biz, you just leave me speechless... Not only do I have no idea where you get your "facts" from nor do I understand your logic. If the aliens push the marines back to 1 base 1 rt, they are obviously better than the marines and it is not a bad aliens vs bad marine game.
aggression doesn't work with bad teams. trying to make marines play aggressive won't fix the problems
good marine teams already play aggressive
Here is what you dont get, if the marines keep getting wiped in fights, they become scared and might start camping. If the aliens dominate the early game and don't let the marines expand, what should they do instead of turtling? (And dont start with concede now). In a scenario where one team dominates the other early on, that team should be able to quickly and decisivly end the game by snowballing. Right now, aliens lack easy siegebraker abilities like acid rocket (which, since I assume you dont know what it is, was a long ranged splash attack for the fade in NS1). That's why "bad" aliens who can't pull off a coordinated attack fail to break the turtles.
The 3rd hive should be the break point of a match. Whether aliens secure 3 tech points or the marines deny 3 tech points should be what the fight is about. If the marines rely on securing 2 techpoints AND denying the aliens their 3rd their winning objective is more difficult compared to the aliens.
I agree if marines actually have a 50% chance of killing that 3rd hive
right now that chance is less than 10% with similarly low skilled teams
And you are overestimating the marine's ability to hold multiple bases vs good aliens. If the marines dont hold a central location, they have no mapcontrol and invite the aliens to take it. It seems to me that you have a weird conception of what playing aggressivly is. If the marines cap half of the map and the aliens cap the other, both teams dont play aggressivly. I also don't understand why you have to play aggressivly all the time, just for the sake of it.
who said anything about good aliens?
i'm talking about bad aliens vs. bad marines (i.e. 95% of games)
aggression doesn't work with bad teams. trying to make marines play aggressive won't fix the problems
good marine teams already play aggressive
the balance is skewed so a bad alien team can force a bad marine team back to 1 base / 1 extractor, but when that wasn't always the case games were very passive because aggression = death
If aggression doesn't work with bad teams, what will? Bad teams are bad teams for a reason. Passivity is something that really should not be encouraged, as it also encourages defensive/turtle-based gameplay. Some passivity is ok, such as being a passive Lerk/Fade which suppresses an enemy squad from advancing, but not necessarily killing them in their paths. It's hard not to say this is a lrn2play issue when you realize NS2 is an oddball surrounded in an industry saturated by the types of games people are used to playing.
Aggression is essential in gaining map control. You put pressure on the enemy team to relieve pressure from the enemy team. How many times have you seen Marines waste time going to East Wing on Docking while the Kharaa team gets busy gaining map control on other areas? This is a lrn2play issue. How many times have you seen Marines cower when they see a Skulk tail peaking from the walls, or hear a Gorge taunt around the corner? This is a lrn2play issue.
The only way I could possibly think in assisting and giving confidence to bad Marine teams while encouraging aggression in the early, most important game round, is by introducing a high-risk, high-reward movement ability that enables Marines to dodge to the side, similar to how the Exo does it with boosters. A dodge-based mechanic being a high-risk movement would benefit the Alien team during combat if the ability has a long enough cool-down to warrant critical-thinking and decision making in battle, while the high-reward benefits the Marine team by potentially dodging a lethal hit. Perhaps something similar to Unreal Tournament's double strafe mechanic, except adding a slight loss of momentum in exchange for a faster, more accelerated dodge. Almost sounds like the Fade's shadow-step but with the same type of momentum conservation the Exosuit booster strafe allows. Maybe even restrict gun-usage during the dodging.
Increasing strafe speed may compensate for better Marine jukes, but does anyone really expect to see a high % of new players even attempting to juke? Hence the reason behind a 1-button dodge mechanic that is risky enough to discourage spamming it, yet rewarding enough to encourage more Marines to play aggressively with confidence.
The current movement system allows Marines to preserve momentum when they jump on a higher surface. Adding a new dodging ability could call for some sick outmaneuvering scenarios, like jumping on top of 3 boxes then chaining a strafe-dodge off of them. Allowing these types of scenarios brings a whole new sense of combat by introducing and encouraging verticality.
The LMG's wider spread is now 'noob-friendly.' The Marine movement should follow suit.
