Remove the hidden 10 second delay before a destroyed powernode can be repaired.
This was done for good reason, as we saw plenty of downsides when removing it in play tests.
But it does need to not be "hidden", I've been harping on this since it's implementation
Just have a simple 3d hologram infront of it with a timer in digits or a completing circle.
Speaking of 3d.. @Sewlek where's your 3d armory menu!?
My understanding is that the 10-second delay was one of maybe a dozen crappy solutions to something else *hint hint*
no, the cap is there to have just an upper limit and maintain a minimum quality for gameplay. fighting 50 crags or 30 ARCs is no fun
This makes absolutely no sense. Currently comp matches run fine without a supply cap and your scenario is greatly exaggerated, I assume you're referring to public games only there. If the current supply cap remains, you have to at least put arc speed back up to vanilla, otherwise they are a massive supply dump. Also where are my mobile armouries / phase gates, aliens can move everything around.
If the limit or costs could be tweaked, to not actually affect a normal game, but still prevent the over spamming potential.
As it is, alot of the late game fun has been sapped from marine commander and it has just been turned into a med machine that drops buildings occasionally.
*edit: After re reading you were probably not referring to performance, my bad.
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited May 2013
[quote=IronHorse]This was done for good reason, as we saw plenty of downsides when removing it in play tests.[/quote]
I see downsides of the entire power node system everytime I play NS2.
.. Arg.
As for downsides to this particular issue, I assume the problem was marines rebuilding the power node too quickly thus not letting players properly immerse themselves and be awed by the dynamic lighting. That and something about it not being meaningful often enough whenever a power node was destroyed.
I think losing every single structure in a room is plenty meaningful without a 10? second cool down before repair can even begin and the marine game is allowed to continue. Some coordination on part of the aliens seems reasonable.
And yes, hidden timers are awful. Although even if this timer wasn't hidden, you'd still have the common situation of a handful of players waiting around in base too rebuild the power node so they can continue playing the game.
I think there's a better way to limit the number of ARCs and crags than by imposing a strict supply cap. Just limit those units specifically. There's no need to have ARCs have a direct bearing on how many PGs or IPs you can have.
no, the cap is there to have just an upper limit and maintain a minimum quality for gameplay. fighting 50 crags or 30 ARCs is no fun
*edited to be more constructive/detailed*
If the reason is not performance, then wouldn't it be better to think about what circumstances these situations occur in, and why they occur. I mean, what game are you going to see building/entity spam? a) Long, drawn out stalemates with alot of res. - Entity spam is legit here imo. The game should already be in this kind of state at this time since both teams are allowing it to happen. If this is a real problem, then address the stalemate issues i.e. res income, RT cost, spawn times etc. (most already addressed) b) Troll games. - Entity spam shoudl be allowed here, with unwanted trolls banned and dealt with by community. I don't think the dev should very strictly control how people want to have fun or play the game. Any balance issues should ideally be controlled by res cost etc. For example, while sc2 has a supply cap, most of the balance comes from
res costs etc, and trolling with say 150 banelings is allowed in certain player contextual circumstances. c) Some kind of imbalanced cost to power on certain buildings that cause unwanted player behaviour. - Fix the cost to power imbalance, despite the relationships sometimes being more complex.. I don't think there is much of this in the bt mod. The res costs and powers are much more in the ballpark than ns2 live. d) Lack of late game tres sinks I think this one is already one of your concerns and you've thought about it much more than i have!
These supply caps are chasing ghosts for the most part, and tend to mask / shift focus away from fixing underlying problems. Imo they should really only be used as last line of defence balance/gameplay quality measures aimed specifically for a very end-game context (not early/mid). For example, base drifter being really fast and too tanky even at 250 hp. A supply cap doesn't exactly address this or spotlight it. Going OT: I still think the problem was not the drifters being able to attack, but drifter hp, res cost, free cloak, and maybe even build time, although drifter atk dmg could have also been lowered by 50%.
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
No its back to html again :-\
Ya, at one point it was suggested to just increase the build time by adding on that ten seconds.
But the outcome would still have been the same : it made it so there might as well have been no power node whenever there was multiple macs/welders/repairing marines. It just became an annoying on /off switch, temporarily drawing their attention.
