shotgun spread seems less random and more organized and you get 15 pellets that do 11 damage each. But I feel it's too spread out even if you are accurate and you're doing nerfed damage in total which would be 11x15 or 165 total.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited January 2013
The previous shotgun spread was far too narrow and really didn't fit it's role of "great up close, terrible at a distance" This change actually increases the amount of skill required to use it since you have to be better at timing / waiting for the skulk to close the distance gap.
Gone are the days of shotgun sniping across rooms! ...thank God. It's now a situational weapon that requires a varied squad much more than previously. It's akin to the change from rifle's gl attachment versus the dedicated gl.
Roles must be maintained for sake of soft RPS mechanics!
P.s. a symmetrical consistent spread adds reliability to a weapon that previously didn't have it.. so while you think this is a straight nerf, it actually balances out.. because if the tight spread was kept with the added reliability you'd easily have an OP shotgun.
One thing I have noticed (not played latest balance mod) is that the ns2 shotgun feels like it has a delay before firing, something which the ns1 shotgun doesn't.
<!--quoteo(post=2065285:date=Jan 22 2013, 10:14 PM:name=YMICrazy502)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (YMICrazy502 @ Jan 22 2013, 10:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2065285"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I sort of prefer the older one since the newer one feels nerfed.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> the effective range of the shotgun used to be able to snipe from a distance if you randomly had the pellets to line up which is pretty silly for a shotgun. the new spread just has it work consistently at ranges. you can even see in your screenshots that a skulk could be instagibbed or it could live just depending on where the rotation of the spread was.
with the still existing hit registry issues there are probably bound to be a lot of low damage shots so I would try not to overreact... I don't think I've played enough games on the balance mod to see whether the spread is too high, though.
Well I can see why it was done since the random spread did need a solution. And if that tight spread was never suppose to be that effective at range then I can see why it is like that as well. But why lower the overall damage down to 165? If the shotgun was suppose to fit it's niche of being dangerous at close quarters then increasing the spread is fine but I would have preferred the overall damage remaining at 170.
It really all depends on how effective that new spread is and how often you get those pellets to hit. Too bad finding an east coast balance server with people is difficult.
i think the cyst health drop is a good thing for the game on the public level. a lot of new alien comms like to drop cysts repeatedly on the same area when marines shoot them down. while it's a viable waste-your-ammo tactic, i think it's ultimately detrimental to a team-based game like ns2 because it effectively makes them have "tunnel vision"; the alien comm will spend the next minute spamming cysts, wasting res and losing awareness to what's going on elsewhere on the map because they're so occupied with re-cysting the same area just to waste a few bullets.
i think with this change, new alien comms will learn that it's almost always better to either gather up a few members of their team to defend the area they want to re-cyst (thus actually requiring them to "command"), or refocus their efforts towards another area on the map instead, as marines will waste little to no ammo getting new cysts down.
<!--quoteo(post=2065330:date=Jan 23 2013, 11:02 AM:name=Desther)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Desther @ Jan 23 2013, 11:02 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2065330"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->One thing I have noticed (not played latest balance mod) is that the ns2 shotgun feels like it has a delay before firing, something which the ns1 shotgun doesn't.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> That's just input lag, which has been an unresolved issue forever now. Some lucky people get next to none of it, some very unlucky people get a lot. Try turning off multithreads, playing in fullscreen if you play in windowed mode, or setting your maximum pre-rendered frames to 1.
I think being able to actually point the shotgun at a target at any distance and do a little bit of damage to it will make a big difference.
It used to be that you couldn't reliably hit anything at a distance, being able to shave even 11hp off a skulk before taking your main shot will make a significant difference to your kill rate I think.
