Do hydras still fire a projectile and are not hit-scan? If so, why?
Any decent marine can easily avoid the majority of the hydra's fire. Just make them similar to sentries in that they take .3-.5 seconds before firing and are hit-scan. Then they might actually be worth the res imho.
Well, what about making the really early fades a bit more vulnerable (lower HP) then they are now, while simultaneously increasing the biomass HP scaling. At the moment, going fade as soon as you get 40res is a no brainer, not matter the lack of upgrades/biomass you might have at the time. So you get a massive fade ball when everyone hits 40res. If you'd make those early fades less tougher, the decision whether or not to go fade asap will be a harder one (and more depending on the flow of the game), as one might be less willing to risk losing 40pres on a weaker fade and might prefer to get a second hive/added biomass first.
Would that help to some extent? Just theorycrafting here.
Making the onos viable once again might decrease the impact of a fadeplosion. You'd want to have 1 lerk and 1 skulk saving for onos. Maybe make it more necessary to have a field gorge somehow? I agree that giving the commander 0 res is not the right way to go, he should at least be able to use the gorge to build structures in the hive room.
As of right now I think the best lineup is 3 fades, 1 lerk, and a resbiting skulk who is ready to go gorge whenever heals and bile is needed. If you make the onos good again maybe the number of fades would decrease to 2
Making the onos viable once again might decrease the impact of a fadeplosion. You'd want to have 1 lerk and 1 skulk saving for onos. Maybe make it more necessary to have a field gorge somehow? I agree that giving the commander 0 res is not the right way to go, he should at least be able to use the gorge to build structures in the hive room.
As of right now I think the best lineup is 3 fades, 1 lerk, and a resbiting skulk who is ready to go gorge whenever heals and bile is needed. If you make the onos good again maybe the number of fades would decrease to 2
The number of people SAVING fade MIGHT decrease to 2.
Nerfing fade base HP slightly and buffing biomass HP scaling in general sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Weaker early fades but stronger skulk / lerk / onos after the earlygame sounds like the kind of balance shift that is needed. Might actually end up being a buff for aliens overall, thinking about it.
I like the idea of more features added to make sitting and waiting for life form explosions less useful and far more risky.
Now, another idea. Assuming we don’t get new weapons or life forms added in the near future to make this a moot point; what if we took the game as it is now and lowered the shotgun’s cost, made it available earlier, but reduce its damage to where it can only 1-shot a biomass level 1 or 2 carapace skulk without any weapons upgrades (and add +2 levels for each level of weapons upgrade)?
I think you would see more skulks dying earlier on, so aliens would need to swap to lerks in order to counter the point blank shotty with their long range spikes & umbra.
Which would reduce the overall team res since more people were forced to go lerk.
But due to the aliens swapping to lerk, the marines would want to pick up flame throwers to counter the umbra, as well as some would want to keep their stock rifle to hit the lerks.
And then exos would become the actual end game weapon I think they were meant to be; but thankfully they are still weak to skulks, so marines still need some shottys, or rifles.
Fades might turn into a gigantic problem though since nothing would be too useful at taking them out anymore, sooo, they would probably need a health decrease?
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
im thinking in quite a similar direction, but chances are high that we have art for another weapon ready for the content patch, which could be a stronger alternative to the shotgun, with some downsides. recently, the flamethrower was kinda taking that role, but naturally a flamethrower requires less aim / skill so making that weapon deal too much damage is a very bad idea . so, a heavier weapon (reduced move speed), with higher spread + dmg could fit in. the aliens get also a bunch of new stuff, so its quite difficult to figure out if that weapon would be needed. we will maybe release some of the features to the beta mod, but I CAN NOT promise that though
well, marines are harder to play as it is, and don't have anything other than aiming skill to punish greedy play (too many aliens saving res)
anything that relies on some timed aggression to end the game before fadeplosion is going to fail in most games because marines just aren't good enough
but with enough balance tweaking it can work to some extent in competitive play, but it has the risk of getting rid of the mid+late game
im thinking in quite a similar direction, but chances are high that we have art for another weapon ready for the content patch, which could be a stronger alternative to the shotgun, with some downsides. recently, the flamethrower was kinda taking that role, but naturally a flamethrower requires less aim / skill so making that weapon deal too much damage is a very bad idea . so, a heavier weapon (reduced move speed), with higher spread + dmg could fit in. the aliens get also a bunch of new stuff, so its quite difficult to figure out if that weapon would be needed. we will maybe release some of the features to the beta mod, but I CAN NOT promise that though
When you first implemented the rifle and the shotgun was still having a lot of major changes playtested I was kind of hoping that the shotgun would move into more of an early game role (i.e. a cheaper, weaker version of the current shotty) with the rifle basically filling the oldschool HMG role. Obviously that didn't happen but I think that it could definitely help to make early game pres expenditure more important for both teams (a weaker shotty would be easy prey for lerk spike harass, but still destroy skulks, but massed shotguns wouldn't be super strong like they were in earlier versions). In any case, a new marine weapon to fit a generalist role (i.e. not the specialised flamer/GL) would really open up potential for some different approaches.
I'll keep saying it though, why don't you just prolong the early game? Right now an alien team can afford to save for fades en masse because they can easily bridge the relatively short gap between lerk and fade timing as mostly skulks. If the early game was longer and aliens had to wait longer for fades to become available, lerk and gorge play would actually become a lot more meaningful. (Granted, you'd still have to buff the gorge to make him more interesting early on...) Early gameplay in NS 1 was way longer, which is often forgotten here, and I am convinced that played a role in lifeform differentiation as much as gorges building does.