A lot can happen in ten seconds when aliens know your power is out.
I think the power node mechanic would work fine and no timer like this would be needed if there was none in tech point rooms. CCs don't need power to operate as it is, and this would remove the base win button which was kept for years in order to disable..... sentry farms..........
:-P
If power nodes are removed from tech points then there's no reason whatsoever for them to exist anymore. I still maintain that structures should operate without power, and power nodes should be balanced as simple light switches.
[quote=IronHorse]This was done for good reason, as we saw plenty of downsides when removing it in play tests.[/quote]
I see downsides of the entire power node system everytime I play NS2.
.. Arg.
As for downsides to this particular issue, I assume the problem was marines rebuilding the power node too quickly thus not letting players properly immerse themselves and be awed by the dynamic lighting. That and something about it not being meaningful often enough whenever a power node was destroyed.
I think losing every single structure in a room is plenty meaningful without a 10? second cool down before repair can even begin and the marine game is allowed to continue. Some coordination on part of the aliens seems reasonable.
And yes, hidden timers are awful. Although even if this timer wasn't hidden, you'd still have the common situation of a handful of players waiting around in base too rebuild the power node so they can continue playing the game.
edit: bb code doesn't work on the forums anymore?
Bring back power node costs and force comms to buy a new socket each tme one is destroyed (you know..like cysts costs aliens)
The issue with having 0 delay meant aliens got almost 0 benefit from taking out power...as it cost nothing to repair and meant at most a few seconds of darkness.
Other the count down timer as ironhorse has suggested would also be a better solution to the current.
Ya, at one point it was suggested to just increase the build time by adding on that ten seconds.
But the outcome would still have been the same : it made it so there might as well have been no power node whenever there was multiple macs/welders/repairing marines. It just became an annoying on /off switch, temporarily drawing their attention.
Probably gonna seem like a silly question... Did you guys try allowing the power node to be repaired immediately, and moving the delay until after the node is finished?
That seems like it would make more sense, and be less
frustrating. I honestly didn't even know that the delay was intentional. Every time it's stopped me from repairing it's just felt like a bug.
Putting the delay after the node is finished could be pretty cool, too.
It's like the node gets repaired and it takes time to generate enough
nanites to power the structures or something, or like repairing the node
is like turning on the computers that control the "systems" or
whatever.. could even make the lights flicker on and off horror movie
style a couple of times while everything is powering back on.
I do like the way power nodes work right now for the most part. It's annoying when you're a marine to have to repair the node.. but at the same time when I play aliens it always feels satisfying to kill the power when you do something like reclaim a tech point. I'm also fond of killing the power at both of the marine naturals if there isn't anything else i need to do at that moment.
Power nodes are advertised and masked as a gameplay feature that creates immersion and a level of atmosphere not seen in any other game.\
Power nodes in reality serve two purposes; create a visual distraction/obstruction for marines hindering their ability to aim/track properly and to allow aliens to win games they shouldn't. What the fuck else do they do.. seriously. Throw infestation in there as well as it kills fps.
Two of the largest features for NS2 that have such a minor positive effect for gameplay, cripple performance (infestation ala cysts) and reduce visibility.
I hope that once Flayra completely steps away from the game that Sewlek will allowed to slowly remove that crap from the game. To much to hope right now, but maybe in 12 months?
Yeah, infestation kind of blows i remember when they put in the cyst mechanic back in beta, i've always thought it kind of sucked. I liked when the gorge could spread the infestation, made it seem like he had a real job. Would be cool if structures generated their own infestation, too. So a gorge could run to an RT, put down enough infestation to drop it, then the RT would slowly take over the whole room.
I think at one point infestation was supposed to do a slow DOT to powernodes, which could have been kind of cool if they got the numbers in the right spot as to make it useful, but not too annoying for the marines. I might be confusing it with a suggestion that was made on the forums, idk.
Overall though, infestation is really only cool because of the immersion aspect that it can provide, which I really don't think is a bad thing. I see a lot of people complaining about things being added for immersion... I don't think that the attempt at "immersion" is a bad thing, I just think that a lot of the way it's done in NS2 is kind of bad. (I.E. excessive particle effects, insane amounts of light entities on every map, ambient occlusion that makes the average computer cry for mercy...)