If aggression doesn't work with bad teams, what will?
waiting for exos / w3 / a3 / jetpacks
the skill requirements are too asymmetrical. if you want marines to be aggressive in all games, you have to make aliens harder to play
adding skill-based mechanics for marines (eg. fancier movement) would just make them OP at higher levels of play and cause the devs to buff aliens even more
If aggression doesn't work with bad teams, what will?
waiting for exos / w3 / a3 / jetpacks
the skill requirements are too asymmetrical. if you want marines to be aggressive in all games, you have to make aliens harder to play
adding skill-based mechanics for marines (eg. fancier movement) would just make them OP at higher levels of play and cause the devs to buff aliens even more
The reason is aliens don't need people to build stuff, marines do.
So everyone on marines builds. That is a l2p issue because you dont need someone to stay in base to build (commander can) and you dont need 6 to cap logistics; 5 of those could run straight to repair.
If aggression doesn't work with bad teams, what will?
waiting for exos / w3 / a3 / jetpacks
the skill requirements are too asymmetrical. if you want marines to be aggressive in all games, you have to make aliens harder to play
adding skill-based mechanics for marines (eg. fancier movement) would just make them OP at higher levels of play and cause the devs to buff aliens even more
The reason is aliens don't need people to build stuff, marines do.
So everyone on marines builds. That is a l2p issue because you dont need someone to stay in base to build (commander can) and you dont need 6 to cap logistics; 5 of those could run straight to repair.
And the rest of the marine team can go to obs/elevator. Not every game only has 6 people per team.
If aggression doesn't work with bad teams, what will?
waiting for exos / w3 / a3 / jetpacks
the skill requirements are too asymmetrical. if you want marines to be aggressive in all games, you have to make aliens harder to play
adding skill-based mechanics for marines (eg. fancier movement) would just make them OP at higher levels of play and cause the devs to buff aliens even more
The reason is aliens don't need people to build stuff, marines do.
So everyone on marines builds. That is a l2p issue because you dont need someone to stay in base to build (commander can) and you dont need 6 to cap logistics; 5 of those could run straight to repair.
And the rest of the marine team can go to obs/elevator. Not every game only has 6 people per team.
I didn't say every game has 6 players :S I actually implied minimum 7 but never explicitly limited it to 6 people.
If aggression doesn't work with bad teams, what will?
waiting for exos / w3 / a3 / jetpacks
the skill requirements are too asymmetrical. if you want marines to be aggressive in all games, you have to make aliens harder to play
adding skill-based mechanics for marines (eg. fancier movement) would just make them OP at higher levels of play and cause the devs to buff aliens even more
Why do you keep speculating "x" will be OP when you haven't even tried it yet? This is the 2nd time you've said "x" will be OP with no clear proof as to why, just speculation.
And no, Exos/w3/a3 has little to prove other than delaying the inevitable loss of the marine team while increasing the round-time due to aliens LACKING IN 3RD HIVE ANTI-TURTLE ABILITIES.
If aggression doesn't work with bad teams, what will?
waiting for exos / w3 / a3 / jetpacks
the skill requirements are too asymmetrical. if you want marines to be aggressive in all games, you have to make aliens harder to play
adding skill-based mechanics for marines (eg. fancier movement) would just make them OP at higher levels of play and cause the devs to buff aliens even more
Why do you keep speculating "x" will be OP when you haven't even tried it yet? This is the 2nd time you've said "x" will be OP with no clear proof as to why, just speculation.
And no, Exos/w3/a3 has little to prove other than delaying the inevitable loss of the marine team while increasing the round-time due to aliens LACKING IN 3RD HIVE ANTI-TURTLE ABILITIES.
so you're telling me I'm imagining all those rounds where marines push out after getting late-game tech and win the game?
I'm imagining all those rounds where aggressive marines waste money and die without killing anything important?
you seem to be in some pretend world where you think experiences that decent teams have in 6v6 games translate to random pubs in NA
you can't. the games are completely different and the tactics need to be adjusted accordingly
Why do you keep speculating "x" will be OP when you haven't even tried it yet? This is the 2nd time you've said "x" will be OP with no clear proof as to why, just speculation.
And no, Exos/w3/a3 has little to prove other than delaying the inevitable loss of the marine team while increasing the round-time due to aliens LACKING IN 3RD HIVE ANTI-TURTLE ABILITIES.
I don't know what servers you're on, but the whole "tech to turtle" problem is one of the most common complaints with Build 250+.
Before on 249 you had to push out to secure the second CC to get top tier weapons. Now, the only thing marines can't get is dualies, but that's less of a concern now since Dualies got a health/armor nerf and they're not as useful as before. Plus, with no research advanced infantry weapons plus discounts, marines can come out GL and FT spamming with JP. Whoever authorized these changes to the tech tree for 1 CC is completely out of touch with the game.