<!--quoteo(post=2065366:date=Jan 23 2013, 08:03 AM:name=YMICrazy502)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (YMICrazy502 @ Jan 23 2013, 08:03 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2065366"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well I can see why it was done since the random spread did need a solution. And if that tight spread was never suppose to be that effective at range then I can see why it is like that as well. But why lower the overall damage down to 165? If the shotgun was suppose to fit it's niche of being dangerous at close quarters then increasing the spread is fine but I would have preferred the overall damage remaining at 170.
It really all depends on how effective that new spread is and how often you get those pellets to hit. Too bad finding an east coast balance server with people is difficult.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sounds like simple rounding due to the change in the number of pellets. 170 isn't divisible by 15. I guess they could use 17 pellets instead if it really matters, but it hardly seems important.
Might as well give this thread a bump since there are some new possible changes to 240
New updates to the balance mod:
O Increase the spawn time for marines to 10 sec.
O Remove the alien spawn system. Create a new alien spawn system
where aliens queue up for a spawn. They spawn after 7 sec or as soon
as a egg is available. There should be a queue for each build hive.
O Change egg spawn timer to 6 sec.
O Change Crags/shift/shade cost to 15 tres.
O Decrease Crag aoe healing radius to 8.
O Each target can only be healed by maximum by 2 Crags each tick
O Increase arms lab upgrades costs to 20/30/40
O Decrease nano shield duration to 4 seconds. Increase cooldown to 12 sec.
Appreciate the Crag nerfs. This should help balance public games out a lot because marines won't keep running forever against an impenetrable alien fortress until the alien finished capping the entire rest of the map.
So let's see if I get this straight... Marine spawn times are going UP? Again? I don't see how this is helping marine balance at all. Alien spawn times are also going down from had been a possible 13 seconds in wave spawn. Now aliens are guaranteed a spawn in 7 seconds, so long as an egg is available. So in short, aliens will always be able to outspawn marines now. Interesting balance choice.
Then there is increased arms lab costs, and Nanoshield has basically be removed from the game. What used to be 8 seconds of shield with a 10 second cooldown is now 4 seconds with a 12 second cooldown? I won't be spending 5 res on that anymore. Will have to be a VERY rare and narrow circumstance to bother with it in that state.
Crag changes were to be expected (it was getting silly) but that's it? I wonder what happened to the 'big balance patch' I hear they are working on?
Apparently Skulks need to be even more expendable than they already are. And marines need to be deprived of any coordinated push they could attempt through a meat grinder PG due to the lack of knockback.
And as marines are not already struggling enough for resources in the early game, they now need to spend even more on their vital first upgrades and possibly even a third IP if the timings keep going up the way they are. Every day I try to convince marines that an early Arms Lab can be more helpful than an early PG, but these cost increases make it even harder to get a different viable build order than Obs->PG.
So let's see if I get this straight... Marine spawn times are going UP? Again? I don't see how this is helping marine balance at all. Alien spawn times are also going down from had been a possible 13 seconds in wave spawn. Now aliens are guaranteed a spawn in 7 seconds, so long as an egg is available. So in short, aliens will always be able to outspawn marines now. Interesting balance choice.
Then there is increased arms lab costs, and Nanoshield has basically be removed from the game. What used to be 8 seconds of shield with a 10 second cooldown is now 4 seconds with a 12 second cooldown? I won't be spending 5 res on that anymore. Will have to be a VERY rare and narrow circumstance to bother with it in that state.
Crag changes were to be expected (it was getting silly) but that's it? I wonder what happened to the 'big balance patch' I hear they are working on?
Yea I feel marine spawn time should have been left at what it is. No point in making players wait longer. That's just my opinion outside of balance. Especially when they are the team that is already sluggish early game.
