If that is true, that precision-placing cysts is no longer possible, i think that ability needs to be restored to the game. For so many reasons im sure everyone is aware of / can think of on their own.
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 agree with pretty much everything in your post, except for this. The fixed order of the abilities exists according to their strength and desired time of appearance. And to prevent some abilities from never being researched throughout the match - it basically puts the fun of players over the commander's decisions in this aspect.
I'd rather see a 4th (more expensive) Biomass upgrade on each Hive, so you actually have a valid choice between staying on 1 Hive to get Leap or to secure a new area and get it along with the other benefits of a second Hive. Plus it would allow to maximize the Biomass level on maps with only 4 TPs.
Concerning IPs:
I agree that aliens have a better autoscaling for spawns right now. It kinda forces marines to drop a second IP themselves straight away on large servers. On the other hand could you argue that a crowd of marines is generally stronger than a crowd of Skulks early on, so marines already have an advantage in large servers that allows them to hold more territory easily and capture more RTs quickly, thus making up for the res that was lost on the 2nd IP.
I find the opposite rather problematic: Marines don't really have an upper limit to their respawn capacity. The alien spawn rate is given by the playercount and costs a lot of res to circumvent temporarily (8 additional spawns for 20 res), but marines only need to pay those 20 res once to permanently increase their respawn capacity. While most commanders will likely only drop a 2nd IP in their base, I've noticed the recent trend that marines start to drop a 3rd or 4th IP in their base when the endgame turtle starts, making it even harder for aliens to tear the base down because marines are constantly getting back into the fight.
Perhaps we could limit it to having only 2 IPs for each CC? (And 3 IPs per CC on servers with more than 20 players?) This would add more incentive to a second CC as well, since it allows you to increase your respawn capacities.
About parasiting structures:
I find it utterly useless on structures in its current form, since the parasite has a lifespan here as well. There was a time in the Balance mod when it was infinite, so you were able to make those structures permanently known to your team. (Which kinda made sense on those, since they are structures that can only be placed on fixed locations in the map. So if you saw them once on the map, you already remembered their existence)
But being able to parasite them for 30 seconds doesn't really help anyone in any shape or form, since that is usually the time span during which you would hang around that structure anyway after spotting them. They can't move away, so there is no point in tracking them.
If they would automatically highlight marines in a short range around the parasited structure, then it would probably make sense to use them for reconnaissance. But right now it just seems like an obsolete mechanic.
I agree with pretty much everything in your post, except for this. The fixed order of the abilities exists according to their strength and desired time of appearance. And to prevent some abilities from never being researched throughout the match - it basically puts the fun of players over the commander's decisions in this aspect.
I get your point, but I don't agree with this. A khammander still can decide not to research certain abilities. You see Umbra not being researched a lot.
Cannon_FodderAUSBrisbane, AUJoin Date: 2013-06-23Member: 185664Members, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
edited July 2013
@ DC_Darkling
I was thinking the same thing, the draw cyst is cool and all, but I do like to try and hide my cysts (behind a box), so the 'rines need to look for it, instead of having it in the open. Whilst the idea of the Cystem is very good, for going down long corridors, its not so good when you want to places cysts in hidden places in contested areas. Will have to Alien Khamm sometime to check it out.
I comm & khamm a lot, and I can still place my cysts precisely. You don't have the guide circle, but just move your cursor till a 2nd cyst pops up, then shift it back to precision place. I actually wish drifters could still build cysts, since a good khamm can micro to build faster. But with the faster build speed and cystem, I've gotten used to being lazy
The only problem is the cyst exclusion zone around each cyst is not accurate. If you JUST build your 2nd cyst outside of the exclusion zone, it's actually still inside, and winds up killing the 1st cyst. This should be rectified. For those wondering, close cysting is invaluable to make it harder to kill your harvesters - having 2/3 cysts per harvesters prevent them from taking off-infestation damage easily, buying time.
Not sure if gorge was changed in 251 but the gorge should go back to 10 res. At 5 res they are too cheap and the cost of losing your lifeform is next to nothing. It also allows for constant bile bomb rushes.
