Sure, it takes away a little bit of fun from the alien player, because he can't spend his p-res like he wants to. If no lifeforms are in the pool, (that he wants to play) he can't spend his p-res at all. Thats what leads us to the second tweak:
- Gorges are now responsible for placing cysts from p-res instead of the com.
* This slows the alien economy. Gorges won't place cysts as fast as coms can.
* It takes alien players from the front lines with a more interesting task than holding Mouse2 while looking at a building.
* It introduces a new meta game: "Hide the cyst!" because you can place them now an walls and ceilings again. It is a p-res dump.
* Cutting cyst-chains now is a real deal.
* Expanding the cyst-chain is now dangerous, Gorges can get killed while expanding without cover.
* It increases the team-play-demand on the alien side and introduces more ways for mistakes, like marines already have.
I agree that the alien commander needs some changes in how TRes is spent. Right now, the only thing an alien comm has to spend money on (in a macro sense) is: upgrade chambers (which are permanent once placed), harvesters, and cysts. Marines have to spend money on an observatory, armory, arms lab, ect just to really get in the game.
While the marine commander needs to spend res reinforcing soldiers (dropping ammo/health/nanoshield) and giving them building support (armories, observatories) the alien commander really doesn't need to. Unless he's dropping a nutrient mist, bone wall, or a building cluster, he has no real res dumps that aren't needlessly broken.
What I propose is to make the alien commander seem more like he was intended long ago: to be more like a "gardener." I envision this to be like actual gardening with alien structures: 'watering' them to keep them alive, and pruning weeds (marines) to keep them healthy.
I still also stand by my decision that NS2's game length goal should be more than half an hour. Twenty minutes is fine for a game like TF2 (infact some games go well beyond that) because there are no structures or territory to really be held (with exceptions). But in a game like NS2, where you have to build bases, support units, have strategic thinking, you NEED to have more time. Twenty minutes just makes things far too short and creates unsatisfying games.
In both FPS and RTS games, 15-20 minutes per game is pretty normal.
In BF3 rounds can take quite long, I never watched the clock but a rush can take more than 20 mins and conquest can take a hour depending on tickets. Most conquest servers have like 1000 or 1500 tickets so rounds take considerably longer than 20 minutes and people like this more than mapchange ever 15 mins.
Also the rounds in games like dota2 take more than 20 minutes.
Also these games are far less complex than NS2.
It's true that in SC2 rounds take only 15-20 minutes but that's one main reason I don't play it anymore. With complex games balanced to be that short the problem is that there can be only 1 or 2 valid openings that you have to do over and over and over and over again. If you screw up one little thing the game is over because it was designed to be short and therefor punishes small mistakes.
This is because in order to shorten rounds in a complex game you have to build high screw up potential. If a early mistake is easily forgiven, rounds will automatically take more time to play out. Also, in short games the comback potential is more limited.
I find this trend for short rounds very bad. Let's get real here: NS2 will never be a CoD and the actual playerbase of NS2 enjoys long games. When I play, the game with 40-70 mins are the great ones. After these games all players on the server are euphoric and happy.
The games I like are the ones that take 15 minutes. Because in order for al game of NS2 to end after 15 minutes it has to be decided after 5 mins at the latest. I have never seen a good game that only lasted 15 minutes. Has anybody?
I'm sorry to say but balancing NS2 towards match-lenghts of 15-20 minutes is another design flaw where UWE tried to move the game more towards the casual players without really thinking about the extend of this decicion.
On Topic: If I get this right the idea behind the khamm was kind of a gardener. So why not make him exactly this? Give him stuff to plant on his creep. I think one could think of many things that could come handy but not OP which would cost some little res (1-3 res per piece)
So maybe give him a plant that grants sight to him only. So he can see where marines are but they dont appear on the map. This plant is again upgradeable so enemies appear on the minimap.
In consequence the drifter could be made much more expensive as now it would be an exculsive off-creep spy.
There could be small plants that generate sticky slime slowing down marines moving upon.
There could be gassy mushroomy plants that explode when marines are near and obscure sight for a few seconds
Or a spore mushroom that emmits spores
Or a enzyme plant giving enzymes to aliens in a small radius
these "cosmetic" changes could lead to and justify changes with the whole cyst system. make cyst only placeable on infestation. Consider giving them upgrade possibilites like it was suggested here. Why not increase the cooldown on cysts?
At the moment infestation is kind of "so what?". If I'm a marine I don't think "omg infestation im gonna die" and as Alien I don't think "Good god it's infested... im save here". But this should be player's reaction to infestation. As marine you should know that you are not welcome here and that there is this giant infestation organism that wants nothing more than to kill you. And as Aliens you should know that this very organism is part of you and helps you against the evil humans.
So make Infestation much slower but a much bigger deal gameplaywise at the same time.
As for rts: there are several ways how to handle building rts despite of very slow infestation. For instance you could say they are buildable without infestation but to transport the res to the hive, they need to be connected by infestation. So as khamm I would play the 2 or 3 closest rts to my hive knowing that the will be infested shortly after having finiseh building.
Or they consume part of the res to survive as long as they are not connected lowering your income.
Or they could store the res until connected
and so on.
@RandomEngy: What issue are you talking about? The issue of players being greedy and unable to play as a team? Well those are the people who might just prefer CoD X over Ns2 anyway. As you got an understanding of how NS1 worked, you knew that you had to do something for the team or your fade/onos will stand no chance when you can finally evolve into one.
You have exactly this same issue of players unable to work a sa team in NS2, I would argue it is worse because NS2 doesnt even try to educate them to become teamplayers. "I dont want to build 2nd techpoint, give me exo noob com!!1111"
Aliens and marines do not have the same economic system. Aliens can do more with less res than marines. This should be somehow balanced by making it harder for the aliens to gain res. As was already said, this is totally unlogical and makes comparing marines vs aliens difficult.
In both FPS and RTS games, 15-20 minutes per game is pretty normal.
In BF3 rounds can take quite long, I never watched the clock but a rush can take more than 20 mins and conquest can take a hour depending on tickets. Most conquest servers have like 1000 or 1500 tickets so rounds take considerably longer than 20 minutes and people like this more than mapchange ever 15 mins.