As it stands, meaningful lerk and gorge play takes place in about a 5 minute early game window, from then on it's just fades and onos for the next 30+ minutes. And the higher tier lifeforms and weaponry, the more stale gameplay becomes as it's just EXOs or JP/SG and onos/fades being spammed. And no, suiciding BB gorges isn't what I consider 'meaningful' gameplay. Sure it can be very effective, particularly in pubs, but it's incredibly dull.
Yes, you can bring in new weapons and abilities to try and break up the current situation, but that's only going to help if you happen to enjoy 'rock, paper scissors'.
I'll keep saying it though, why don't you just prolong the early game? Right now an alien team can afford to save for fades en masse because they can easily bridge the relatively short gap between lerk and fade timing as mostly skulks. If the early game was longer and aliens had to wait longer for fades to become available, lerk and gorge play would actually become a lot more meaningful. (Granted, you'd still have to buff the gorge to make him more interesting early on...) Early gameplay in NS 1 was way longer, which is often forgotten here, and I am convinced that played a role in lifeform differentiation as much as gorges building does.
As it stands, meaningful lerk and gorge play takes place in about a 5 minute early game window, from then on it's just fades and onos for the next 30+ minutes. And the higher tier lifeforms and weaponry, the more stale gameplay becomes as it's just EXOs or JP/SG and onos/fades being spammed. And no, suiciding BB gorges isn't what I consider 'meaningful' gameplay. Sure it can be very effective, particularly in pubs, but it's incredibly dull.
Yes, you can bring in new weapons and abilities to try and break up the current situation, but that's only going to help if you happen to enjoy 'rock, paper scissors'.
Agree. Part of the problem is also that lower tier lifeforms become more meaningless as marine armor goes up. Clever ambush tactics of Skulks don't pay off as much anymore because marines can endure more bites, giving their commander a chance to become aware of the situation and start medpack spamming - the element of surprise (or at least its benefit) that is so crucial in the early game is entirely gone in the lategame.
The Biomass scaling can't hold up to the armor scaling of marines. At maximum Biomass a Skulk gets 20 additional HP, I think - that's two more rifle bullets for marines to hit or one additional pistol hit. Needing to land 20% more hits with the rifle is hardly a thing to matter for marines at their usual RoF and even gets less crucial as marines get weapon upgrades, whereas 1-2 additional bites make a world of a difference for Skulks since it requires them to hit up to 40% more.
Focus would go a long way to help addressing those issues. A more viable Carapace on higher lifeforms is needed too, otherwise it's a no-brainer right now to always go with Regeneration instead.
And I feel like normal aliens should be able to chew on dropped marine weapons to destroy them similar to how you can use Bile Bomb, but at a slower rate and while exposing yourself. I doubt that the cost and power of marine weapons were balanced just under the premise that they are going to be picked up again most of the time.
This change would make marine weapon recycling more follow a paradigm of "If there are still marines nearby to pick the weapon up after you died, then it can get recycled. If everyone in that area got exterminated, then the weapon should be doomed to be lost, even without a Bile Gorge in the vicinity".
Of course would this be rather one reason less to go early Gorge. But it just doesn't feel right to actually require a specific lifeform to deal an economic loss to marines.
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
To increase the early game and thus increase the risk for saving for a fade, just lower starting pres??
Lifeform costs were universally lowered but the starting pres was not. I suggest lowering by the same ratio that was applied to all lifeforms except the gorge (who received a 50% drop previous to others)
Starting pres of 16.
Now you just have to make the lerk less of a paper based lifeform. Oh and You'd have to adjust marine tres tech timing a bit.
Also if you really wanted to ensure no fade ball :
Increase gorge price to 8-10 pres.
remove drifter building (gorges see unbuilt structures as way points through walls)
Remove alien commander starting pres, but allow him to earn it while in the chair, at a reduced rate (so as to allow a fade or onos only past a certain timing like 25 minutes, based on 3 harvesters) so that the commander cannot assist in expansion outside of the hive.
But i can see how that might be a bit much for some (except the no brainer gorge price!)
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited July 2013
I like how the solution is to make it so that gorges have to build. Hey, maybe they should drop the structure too.
If you remove drifter building, what is this poor hive slave supposed to do all game. B251 already just removed cyst building micro, the only thing to keep any half decent RTS player busy. And then on top of that, deny them going early gorge and actually being useful. OK.
Even if it does fix fade explosion (lowering starting pres doesn't by the way), you've made the already dull experience of alien commanding worse.
To increase the early game and thus increase the risk for saving for a fade, just lower starting pres??
Lifeform costs were universally lowered but the starting pres was not. I suggest lowering by the same ratio that was applied to all lifeforms except the gorge (who received a 50% drop previous to others)
Starting pres of 16.
This would be a good start for sure.
Increase gorge price to 8-10 pres.
I can see why this would be sensible, particularly to combat later game suicide bile gorges, which are particularly troublesome on pubs... but I do believe the gorge should get its better spit back in return, better healspray or something else to compensate. At its current effectiveness, I wouldn't want to pay 10 p.res. (+ additional p.res for hydras, tunnels, babblers) for what is essentially a glorified healer.
Not a fan of 'fixing' alien commander p.res. Sometimes comms are switched early on, or somebody changes his mind on wanting to comm, it's needlessly harsh to then punish that person by making him start from 0 p.res. Secondly, the alien commander is boring enough as it is, at least the early hydra drop keeps you busy.
Also agreed with jekt. I absolutely hate drifter building personally, but if you're going to remove it, on top of keeping the linear ability research you may as well remove the goddamn thing alltogether. You're trying untied marine CCs, can we AT least run a test with no alien commander, or is that still completely off the table? So much time is being invested in trying to make the alien commander work but so far it's still as unconvincing, if not more, than it was when it was first implemented. And we get to deal with lifeform explosions on top of that, which completely wreck the midgame enjoyment.