Being able to kill the lights in a room is kind of cool though, and I like a lot of the ambient sounds in the maps. I think it kind of sucks that they were taken out of the NSL versions of the maps.
I hope that once Flayra completely steps away from the game that Sewlek will allowed to slowly remove that crap from the game. To much to hope right now, but maybe in 12 months?
I like the idea of infestation and power nodes. However their current implementation and effect on the game, I do not like.
Also, for a niche game like NS2, how long can it really wait before things get sorted? I'm probably wrong but currently I don't see NS2's lifespan to be nearly as long as NS1, which is a sad thing because the concept is awesome.
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited May 2013
Would it be a good idea to move Nano Shield research to Arms Lab, as well as adding Arms Lab as Nano requirement? I think it would add some "cool factor" to the Arms Lab.
On the other hand, Marines should be able to keep their armour and weapon upgrades without an Arms Lab, as it isn't very intuitive, and too crippling for Marines.
Exo speed buff also seems a bit unnecessary, since they can use thrusters to boost speed. Exo base armour nerf seems rather harsh.
Power nodes are advertised and masked as a gameplay feature that creates immersion and a level of atmosphere not seen in any other game.
What else would you put in trailers and game ads, some kind of world that doesn't have lights that turn on and off at the flick of a switch?
Maybe instead of power nodes each room could have a toggle button on the lights, when marines sweep a room one person mans the light switch while the marine team press out and clear the room before pushing on, cut to a skulk taking out the light switch man and queue sinister sharp violin music once the lights turn off and all the marines turn around in unison...NS2.
Would it be a good idea to move Nano Shield research to Arms Lab, as well as adding Arms Lab as Nano requirement? I think it would add some "cool factor" to the Arms Lab.
On the other hand, Marines should be able to keep their armour and weapon upgrades without an Arms Lab, as it isn't very intuitive, and too crippling for Marines.
Exo speed buff also seems a bit unnecessary, since they can use thrusters to boost speed. Exo base armour nerf seems rather harsh.
What? Then what would be the point of attacking it? Or even keeping it after research is complete? Aliens taking down the arms labs and marines losing upgrades makes for great potential come backs and interesting situations.
cripple performance (infestation ala cysts) and reduce visibility.
That used to be the case but these days Cysts should have minimal impact on performance?
And when this game was first announced dynamic lighting was a major selling point.. It was an exciting premise and has since been reduced to a brief 3 second occurrence in an infrequent scenario. (red lighting is clear as day) So i have a hard time seeing it as being in the same camp as gorge spit.
If these are the worst that these mechanics can impact game play then I still see them as being small fries compared to way more important issues at hand like alien scaling, skulk movement, alien tech tree, alien T3 viability, sentry viability, marine turtles, input delay, interp and client update rate, min /max gap of fps, mods unable to get passed consistency, server browser issues, and hard coded keys.
JektJoin Date: 2012-02-05Member: 143714Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited May 2013
Was curious about the cyst performance improvements that were put in a few builds ago and how infestation still hits framerates.
After testing on an empty server for a few minutes, I recorded results from running around sub sector first without infestation, and then with 5 cysts spread around the room.
13% drop with minimal
22% drop with rich
After cysting most the map and trying again it was ~ 16%.
It's not infestation where I notice the big losses, it's the frames lost to it combined with things like crag healing wave, eggs popping, hives healing, things burning, whips whipping, hydras spiking, particles absolutely everywhere. Walking into a hive room with all of these structures and lifeforms using abilities and interacting with each other is what absolutely eats the frames, slide show mode engaged - 60% frame loss.
If power nodes are removed from tech points then there's no reason whatsoever for them to exist anymore. I still maintain that structures should operate without power, and power nodes should be balanced as simple light switches.