As for the egg changes, for every hive you have you get 1 alien spawn every 7 seconds. I am guessing if you have 2 hives, you get to spawn 2 aliens every 7 seconds and with 3 hives you get 3 aliens every 7 seconds. Shifts also goes by the 7 second timer and also have a spawn limit based on the number of hives. So if you activate shift eggs and have 1 hive, you still get 1 spawn every 7 seconds. The only way this can destroy aliens is if the marines wipe out an entire push of aliens quickly and while they are all in spawn queue, they capitalize on their bought time. Early game I can see this perhaps assisting marines by allowing skulks to not zerg as hard as they used to. Still when the aliens have higher lifeforms mid to late game the marines will be slowed down by the increased spawn time. Since I have not tested it I cannot say how it works out.
Nanoshield nerf hits a bit too hard. I tend to use it when aliens are going to hit the powernode and 4 seconds will not buy much time at all. 5 tres is steep for 4 seconds. I am assuming it was nerfed because some players felt that waiting 8 seconds for it to expire on marines was annoying and op but now they just wait 4 and continue. 8 was a bit too high but 4 is too much of a nerf. I think 5-6 seconds for players and 8 seconds for structures is a bit better.
Making crags/shifts/and shades cost 5 tres more each and increasing the total marine research cost by about 30 more tres seems kind of pointless as aliens were already ahead of the tech game in regard to upgrade cost. This probably does nothing except hinder marines early game as they try to get upgrades.
Crag changes are alright I guess. The radius will not affect much but limiting 2 to heal a target is helpful when trying to empty bullets into that fortress of heals.
AurOn2COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS!AustraliaJoin Date: 2012-01-13Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
wait - i thought the common misconception was marines are on the losing part of the spectrum and are aparently underpowered? Why are they nerfing marines in places where they needed a buff, and buffing where they needed a nerf? I DUN GEDDIT CHARRIE!
Also, finaly done with the wafes! WOOHOO, that thing was stoopitt anyway.
Might as well give this thread a bump since there are some new possible changes to 240
New updates to the balance mod:
What have we here.
O Increase the spawn time for marines to 10 sec.
O Remove the alien spawn system. Create a new alien spawn system
where aliens queue up for a spawn. They spawn after 7 sec or as soon
as a egg is available. There should be a queue for each build hive.
So, game's gonna be a lot less dynamic and both sides should play safer. That denies skulk's idea. Marines wait 10 seconds, aliens will take forever to respawn now. Especially on +16 maps. And that fitting wave spawining system for aliens is gone.
O Decrease Crag aoe healing radius to 8.
O Each target can only be healed by maximum by 2 Crags each tick
Nerfing crags. Imo, wasn't needed.
O Increase arms lab upgrades costs to 20/30/40
O Decrease nano shield duration to 4 seconds. Increase cooldown to 12 sec.
I can't believe this. 40% winrate for marines at best and now THIS. Seriously? Marines already had more expensive tech tree and now it's even more expensive? And useless nano? I do not understand.
Aliens are clearly getting the brunt of the nerf here. Single spawning is a big hit to early game map control - should make it a lot easier for marines to gain some ground after winning a fight.
also, keep in mind marines can double their spawn rate by investing in a second ip... so this slight tweak to their spawn rate is a pretty small nerf. Marines will spawn faster than aliens after they buy a second ip.
The removal of wave spawn on alien side is a huge nerf.
Comments
As a final note if you read my post it was specifically about midrange skill levels (from where most pubs are at to most comp games currently) - I still think at the topmost level of skill the imbalances are not as severe/even slightly marine sided.
Now I understand why nobody plays Counter-Strike 1.6, Source or Global Offensive. In those terrible games you sometimes have to wait several minutes to respawn if you die!
I wish we could all have your capacity for rational thought, RedDragon.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
At the very least I wish you had a greater capacity for reading comprehension. Or maybe some concept of what a logical fallacy is, but I suppose we can't all have what we want, can we?
That is really the only way to see what these spawns will do. I just started a mid-game on a Team 156 server. I asked if it is running the balance mod and they all said they doubt it. Are you sure it is???
I tell you. This is what I saw:
ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE IN SPAWN TIMES
I played aliens as well. I wait at most 10 seconds to spawn. And we lost too, which is rare nowadays. It was a great game, lasted a while with alot of back anf forth.