Maybe it's time somebody made a no-alien comm mod?
I'll keep saying it though, why don't you just prolong the early game? Right now an alien team can afford to save for fades en masse because they can easily bridge the relatively short gap between lerk and fade timing as mostly skulks. If the early game was longer and aliens had to wait longer for fades to become available, lerk and gorge play would actually become a lot more meaningful. (Granted, you'd still have to buff the gorge to make him more interesting early on...) Early gameplay in NS 1 was way longer, which is often forgotten here, and I am convinced that played a role in lifeform differentiation as much as gorges building does.
As it stands, meaningful lerk and gorge play takes place in about a 5 minute early game window, from then on it's just fades and onos for the next 30+ minutes. And the higher tier lifeforms and weaponry, the more stale gameplay becomes as it's just EXOs or JP/SG and onos/fades being spammed. And no, suiciding BB gorges isn't what I consider 'meaningful' gameplay. Sure it can be very effective, particularly in pubs, but it's incredibly dull.
Yes, you can bring in new weapons and abilities to try and break up the current situation, but that's only going to help if you happen to enjoy 'rock, paper scissors'.
Don't think extending early to mid game (up untill first fade) solves fade explosion. It would just be more like pre b250 with 50 pres fades (which were also exploding btw).
Also highly disagree that meaningful lerk play happens within a 5 minute window. Lerk is not a rambo killing machine. Your effectiveness as support remains static for far longer than 5 minutes, and you end up being more useful later on spiking or last hitting jp's that fades or skulks can't catch. And bite effectiveness pretty much ignores armour because of poison dot. 1 bite, and that marine needs 2 meds regardless of armour level. Shotguns? Spike them and force even more meds. There is not much marine scaling that renders lerk play meaningless.
Buffing gorge? This is inadvisable given that the general direction they need to be going is actually the exact opposite (being nerfed).
To increase the early game and thus increase the risk for saving for a fade, just lower starting pres??
Lifeform costs were universally lowered but the starting pres was not. I suggest lowering by the same ratio that was applied to all lifeforms except the gorge (who received a 50% drop previous to others)
Starting pres of 16.
Now you just have to make the lerk less of a paper based lifeform. Oh and You'd have to adjust marine tres tech timing a bit.
Also if you really wanted to ensure no fade ball :
Increase gorge price to 8-10 pres.
remove drifter building (gorges see unbuilt structures as way points through walls)
Remove alien commander starting pres, but allow him to earn it while in the chair, at a reduced rate (so as to allow a fade or onos only past a certain timing like 25 minutes, based on 3 harvesters) so that the commander cannot assist in expansion outside of the hive.
But i can see how that might be a bit much for some (except the no brainer gorge price!)
While you can pull pres spending to the left of fade explosion, i think it might be better to pull it to the right (less brick onos) with some kind of well tuned 'hmg' that better helps shotgun burst to kill/finish off fades. So instead of alien early game being more mistake unfriendly, you have alien mid game being more mistake unfriendly where there's a smooth line (instead of drop) in risk when we phase between game periods, with a better incentive than currently to progress to t3.
As for removing drifter building, focusing on gorge building, and placing restrictions on alien commander to enforce this, i think this ends up being problematic. You either have 4 skulk vs 5 marine (bad), or 5 v 5 with alien commander bellysliding to every harvester and back to drop another harvester (bad). I don't think it's good to have a hybrid ns1/ns2 system in this manner. Alien commander isn't going anywhere. We all know it's subpar to ns1, but its pointless to discuss this in the context of going forward.
---
It's important i think to also seriously consider a res for action/kill system that dynamically differentiates pres income between players. Not as a golden bullet, but as a way to complement any first order changes. You diverge the pres expenditure timings between players so that alien teams cumulatively see a more spread out expenditure graph over time with less spikiness.
Posting from another thread. This is the biggest letdown currently for me and for every high level competitive player I have talked to.
Actually with v250 I think NS2 is tactically and teamwork wise as good as NS1. It's different and there are some problems like the fade explosion in mid game. It forces mid and late game to be group vs. group play most of the time, which don't give you much variation. But in overall, your tactical choices are even with NS1. During EU Open 2013 I actually enjoyed doing tacs. I freaking wrote 10 pages tactical notebook to my teammates... and that was only the marine play.
A problem is that teamwork and tactics have replaced too much individual skill. I always thought that NS1 had perfect mix of skill, teamwork and tactics. What is lacking is the higher personal skill curve which didn't have limits in NS1. You could always get better. Not going to write an essay about it, but the biggest problem lies in the marine movement. If a good skulk gets close to marine it's only aim+medspam vs. skulk and it goes without saying that you die 9/10 times without the medspam. In NS1 you could do this(3:59-4:07), that(9:43-10:08, or this(0:09-0:23). The first one demonstrates how little is required from devs to make this game so much better. "Simply" strafing was the main dodging ability in NS1. In that frag I do extreme subtle body hesitation to left and I manage to fool the skulk to bunnyhop to distance, and that bought me enough time to kill a skulk and lerk without needing a single medpack. That move may seem simple but it required superb game reading and timing.
How many times in NS2 have you seen a marine kill a lerk and a skulk in highest possible level without a medpack? That is not possible because the marine lack movement to buy more shooting time. There is mod called Classic mod for NS2 were strafing is much better. You have much more freedom and speed in strafing which is required to do body hesitations like in that clip. Please Sewlek; copy the strafing from Classic mod. This thing is only win-win situation, it's doesn't hurt new players, but in the other hand it gives veterans one the biggest tools of NS1 to express their creativity.