That sounds interesting, like a full blackout? I mean I already have my flashlight on the entire time, why not give even more of a reason
That sounds interesting, like a full blackout? I mean I already have my flashlight on the entire time, why not give even more of a reason
Yeah, or at least with darker emergency lighting so marines care about repairing it. Also part of this should be minimal alien vision IMO so aliens don't mind leaving it on all the time.
no, the cap is there to have just an upper limit and maintain a minimum quality for gameplay. fighting 50 crags or 30 ARCs is no fun
*edited to be more constructive/detailed*
If the reason is not performance, then wouldn't it be better to think about what circumstances these situations occur in, and why they occur. I mean, what game are you going to see building/entity spam? a) Long, drawn out stalemates with alot of res. - Entity spam is legit here imo. The game should already be in this kind of state at this time since both teams are allowing it to happen. If this is a real problem, then address the stalemate issues i.e. res income, RT cost, spawn times etc. (most already addressed) b) Troll games. - Entity spam shoudl be allowed here, with unwanted trolls banned and dealt with by community. I don't think the dev should very strictly control how people want to have fun or play the game. Any balance issues should ideally be controlled by res cost etc. For example, while sc2 has a supply cap, most of the balance comes from
res costs etc, and trolling with say 150 banelings is allowed in certain player contextual circumstances. c) Some kind of imbalanced cost to power on certain buildings that cause unwanted player behaviour. - Fix the cost to power imbalance, despite the relationships sometimes being more complex.. I don't think there is much of this in the bt mod. The res costs and powers are much more in the ballpark than ns2 live. d) Lack of late game tres sinks I think this one is already one of your concerns and you've thought about it much more than i have!
These supply caps are chasing ghosts for the most part, and tend to mask / shift focus away from fixing underlying problems. Imo they should really only be used as last line of defence balance/gameplay quality measures aimed specifically for a very end-game context (not early/mid). For example, base drifter being really fast and too tanky even at 250 hp. A supply cap doesn't exactly address this or spotlight it. Going OT: I still think the problem was not the drifters being able to attack, but drifter hp, res cost, free cloak, and maybe even build time, although drifter atk dmg could have also been lowered by 50%.
What point are you trying to make by arguing against the supply limit?
There are good reasons against having entity spam occuring, I don't see a problem with having a mechanic that prevents it. If you try to address the spam issue by adjusting the cost/time/use values of the respective entities, you are opening more can of worms than you are going to fix with it. If a structure is expensive enough to be a lategame res sink, you are denying it's use in the early game when you may actually need it most.
A different matter is that a real supply cap that actually makes an impact in the game and does not only limit the lategame adds more importance to territory control. Since your cap depends on the number of TPs that you can control, your power to establish more control or launch attack stands and falls with your existing control. It actually makes territory more important on both sides. In vanilla marines rely mostly on res and don't have much reason for a second CC except for a Prototype Lab. Not even talking about the third CC here. You can still get your massive ARC train or plenty of Sentries everywhere, but only if you have the proper map control. The team that holds more stuff has the right to get more NPC support during the match and can get the edge. Likewise can a team that is pushed back to their last base not build up such a massive line of defense anymore. Just saving up your res but being unable to secure any TPs should not be rewarded.
no, the cap is there to have just an upper limit and maintain a minimum quality for gameplay. fighting 50 crags or 30 ARCs is no fun
This makes absolutely no sense. Currently comp matches run fine without a supply cap and your scenario is greatly exaggerated, I assume you're referring to public games only there. If the current supply cap remains, you have to at least put arc speed back up to vanilla, otherwise they are a massive supply dump. Also where are my mobile armouries / phase gates, aliens can move everything around.
If the limit or costs could be tweaked, to not actually affect a normal game, but still prevent the over spamming potential.
As it is, alot of the late game fun has been sapped from marine commander and it has just been turned into a med machine that drops buildings occasionally.
*edit: After re reading you were probably not referring to performance, my bad.
So let me get this straight… you think the argument is invalid because it doesn't affect comp, so you don't want to have a fix to a pub issue in the game that wouldn't really have any effect on comp either? You are not making any sense there.
What has the ARC speed to do with the supply cap? The point of slow ARCs is to encourage marines building more ARC Factories close to the alien base (hence why the upgrade speed and production speed has been increased to compensate for the slowdown) instead of having the production sit without much risk in the main base. If they want to do that, they have to accept that aliens have more time to intercept the ARC train.