Also the rounds in games like dota2 take more than 20 minutes.
Also these games are far less complex than NS2.
In Halo 3, CoD 4, MW2, MW3, BO, BO2, Quake: Live, UTIII, and L4D:
Most games are over within 15 minutes.
It's true that in SC2 rounds take only 15-20 minutes but that's one main reason I don't play it anymore. With complex games balanced to be that short the problem is that there can be only 1 or 2 valid openings that you have to do over and over and over and over again. If you screw up one little thing the game is over because it was designed to be short and therefor punishes small mistakes.
This is because in order to shorten rounds in a complex game you have to build high screw up potential. If a early mistake is easily forgiven, rounds will automatically take more time to play out. Also, in short games the comback potential is more limited.
The games aren't balanced to be that short, competitive players make it that short.
They want to win, and get onto the next game as fast as possible.
The same thing happens in NS2, for some people.
I find this trend for short rounds very bad. Let's get real here: NS2 will never be a CoD and the actual playerbase of NS2 enjoys long games. When I play, the game with 40-70 mins are the great ones. After these games all players on the server are euphoric and happy.
The games I like are the ones that take 15 minutes. Because in order for al game of NS2 to end after 15 minutes it has to be decided after 5 mins at the latest. I have never seen a good game that only lasted 15 minutes. Has anybody?
You don't speak for the entire NS2 playerbase.
I prefer matches in the 20-30 minute range, anything after that tends to turn into a stalemate for another 30 minutes, followed by either the marines or the aliens absolutely crushing the opposition. Usually the aliens.
Basically, if the marines don't win within 30 minutes, there's a good chance that they won't win.
I'm sorry to say but balancing NS2 towards match-lenghts of 15-20 minutes is another design flaw where UWE tried to move the game more towards the casual players without really thinking about the extend of this decicion.
The game isn't balanced around having 15-20 minute rounds, that's entirely based on WHO IS PLAYING.
If everyone in the game is terrible, the game will last an hour.
On Topic: If I get this right the idea behind the khamm was kind of a gardener. So why not make him exactly this? Give him stuff to plant on his creep. I think one could think of many things that could come handy but not OP which would cost some little res (1-3 res per piece)
So maybe give him a plant that grants sight to him only. So he can see where marines are but they dont appear on the map. This plant is again upgradeable so enemies appear on the minimap.
In consequence the drifter could be made much more expensive as now it would be an exculsive off-creep spy.
There could be small plants that generate sticky slime slowing down marines moving upon.
There could be gassy mushroomy plants that explode when marines are near and obscure sight for a few seconds
Or a spore mushroom that emmits spores
Or a enzyme plant giving enzymes to aliens in a small radius
these "cosmetic" changes could lead to and justify changes with the whole cyst system. make cyst only placeable on infestation. Consider giving them upgrade possibilites like it was suggested here. Why not increase the cooldown on cysts?
At the moment infestation is kind of "so what?". If I'm a marine I don't think "omg infestation im gonna die" and as Alien I don't think "Good god it's infested... im save here". But this should be player's reaction to infestation. As marine you should know that you are not welcome here and that there is this giant infestation organism that wants nothing more than to kill you. And as Aliens you should know that this very organism is part of you and helps you against the evil humans.
So make Infestation much slower but a much bigger deal gameplaywise at the same time.
As for rts: there are several ways how to handle building rts despite of very slow infestation. For instance you could say they are buildable without infestation but to transport the res to the hive, they need to be connected by infestation. So as khamm I would play the 2 or 3 closest rts to my hive knowing that the will be infested shortly after having finiseh building.
Or they consume part of the res to survive as long as they are not connected lowering your income.
Or they could store the res until connected
and so on.
Those ideas aren't cosmetic.
Cosmetic is something like turning Infestation detail from minimal to rich.
1) Are you really com paring NS2 to Halo 3, CoD 4, MW2, MW3, BO, BO2, Quake: Live, UTIII, and L4D ???
It's painfully obvious thats not even apples and pears.
2) Of course these games are intended/balanced/designed so they are short. Thats what a game designer does. He think about how long a round of a rts should take and balances it accordingly. Try to play a short round of Panzer General. Wont work no matter how hard you try.
3) Yes what you are describing is the direct consequence of balancing the game for match-lengths 20 minutes. After that time there is no new tech or anything so the game tends to get numbed down. If a game is designed to last longer, there are more possibilities for both sides to end the game before maxing out on tech and going into stalemate.
4) Again, of course players ultimatively decide for how long to play, but the tech tree, res gather rate, research/build times and so on have a major influence on all this.
5) that's why I wrote "cosmetic". They are "cosmetic" compared to remove the tres system for aliens.
Frothy, you are saying that games should not be balanced to take more than 30 minutes, because right now, when they are balanced for 20 minutes, they turn awful once they pass the 30 minute mark.
Do you see your fallacy here? If the games were balanced for 40 minutes, they would not turn into a stalemate so quickly.
1) Are you really com paring NS2 to Halo 3, CoD 4, MW2, MW3, BO, BO2, Quake: Live, UTIII, and L4D ???
It's painfully obvious thats not even apples and pears.
NS2 is an FPS, those are FPS games.
You compared NS2 to BF3.
2) Of course these games are intended/balanced/designed so they are short. Thats what a game designer does. He think about how long a round of a rts should take and balances it accordingly. Try to play a short round of Panzer General. Wont work no matter how hard you try.
Were you one of those guys that said "10 mins no rush" on StarCraft?
3) Yes what you are describing is the direct consequence of balancing the game for match-lengths 20 minutes. After that time there is no new tech or anything so the game tends to get numbed down. If a game is designed to last longer, there are more possibilities for both sides to end the game before maxing out on tech and going into stalemate.
No, the game gets stale because neither side really has any "Game enders".
Well, that's not true.
The aliens have Bile Bomb, and Onos.
Marines have Exos, which aren't worth the res to research or buy, or ARCs, which are situational.
4) Again, of course players ultimatively decide for how long to play, but the tech tree, res gather rate, research/build times and so on have a major influence on all this.