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
I think 8 pres would be a fair place, being the same ratio of price reduction that everyone else got (20%) .. and also because the mind quickly reaches aversion when a number reaches a full 10, being the basis of our numeric systems. (think 9.99 prices etc)
William Poundstone on his book Priceless analyzed eight different studies on .99 prices and found that sales increase by 24% on .99 prices compared to the 10s. Kenneth J. Wisniewski from the University of Chicago conducted another study at a local grocery chain: sales of margarine increased by 65% when price was dropped from 89 cents to 71 cents; but it increased by 222% when dropped to 69 cents!
William Poundstone on his book Priceless analyzed eight different studies on .99 prices and found that sales increase by 24% on .99 prices compared to the 10s. Kenneth J. Wisniewski from the University of Chicago conducted another study at a local grocery chain: sales of margarine increased by 65% when price was dropped from 89 cents to 71 cents; but it increased by 222% when dropped to 69 cents!
I think there is a bug in the Cystem that allows you to place a cyst if it's in range of an unconnected cyst chain, even though it still doesn't have any connection to a connected chain in that location. (Example would be to cyst into Nanogrid from Pipeline and then have marines kill all cysts up to Pipeline while leaving those in Nanogrid alive. Placing a cyst near Nanogrid will link it to those cysts up there, rather than to the actual Hive connection.)
So you can basically accidentally place cysts that will instantly die again. Plus it keeps the Cystem from placing the missing cysts to the nearest connection automatically, since it considers the uncut cyst island the closest chain.
We do not have the same experience. I have experienced on unmodded servers:
* 0 chance to fine tune cyst drops. And yes, I took ample time to remotely try in various ranges of the parent cyst. Even tested on uwe servers, just incase you wondered the mod free statement.
* cysts shift places a bit between my drop zone and the actual place.
* being completely unable to cyst standard 250 cystable hallways. (rare but happened, this one I tried for minutes on end from different angels, sides, etc)
* incorrect shown max range on cysts.
* cyst green for placement and being completely unable to place. (slightly moving '2 cysts' in a direction did place)
Areas were unblocked, no marine presence, player checked by fellow skulks.
How not everyone has experienced this is interested and puzzling. I will surely keep my eyes open for it.
crushak beat me to my post, cystem works great until the chain dies halfway, it prioritises the nearest cysts always whereas it should prioritise the nearest CONNECTED cysts. it makes trying to get an island of disconnected cysts reconnected a bit of a nightmare
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.
The problem with the Cystem is that it starts the cyst chain from the nearest cyst, not the nearest connected cyst. This makes it really annoying to repair an interrupted cyst chain. You try to place a cyst to fix the chain, but the new chain starts from your disconnected cyst, and you can NOT see whether the chain will be fixed before you place the new cyst(s). You can place unconnected cysts! (they show as orange= connected, then the game realizes they aren't actually connected and they grey out, then they subsequently die)
The other problem is the cooldowns (formerly known as COMMANDERERROR_MUST_WAIT). Please please please remove the cooldown for re-placing a cyst (the red filled circle that appears on the ground) and the cooldown for placing a new extractor/harvester. These are SO annoying, there must be a better way to combat cyst spam.
A third, minor problem is that you can NOT place cysts everywhere, the seem to snap to a grid or something (this is what Darkling means).
These three things don't stop you from successful cysting, they are just really really annoying (especially in combination - placing an unconnected cyst and then not being able to fix that quickly because of cooldown), please improve on them.
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
the BT mod was horribly outdated, sry for that. I had no time the past weeks to do anything there
i added today a VERY experimental change to the mod (RFK), with all other changes removed. i want to see the impact RFK would have to todays NS2, and would appreciated feedback (both positive and negative, just no rage please). its quite unlikely that RFK will find its way any time soon (unchained comm station didnt either) into the game, so take any changes in this mod with a grain of salt, as usual.
- players get now 1 resource point for killing another player
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
@hozz
actually I will correct you on point 3.
Its not minor, but a huge problem if you can not infest large areas. To go all the way through lava falls from your most topright hive to the rt left of it is a insane waste of res, time and it should work without a detour.