And to top that off, because of the 200 supply, it's harder for Alien coms to create lots of minibases everywhere to keep the pressure constant. The days of having 6+ crags and 2+ Shifts in several mini bases near a Marine control point are long gone. Plus, the stacking of multiple structures has disappeared to. There were days in build 249 where a nearly dead Onos could rush into a minibase and be nearly instantly healed. Marines are still losing games way more than they did before, but it's hard to say that the 1 CC system is better over the 2 CC system in terms of game play. Now supply restricts pushing while 1 CC lets marines "tech to turtle."
I feel like adding a new, cooldown-based movement ability for Marines meant for dodging could offset the balance a 3rd hive ability like Acid Rocket/Focus would introduce. All-tech'd up, Marines dodging left and right avoiding Focus bites and dodging acid-rockets.
I'd like to see it done before this is discounted.
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
What if.... 3rd hive alien abilities are never good enough?
What then?
Do any of you supporting this mechanic have a backup plan if:
A) 3rd hive abilities are not strong enough to break turtles The abilities become so incredibly strong that the WHOLE POINT of having this mechanic - creating more comebacks - is now entirely impossible and negated ???
To me, i see it pretty plain and simple.. with the current design:
There is an invisible timer until marines get fully teched, with a "soft" requirement of map control (i.e. Not actually holding the map, just constantly recapping RTs and occasionally denying portions of the map to aliens)
So you have to destroy marines before said timer... or your now super strong 3rd Hive abilities come into play, completely overpowering and negating any fully teched Marine team's ability... yet another invisible timer and a completely forgone conclusion ("oh great, 3 hives, GG") - all to compensate for this band aid mechanic that was slapped onto maps and gameplay designs that were never designed for it.
Btw, the signature long epic games in pubs that are in NS will be gone forever once the remaining issues are sorted, (3rd hive abilities) solely to compensate for this poor design, as everything will be based on a time frame instead of actual equal map control requirements.
xtcmenJoin Date: 2004-04-20Member: 28040Members, Squad Five Blue
I think the biggest pro is for the mapping community. No longer do they have to create 5 Tech point maps. 4 Tech point maps are much easier to balance.
Tell me this, what's the difference between marines needing 2 CCs for endgame tech or marines needing to deny aliens 3/4 CCs if they want to stay in the game? Both situations imply both teams will have to play aggressive in order to win. Whether they need it for their own tech or to deny the enemy's tech, control is going to be vital.
Control =/= Full tech for marines, that's why.
The difference is that denying map control alone does not impact if marines get T3 tech - only when - its an eventuality based on a time frame.
Meaning.. if they lose control /cannot deny the map, they are still in the game. Hence turtles??
Even if you give aliens everything short of an "Aliens Win" banner when they secure that 3rd hive, marines are still in the game.
And if they are not.. if you nerf marine T3 tech, and buff alien T3 to outrageous levels to compensate, you've now just created the most static and predictable game (read: waaayy more boring than holding 2 CCs) where comebacks don't actually occur at all anymore because "Marines got full tech before our 3rd hive? GG" and "Oh we're fully teched, but aliens have 3 hives, GG".
This mechanic was introduced to create more comebacks... but now balancing around it and attempting to force the square peg into the circle hole will ensure they never happen again.
@IronHorse I thought after listing all the pro and con arguments we would enter a second stage of your plan to determine what is best for NS2. You still have to announce this 2nd phase and I am curious.
What I can see from the last posts is that newbie (2013-03 joindate) americans have issues that are not prevailent on european servers. It has been this way since NS2 development started.
I can only talk for myself here but while I was happy to pay money for the fun I had with NS1, I did not have the time nor the ability (bandwith) to participate in the betatest of NS2. For all the balancing issues we face today, I think one reason lies in not enough NS1 veterans in your beta playtests. Almost everywhere NS2 has done things differently than NS1, there exist problems with balance. Examples:
PRES/TRES: Usually, marines have excess pres while aliens have excess tres. Fadeballs and other explosions not included, the res system does not feel balanced for both races. Especially RTs giving more PRes, the more players there are is IMHO not working out the way UWE wants it to.
Tier 3 on 2 CCs: Whatever outcome this dicussion has, the only downside I see is that it enables marines to turtle on one CC as long as the aliens lack the power of breaking it with superiour res.
Powernodes: Their importance has been continuously nerfed so marines can finally build ninja pgs next to hives...