They influence, but don't have direct control over it.
If a game lasts longer than 30 minutes:
You're on a 20+ man server
Your/Their team is toying with the losing team.
The teams are evenly balanced, and have average at best players on them.
5) that's why I wrote "cosmetic". They are "cosmetic" compared to remove the tres system for aliens.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cosmetic
"1 : of, relating to, or making for beauty especially of the complexion : beautifying <cosmetic salves>
2: done or made for the sake of appearance: as
a : correcting defects especially of the face <cosmetic surgery>
b : decorative, ornamental
c : not substantive : superficial <cosmetic changes>
3 : visually appealing "
A game can be the same genre, and have a completely different playstyle. Also, NS2 is not just an FPS. It's an FPS/RTS. There's more depth to it than "there are bad guys, you must shoot them."
"Game Enders" doesn't have to do with how the game gets stale. It gets stale because you've gotten all your tech at the 15 minute mark, assuming you had healthy res flow, and then you're left with just trying to kill the other guy. There are really no other goals. You no longer worry about research or holding ground, only really taking out the enemy. Marines have a hard time spearheading offenses because of how cheap alien tech is, no matter what marines do, any effect they have is countered.
Games last longer than 20 minutes because of how bad the balance is right now.
Judging by how much you're trying to criticize Gnoarch on the words he used, and not his actual argument, you're just shitposting.
A game can be the same genre, and have a completely different playstyle. Also, NS2 is not just an FPS. It's an FPS/RTS. There's more depth to it than "there are bad guys, you must shoot them."
He brought up BF3 as a comparison.
I know NS is an FPS/RTS.
I've been playing NS since 2002/2003 when NS1 came out.
There's a lot of gameplay depth to some FPS games too.
Broad generalisations really lead nowhere.
I dont like marzipan. It is too sweet. It takes only a few seconds to eat a clump of marzipan, I think NS2 rounds should be balanced around this time too.
</troll>
Can we get back on topic now?
Yes, please. With gorges who need to place cysts, we got the asymmetric counterpart for marines needed to build buildings. It is more fun for the gorge as right clicking on a hive / RT for a minute or more. Because he can get creative in hiding them (walls, ceilings) and it is dangerous to advance the cyst line. It also demands more teamplay from the aliens. (kham <-> gorge, skulks defending gorges) Those introduce more ways for the aliens to fail, making it more even to the marine team. It also give marines more breathing room, because aliens can't ALL focus on attacking marines.
The main problem isn't that the kham needs a gorge to build RTs and forward bases. (this just increases teamplay) The main problem is, that we draw micromanagement from the kham. And he has already so little to do.
If we only could come up with more things the kham could micro manage, it would be the perfect solution. More things drifters would be good for. Or more things to support his troops directly.
In my opinion BF3 has more in depth and tactical gameplay than NS2 does, though far less than NS1.
Also, I hate BF3.
As someone with over 600 hours played in BF3, all I have to say is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA No.
Compare your average pub play in NS2 to your average pub play in BF3. I think you will likely find them to be equally in depth and tactical (hardly any).
Compared at competitive levels, however, and the tactics in BF3 are far superior from my perspective, simply because there are tactics. What does NS2 have? Run in and shoot da hive?
Compare your average pub play in NS2 to your average pub play in BF3. I think you will likely find them to be equally in depth and tactical (hardly any).
Compared at competitive levels, however, and the tactics in BF3 are far superior from my perspective, simply because there are tactics. What does NS2 have? Run in and shoot da hive?
Your argument is terribly misguided. Battlefield 3 isn't a competative or even tactical game. Your goals are always "Get to A, hold A, kill everything that isn't friendly." Natural Selection is and always has been about resource management.
If we only could come up with more things the kham could micro manage, it would be the perfect solution. More things drifters would be good for. Or more things to support his troops directly.
On the one hand, I like the idea of bringing back alien expansion somewhat into the hands of the players to promote teamplay and also give gorges more of a role, but I worry about looking for things that the khamm can micromanage. It seems to me like creating something for the sake of it at this stage. Very unhelpful post from me, as I don't have the answer: what *should* the khamm be doing in this scenario? Is it contrived? I don't know.
one more off-topic: Myself having played more than 200 hrs of BF3 I can say that there is non-at-all tactics or whatsoever involved in any public play. Is there even a in-game voice support?!?
back on topic:
I feel like over this silly argument, my suggestion got kinda lost
What do you people think about my idea to slow down the expansion rate of creep considerably and at the same time improve it's gameplay influence by introducing various "plants" the khamm can plant to reinforce alien's position on infestation?
I think this way we could adress several of the (economical) problems we have discussed in this thread.
In my opinion BF3 has more in depth and tactical gameplay than NS2 does, though far less than NS1.
Also, I hate BF3.
As someone with over 600 hours played in BF3, all I have to say is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA No.
Compare your average pub play in NS2 to your average pub play in BF3. I think you will likely find them to be equally in depth and tactical (hardly any).
Compared at competitive levels, however, and the tactics in BF3 are far superior from my perspective, simply because there are tactics. What does NS2 have? Run in and shoot da hive?
I would love to know how much time playing BF3 and NS2 you have because I guarantee I have more in both and am better than you at both. The only tactic in BF3 is killing, you just happen to capture points along the way and this goes 10 times for competitive BF3 (Which is a complete joke by the way with horrible players. I've played against LvLcap and xfactor and they are fucking horrible. Is that really what's considered good now?). The team with more kills always, ALWAYS wins in BF3. Anyone who says score and teamwork is important in BF3 is completely full of shit. The only teamwork involved in BF3 is having a team that can aim.
In before, "lel rines just kil an hapen to kil hive alogn da wey."
I'm not knocking BF3 or anything, I found it quite fun in it's own special way. 2142 is still the best though.
one more off-topic: Myself having played more than 200 hrs of BF3 I can say that there is non-at-all tactics or whatsoever involved in any public play. Is there even a in-game voice support?!?
back on topic:
I feel like over this silly argument, my suggestion got kinda lost
What do you people think about my idea to slow down the expansion rate of creep considerably and at the same time improve it's gameplay influence by introducing various "plants" the khamm can plant to reinforce alien's position on infestation?