I agree on the other points in the cysting the rest has stated. I noticed the dying chains also.
A small addition to earlier reports.. Cysts seemed more precise last match I played. Aparently the inprecise problem is always happening, which explains why it passed beta testing. This will be hard to fix, I will hope I can reproduce.
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
also thanks for all the feedback on cysts, i fixed as many issues as possible (no longer connection to unconnected cysts on single placement, better UI feedback showing proper positions and showing you if the parent is connected)
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
As I seriously dislike the current cyst system, I will do my best (tomorrow) to test it, aslong as its still in the mod then sewlek.
Apreciate the work already from what you are typing.
the BT mod was horribly outdated, sry for that. I had no time the past weeks to do anything there
i added today a VERY experimental change to the mod (RFK), with all other changes removed. i want to see the impact RFK would have to todays NS2, and would appreciated feedback (both positive and negative, just no rage please). its quite unlikely that RFK will find its way any time soon (unchained comm station didnt either) into the game, so take any changes in this mod with a grain of salt, as usual.
- players get now 1 resource point for killing another player
@sewlek After you get your information on this, please continue to try RFK with original/classic lifeform pricing and free upgrades. (I like changing upgrades but.. maybe only as skulk?)
Dont trust everything you read in psych papers, it is the weakest of all the sciences in terms of reliability. Hell large swathes of it are barely even science.
Does anyone still play the BT mod? I havent seen a populated server since 250 came out.
I havent played the BT so I don't know if this is the case, but RFK should be added only if pres gain is slowed and/or lifeform prices are increased. Fades already are coming so fast, no need to shorten the early game even more.
The biggest problem with RFK is probably going to be that it causes the issue of "feeders" to come up, i.e. that players get stigmatized for being bad and granting the enemy an early advantage due to that that negatively impacts other players on their teams.
There would have to be something like diminishing returns on players or making the reward based on the threat of the enemy player (killing a guy with a 20/3 K/D ratio would give more res than killing one with a 0/34 yet again).
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited July 2013
Doubtful that RFK will be significant enough to cause a feeder problem. Or solve any life form explosion problem. A res for kill or res for action should exist to be a supplement to more meaningful mechanics that require pres variation (minutes of difference).
I'm afraid that as long as the early game remains as short and as long as gorges aren't necessary and/or have a significant p.res sink, lifeform explosions are going to remain a thing. In ns1 you simply NEEDED some players to go gorge and drop hives, extractors and you pretty much needed some early lerks to hold on in the early game and you then still needed some players to skip fade and save for onos.
I'm afraid that as long as the early game remains as short and as long as gorges aren't necessary and/or have a significant p.res sink, lifeform explosions are going to remain a thing. In ns1 you simply NEEDED some players to go gorge and drop hives, extractors and you pretty much needed some early lerks to hold on in the early game and you then still needed some players to skip fade and save for onos.
What you say is true, but at the same time you can't really blame players for going fade when they're absolutely essential for aliens to win outside of an early base rush. They're rather omni important right now.
Not sure if prolonging the early game is even desired by the devs (given there is the biggest danger of snowballing then), but I think you could try less starting res. Starting res are really plenty right now.
Marines can get 3 extractors, armory, obs, gate research right from the start, with an additional infantry portal being the only strategic decision that might delay pg tech.
Aliens can instantly upgrade Hive when the game starts, get 3 harvesters + 3 drifters + cysts, and then 4th drifter and first evolutions structure (finishes at 1 minute mark) without problem.
You just don't have to make any choices or take any chances, you have enough money for everything you could possibly want. You basically jump into mid game 60 seconds after the game started.
Maybe less starting res can help making the early game longer, require Gorges/Lerks (so no Fade explosion) etc.
Or try what 15 res RTs do to the game? Or maybe overall slower res flow? I think you just get too much money too fast.
---
About RFK: how instead of RFK, make it RFsomethingthatactuallyhelpsyourteamandnotjustpointlesskills? RFscore, RFresourcetowerskilled, something like that.