I personally never played NS1 so I can't comment on the intricacies of the gameplay compared to NS2 but I have done enough research to know the basics about it. I just had a quick go on an empty Classic server and I first noticed how many different upgrades there were for aliens. Why were they removed in NS2? Having more upgrades that allows for each lifeform to specialise in a certain role is a good thing no?
Tried to test the strafing but it didn't apparently feel any different to normal strafing in vanilla but it could just be I need to test it in an actual game. I do agree however that marines do need some kind of extra movement to avoid being hit and buy some more time for oneself.
My next question is, if so many people love the NS1 gameplay/style why do we not just play Classic Mod in competitve? I can understand that people like aspects of both games but I do see/hear alot of people commenting how much better certain things in NS1 were compared to NS2 and that overall it was a better game. Surely it makes sense to just play the classic mod or incorporate a lot more of NS1 into NS2?
Just from a quick glance at the differences in the classic mod compared to vanilla I can already see alot of really intesting stuff that could add alot more to the game and NS1 was very popular so adding more aspects from it would probably be a good thing.
On a side note I would love to play some classic mod in competitive if anyone would be up for getting some teams together or even just having a mess around on public so I can experience the differences. Add me on steam or something if you are interested.
This thing is only win-win situation, it's doesn't hurt new players
I'd agree with most of your post but not that part. I understand the marine movement may be an issue for yourself and the handful of others at the very top, but at the pub level including the better pubs with old NS'ers, I constantly see marines easily out juke skulks with strafes/strafe jumps.
I'd guess if you improve marines movement anymore, it would negatively shift the balance too much if favour of the marine at the standard level of play versus skulks, mostly early game. Skulks would need something to counter the twitchier marine - possibly being able to turn more in the air without losing soo much speed. But then that might not be needed at the top level, and the cycle of trying to find the right balance continues as ever
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited July 2013
Classic pubs I have had have been fun. Except the pub NS2 commanders who wouldn't even drop a medpack suddenly being responsible for weapon load outs. On the other end, never had a problem getting people to temp gorge.
The whip being it's own chamber is also nice.
Would really like the whip to be it's own hive type in vanilla, with focus being one of the upgrades and enzyme for the drifter ability.
It doesn't effect that level of playing at all. Reason why people miss easy bites randomly moving marine is because they are trying to bite there where the marine is. Just like there will always be people who think that in football you pass ball where your teammate is. It doesn't matter what tools marines have for movement, those people will always miss their bites. Irony is, that those people are whining about jumping. Jumping sets you predictable moving patter, which you will always want to avoid. You should never jump in combat situation if skulk has even slightest chance to hit you.
And there is also reason why those clips are in fragmovies. Those kind of jukes were rare in NS1, but at least they were possible.
This thing is only win-win situation, it's doesn't hurt new players
I'd agree with most of your post but not that part. I understand the marine movement may be an issue for yourself and the handful of others at the very top, but at the pub level including the better pubs with old NS'ers, I constantly see marines easily out juke skulks with strafes/strafe jumps.
That's silly. You don't balance unequal skill levels.
You could disable marine strafe movement altogether and new players would still be unable to hit half their bites. You see it all the time in pubs against backward walking marines.
I like almost everything in this mod. It fixes what UWE has broke with 250. One thing I think isn't good, however, is the fact that you don't need a tech point for command chair. (if you want, I can argue why, just tell me to do so)
EDIT: Now just needs to start with shadow-step/research blink again and also put back shadow-step momentum.
I swear of the 39 posts that you have made, 38 have been stated how stupid the fade changes are - I get that you don't like the new fade, but I highly doubt its going to be reverted, so I think it would be more worth your time to focus on something else, like maybe what could be improved about the blink fade?...
While you can pull pres spending to the left of fade explosion, i think it might be better to pull it to the right (less brick onos) with some kind of well tuned 'hmg' that better helps shotgun burst to kill/finish off fades.
While the idea of creating a weapon to solve fade explosions sounds tempting - i can't imagine any incarnation of an HMG that
A) Won't absolutely destroy everything else as well... completely imbalancing the game in many aspects And therefore making other tech potentially skipped /overlapped (I know i'd want an HMG + JP over an exo, given the many downsides of an exo)
C) And creating an equally bad tech explosion for aliens to have to deal with now as well, instead of fixing the issue through role composition/implementation.
I do agree with making Onos more viable, obviously.. but if a team can end the game sooner in lieu of waiting for an onos, they will, so fix both.
@jekt i didnt say extending the early game would solve the fade explosion? I said it would increase the risk that comes with saving for one, therefore demanding other lifeforms on the field to keep the team from being ran over. The same risk can be observed with the time it takes to save for an onos. It doesn't solve the issue, but it helps.
And as far as gorge building instead of drifters goes: it wouldn't lessen the micro the commander has to do compared to now??.. it is in fact the same amount of keystrokes/micro Select the drifter, (1) right click somewhere on the map. (2)
vs. Clicking the "Assign Gorge"/"Build this" menu or just clicking the hotkey, (1) click on any structure (2)
But if by micro you mean having to deal with the drifter getting stuck in places .. i don't really consider than intentional micro, i guess.
And yes, jekt, i feel that the commander stepping out of the hive to gorge up harvesters around the map not only compounds the explosion, but also shouldn't really be intended... for that reason, but also because the commander should be commanding... only stepping out of that role when something needs tending to in base.
If its really that dull and unimportant that a khamm stay in the hive, then that needs addressing, not avoiding?
But obviously my idea regarding locking down comm pres is a bit extreme.. there's got to be another way.