I think this way we could adress several of the (economical) problems we have discussed in this thread.
Can you explain this further? I think the main problem is, that aliens are free to harass the marines while their economy is "self-building". This leads to a resource advantage. Together with little to no t-res costs to get higher tier units onto the battle field, they end the game as soon as the onos arrives. Increasing the building-time for RTs or infestation doesn't change this imbalance as previous tweaks have shown.
Additionally every hit by marines into alien territory, is countered only by killing the marines. (The com repairs the cyst chain and places a new RT) While the other way around, marines are bound to rebuild / weld the damage the aliens have done.
In my opinion BF3 has more in depth and tactical gameplay than NS2 does, though far less than NS1.
Also, I hate BF3.
As someone with over 600 hours played in BF3, all I have to say is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA No.
Compare your average pub play in NS2 to your average pub play in BF3. I think you will likely find them to be equally in depth and tactical (hardly any).
Compared at competitive levels, however, and the tactics in BF3 are far superior from my perspective, simply because there are tactics. What does NS2 have? Run in and shoot da hive?
I would love to know how much time playing BF3 and NS2 you have because I guarantee I have more in both and am better than you at both.
How sad are you for something like that to be so important to you
How even sadder when your NS2 playtime is relatively low. I mean, if you're going to be arrogant, at least have some sort of basis for it, regardless of how misguided.
swalkSay hello to my little friend.Join Date: 2011-01-20Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
edited February 2013
I agree with you, and this is one of the major problems with ns2 as it is at the moment in my opinion.
As some mentioned, alien commander is here to stay. It's a design decision the developers made, and we should try to help them find a solution within those frames.
But the "Rock/Scissor/Paper method" does not work with this game, and I really doubt it ever will.
As the game is based on resources to unlock specific tech(weapons/lifeforms), currently the whole team unlocks each specific tech at the same time, either by commander researching shotguns(you start with 20 PRes, so instant huge tech explosion available for all marines at the beginning of the game), or by aliens hitting the 50 PRes mark at the same time and fades get spammed. Just to name a few examples.
This problem gets worse with higher player numbers. And it gives huge advantages to both teams depending on how far into the game you are.
I think a solution could be to have an upkeep cost on lifeforms and weapons.
So the extra upkeep cost would be based on percentage of the team having that specific lifeform or weapon, the same percentage is multiplied with the original cost of the weapon. All shown on the buymenus for ease of understanding.
In comparison to ns1, which didn't scale very well with player numbers, this solution does scale since it's based on percentages.
To make an example, a 6v6 game, one marine carrying a shotgun means 16,66% of the team has a shotgun. Then multiply cost of the shotgun with the percentage of shotguns on the field (20*0.1666) - then you get 3,33 extra PRes upkeep cost per player buying the shotgun. So in this example, the second marine buys the shotgun for 23,33 PRes, third buys for 26,66 PRes and so on.
This would somewhat fix the current tech explosions which are happening all throughout the game, earlygame with shotguns, mid/lategame when all the fades/onos pop out at the same time. All while keeping the developers design decisions.
The system would of course take dropped weapons into account, so it cant be bypassed by dropping your weapon.
It would also encourage more TRes weapon/lifeform drops, which I especially think is underused on the marine side. For example, you wanna do an all-in shotgun rush early in the game, you will need to drop some shotguns for team res.
There should also be something to compensate for the extra cost this adds to both teams, bringing back res for kills would be a good idea, if done correctly. It have already been proven that 1-3 PRes per kill is way too much. 1 PRes per kill would be fine to compensate for this, while potentially bringing the timing of the same specific tech(per player) on the field further apart, which is the goal of my suggestion.
In my opinion BF3 has more in depth and tactical gameplay than NS2 does, though far less than NS1.
Also, I hate BF3.
As someone with over 600 hours played in BF3, all I have to say is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA No.
Compare your average pub play in NS2 to your average pub play in BF3. I think you will likely find them to be equally in depth and tactical (hardly any).
Compared at competitive levels, however, and the tactics in BF3 are far superior from my perspective, simply because there are tactics. What does NS2 have? Run in and shoot da hive?
I would love to know how much time playing BF3 and NS2 you have because I guarantee I have more in both and am better than you at both.
How sad are you for something like that to be so important to you
How even sadder when your NS2 playtime is relatively low. I mean, if you're going to be arrogant, at least have some sort of basis for it, regardless of how misguided.
I may be sad, but at least I don't suck at video games.
this is an excellent video detailing teamplay and gameplay aspects of Dota 2 in comparison to BF3. I think a lot of it could be applied to NS2, as well. it's a bit thick at the beginning with a bit of Dota-specific elements and is probably more than biased, but I highly recommend watching it as the author expands to more vague and broad concepts which can be universally helpful for game design.
original thread topic: the issue of imbalance exists in all levels of play from public to competitive, my personal experience is that most Marine victories have to be worked for twice as hard as opposed to Alien victories which are typically a breeze. I feel like most of these are pretty influential on balance:
1) performance and optimizations
- including but not limited to hit detection, netcode, interpolation, input lag, FPS loss in every RT room, FPS loss while firing weapons, FPS loss while exiting phase gates, FPS loss on rupture, FPS loss on Gorge spit, jittery animations, incredible air acceleration for Skulks... all of which serve to artificially raise the skill floor
2) economy model
- Aliens can snowball to the point where losing lifeforms and upgrades is entirely irrelevant
- Marines are under extreme (probably required) pressure to win the game in first 5-7 minutes, or cause significant damage to Alien economy leading into mid and lategame otherwise they simply grow out of control. think TvZ in SC2, but with a lot less depth involved. drifters also contribute a lot to this problem with Aliens being able to read every single incoming attack, as well as t-res lifeform drops and the ticking time-bomb of the Onos.
3) camouflage is absurdly strong in both public and competitive play
4) crags make it difficult for marines to push and actually "end" the game, even when they may be in the lead resource or tech wise
- this may not necessarily be a poor idea conceptually, as in previous builds it was complained that Aliens had no means of turtling. however, the current implementation of crags is far too powerful IMO.