Comments
I agree with pretty much everything in your post, except for this. The fixed order of the abilities exists according to their strength and desired time of appearance. And to prevent some abilities from never being researched throughout the match - it basically puts the fun of players over the commander's decisions in this aspect.
I'd rather see a 4th (more expensive) Biomass upgrade on each Hive, so you actually have a valid choice between staying on 1 Hive to get Leap or to secure a new area and get it along with the other benefits of a second Hive. Plus it would allow to maximize the Biomass level on maps with only 4 TPs.
Concerning IPs:
I agree that aliens have a better autoscaling for spawns right now. It kinda forces marines to drop a second IP themselves straight away on large servers. On the other hand could you argue that a crowd of marines is generally stronger than a crowd of Skulks early on, so marines already have an advantage in large servers that allows them to hold more territory easily and capture more RTs quickly, thus making up for the res that was lost on the 2nd IP.
I find the opposite rather problematic: Marines don't really have an upper limit to their respawn capacity. The alien spawn rate is given by the playercount and costs a lot of res to circumvent temporarily (8 additional spawns for 20 res), but marines only need to pay those 20 res once to permanently increase their respawn capacity. While most commanders will likely only drop a 2nd IP in their base, I've noticed the recent trend that marines start to drop a 3rd or 4th IP in their base when the endgame turtle starts, making it even harder for aliens to tear the base down because marines are constantly getting back into the fight.
Perhaps we could limit it to having only 2 IPs for each CC? (And 3 IPs per CC on servers with more than 20 players?) This would add more incentive to a second CC as well, since it allows you to increase your respawn capacities.
About parasiting structures:
I find it utterly useless on structures in its current form, since the parasite has a lifespan here as well. There was a time in the Balance mod when it was infinite, so you were able to make those structures permanently known to your team. (Which kinda made sense on those, since they are structures that can only be placed on fixed locations in the map. So if you saw them once on the map, you already remembered their existence)
But being able to parasite them for 30 seconds doesn't really help anyone in any shape or form, since that is usually the time span during which you would hang around that structure anyway after spotting them. They can't move away, so there is no point in tracking them.
If they would automatically highlight marines in a short range around the parasited structure, then it would probably make sense to use them for reconnaissance. But right now it just seems like an obsolete mechanic.
I get your point, but I don't agree with this. A khammander still can decide not to research certain abilities. You see Umbra not being researched a lot.
I was thinking the same thing, the draw cyst is cool and all, but I do like to try and hide my cysts (behind a box), so the 'rines need to look for it, instead of having it in the open. Whilst the idea of the Cystem is very good, for going down long corridors, its not so good when you want to places cysts in hidden places in contested areas. Will have to Alien Khamm sometime to check it out.
The only problem is the cyst exclusion zone around each cyst is not accurate. If you JUST build your 2nd cyst outside of the exclusion zone, it's actually still inside, and winds up killing the 1st cyst. This should be rectified. For those wondering, close cysting is invaluable to make it harder to kill your harvesters - having 2/3 cysts per harvesters prevent them from taking off-infestation damage easily, buying time.
EDIT: Also pretty sure when someone sees that they think "1,000" not, "less than 1,000".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_price
http://www.momentmatters.com/2012/11/23/the-psychology-of-9-99-10-and-1200/
excerpt:
William Poundstone on his book Priceless analyzed eight different studies on .99 prices and found that sales increase by 24% on .99 prices compared to the 10s. Kenneth J. Wisniewski from the University of Chicago conducted another study at a local grocery chain: sales of margarine increased by 65% when price was dropped from 89 cents to 71 cents; but it increased by 222% when dropped to 69 cents!
I would make it 10 res to lessen the relentless suicide gorge rushes.
People are really stupid.
So you can basically accidentally place cysts that will instantly die again. Plus it keeps the Cystem from placing the missing cysts to the nearest connection automatically, since it considers the uncut cyst island the closest chain.
We do not have the same experience. I have experienced on unmodded servers:
* 0 chance to fine tune cyst drops. And yes, I took ample time to remotely try in various ranges of the parent cyst. Even tested on uwe servers, just incase you wondered the mod free statement.
