(!) Let's enjoy playing NS2 once again. AltBalance.
BigTracer
Join Date: 2012-12-04 Member: 174169Members
Join Date: 2012-12-04 Member: 174169Members
Guys, UWE does it's magic, but casting speed is pretty low, when it comes to balance.
People are getting sick of losing as marines.
I couldn't wait any longer and made a balance mod. A good one.
I suggest we all get together and try it out. We can take it as an alternative way to enjoy NS2, while official balance comes.
Mod's page:
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/128218/altbalance-by-stepahead
I've got a "balance sense" and got pretty used with amazing UWE's code, so fixing other issues will be a matter of hours.
Would be amazing, if anyone could host this mod (12 slots). Thank you!
Let's enjoy it!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=127813673
People are getting sick of losing as marines.
I couldn't wait any longer and made a balance mod. A good one.
I suggest we all get together and try it out. We can take it as an alternative way to enjoy NS2, while official balance comes.
Mod's page:
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/128218/altbalance-by-stepahead
I've got a "balance sense" and got pretty used with amazing UWE's code, so fixing other issues will be a matter of hours.
Would be amazing, if anyone could host this mod (12 slots). Thank you!
Let's enjoy it!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=127813673
Comments
The effort is appreciated, so I'm trying hard not to be rude, but you're just enacting what you think would balance the game in theory, with little thought given to the end result. There is nothing about this that would allow us to "enjoy playing NS2 once again" or "balance" the game.
I appreciate that. That was pretty fast though. 5 minutes to measure all pros and cons. It took me a week to come up with that list. Shaking your hand.
Turrets being upgraded just reverts turrets to a beta form that was already deemed problematic. In addition, it'll create more stagnant, turtle-oriented game play.
Increased mines damage and trigger speed... they're already widely considered over powered.
I don't need to evaluate all pros and cons. I can look at what I feel comfortable analyzing and see the potential failure and issues. I see overwhelming negatives with little-to-no positives.
Clogs. Yeah, current state when one gorge can't block even an average passage is a lot better. And clogs are so hard to counter.
Mines. I had a lot of fun taking down mine fields with a single upgradeless skulk. You could even get in and out to trigger it, but not to get hurt.
Current turrets are considered a waste of resources, because our good ol' friend Skulky is not afraid of them at all.
Sentries are usefull with my mod. Also, you can use old Sentry Battery as a reserve power for your main base. Also, you can you it as a power supply for hidden Phase Gates. There a lot more of these "also"s.
Fast desicion making brings mistakes.
If it shows to be a bad balance, I will change it very quickly. No problem. Considering your opinion.
If it becomes a trouble - I'll change it. Also, flamethrowers are pretty effective against them, aren't they?
The reason why the balance changes seem slow is because they are liaising between competitive player input, ns2 playtesters, community feedback and probably a few more sources. Not to mention fixing bugs and problems in other areas of the game. I'm not saying whatever changes you have made are bad, but if you're willing to go to this much effort to improve a game you obviously enjoy then why not try to start a dialogue between UWE employees and try to bring your skill and experience to the table?
Great work in putting the amount of time and effort needed to create this, but if everyone used the same process you have then the community gets diluted even more.
Clogs - 15.
Mines damage back to 125 light, but trigger speed is still higher than before.
UWE gets lost amongst opinions and other duties. It's hard for them to stay in touch.
It didn't happen. We can have a good NS2 now. Really fast.
But I want to play NS2 without desparity now.
Frankly, I love seeing mods like this - just because it gets people thinking. Let's remember, a mod like this still needs server support. If a server admin runs it, and the players don't like it, then it won't get played and the server admin will remove it. It's that simple.
However, it's modders who have been responsible for MANY changes to the game, just because the developers saw the change and liked it.
Simple example, medpacks and health. If you are new to NS you may not know that armouries didn't use to give out health. In fact, commander dropped medpacks were the only way to get health. Then along came Voogru who created a 'mod' to give out health at armories. The rest is history.
So don't be so quick to judge a mod folks. People will vote with their disconnect buttons. If a mod isn't fun, people won't play it.
And buffing gorges by giving them more clogs just a full on admission of brain damage. Arguably, the biggest reason for a marine/alien win rate disparity in pubs is how the gorge completely stops passive pub marines. It's not uncommon to see 5 pub marines get stonewalled by one gorge with 10 clogs - let alone 20.
That was the idea. Marines could hardly leave their base without having 2 RTs being eaten at the very same moment.
New turrets give a bigger degree of safety, without causing inbalance.
Sentries strong enough to stop single mindless rushing skulk. Old ones couldn't do even that.
I agreed with clogs thing and changed it to 15. Gorgy should be able to block at least 1 passage.