5) jetpacks and exosuits are weak in comparison to their NS1 counterparts.
- jetpacks are more like high jump boots to help you move around the map with limited combat application.
- exosuits only limit the mobility of marines so Aliens are free to base rush. not that they aren't free to do that always, at any point in the game to force a beacon or straight up victory.
6) some maps and spawn combinations are simply Alien favored (Veil being the worst culprit of the commonly played competitive maps, Tram's close spawns are a nightmare)
Yes, please. With gorges who need to place cysts, we got the asymmetric counterpart for marines needed to build buildings. It is more fun for the gorge as right clicking on a hive / RT for a minute or more. Because he can get creative in hiding them (walls, ceilings) and it is dangerous to advance the cyst line. It also demands more teamplay from the aliens. (kham <-> gorge, skulks defending gorges) Those introduce more ways for the aliens to fail, making it more even to the marine team. It also give marines more breathing room, because aliens can't ALL focus on attacking marines.
The main problem isn't that the kham needs a gorge to build RTs and forward bases. (this just increases teamplay) The main problem is, that we draw micromanagement from the kham. And he has already so little to do.
If we only could come up with more things the kham could micro manage, it would be the perfect solution. More things drifters would be good for. Or more things to support his troops directly.
But, for the comm, micromanaging cyst chains isn't that exciting anyway. Actually, leaving the cysting to gorges would allow the comm to focus more on drifter play for instance.
Some time ago, during the beta, I made the suggestion that the Khammander no longer places any structures but only evolves them from a basic unit (the cyst) that the Gorge has to place.
I don't remember much reaction to that, so I will raise the notion again, in hopes that this time there is some more attention available:
1. The basic structure is a cyst.
2. The cysts span a network of infestation.
3. Only the gorge can place cysts.
4. The Khammander can evolve every cyst into one structure that is currently available due to the research tree.
5. A structure evolved from a cyst will replace the cyst as node in the infestation network.
6. If a structure, that is evolved beyond a cyst, is destroyed, it will splash n new cysts that will make n new nodes in the infestation network. | Where n is of the range [0,...,n] dependant on the structure; a Hive will spawn more new cysts than a crag.
7. The Khammander can destroy structures to pop new cysts.
8. The Khammander is the only one capable of evolving structures and evolving from cysts is the only way to create all structures. (sad gorges read on)
9. Cysts start with n*i health where i is the max health and n is of [0,...,1] (subject to balancing). The health of a cyst determines its strength, stronger cysts make for stronger connections.
10. The strength of a connection in the infestation network is limited by the weakest cyst in the direct line.
11. Growing speed and regeneration of structures as well as active abilities of structures is based on strength of connection(s) to Hives.
12. Gorges strengthen cysts with their heal spray; damage done to the cysts (by Marines) decreaces the strength.
13. Cysts are quickly overgrown by infestation spread and can only be seen by Marines when they are newly placed or when Marines are a) equipped with infrared vision, b) are acompanied by MACs that can scan the infestation structure via ultra sound, c) in line of sight of a scan done by the commander. Cysts can still be damaged by accident when not seen (flames, granades, lucky bullets).
14. To communicate with the Gorges (and others) the Khammander controls floaters (replacing the drifters) which are a swarm of barely visible creatures that glow in alien vision.
15. The floaters do not grant the Khammander vision and the number of floater swarms is limited by the number of Hives.
16. Floaters are spawned from the closest cyst that is connected to a hive, travel to their destination and glow in a different spectrum based on the command given, differentiating "Attack", "Defend", "Gather", "Heal", etc.
17. Unevolved cysts will highlight on alien vision when stepped on by Marines (even if marines can not see them under the infestation).
18. Gorges can place cysts anywhere and the Khammander can thus evolve structures on the ceiling as well.
19. Any evolved structure will support the network of infestation as if it were a cyst of maximum strength.
20. Clogs do not count as structures.
21. The Khammander can mark unevolved cysts as "sacrificable", making them an active support structure (trap) which Gorges can then pop via one heal spray (essentially overloading until they burst).
22. Sacrificable cysts can be of different types: Splash infestation (think of a radial bile bomb), Web (replacing spikes, spanning a web to the n nearest unevolved cysts) and Cloud (blocking vision unless Marines have infrared vision equipped).
23. The Gorges then have to decide when to pop which available sacrificable cysts (active battle-support-tactician-gorge!)
This is not as complicated as it looks at first, it is all based on the principle that the Khammander is a gardener and the Gorges are bees spreading the pollen.
I can not see every implication that this system has, but the obvious ones are: The Khaara now need as much team play as the Frontiersmen, removing one major source of balance problems without making the play style symmetrical. The new symmetry only applies to how much team work is needed from both teams throughout every stage of the game, it does not align the roles of the players.
The infestation model is now simpler in design as everything is based on a single basic structure and its modification. The distribution of roles is clearer as all planning is done by the Khammander and all active Support is done by the Gorges.
Now, I may find this idea more elegant than the current infestation system, but I may also be wrong and/or an idiot. This post is not meant as a definite answer to all balancing problems, it is merely an idea with the intention to spawn a constructive discussion.
Thanks for reading.
Comments
I agree that the alien commander needs some changes in how TRes is spent. Right now, the only thing an alien comm has to spend money on (in a macro sense) is: upgrade chambers (which are permanent once placed), harvesters, and cysts. Marines have to spend money on an observatory, armory, arms lab, ect just to really get in the game.
While the marine commander needs to spend res reinforcing soldiers (dropping ammo/health/nanoshield) and giving them building support (armories, observatories) the alien commander really doesn't need to. Unless he's dropping a nutrient mist, bone wall, or a building cluster, he has no real res dumps that aren't needlessly broken.
What I propose is to make the alien commander seem more like he was intended long ago: to be more like a "gardener." I envision this to be like actual gardening with alien structures: 'watering' them to keep them alive, and pruning weeds (marines) to keep them healthy.