Gorge price being raised to 8 pres could only help though
Now, after reading the last 10 pages - back to the 250 release - I thought I would share my opinion on changes and features that should be addressed. Yes, I joined the forums this week, but I've been playing since gorgeous and have about 300 hrs. I am no pro, but I know my way around. Much of this has been posted already; see this as an extended summary.
1. Marines
Sentries: Sentries are in a better place now, imo. I've seen them more in recent games. Still, I think a deployable, at the armory purchasable version of the sentry for marines which doesn't require a battery would be a great idea. I don't want to go into detail, though; There are more important things right now.
Infantry Portals: In larger games, aliens start with more eggs/hives spawn more eggs. Likewise, a second IP on 22+ servers would be helpful, I think.
Arms Lab: Make higher Upgrades require more Arms Labs (1 for a/w1, 2 for a/w2, 3 for a/w3). Also, a second CC should be required for a/w3, to make turtles easier to break.
Advanced Armory: GL and FT still feel to powerful. They are supposed to be support weapons, right? Why don't we make it like this: Leave them like they are, but increase their weight. You can run faster if you drop your rifle. Likewise, if you wear a heavy weapon, you can't run as fast, are less mobile, and more depending on your teammates. Now, the real problem lies in the combination with a jetpack. How about forbidding the jp+gl/ft combination? (Lore explanation: The weapons are to heavy.) Maybe we can even buff their power again, then. Summary: Make Advanced Weaponry immobile and disallow jetpacks, but keep them powerful - truly support weapons!
Prototype Lab: Exos at one CC seem to cause a lot of trouble. I like the idea about having only Railgun Exos at one CC. However:
In general: The importance of the second CC should be strengthened. As lots of people mentioned before, marines only require the second CC for the goodie Dual Exos or for beacons. By shifting Tech from 1 required CCs to 2, we can prevent these horrible marine turtles and make the second CC worth something again.
Actually, I think Marines are in a good place now, if we manage to solve the turtle and AW problems.
2. Aliens 2.1 Lifeforms
Skulk: I think Xenocide is not worth it. For a Tier 3 ability it's impact on the game is just too low. Parasite, though, is incoherent. Why can I parasite RTs and CCs, but no other buildings? Either one should be able to parasite all buildings or none. Too many hidden mechanics!
Gorge: Fine. Nothing to say here.
Lerk: Spores seem a bit underused; I will address this later.
Fade: Now, we're getting there. I don't mind the hopping; In my opinion, though, the skill ceiling doesn't feel as high as before, but that's just my opinion. I think shadowstep and vortex are utterly useless, though. Instead of shadowstep I rather use short blinks; SS just doesn't go in the flow with fade movement. Vortex, on the other hand, has a too short duration and is too tedious to be useful. Also, it doesn't affect Arms Labs (btw, if we use arms labs like above but keep vortex, a vortexed arms lab would reduce every upgrade by 1). Personally, I like the friendly-fire vortex as described here (post by twiliteblue, at the bottom of the page). Basically, it says: Vortex enables friendly fire on the vortexed unit, and makes it vulnerable to alien attacks. He even gives us a lore explanation! Sounds way better than the old vortex. Sadly, I don't know what to do with SS. Maybe revert it to the old one, and let fades chose how they want to move... Also, apart from abilites: Fades take way too much damage. There have been threads about it before. My favorite solution: Nerf Fade HP by a third (or sth) and instead increase the biomass scaling. This would allow fades to scale properly with the game.
Onos: The HP are just too low. Either let them like this, and increase biomass scaling, or buff the HP.
Skulk, Gorge and Lerk are fine; Fade and Onos need tweaking, though: Nerf Fade and buff Onos.
2.2 Upgrades
Shade Upgrades: I love them! I like to go shade first since 250, both phantom and aura are really useful abilites. The 95%-cloak with three veils can be annoying, though.
Shift Upgrades: The new adrenaline is way better, celerity is fine, too. Usually my first or second choice.
Crag Upgrades: Not so good. Usually my last choice. They were really overpowered before 250, now they aren't worth it. Regen is way to slow and carapace doesn't give you enough HP. Also, the upgrades are not very creative. I suggest buffing both of them and maybe merging them like phantom; Ideas for another upgrade exist already, we only need a little brainstorming. Crag is the only chamber that feels like you don't get a real benefit from it.
The chambers are fine. Crag needs a buff.
2.3 Structures
Crag: The Crag's healing is too slow. Almost always it's better to go back to the hive.
Shift: Echo is awesome, but a bit tedious - First selecting echo, then which structure should be echo'd. Also, why can't we echo upgrade structures? And we were told that we would be able to echo gorge tunnels. We aren't.
Shade: Is fine.
Whips: Please give us the possibility to toggle between only bile/only hit/do both.
Same for Cystem: Please to give us the possibility to turn it off with a key. It's great if you have to place lots of cysts, but if you want to hide them or want to place a single cyst, it can be annoying.
Not much to do here. Buff crags a bit, add toggle-functinos. Echoing can be annoying, but we have more important stuff to do.
2.4 Alien Commanding
Drifters: I'm fine with drifters building. The drifter ability are cool, too. But they are underused, because they are hard to use. It's tedious. You can select the nearest drifter with a hotkey, and you can select the drifter ability with a hotkey. But the drifter has to move there first. This is tedious and makes it less effective than it could be. Also, drifters on the frontline die fast due to this. Also, I'd like to see drifter upgrades (Regen/Crag, Phantom, Celerity).
Researching abilities: We all got used to research stuff like leap at chambers. It still is unintuitive, though, especially for new players.