So..... give one of these servers a try. Assuming they are running the mod, I like it. I still need to play a game at start and see what happens. I tell you what, if it slows down the non-stop alien rush from hell that happens time and time again at game start, this is great. It may allow games that would end in a 2 minute alien win, to last a full game now.
UPDATE:
I checked the server list again. All 3 "Team 156" servers are not yellow. So unless the balance mod doesn't count as making it yellow, these srvers are not modded. Sigh.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->O Shotgun uses now a symmetrical bullet spread pattern<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sounds good to me! From rudimentary offline testing it looks like the pellets are still random, but always centered on the crosshair and more or less evenly distributed. Hard to say how much of an impact the shotgun spread really had on marine play in practice, but it sure can't hurt.
One on left is new one on right is old
<img src="http://oi45.tinypic.com/2i9jsk9.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Few more top row is old spread bottom row is new
<img src="http://oi46.tinypic.com/jl2jr7.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
In my opinion, old shotgun spread is tighter and has more damage per pellet but a bit random in a smaller spread. Damage is 17x10 which would be 170 damage total. New shotgun spread seems less random and more organized and you get 15 pellets that do 11 damage each. But I feel it's too spread out even if you are accurate and you're doing nerfed damage in total which would be 11x15 or 165 total.
This change actually increases the amount of skill required to use it since you have to be better at timing / waiting for the skulk to close the distance gap.
Gone are the days of shotgun sniping across rooms!
...thank God.
It's now a situational weapon that requires a varied squad much more than previously. It's akin to the change from rifle's gl attachment versus the dedicated gl.
Roles must be maintained for sake of soft RPS mechanics!
P.s. a symmetrical consistent spread adds reliability to a weapon that previously didn't have it.. so while you think this is a straight nerf, it actually balances out.. because if the tight spread was kept with the added reliability you'd easily have an OP shotgun.
the effective range of the shotgun used to be able to snipe from a distance if you randomly had the pellets to line up which is pretty silly for a shotgun. the new spread just has it work consistently at ranges. you can even see in your screenshots that a skulk could be instagibbed or it could live just depending on where the rotation of the spread was.
with the still existing hit registry issues there are probably bound to be a lot of low damage shots so I would try not to overreact... I don't think I've played enough games on the balance mod to see whether the spread is too high, though.
It really all depends on how effective that new spread is and how often you get those pellets to hit. Too bad finding an east coast balance server with people is difficult.
i think the cyst health drop is a good thing for the game on the public level. a lot of new alien comms like to drop cysts repeatedly on the same area when marines shoot them down. while it's a viable waste-your-ammo tactic, i think it's ultimately detrimental to a team-based game like ns2 because it effectively makes them have "tunnel vision"; the alien comm will spend the next minute spamming cysts, wasting res and losing awareness to what's going on elsewhere on the map because they're so occupied with re-cysting the same area just to waste a few bullets.
i think with this change, new alien comms will learn that it's almost always better to either gather up a few members of their team to defend the area they want to re-cyst (thus actually requiring them to "command"), or refocus their efforts towards another area on the map instead, as marines will waste little to no ammo getting new cysts down.
That's just input lag, which has been an unresolved issue forever now. Some lucky people get next to none of it, some very unlucky people get a lot. Try turning off multithreads, playing in fullscreen if you play in windowed mode, or setting your maximum pre-rendered frames to 1.
It used to be that you couldn't reliably hit anything at a distance, being able to shave even 11hp off a skulk before taking your main shot will make a significant difference to your kill rate I think.
It really all depends on how effective that new spread is and how often you get those pellets to hit. Too bad finding an east coast balance server with people is difficult.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sounds like simple rounding due to the change in the number of pellets. 170 isn't divisible by 15. I guess they could use 17 pellets instead if it really matters, but it hardly seems important.