I still also stand by my decision that NS2's game length goal should be more than half an hour. Twenty minutes is fine for a game like TF2 (infact some games go well beyond that) because there are no structures or territory to really be held (with exceptions). But in a game like NS2, where you have to build bases, support units, have strategic thinking, you NEED to have more time. Twenty minutes just makes things far too short and creates unsatisfying games.
In BF3 rounds can take quite long, I never watched the clock but a rush can take more than 20 mins and conquest can take a hour depending on tickets. Most conquest servers have like 1000 or 1500 tickets so rounds take considerably longer than 20 minutes and people like this more than mapchange ever 15 mins.
Also the rounds in games like dota2 take more than 20 minutes.
Also these games are far less complex than NS2.
It's true that in SC2 rounds take only 15-20 minutes but that's one main reason I don't play it anymore. With complex games balanced to be that short the problem is that there can be only 1 or 2 valid openings that you have to do over and over and over and over again. If you screw up one little thing the game is over because it was designed to be short and therefor punishes small mistakes.
This is because in order to shorten rounds in a complex game you have to build high screw up potential. If a early mistake is easily forgiven, rounds will automatically take more time to play out. Also, in short games the comback potential is more limited.
I find this trend for short rounds very bad. Let's get real here: NS2 will never be a CoD and the actual playerbase of NS2 enjoys long games. When I play, the game with 40-70 mins are the great ones. After these games all players on the server are euphoric and happy.
The games I like are the ones that take 15 minutes. Because in order for al game of NS2 to end after 15 minutes it has to be decided after 5 mins at the latest. I have never seen a good game that only lasted 15 minutes. Has anybody?
I'm sorry to say but balancing NS2 towards match-lenghts of 15-20 minutes is another design flaw where UWE tried to move the game more towards the casual players without really thinking about the extend of this decicion.
On Topic: If I get this right the idea behind the khamm was kind of a gardener. So why not make him exactly this? Give him stuff to plant on his creep. I think one could think of many things that could come handy but not OP which would cost some little res (1-3 res per piece)
So maybe give him a plant that grants sight to him only. So he can see where marines are but they dont appear on the map. This plant is again upgradeable so enemies appear on the minimap.
In consequence the drifter could be made much more expensive as now it would be an exculsive off-creep spy.
There could be small plants that generate sticky slime slowing down marines moving upon.
There could be gassy mushroomy plants that explode when marines are near and obscure sight for a few seconds
Or a spore mushroom that emmits spores
Or a enzyme plant giving enzymes to aliens in a small radius
these "cosmetic" changes could lead to and justify changes with the whole cyst system. make cyst only placeable on infestation. Consider giving them upgrade possibilites like it was suggested here. Why not increase the cooldown on cysts?
At the moment infestation is kind of "so what?". If I'm a marine I don't think "omg infestation im gonna die" and as Alien I don't think "Good god it's infested... im save here". But this should be player's reaction to infestation. As marine you should know that you are not welcome here and that there is this giant infestation organism that wants nothing more than to kill you. And as Aliens you should know that this very organism is part of you and helps you against the evil humans.
So make Infestation much slower but a much bigger deal gameplaywise at the same time.
As for rts: there are several ways how to handle building rts despite of very slow infestation. For instance you could say they are buildable without infestation but to transport the res to the hive, they need to be connected by infestation. So as khamm I would play the 2 or 3 closest rts to my hive knowing that the will be infested shortly after having finiseh building.
Or they consume part of the res to survive as long as they are not connected lowering your income.
Or they could store the res until connected
and so on.
You have exactly this same issue of players unable to work a sa team in NS2, I would argue it is worse because NS2 doesnt even try to educate them to become teamplayers. "I dont want to build 2nd techpoint, give me exo noob com!!1111"
Aliens and marines do not have the same economic system. Aliens can do more with less res than marines. This should be somehow balanced by making it harder for the aliens to gain res. As was already said, this is totally unlogical and makes comparing marines vs aliens difficult.
Most games are over within 15 minutes.
The games aren't balanced to be that short, competitive players make it that short.
They want to win, and get onto the next game as fast as possible.
The same thing happens in NS2, for some people. You don't speak for the entire NS2 playerbase.
I prefer matches in the 20-30 minute range, anything after that tends to turn into a stalemate for another 30 minutes, followed by either the marines or the aliens absolutely crushing the opposition. Usually the aliens.
Basically, if the marines don't win within 30 minutes, there's a good chance that they won't win.
The game isn't balanced around having 15-20 minute rounds, that's entirely based on WHO IS PLAYING.
If everyone in the game is terrible, the game will last an hour.
Those ideas aren't cosmetic.
Cosmetic is something like turning Infestation detail from minimal to rich.
It's painfully obvious thats not even apples and pears.
2) Of course these games are intended/balanced/designed so they are short. Thats what a game designer does. He think about how long a round of a rts should take and balances it accordingly. Try to play a short round of Panzer General. Wont work no matter how hard you try.
3) Yes what you are describing is the direct consequence of balancing the game for match-lengths 20 minutes. After that time there is no new tech or anything so the game tends to get numbed down. If a game is designed to last longer, there are more possibilities for both sides to end the game before maxing out on tech and going into stalemate.
4) Again, of course players ultimatively decide for how long to play, but the tech tree, res gather rate, research/build times and so on have a major influence on all this.
5) that's why I wrote "cosmetic". They are "cosmetic" compared to remove the tres system for aliens.
Do you see your fallacy here? If the games were balanced for 40 minutes, they would not turn into a stalemate so quickly.
You compared NS2 to BF3. Were you one of those guys that said "10 mins no rush" on StarCraft?
No, the game gets stale because neither side really has any "Game enders".
Well, that's not true.
The aliens have Bile Bomb, and Onos.
Marines have Exos, which aren't worth the res to research or buy, or ARCs, which are situational.
They influence, but don't have direct control over it.
If a game lasts longer than 30 minutes:
You're on a 20+ man server
Your/Their team is toying with the losing team.