Alien structures can move, marine structures can't. Ever heard of "asymmetry"? It's in this game, you know? Marines can sell structures and rebuild them somewhere else; aliens can't sell them but slowly move them. (Also, aliens can't move everything. Only chambers and Whips).
I can't agree that the marine commander gameplay has become less fun. I can still do all stuff in the lategame just as well as I could in vanilla. The supply cap is not anywhere as bad as you make it out to be and I've yet to get to a point where I am using more than 200 supply in the lategame. And if I do, I just get another CC up.
Was curious about the cyst performance improvements that were put in a few builds ago and how infestation still hits framerates.
After testing on an empty server for a few minutes, I recorded results from running around sub sector first without infestation, and then with 5 cysts spread around the room.
13% drop with minimal
22% drop with rich
After cysting most the map and trying again it was ~ 16%.
It's not infestation where I notice the big losses, it's the frames lost to it combined with things like crag healing wave, eggs popping, hives healing, things burning, whips whipping, hydras spiking, particles absolutely everywhere. Walking into a hive room with all of these structures and lifeforms using abilities and interacting with each other is what absolutely eats the frames, slide show mode engaged - 60% frame loss.
Yes, or certain parts of the map when that is going I've gotten drops from 120 down to 40. (south tunnels on tram)
The amount of frame drop and jitter makes the game abysmal to attempt to play with some competency.
Have you considered making arcs "activated" by marines? They can be "deployed", "undeployed" and moved around as normal by the commander but require at least one marine to be able to turn them on. This offers a natural soft-cap solution to ARC-spam, promotes the commander->marine relationship and is preferable gameplay overall.
Have you considered making arcs "activated" by marines? They can be "deployed", "undeployed" and moved around as normal by the commander but require at least one marine to be able to turn them on. This offers a natural soft-cap solution to ARC-spam, promotes the commander->marine relationship and is preferable gameplay overall.
Had that in the Balance Test but it got removed again before I even got a chance to try it. Seems like it just didn't work out.
Have you considered making arcs "activated" by marines? They can be "deployed", "undeployed" and moved around as normal by the commander but require at least one marine to be able to turn them on. This offers a natural soft-cap solution to ARC-spam, promotes the commander->marine relationship and is preferable gameplay overall.
Had that in the Balance Test but it got removed again before I even got a chance to try it. Seems like it just didn't work out.
Would it be a good idea to move Nano Shield research to Arms Lab, as well as adding Arms Lab as Nano requirement? I think it would add some "cool factor" to the Arms Lab.
On the other hand, Marines should be able to keep their armour and weapon upgrades without an Arms Lab, as it isn't very intuitive, and too crippling for Marines.
Exo speed buff also seems a bit unnecessary, since they can use thrusters to boost speed. Exo base armour nerf seems rather harsh.
Nanoshield was on the Arms Lab in the beginning before it got moved to the CC. Not sure why exactly, perhaps it should not require an additional 200 res investment or block other research at that point. Nanoshield is gone completely now anyway. Though I honestly would not mind to get it back again, but only as optional and not a mandatory upgrade. That means it's rate should go back down to 0.5 per second instead of the 0.75 that it had in the end. And it should be in the Arms Lab again to make it a steeper investment in the beginning and to also make blocking other Arms Lab research a trade off.
Jekt already pointed out why it would be ridiculous to untie everything from the Arms Lab after it got researched. Crippling enemies by taking out key structures is a nice mechanic. So nice that it even got adapted for alien trait structures.
Exo balance is a difficult topic. On a low population server, lone Exos die very fast to any alien they oppose. At a high population, the cheap price of Exos and the amount of potentially available support for them easily induces deadly trains that can mow down half the alien team as soon as it shows. The aliens can't dance around Exo legs then because there's always another Exo who can easily cover the one under attack. A cap on the number of total Exos on the field would probably be a solution but way too arbitrary and limiting for the general gameplay in that mode (as opposed to Combat where it makes sense to have such a limit in place).