* cysts shift places a bit between my drop zone and the actual place.
* being completely unable to cyst standard 250 cystable hallways. (rare but happened, this one I tried for minutes on end from different angels, sides, etc)
* incorrect shown max range on cysts.
* cyst green for placement and being completely unable to place. (slightly moving '2 cysts' in a direction did place)
Areas were unblocked, no marine presence, player checked by fellow skulks.
How not everyone has experienced this is interested and puzzling. I will surely keep my eyes open for it.
- The problem with the Cystem is that it starts the cyst chain from the nearest cyst, not the nearest connected cyst. This makes it really annoying to repair an interrupted cyst chain. You try to place a cyst to fix the chain, but the new chain starts from your disconnected cyst, and you can NOT see whether the chain will be fixed before you place the new cyst(s). You can place unconnected cysts! (they show as orange= connected, then the game realizes they aren't actually connected and they grey out, then they subsequently die)
- The other problem is the cooldowns (formerly known as COMMANDERERROR_MUST_WAIT). Please please please remove the cooldown for re-placing a cyst (the red filled circle that appears on the ground) and the cooldown for placing a new extractor/harvester. These are SO annoying, there must be a better way to combat cyst spam.
- A third, minor problem is that you can NOT place cysts everywhere, the seem to snap to a grid or something (this is what Darkling means).
These three things don't stop you from successful cysting, they are just really really annoying (especially in combination - placing an unconnected cyst and then not being able to fix that quickly because of cooldown), please improve on them.i added today a VERY experimental change to the mod (RFK), with all other changes removed. i want to see the impact RFK would have to todays NS2, and would appreciated feedback (both positive and negative, just no rage please). its quite unlikely that RFK will find its way any time soon (unchained comm station didnt either) into the game, so take any changes in this mod with a grain of salt, as usual.
actually I will correct you on point 3.
Its not minor, but a huge problem if you can not infest large areas. To go all the way through lava falls from your most topright hive to the rt left of it is a insane waste of res, time and it should work without a detour.
I agree on the other points in the cysting the rest has stated. I noticed the dying chains also.
A small addition to earlier reports.. Cysts seemed more precise last match I played. Aparently the inprecise problem is always happening, which explains why it passed beta testing. This will be hard to fix, I will hope I can reproduce.
Apreciate the work already from what you are typing.
@sewlek After you get your information on this, please continue to try RFK with original/classic lifeform pricing and free upgrades. (I like changing upgrades but.. maybe only as skulk?)
Not sure it'll work like this though, just means the first fade will come out quicker if you don't change lifeform timing.
Dont trust everything you read in psych papers, it is the weakest of all the sciences in terms of reliability. Hell large swathes of it are barely even science.
Does anyone still play the BT mod? I havent seen a populated server since 250 came out.
There would have to be something like diminishing returns on players or making the reward based on the threat of the enemy player (killing a guy with a 20/3 K/D ratio would give more res than killing one with a 0/34 yet again).
What happened to untied CCs? So much fun. : (
What you say is true, but at the same time you can't really blame players for going fade when they're absolutely essential for aliens to win outside of an early base rush. They're rather omni important right now.
Marines can get 3 extractors, armory, obs, gate research right from the start, with an additional infantry portal being the only strategic decision that might delay pg tech.
Aliens can instantly upgrade Hive when the game starts, get 3 harvesters + 3 drifters + cysts, and then 4th drifter and first evolutions structure (finishes at 1 minute mark) without problem.
You just don't have to make any choices or take any chances, you have enough money for everything you could possibly want. You basically jump into mid game 60 seconds after the game started.
Maybe less starting res can help making the early game longer, require Gorges/Lerks (so no Fade explosion) etc.
Or try what 15 res RTs do to the game? Or maybe overall slower res flow? I think you just get too much money too fast.
---
About RFK: how instead of RFK, make it RFsomethingthatactuallyhelpsyourteamandnotjustpointlesskills? RFscore, RFresourcetowerskilled, something like that.
"no, you go ahead first. I'll take the kill credit so I can fade quicker"
"yeah sure!" *waits. goes for the kill credit*