The teams are evenly balanced, and have average at best players on them.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cosmetic
"1 : of, relating to, or making for beauty especially of the complexion : beautifying <cosmetic salves>
2: done or made for the sake of appearance: as
a : correcting defects especially of the face <cosmetic surgery>
b : decorative, ornamental
c : not substantive : superficial <cosmetic changes>
3 : visually appealing "
A game can be the same genre, and have a completely different playstyle. Also, NS2 is not just an FPS. It's an FPS/RTS. There's more depth to it than "there are bad guys, you must shoot them."
"Game Enders" doesn't have to do with how the game gets stale. It gets stale because you've gotten all your tech at the 15 minute mark, assuming you had healthy res flow, and then you're left with just trying to kill the other guy. There are really no other goals. You no longer worry about research or holding ground, only really taking out the enemy. Marines have a hard time spearheading offenses because of how cheap alien tech is, no matter what marines do, any effect they have is countered.
Games last longer than 20 minutes because of how bad the balance is right now.
Judging by how much you're trying to criticize Gnoarch on the words he used, and not his actual argument, you're just shitposting.
I know NS is an FPS/RTS.
I've been playing NS since 2002/2003 when NS1 came out.
There's a lot of gameplay depth to some FPS games too.
Broad generalisations really lead nowhere.
Also, I hate BF3.
As someone with over 600 hours played in BF3, all I have to say is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA No.
</troll>
Can we get back on topic now?
The main problem isn't that the kham needs a gorge to build RTs and forward bases. (this just increases teamplay) The main problem is, that we draw micromanagement from the kham. And he has already so little to do.
If we only could come up with more things the kham could micro manage, it would be the perfect solution. More things drifters would be good for. Or more things to support his troops directly.
Compare your average pub play in NS2 to your average pub play in BF3. I think you will likely find them to be equally in depth and tactical (hardly any).
Compared at competitive levels, however, and the tactics in BF3 are far superior from my perspective, simply because there are tactics. What does NS2 have? Run in and shoot da hive?
Your argument is terribly misguided. Battlefield 3 isn't a competative or even tactical game. Your goals are always "Get to A, hold A, kill everything that isn't friendly." Natural Selection is and always has been about resource management.
On the one hand, I like the idea of bringing back alien expansion somewhat into the hands of the players to promote teamplay and also give gorges more of a role, but I worry about looking for things that the khamm can micromanage. It seems to me like creating something for the sake of it at this stage. Very unhelpful post from me, as I don't have the answer: what *should* the khamm be doing in this scenario? Is it contrived? I don't know.
back on topic:
I feel like over this silly argument, my suggestion got kinda lost
What do you people think about my idea to slow down the expansion rate of creep considerably and at the same time improve it's gameplay influence by introducing various "plants" the khamm can plant to reinforce alien's position on infestation?
I think this way we could adress several of the (economical) problems we have discussed in this thread.
I would love to know how much time playing BF3 and NS2 you have because I guarantee I have more in both and am better than you at both. The only tactic in BF3 is killing, you just happen to capture points along the way and this goes 10 times for competitive BF3 (Which is a complete joke by the way with horrible players. I've played against LvLcap and xfactor and they are fucking horrible. Is that really what's considered good now?). The team with more kills always, ALWAYS wins in BF3. Anyone who says score and teamwork is important in BF3 is completely full of shit. The only teamwork involved in BF3 is having a team that can aim.
In before, "lel rines just kil an hapen to kil hive alogn da wey."
I'm not knocking BF3 or anything, I found it quite fun in it's own special way. 2142 is still the best though.
Can you explain this further? I think the main problem is, that aliens are free to harass the marines while their economy is "self-building". This leads to a resource advantage. Together with little to no t-res costs to get higher tier units onto the battle field, they end the game as soon as the onos arrives. Increasing the building-time for RTs or infestation doesn't change this imbalance as previous tweaks have shown.
Additionally every hit by marines into alien territory, is countered only by killing the marines. (The com repairs the cyst chain and places a new RT) While the other way around, marines are bound to rebuild / weld the damage the aliens have done.
How sad are you for something like that to be so important to you
How even sadder when your NS2 playtime is relatively low. I mean, if you're going to be arrogant, at least have some sort of basis for it, regardless of how misguided.
Hihihihi.
@Xarius: You could try one of the new forum features to summon the mighty Lead Dev.
@Flayra: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! ^:)^
€dit: Whohooo, this also earns a badge! \:D/
As some mentioned, alien commander is here to stay. It's a design decision the developers made, and we should try to help them find a solution within those frames.
But the "Rock/Scissor/Paper method" does not work with this game, and I really doubt it ever will.
As the game is based on resources to unlock specific tech(weapons/lifeforms), currently the whole team unlocks each specific tech at the same time, either by commander researching shotguns(you start with 20 PRes, so instant huge tech explosion available for all marines at the beginning of the game), or by aliens hitting the 50 PRes mark at the same time and fades get spammed. Just to name a few examples.
This problem gets worse with higher player numbers. And it gives huge advantages to both teams depending on how far into the game you are.
I think a solution could be to have an upkeep cost on lifeforms and weapons.
So the extra upkeep cost would be based on percentage of the team having that specific lifeform or weapon, the same percentage is multiplied with the original cost of the weapon. All shown on the buymenus for ease of understanding.
In comparison to ns1, which didn't scale very well with player numbers, this solution does scale since it's based on percentages.
To make an example, a 6v6 game, one marine carrying a shotgun means 16,66% of the team has a shotgun. Then multiply cost of the shotgun with the percentage of shotguns on the field (20*0.1666) - then you get 3,33 extra PRes upkeep cost per player buying the shotgun. So in this example, the second marine buys the shotgun for 23,33 PRes, third buys for 26,66 PRes and so on.
This would somewhat fix the current tech explosions which are happening all throughout the game, earlygame with shotguns, mid/lategame when all the fades/onos pop out at the same time. All while keeping the developers design decisions.
The system would of course take dropped weapons into account, so it cant be bypassed by dropping your weapon.
It would also encourage more TRes weapon/lifeform drops, which I especially think is underused on the marine side. For example, you wanna do an all-in shotgun rush early in the game, you will need to drop some shotguns for team res.