In the end I would probably crank Exo cost back up to prevent the constant flow of them because they are not a big loss to marines. Keep the speed bonus and nerfed damage and leave the lower armor but allowing to get a little more per each upgrade so that it's close to the vanilla values but still lower overall. Or adjust research cost and time so that they come out later in the game and open a window of opportunity for aliens to destroy the ProtoLab in time.
Was curious about the cyst performance improvements that were put in a few builds ago and how infestation still hits framerates.
After testing on an empty server for a few minutes, I recorded results from running around sub sector first without infestation, and then with 5 cysts spread around the room.
13% drop with minimal
22% drop with rich
After cysting most the map and trying again it was ~ 16%.
It's not infestation where I notice the big losses, it's the frames lost to it combined with things like crag healing wave, eggs popping, hives healing, things burning, whips whipping, hydras spiking, particles absolutely everywhere. Walking into a hive room with all of these structures and lifeforms using abilities and interacting with each other is what absolutely eats the frames, slide show mode engaged - 60% frame loss.
I would concur that the entities and their effects are the frame droppers.
I did similar testing and only noted a few fps (never more than 5) loss when cysting rooms or whole maps back in testing.
Hence why i don't see that argument being a viable one anymore, especially considering the other items that need looking at, like you and I both mention.
The issue I see with Marines is that due to both Jetpacks and Exos being low cost, but super high mobility, it brings an issue of larger player servers just ends up ending the game. They have an issue of late game or with high server population late game it just becomes a massive spawn fest.
This is also the issue of Railgun tech rush is completely viable to a stupid degree. As long as they oneshot Slulks regardless of the weapons upgrade, they will be horribly broken with low res costs. Their weakness of low health doesn't matter if Aliens can't get close due to higher populations. The higher cost with more health made massing it harder and slower. It will also mean it is harder for Marines to get a critical mass of DPS.
Comments
My understanding is that the 10-second delay was one of maybe a dozen crappy solutions to something else *hint hint*
Spawneh can you present the maths you worked out yesterday on mumble?
I think it was like 1 armoury, 2 IP's, 2 phase gates + 4 arcs = 100 supply?
I see downsides of the entire power node system everytime I play NS2.
.. Arg.
As for downsides to this particular issue, I assume the problem was marines rebuilding the power node too quickly thus not letting players properly immerse themselves and be awed by the dynamic lighting. That and something about it not being meaningful often enough whenever a power node was destroyed.
I think losing every single structure in a room is plenty meaningful without a 10? second cool down before repair can even begin and the marine game is allowed to continue. Some coordination on part of the aliens seems reasonable.
And yes, hidden timers are awful. Although even if this timer wasn't hidden, you'd still have the common situation of a handful of players waiting around in base too rebuild the power node so they can continue playing the game.
edit: bb code doesn't work on the forums anymore?
If the reason is not performance, then wouldn't it be better to think about what circumstances these situations occur in, and why they occur. I mean, what game are you going to see building/entity spam?
a) Long, drawn out stalemates with alot of res.
- Entity spam is legit here imo. The game should already be in this kind of state at this time since both teams are allowing it to happen. If this is a real problem, then address the stalemate issues i.e. res income, RT cost, spawn times etc. (most already addressed)
b) Troll games.
- Entity spam shoudl be allowed here, with unwanted trolls banned and dealt with by community. I don't think the dev should very strictly control how people want to have fun or play the game. Any balance issues should ideally be controlled by res cost etc. For example, while sc2 has a supply cap, most of the balance comes from res costs etc, and trolling with say 150 banelings is allowed in certain player contextual circumstances.
c) Some kind of imbalanced cost to power on certain buildings that cause unwanted player behaviour.
- Fix the cost to power imbalance, despite the relationships sometimes being more complex.. I don't think there is much of this in the bt mod. The res costs and powers are much more in the ballpark than ns2 live.
d) Lack of late game tres sinks
I think this one is already one of your concerns and you've thought about it much more than i have!
These supply caps are chasing ghosts for the most part, and tend to mask / shift focus away from fixing underlying problems. Imo they should really only be used as last line of defence balance/gameplay quality measures aimed specifically for a very end-game context (not early/mid). For example, base drifter being really fast and too tanky even at 250 hp. A supply cap doesn't exactly address this or spotlight it. Going OT: I still think the problem was not the drifters being able to attack, but drifter hp, res cost, free cloak, and maybe even build time, although drifter atk dmg could have also been lowered by 50%.