You know why sentries are awful now? Because it made for terrible gameplay when they were good. They're still in the game because good gameplay design doesn't mandate that every element be useful.
Sentries being highly effective ends up turning alien play into more PvE than PvP. Fighting 2 super turrets in every room is one of the most obnoxious things that one could ever think of.
And honestly, sentries and clogs are just low hanging fruit to point out how stupid the proposed changes are. Changing the ability for skulks to constantly jump breaks so much that it's ridiculous to suggest in the first place.
(I have zero comments about your mod, however. I'm merely happy to see someone stepped up the plate instead of crying.)
I'm sure you'll be flamed, hope you have asbestos skin.
1 skulk shouldn't be able to beat 1 marine in the face. Infinite jumping makes it easy as pie.
I fixed it. In return skuls get even higher speed that allows them to harass efficiently, but not destroy marines in frontal PvP assault.
Thanks, man! Nice to hear such words. I've got that skin, no worries
Will do!
Skulks already get absolutely crushed in 1v1 situations when both players are competent. Your premise is flawed and not based on fact in the least. You are trying to balance the game so that a bad marine can beat a good skulk 1v1 - what effect do you think that'll have on good marines?
I routinely put up 8+/1 k/d ratios as marine while doing risky things like solo harassing RTs (in an average pub). What are highly nerfed skulks who can't aerial dodge at all going to do to me? Spoiler Alert: Nothing.
Leap is not gone. Skulks got significantly higher moving speed than before.
Hmm, I've got an idea. I can tweak skulks to be able to jump and wall jump normally, but not being able so spam jumping like horny rabbits. This way they'll keep most of their mobility and in addition to reduced glancing bites it's going to be pretty balanced.
All together they will. It's better to have equal chances on pubs, than knowing you're getting nailed if you're marine.
2. Is the only real problem imo. But I think you're going about the wrong way to solve it.
- You're saying one skulk should not be able to defeat one marine up close? Why? I think this aspect is actually pretty well balanced at the moment. I don't really see the need to limit skulk maneuverability. Anyway, so you're nerfing the jump, and compensating by giving skulks higher speed so they can still harass efficiently? Yet you're giving marines better sentries and mines which purpose is to efficiently stop skulks from... harassing.
- You're also giving the gorge more clogs, and free bombard upgrade for whips. Why? I'd say one gorge can be pretty sufficient at blocking parts of the map already. There's also no fun in shooting walls of clogs. And giving free bombard upgrades will cripple exo pushes even more.
- Including batteries seems like a good change to me, but the radius will encourage commanders to shove as many structures as possible as close as possible, which actually makes it an ideal bile bomb target. So what do I see? Decreased bile bomb damage, which will only make it harder to break through the fortified marines defenses.
- Marines can tech up pretty fast as it is already. That's not the issue.
- Nanoshield nerf. Is all right.
- Exos crush cysts. Sure, why not.
- Hallucinations get more hp. No problem there.
Perhaps you should explain what you're trying to achieve for every change you make. Maybe I'm missing something. But from what I'm seeing in the changelog, I'm guessing the whole map will just get turtled up.
Limiting skulks movement abilities like jumping will just piss a lot of people off, me included and especially with competitive players.
Your changes will just make it incredibly hard for early game Aliens to secure territory. Skulk movements do not need to be nerfed and is fine as is. The good aiming marines out there will just slaughter early game skulks even harder than they already do.
By Marine vs Skulk I meant a skulk shouldn't be able to appear on a good distance in front of marine, be spotted and still kill him with front assault. Skulk were meant to be mobile killers.
Well, I've got another way to balance it. I'm gonna just remove jump spamming.
Skullks still will be able to trick sentries and munch those RT's. It will be just a little harder now.
Gorge Glogs. I couldn't block properly any, but the smallest passages. That's sad.
Whips. Whips are getting free Bombard after reaching maturity, but it's a new kind of bombard to prevent single wandering marine from killing poor Mr. Whipsey. And it's still can hurt Exos.
Batteries. Yep, you can't get both chocolates.
Also, batteries and sentries are pretty expensive, number of turrets is smaller, so turtling is unlikely to happen.
Btw, bile bomb got 33% damage nerf too. It's just unfair to give a 10 res unit strongest sieging capabilities in the game.
I'm trying my best to make it balanced AND fun. And fast.
See my above post about this........
You aren't doing it right then, most entrances can be blocked with 10 clogs.
This isn't the proper way to balance this ability as then you just make it nearly useless for 1 gorge trying to attempt something. The better way to balance it would be limit the number of bile stacks that can be on a building. I believe, although I could be mistaken, 1 gorge can stack their bile 4 times and there's no limit to how many total stacks can be on a building. So 3 gorges bilebombing a power node will have 12 stacks of bile on it. Limit to say 4.