Eggs are really expensive: Double gestation time AND high res cost. I'm fine with the res. But the other one is just an inconvience that could be removed.
Biomass: Based on the idea of MisterNubs (but with a twist). Make Biomass a Slot-based system. You research biomass slots just like before, but you can decide what you want to fill them with by yourself. So, let's say, I want fast gorge tunnels and leap. I research to biomass slots and fill the first one with gorge tunnels and the second one with leap. This could lead to imbalancing, though. Therefore, abilities would not only cost res, but slots as well. Let's say, leap costs 20 res and 2 slots, while gorge tunnels are 10 res and 1 slot. Umbra 1 Slot, Spores two slots, etc. This would add variety and complexity to the game and feel less like a corset. Also, we would have a comeback of abilites like Spores, which you see rarely recently. Would need some tweaking, of course, but that's what this is all about, isn't it?
I think this change to biomass would enhance the game a lot.
3. General Stuff
In explore, the map and the biomass-progress overlaps as alien.
Lots of tutorial vids and texts in explore mode are utterly outdated. I recently met a rookie who asked me why the game told him to press shift as fade, because nothing happened.
Game length and turtles: We all have seen a lot of turtles recently. 250 didn't add "great comebacks" for marines (rare exceptions granted), but horrible, boring turtles. With a shortened Early and Midgame games often last 50 minutes recently, without the aliens being able to finish it. I don't think it's up to the aliens, but to the marines. With my proposed changes about the 2nd CC we should be able to fix this, though.
I think the changes that could most improve the game are 1, 2.1 and 2.4, especially the alternative biomass.
I may add something later, if I think of it or read of something somewhere that sounds like a good idea (and mark it in a different color).
Thank you for reading this.
I spent an hour writing this post, it's your turn now to tear it apart.
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
i dont understand why you want to turn of the cyst auto build system. you can place a single cyst just like before, all the system does is to fill in required cysts to complete the chain when you target a location which is too far away.
i dont understand why you want to turn of the cyst auto build system. you can place a single cyst just like before, all the system does is to fill in required cysts to complete the chain when you target a location which is too far away.
Hm. Sometimes it feels like it places an unnecessary cyst - I guess it's because you have no feeling anymore about the radius in which you can place a cyst.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
@sewlek
Im sorry but thats not true. Perhaps intended, but not true.
Its no longer possible to fine place cysts. I even saw them shift location a bit from the spot where I placed them with this new system.
Also first time I experienced I can not place cysts in a standard map in a perfectly valid large spot.
It makes paths yes, but for some reason finetuning went out the window.
unmodded servers aswell as modded.
Comments
Any decent marine can easily avoid the majority of the hydra's fire. Just make them similar to sentries in that they take .3-.5 seconds before firing and are hit-scan. Then they might actually be worth the res imho.
Would that help to some extent? Just theorycrafting here.
As of right now I think the best lineup is 3 fades, 1 lerk, and a resbiting skulk who is ready to go gorge whenever heals and bile is needed. If you make the onos good again maybe the number of fades would decrease to 2
The number of people SAVING fade MIGHT decrease to 2.
Now, another idea. Assuming we don’t get new weapons or life forms added in the near future to make this a moot point; what if we took the game as it is now and lowered the shotgun’s cost, made it available earlier, but reduce its damage to where it can only 1-shot a biomass level 1 or 2 carapace skulk without any weapons upgrades (and add +2 levels for each level of weapons upgrade)?
I think you would see more skulks dying earlier on, so aliens would need to swap to lerks in order to counter the point blank shotty with their long range spikes & umbra.
Which would reduce the overall team res since more people were forced to go lerk.
But due to the aliens swapping to lerk, the marines would want to pick up flame throwers to counter the umbra, as well as some would want to keep their stock rifle to hit the lerks.
And then exos would become the actual end game weapon I think they were meant to be; but thankfully they are still weak to skulks, so marines still need some shottys, or rifles.
Fades might turn into a gigantic problem though since nothing would be too useful at taking them out anymore, sooo, they would probably need a health decrease?
anything that relies on some timed aggression to end the game before fadeplosion is going to fail in most games because marines just aren't good enough
but with enough balance tweaking it can work to some extent in competitive play, but it has the risk of getting rid of the mid+late game
When you first implemented the rifle and the shotgun was still having a lot of major changes playtested I was kind of hoping that the shotgun would move into more of an early game role (i.e. a cheaper, weaker version of the current shotty) with the rifle basically filling the oldschool HMG role. Obviously that didn't happen but I think that it could definitely help to make early game pres expenditure more important for both teams (a weaker shotty would be easy prey for lerk spike harass, but still destroy skulks, but massed shotguns wouldn't be super strong like they were in earlier versions). In any case, a new marine weapon to fit a generalist role (i.e. not the specialised flamer/GL) would really open up potential for some different approaches.
As it stands, meaningful lerk and gorge play takes place in about a 5 minute early game window, from then on it's just fades and onos for the next 30+ minutes. And the higher tier lifeforms and weaponry, the more stale gameplay becomes as it's just EXOs or JP/SG and onos/fades being spammed. And no, suiciding BB gorges isn't what I consider 'meaningful' gameplay. Sure it can be very effective, particularly in pubs, but it's incredibly dull.
Yes, you can bring in new weapons and abilities to try and break up the current situation, but that's only going to help if you happen to enjoy 'rock, paper scissors'.
Agree. Part of the problem is also that lower tier lifeforms become more meaningless as marine armor goes up. Clever ambush tactics of Skulks don't pay off as much anymore because marines can endure more bites, giving their commander a chance to become aware of the situation and start medpack spamming - the element of surprise (or at least its benefit) that is so crucial in the early game is entirely gone in the lategame.