Ya, at one point it was suggested to just increase the build time by adding on that ten seconds.
But the outcome would still have been the same : it made it so there might as well have been no power node whenever there was multiple macs/welders/repairing marines. It just became an annoying on /off switch, temporarily drawing their attention.
A lot can happen in ten seconds when aliens know your power is out.
I think the power node mechanic would work fine and no timer like this would be needed if there was none in tech point rooms. CCs don't need power to operate as it is, and this would remove the base win button which was kept for years in order to disable..... sentry farms..........
:-P
Bring back power node costs and force comms to buy a new socket each tme one is destroyed (you know..like cysts costs aliens)
The issue with having 0 delay meant aliens got almost 0 benefit from taking out power...as it cost nothing to repair and meant at most a few seconds of darkness.
Other the count down timer as ironhorse has suggested would also be a better solution to the current.
That seems like it would make more sense, and be less frustrating. I honestly didn't even know that the delay was intentional. Every time it's stopped me from repairing it's just felt like a bug. Putting the delay after the node is finished could be pretty cool, too. It's like the node gets repaired and it takes time to generate enough nanites to power the structures or something, or like repairing the node is like turning on the computers that control the "systems" or whatever.. could even make the lights flicker on and off horror movie style a couple of times while everything is powering back on.
I do like the way power nodes work right now for the most part. It's annoying when you're a marine to have to repair the node.. but at the same time when I play aliens it always feels satisfying to kill the power when you do something like reclaim a tech point. I'm also fond of killing the power at both of the marine naturals if there isn't anything else i need to do at that moment.
Power nodes are advertised and masked as a gameplay feature that creates immersion and a level of atmosphere not seen in any other game.\
Power nodes in reality serve two purposes; create a visual distraction/obstruction for marines hindering their ability to aim/track properly and to allow aliens to win games they shouldn't. What the fuck else do they do.. seriously. Throw infestation in there as well as it kills fps.
Two of the largest features for NS2 that have such a minor positive effect for gameplay, cripple performance (infestation ala cysts) and reduce visibility.
I hope that once Flayra completely steps away from the game that Sewlek will allowed to slowly remove that crap from the game. To much to hope right now, but maybe in 12 months?
I think at one point infestation was supposed to do a slow DOT to powernodes, which could have been kind of cool if they got the numbers in the right spot as to make it useful, but not too annoying for the marines. I might be confusing it with a suggestion that was made on the forums, idk.
Overall though, infestation is really only cool because of the immersion aspect that it can provide, which I really don't think is a bad thing. I see a lot of people complaining about things being added for immersion... I don't think that the attempt at "immersion" is a bad thing, I just think that a lot of the way it's done in NS2 is kind of bad. (I.E. excessive particle effects, insane amounts of light entities on every map, ambient occlusion that makes the average computer cry for mercy...)
Being able to kill the lights in a room is kind of cool though, and I like a lot of the ambient sounds in the maps. I think it kind of sucks that they were taken out of the NSL versions of the maps.
I like the idea of infestation and power nodes. However their current implementation and effect on the game, I do not like.
Also, for a niche game like NS2, how long can it really wait before things get sorted? I'm probably wrong but currently I don't see NS2's lifespan to be nearly as long as NS1, which is a sad thing because the concept is awesome.
What else would you put in trailers and game ads, some kind of world that doesn't have lights that turn on and off at the flick of a switch?
Maybe instead of power nodes each room could have a toggle button on the lights, when marines sweep a room one person mans the light switch while the marine team press out and clear the room before pushing on, cut to a skulk taking out the light switch man and queue sinister sharp violin music once the lights turn off and all the marines turn around in unison...NS2.
And when this game was first announced dynamic lighting was a major selling point.. It was an exciting premise and has since been reduced to a brief 3 second occurrence in an infrequent scenario. (red lighting is clear as day) So i have a hard time seeing it as being in the same camp as gorge spit.