Onos: Once the bane of all marines, now nerfed to the same squishyness it had in NS1 but without the ability to devour marines. Useless in competetive play now.
Alien Buildings: When marines turtled in NS1, aliens built loads of chambers in front of their base to keep on a constant assault. With a khammander, this mechanic was judged to be too strong so artificial caps were placed on alien structures, e.g.: max 3 crags healing one target.
I think I could continue this list but I think the main issue why NS2 had lots of problems is because instead of building upon on the strengths of NS1, UWE threw them away in order to create a new game that does not have the flaws NS1 had. The result is neither the awaited successor of NS1 for the hardcore fans nor a modern FPS-RTS game that appeases the COD crowd.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
A small addition.
I still believe everything I said to be correct. If marines actively push and see PG outposts as bases we are fine & solid.
Everytime a comm gets his marines to push out, the matches tend to last a lot longer, be more dynamic and usually end in late tech for both sides.
Problem is however if marines do NOT push out. Yes they should lose, but I still think aliens need a bigger game ended to speedup that loss.
Ive had many matches lately where marines didnt get further then there 2nd rt due to brainlessly base camping and it is indeed annoying.
Comments
lol
have you even played b250?
I agree if marines actually have a 50% chance of killing that 3rd hive
right now that chance is less than 10% with similarly low skilled teams
If aggression doesn't work with bad teams, what will? Bad teams are bad teams for a reason. Passivity is something that really should not be encouraged, as it also encourages defensive/turtle-based gameplay. Some passivity is ok, such as being a passive Lerk/Fade which suppresses an enemy squad from advancing, but not necessarily killing them in their paths. It's hard not to say this is a lrn2play issue when you realize NS2 is an oddball surrounded in an industry saturated by the types of games people are used to playing.
Aggression is essential in gaining map control. You put pressure on the enemy team to relieve pressure from the enemy team. How many times have you seen Marines waste time going to East Wing on Docking while the Kharaa team gets busy gaining map control on other areas? This is a lrn2play issue. How many times have you seen Marines cower when they see a Skulk tail peaking from the walls, or hear a Gorge taunt around the corner? This is a lrn2play issue.
The only way I could possibly think in assisting and giving confidence to bad Marine teams while encouraging aggression in the early, most important game round, is by introducing a high-risk, high-reward movement ability that enables Marines to dodge to the side, similar to how the Exo does it with boosters. A dodge-based mechanic being a high-risk movement would benefit the Alien team during combat if the ability has a long enough cool-down to warrant critical-thinking and decision making in battle, while the high-reward benefits the Marine team by potentially dodging a lethal hit. Perhaps something similar to Unreal Tournament's double strafe mechanic, except adding a slight loss of momentum in exchange for a faster, more accelerated dodge. Almost sounds like the Fade's shadow-step but with the same type of momentum conservation the Exosuit booster strafe allows. Maybe even restrict gun-usage during the dodging.
Increasing strafe speed may compensate for better Marine jukes, but does anyone really expect to see a high % of new players even attempting to juke? Hence the reason behind a 1-button dodge mechanic that is risky enough to discourage spamming it, yet rewarding enough to encourage more Marines to play aggressively with confidence.
The current movement system allows Marines to preserve momentum when they jump on a higher surface. Adding a new dodging ability could call for some sick outmaneuvering scenarios, like jumping on top of 3 boxes then chaining a strafe-dodge off of them. Allowing these types of scenarios brings a whole new sense of combat by introducing and encouraging verticality.
The LMG's wider spread is now 'noob-friendly.' The Marine movement should follow suit.
waiting for exos / w3 / a3 / jetpacks
the skill requirements are too asymmetrical. if you want marines to be aggressive in all games, you have to make aliens harder to play
adding skill-based mechanics for marines (eg. fancier movement) would just make them OP at higher levels of play and cause the devs to buff aliens even more
The reason is aliens don't need people to build stuff, marines do.
So everyone on marines builds. That is a l2p issue because you dont need someone to stay in base to build (commander can) and you dont need 6 to cap logistics; 5 of those could run straight to repair.
And the rest of the marine team can go to obs/elevator. Not every game only has 6 people per team.
I didn't say every game has 6 players :S I actually implied minimum 7 but never explicitly limited it to 6 people.
Why do you keep speculating "x" will be OP when you haven't even tried it yet? This is the 2nd time you've said "x" will be OP with no clear proof as to why, just speculation.