The Biomass scaling can't hold up to the armor scaling of marines. At maximum Biomass a Skulk gets 20 additional HP, I think - that's two more rifle bullets for marines to hit or one additional pistol hit. Needing to land 20% more hits with the rifle is hardly a thing to matter for marines at their usual RoF and even gets less crucial as marines get weapon upgrades, whereas 1-2 additional bites make a world of a difference for Skulks since it requires them to hit up to 40% more.
Focus would go a long way to help addressing those issues. A more viable Carapace on higher lifeforms is needed too, otherwise it's a no-brainer right now to always go with Regeneration instead.
And I feel like normal aliens should be able to chew on dropped marine weapons to destroy them similar to how you can use Bile Bomb, but at a slower rate and while exposing yourself. I doubt that the cost and power of marine weapons were balanced just under the premise that they are going to be picked up again most of the time.
This change would make marine weapon recycling more follow a paradigm of "If there are still marines nearby to pick the weapon up after you died, then it can get recycled. If everyone in that area got exterminated, then the weapon should be doomed to be lost, even without a Bile Gorge in the vicinity".
Of course would this be rather one reason less to go early Gorge. But it just doesn't feel right to actually require a specific lifeform to deal an economic loss to marines.
Lifeform costs were universally lowered but the starting pres was not. I suggest lowering by the same ratio that was applied to all lifeforms except the gorge (who received a 50% drop previous to others)
Starting pres of 16.
Now you just have to make the lerk less of a paper based lifeform. Oh and You'd have to adjust marine tres tech timing a bit.
Also if you really wanted to ensure no fade ball :
But i can see how that might be a bit much for some (except the no brainer gorge price!)
If you remove drifter building, what is this poor hive slave supposed to do all game. B251 already just removed cyst building micro, the only thing to keep any half decent RTS player busy. And then on top of that, deny them going early gorge and actually being useful. OK.
Even if it does fix fade explosion (lowering starting pres doesn't by the way), you've made the already dull experience of alien commanding worse.
I can see why this would be sensible, particularly to combat later game suicide bile gorges, which are particularly troublesome on pubs... but I do believe the gorge should get its better spit back in return, better healspray or something else to compensate. At its current effectiveness, I wouldn't want to pay 10 p.res. (+ additional p.res for hydras, tunnels, babblers) for what is essentially a glorified healer.
Not a fan of 'fixing' alien commander p.res. Sometimes comms are switched early on, or somebody changes his mind on wanting to comm, it's needlessly harsh to then punish that person by making him start from 0 p.res. Secondly, the alien commander is boring enough as it is, at least the early hydra drop keeps you busy.
Also agreed with jekt. I absolutely hate drifter building personally, but if you're going to remove it, on top of keeping the linear ability research you may as well remove the goddamn thing alltogether. You're trying untied marine CCs, can we AT least run a test with no alien commander, or is that still completely off the table? So much time is being invested in trying to make the alien commander work but so far it's still as unconvincing, if not more, than it was when it was first implemented. And we get to deal with lifeform explosions on top of that, which completely wreck the midgame enjoyment.
Maybe it's time somebody made a no-alien comm mod?
Also highly disagree that meaningful lerk play happens within a 5 minute window. Lerk is not a rambo killing machine. Your effectiveness as support remains static for far longer than 5 minutes, and you end up being more useful later on spiking or last hitting jp's that fades or skulks can't catch. And bite effectiveness pretty much ignores armour because of poison dot. 1 bite, and that marine needs 2 meds regardless of armour level. Shotguns? Spike them and force even more meds. There is not much marine scaling that renders lerk play meaningless.
Buffing gorge? This is inadvisable given that the general direction they need to be going is actually the exact opposite (being nerfed).
While you can pull pres spending to the left of fade explosion, i think it might be better to pull it to the right (less brick onos) with some kind of well tuned 'hmg' that better helps shotgun burst to kill/finish off fades. So instead of alien early game being more mistake unfriendly, you have alien mid game being more mistake unfriendly where there's a smooth line (instead of drop) in risk when we phase between game periods, with a better incentive than currently to progress to t3.
As for removing drifter building, focusing on gorge building, and placing restrictions on alien commander to enforce this, i think this ends up being problematic. You either have 4 skulk vs 5 marine (bad), or 5 v 5 with alien commander bellysliding to every harvester and back to drop another harvester (bad). I don't think it's good to have a hybrid ns1/ns2 system in this manner. Alien commander isn't going anywhere. We all know it's subpar to ns1, but its pointless to discuss this in the context of going forward.
---
It's important i think to also seriously consider a res for action/kill system that dynamically differentiates pres income between players. Not as a golden bullet, but as a way to complement any first order changes. You diverge the pres expenditure timings between players so that alien teams cumulatively see a more spread out expenditure graph over time with less spikiness.
Actually with v250 I think NS2 is tactically and teamwork wise as good as NS1. It's different and there are some problems like the fade explosion in mid game. It forces mid and late game to be group vs. group play most of the time, which don't give you much variation. But in overall, your tactical choices are even with NS1. During EU Open 2013 I actually enjoyed doing tacs. I freaking wrote 10 pages tactical notebook to my teammates... and that was only the marine play.
A problem is that teamwork and tactics have replaced too much individual skill. I always thought that NS1 had perfect mix of skill, teamwork and tactics. What is lacking is the higher personal skill curve which didn't have limits in NS1. You could always get better. Not going to write an essay about it, but the biggest problem lies in the marine movement. If a good skulk gets close to marine it's only aim+medspam vs. skulk and it goes without saying that you die 9/10 times without the medspam. In NS1 you could do this(3:59-4:07), that(9:43-10:08, or this(0:09-0:23). The first one demonstrates how little is required from devs to make this game so much better. "Simply" strafing was the main dodging ability in NS1. In that frag I do extreme subtle body hesitation to left and I manage to fool the skulk to bunnyhop to distance, and that bought me enough time to kill a skulk and lerk without needing a single medpack. That move may seem simple but it required superb game reading and timing.