If these are the worst that these mechanics can impact game play then I still see them as being small fries compared to way more important issues at hand like alien scaling, skulk movement, alien tech tree, alien T3 viability, sentry viability, marine turtles, input delay, interp and client update rate, min /max gap of fps, mods unable to get passed consistency, server browser issues, and hard coded keys.
Yeah, or at least with darker emergency lighting so marines care about repairing it. Also part of this should be minimal alien vision IMO so aliens don't mind leaving it on all the time.
What point are you trying to make by arguing against the supply limit?
There are good reasons against having entity spam occuring, I don't see a problem with having a mechanic that prevents it.
If you try to address the spam issue by adjusting the cost/time/use values of the respective entities, you are opening more can of worms than you are going to fix with it. If a structure is expensive enough to be a lategame res sink, you are denying it's use in the early game when you may actually need it most.
A different matter is that a real supply cap that actually makes an impact in the game and does not only limit the lategame adds more importance to territory control. Since your cap depends on the number of TPs that you can control, your power to establish more control or launch attack stands and falls with your existing control. It actually makes territory more important on both sides.
In vanilla marines rely mostly on res and don't have much reason for a second CC except for a Prototype Lab. Not even talking about the third CC here.
You can still get your massive ARC train or plenty of Sentries everywhere, but only if you have the proper map control. The team that holds more stuff has the right to get more NPC support during the match and can get the edge. Likewise can a team that is pushed back to their last base not build up such a massive line of defense anymore. Just saving up your res but being unable to secure any TPs should not be rewarded.
So let me get this straight… you think the argument is invalid because it doesn't affect comp, so you don't want to have a fix to a pub issue in the game that wouldn't really have any effect on comp either? You are not making any sense there.
What has the ARC speed to do with the supply cap? The point of slow ARCs is to encourage marines building more ARC Factories close to the alien base (hence why the upgrade speed and production speed has been increased to compensate for the slowdown) instead of having the production sit without much risk in the main base. If they want to do that, they have to accept that aliens have more time to intercept the ARC train.
Alien structures can move, marine structures can't. Ever heard of "asymmetry"? It's in this game, you know?
Marines can sell structures and rebuild them somewhere else; aliens can't sell them but slowly move them. (Also, aliens can't move everything. Only chambers and Whips).
I can't agree that the marine commander gameplay has become less fun. I can still do all stuff in the lategame just as well as I could in vanilla. The supply cap is not anywhere as bad as you make it out to be and I've yet to get to a point where I am using more than 200 supply in the lategame. And if I do, I just get another CC up.
Though I honestly would not mind to get it back again, but only as optional and not a mandatory upgrade. That means it's rate should go back down to 0.5 per second instead of the 0.75 that it had in the end. And it should be in the Arms Lab again to make it a steeper investment in the beginning and to also make blocking other Arms Lab research a trade off.
Jekt already pointed out why it would be ridiculous to untie everything from the Arms Lab after it got researched. Crippling enemies by taking out key structures is a nice mechanic. So nice that it even got adapted for alien trait structures.
Exo balance is a difficult topic. On a low population server, lone Exos die very fast to any alien they oppose. At a high population, the cheap price of Exos and the amount of potentially available support for them easily induces deadly trains that can mow down half the alien team as soon as it shows. The aliens can't dance around Exo legs then because there's always another Exo who can easily cover the one under attack.
A cap on the number of total Exos on the field would probably be a solution but way too arbitrary and limiting for the general gameplay in that mode (as opposed to Combat where it makes sense to have such a limit in place).
In the end I would probably crank Exo cost back up to prevent the constant flow of them because they are not a big loss to marines. Keep the speed bonus and nerfed damage and leave the lower armor but allowing to get a little more per each upgrade so that it's close to the vanilla values but still lower overall.
Or adjust research cost and time so that they come out later in the game and open a window of opportunity for aliens to destroy the ProtoLab in time.
This is also the issue of Railgun tech rush is completely viable to a stupid degree. As long as they oneshot Slulks regardless of the weapons upgrade, they will be horribly broken with low res costs. Their weakness of low health doesn't matter if Aliens can't get close due to higher populations. The higher cost with more health made massing it harder and slower. It will also mean it is harder for Marines to get a critical mass of DPS.