New updates to the balance mod:
O Increase the spawn time for marines to 10 sec.
O Remove the alien spawn system. Create a new alien spawn system
where aliens queue up for a spawn. They spawn after 7 sec or as soon
as a egg is available. There should be a queue for each build hive.
O Change egg spawn timer to 6 sec.
O Change Crags/shift/shade cost to 15 tres.
O Decrease Crag aoe healing radius to 8.
O Each target can only be healed by maximum by 2 Crags each tick
O Increase arms lab upgrades costs to 20/30/40
O Decrease nano shield duration to 4 seconds. Increase cooldown to 12 sec.
Correct. No more wavespawn.
It sounds like eggs still work the way they do today, spawning is just limited to one per hive every 7 seconds.
Then there is increased arms lab costs, and Nanoshield has basically be removed from the game. What used to be 8 seconds of shield with a 10 second cooldown is now 4 seconds with a 12 second cooldown? I won't be spending 5 res on that anymore. Will have to be a VERY rare and narrow circumstance to bother with it in that state.
Crag changes were to be expected (it was getting silly) but that's it? I wonder what happened to the 'big balance patch' I hear they are working on?
And as marines are not already struggling enough for resources in the early game, they now need to spend even more on their vital first upgrades and possibly even a third IP if the timings keep going up the way they are. Every day I try to convince marines that an early Arms Lab can be more helpful than an early PG, but these cost increases make it even harder to get a different viable build order than Obs->PG.
Yea I feel marine spawn time should have been left at what it is. No point in making players wait longer. That's just my opinion outside of balance. Especially when they are the team that is already sluggish early game.
As for the egg changes, for every hive you have you get 1 alien spawn every 7 seconds. I am guessing if you have 2 hives, you get to spawn 2 aliens every 7 seconds and with 3 hives you get 3 aliens every 7 seconds. Shifts also goes by the 7 second timer and also have a spawn limit based on the number of hives. So if you activate shift eggs and have 1 hive, you still get 1 spawn every 7 seconds. The only way this can destroy aliens is if the marines wipe out an entire push of aliens quickly and while they are all in spawn queue, they capitalize on their bought time. Early game I can see this perhaps assisting marines by allowing skulks to not zerg as hard as they used to. Still when the aliens have higher lifeforms mid to late game the marines will be slowed down by the increased spawn time. Since I have not tested it I cannot say how it works out.
Nanoshield nerf hits a bit too hard. I tend to use it when aliens are going to hit the powernode and 4 seconds will not buy much time at all. 5 tres is steep for 4 seconds. I am assuming it was nerfed because some players felt that waiting 8 seconds for it to expire on marines was annoying and op but now they just wait 4 and continue. 8 was a bit too high but 4 is too much of a nerf. I think 5-6 seconds for players and 8 seconds for structures is a bit better.
Making crags/shifts/and shades cost 5 tres more each and increasing the total marine research cost by about 30 more tres seems kind of pointless as aliens were already ahead of the tech game in regard to upgrade cost. This probably does nothing except hinder marines early game as they try to get upgrades.
Crag changes are alright I guess. The radius will not affect much but limiting 2 to heal a target is helpful when trying to empty bullets into that fortress of heals.
Also, finaly done with the wafes! WOOHOO, that thing was stoopitt anyway.
What have we here.
So, game's gonna be a lot less dynamic and both sides should play safer. That denies skulk's idea. Marines wait 10 seconds, aliens will take forever to respawn now. Especially on +16 maps. And that fitting wave spawining system for aliens is gone.
Nerfing crags. Imo, wasn't needed.
I can't believe this. 40% winrate for marines at best and now THIS. Seriously? Marines already had more expensive tech tree and now it's even more expensive? And useless nano? I do not understand.
I don't know guys. I'm almost out of faith.
The removal of wave spawn on alien side is a huge nerf.
btw this is just the NS1 spawning system...