How many times in NS2 have you seen a marine kill a lerk and a skulk in highest possible level without a medpack? That is not possible because the marine lack movement to buy more shooting time. There is mod called Classic mod for NS2 were strafing is much better. You have much more freedom and speed in strafing which is required to do body hesitations like in that clip. Please Sewlek; copy the strafing from Classic mod. This thing is only win-win situation, it's doesn't hurt new players, but in the other hand it gives veterans one the biggest tools of NS1 to express their creativity.
Tried to test the strafing but it didn't apparently feel any different to normal strafing in vanilla but it could just be I need to test it in an actual game. I do agree however that marines do need some kind of extra movement to avoid being hit and buy some more time for oneself.
My next question is, if so many people love the NS1 gameplay/style why do we not just play Classic Mod in competitve? I can understand that people like aspects of both games but I do see/hear alot of people commenting how much better certain things in NS1 were compared to NS2 and that overall it was a better game. Surely it makes sense to just play the classic mod or incorporate a lot more of NS1 into NS2?
Just from a quick glance at the differences in the classic mod compared to vanilla I can already see alot of really intesting stuff that could add alot more to the game and NS1 was very popular so adding more aspects from it would probably be a good thing.
On a side note I would love to play some classic mod in competitive if anyone would be up for getting some teams together or even just having a mess around on public so I can experience the differences. Add me on steam or something if you are interested.
I'd agree with most of your post but not that part. I understand the marine movement may be an issue for yourself and the handful of others at the very top, but at the pub level including the better pubs with old NS'ers, I constantly see marines easily out juke skulks with strafes/strafe jumps.
I'd guess if you improve marines movement anymore, it would negatively shift the balance too much if favour of the marine at the standard level of play versus skulks, mostly early game. Skulks would need something to counter the twitchier marine - possibly being able to turn more in the air without losing soo much speed. But then that might not be needed at the top level, and the cycle of trying to find the right balance continues as ever
The whip being it's own chamber is also nice.
Would really like the whip to be it's own hive type in vanilla, with focus being one of the upgrades and enzyme for the drifter ability.
And there is also reason why those clips are in fragmovies. Those kind of jukes were rare in NS1, but at least they were possible.
You could disable marine strafe movement altogether and new players would still be unable to hit half their bites. You see it all the time in pubs against backward walking marines.
EDIT: Now just needs to start with shadow-step/research blink again and also put back shadow-step momentum.
A) Won't absolutely destroy everything else as well... completely imbalancing the game in many aspects
C) And creating an equally bad tech explosion for aliens to have to deal with now as well, instead of fixing the issue through role composition/implementation.
I do agree with making Onos more viable, obviously.. but if a team can end the game sooner in lieu of waiting for an onos, they will, so fix both.
@jekt i didnt say extending the early game would solve the fade explosion? I said it would increase the risk that comes with saving for one, therefore demanding other lifeforms on the field to keep the team from being ran over. The same risk can be observed with the time it takes to save for an onos. It doesn't solve the issue, but it helps.
And as far as gorge building instead of drifters goes: it wouldn't lessen the micro the commander has to do compared to now??.. it is in fact the same amount of keystrokes/micro
Select the drifter, (1) right click somewhere on the map. (2)
vs.
Clicking the "Assign Gorge"/"Build this" menu or just clicking the hotkey, (1) click on any structure (2)
But if by micro you mean having to deal with the drifter getting stuck in places .. i don't really consider than intentional micro, i guess.
And yes, jekt, i feel that the commander stepping out of the hive to gorge up harvesters around the map not only compounds the explosion, but also shouldn't really be intended... for that reason, but also because the commander should be commanding... only stepping out of that role when something needs tending to in base.
If its really that dull and unimportant that a khamm stay in the hive, then that needs addressing, not avoiding?
But obviously my idea regarding locking down comm pres is a bit extreme.. there's got to be another way.
Gorge price being raised to 8 pres could only help though
1. Marines
Actually, I think Marines are in a good place now, if we manage to solve the turtle and AW problems.
2. Aliens
2.1 Lifeforms
Skulk, Gorge and Lerk are fine; Fade and Onos need tweaking, though: Nerf Fade and buff Onos.
2.2 Upgrades
The chambers are fine. Crag needs a buff.
2.3 Structures
Not much to do here. Buff crags a bit, add toggle-functinos. Echoing can be annoying, but we have more important stuff to do.
2.4 Alien Commanding
I think this change to biomass would enhance the game a lot.
3. General Stuff
I think the changes that could most improve the game are 1, 2.1 and 2.4, especially the alternative biomass.
I may add something later, if I think of it or read of something somewhere that sounds like a good idea (and mark it in a different color).
Thank you for reading this.
I spent an hour writing this post, it's your turn now to tear it apart.
See you ingame.
Hm. Sometimes it feels like it places an unnecessary cyst - I guess it's because you have no feeling anymore about the radius in which you can place a cyst.
Im sorry but thats not true. Perhaps intended, but not true.
Its no longer possible to fine place cysts. I even saw them shift location a bit from the spot where I placed them with this new system.
Also first time I experienced I can not place cysts in a standard map in a perfectly valid large spot.
It makes paths yes, but for some reason finetuning went out the window.
unmodded servers aswell as modded.