There should also be something to compensate for the extra cost this adds to both teams, bringing back res for kills would be a good idea, if done correctly. It have already been proven that 1-3 PRes per kill is way too much. 1 PRes per kill would be fine to compensate for this, while potentially bringing the timing of the same specific tech(per player) on the field further apart, which is the goal of my suggestion.
I may be sad, but at least I don't suck at video games.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHVSDSmTlVQ
this is an excellent video detailing teamplay and gameplay aspects of Dota 2 in comparison to BF3. I think a lot of it could be applied to NS2, as well. it's a bit thick at the beginning with a bit of Dota-specific elements and is probably more than biased, but I highly recommend watching it as the author expands to more vague and broad concepts which can be universally helpful for game design.
original thread topic: the issue of imbalance exists in all levels of play from public to competitive, my personal experience is that most Marine victories have to be worked for twice as hard as opposed to Alien victories which are typically a breeze. I feel like most of these are pretty influential on balance:
1) performance and optimizations
- including but not limited to hit detection, netcode, interpolation, input lag, FPS loss in every RT room, FPS loss while firing weapons, FPS loss while exiting phase gates, FPS loss on rupture, FPS loss on Gorge spit, jittery animations, incredible air acceleration for Skulks... all of which serve to artificially raise the skill floor
2) economy model
- Aliens can snowball to the point where losing lifeforms and upgrades is entirely irrelevant
- Marines are under extreme (probably required) pressure to win the game in first 5-7 minutes, or cause significant damage to Alien economy leading into mid and lategame otherwise they simply grow out of control. think TvZ in SC2, but with a lot less depth involved. drifters also contribute a lot to this problem with Aliens being able to read every single incoming attack, as well as t-res lifeform drops and the ticking time-bomb of the Onos.
3) camouflage is absurdly strong in both public and competitive play
4) crags make it difficult for marines to push and actually "end" the game, even when they may be in the lead resource or tech wise
- this may not necessarily be a poor idea conceptually, as in previous builds it was complained that Aliens had no means of turtling. however, the current implementation of crags is far too powerful IMO.
5) jetpacks and exosuits are weak in comparison to their NS1 counterparts.
- jetpacks are more like high jump boots to help you move around the map with limited combat application.
- exosuits only limit the mobility of marines so Aliens are free to base rush. not that they aren't free to do that always, at any point in the game to force a beacon or straight up victory.
6) some maps and spawn combinations are simply Alien favored (Veil being the worst culprit of the commonly played competitive maps, Tram's close spawns are a nightmare)
But, for the comm, micromanaging cyst chains isn't that exciting anyway. Actually, leaving the cysting to gorges would allow the comm to focus more on drifter play for instance.
I don't remember much reaction to that, so I will raise the notion again, in hopes that this time there is some more attention available:
1. The basic structure is a cyst.
2. The cysts span a network of infestation.
3. Only the gorge can place cysts.
4. The Khammander can evolve every cyst into one structure that is currently available due to the research tree.
5. A structure evolved from a cyst will replace the cyst as node in the infestation network.
6. If a structure, that is evolved beyond a cyst, is destroyed, it will splash n new cysts that will make n new nodes in the infestation network. | Where n is of the range [0,...,n] dependant on the structure; a Hive will spawn more new cysts than a crag.
7. The Khammander can destroy structures to pop new cysts.
8. The Khammander is the only one capable of evolving structures and evolving from cysts is the only way to create all structures. (sad gorges read on)
9. Cysts start with n*i health where i is the max health and n is of [0,...,1] (subject to balancing). The health of a cyst determines its strength, stronger cysts make for stronger connections.
10. The strength of a connection in the infestation network is limited by the weakest cyst in the direct line.
11. Growing speed and regeneration of structures as well as active abilities of structures is based on strength of connection(s) to Hives.
12. Gorges strengthen cysts with their heal spray; damage done to the cysts (by Marines) decreaces the strength.
13. Cysts are quickly overgrown by infestation spread and can only be seen by Marines when they are newly placed or when Marines are a) equipped with infrared vision, b) are acompanied by MACs that can scan the infestation structure via ultra sound, c) in line of sight of a scan done by the commander. Cysts can still be damaged by accident when not seen (flames, granades, lucky bullets).
14. To communicate with the Gorges (and others) the Khammander controls floaters (replacing the drifters) which are a swarm of barely visible creatures that glow in alien vision.
15. The floaters do not grant the Khammander vision and the number of floater swarms is limited by the number of Hives.
16. Floaters are spawned from the closest cyst that is connected to a hive, travel to their destination and glow in a different spectrum based on the command given, differentiating "Attack", "Defend", "Gather", "Heal", etc.
17. Unevolved cysts will highlight on alien vision when stepped on by Marines (even if marines can not see them under the infestation).
18. Gorges can place cysts anywhere and the Khammander can thus evolve structures on the ceiling as well.
19. Any evolved structure will support the network of infestation as if it were a cyst of maximum strength.
20. Clogs do not count as structures.
21. The Khammander can mark unevolved cysts as "sacrificable", making them an active support structure (trap) which Gorges can then pop via one heal spray (essentially overloading until they burst).
22. Sacrificable cysts can be of different types: Splash infestation (think of a radial bile bomb), Web (replacing spikes, spanning a web to the n nearest unevolved cysts) and Cloud (blocking vision unless Marines have infrared vision equipped).
23. The Gorges then have to decide when to pop which available sacrificable cysts (active battle-support-tactician-gorge!)
This is not as complicated as it looks at first, it is all based on the principle that the Khammander is a gardener and the Gorges are bees spreading the pollen.
I can not see every implication that this system has, but the obvious ones are: The Khaara now need as much team play as the Frontiersmen, removing one major source of balance problems without making the play style symmetrical. The new symmetry only applies to how much team work is needed from both teams throughout every stage of the game, it does not align the roles of the players.
The infestation model is now simpler in design as everything is based on a single basic structure and its modification. The distribution of roles is clearer as all planning is done by the Khammander and all active Support is done by the Gorges.
Now, I may find this idea more elegant than the current infestation system, but I may also be wrong and/or an idiot. This post is not meant as a definite answer to all balancing problems, it is merely an idea with the intention to spawn a constructive discussion.
Thanks for reading.