And no, Exos/w3/a3 has little to prove other than delaying the inevitable loss of the marine team while increasing the round-time due to aliens LACKING IN 3RD HIVE ANTI-TURTLE ABILITIES.
so you're telling me I'm imagining all those rounds where marines push out after getting late-game tech and win the game?
I'm imagining all those rounds where aggressive marines waste money and die without killing anything important?
you seem to be in some pretend world where you think experiences that decent teams have in 6v6 games translate to random pubs in NA
you can't. the games are completely different and the tactics need to be adjusted accordingly
I don't know what servers you're on, but the whole "tech to turtle" problem is one of the most common complaints with Build 250+.
Before on 249 you had to push out to secure the second CC to get top tier weapons. Now, the only thing marines can't get is dualies, but that's less of a concern now since Dualies got a health/armor nerf and they're not as useful as before. Plus, with no research advanced infantry weapons plus discounts, marines can come out GL and FT spamming with JP. Whoever authorized these changes to the tech tree for 1 CC is completely out of touch with the game.
And to top that off, because of the 200 supply, it's harder for Alien coms to create lots of minibases everywhere to keep the pressure constant. The days of having 6+ crags and 2+ Shifts in several mini bases near a Marine control point are long gone. Plus, the stacking of multiple structures has disappeared to. There were days in build 249 where a nearly dead Onos could rush into a minibase and be nearly instantly healed. Marines are still losing games way more than they did before, but it's hard to say that the 1 CC system is better over the 2 CC system in terms of game play. Now supply restricts pushing while 1 CC lets marines "tech to turtle."
I'd like to see it done before this is discounted.
What then?
Do any of you supporting this mechanic have a backup plan if:
A) 3rd hive abilities are not strong enough to break turtles
???
To me, i see it pretty plain and simple.. with the current design:
There is an invisible timer until marines get fully teched, with a "soft" requirement of map control (i.e. Not actually holding the map, just constantly recapping RTs and occasionally denying portions of the map to aliens)
So you have to destroy marines before said timer... or your now super strong 3rd Hive abilities come into play, completely overpowering and negating any fully teched Marine team's ability... yet another invisible timer and a completely forgone conclusion ("oh great, 3 hives, GG") - all to compensate for this band aid mechanic that was slapped onto maps and gameplay designs that were never designed for it.
Btw, the signature long epic games in pubs that are in NS will be gone forever once the remaining issues are sorted, (3rd hive abilities) solely to compensate for this poor design, as everything will be based on a time frame instead of actual equal map control requirements.
The difference is that denying map control alone does not impact if marines get T3 tech - only when - its an eventuality based on a time frame.
Meaning.. if they lose control /cannot deny the map, they are still in the game. Hence turtles??
Even if you give aliens everything short of an "Aliens Win" banner when they secure that 3rd hive, marines are still in the game.
And if they are not.. if you nerf marine T3 tech, and buff alien T3 to outrageous levels to compensate, you've now just created the most static and predictable game (read: waaayy more boring than holding 2 CCs) where comebacks don't actually occur at all anymore because "Marines got full tech before our 3rd hive? GG" and "Oh we're fully teched, but aliens have 3 hives, GG".
This mechanic was introduced to create more comebacks... but now balancing around it and attempting to force the square peg into the circle hole will ensure they never happen again.
What I can see from the last posts is that newbie (2013-03 joindate) americans have issues that are not prevailent on european servers. It has been this way since NS2 development started.
I can only talk for myself here but while I was happy to pay money for the fun I had with NS1, I did not have the time nor the ability (bandwith) to participate in the betatest of NS2. For all the balancing issues we face today, I think one reason lies in not enough NS1 veterans in your beta playtests. Almost everywhere NS2 has done things differently than NS1, there exist problems with balance. Examples:
PRES/TRES: Usually, marines have excess pres while aliens have excess tres. Fadeballs and other explosions not included, the res system does not feel balanced for both races. Especially RTs giving more PRes, the more players there are is IMHO not working out the way UWE wants it to.
Tier 3 on 2 CCs: Whatever outcome this dicussion has, the only downside I see is that it enables marines to turtle on one CC as long as the aliens lack the power of breaking it with superiour res.
Powernodes: Their importance has been continuously nerfed so marines can finally build ninja pgs next to hives...
Onos: Once the bane of all marines, now nerfed to the same squishyness it had in NS1 but without the ability to devour marines. Useless in competetive play now.
Alien Buildings: When marines turtled in NS1, aliens built loads of chambers in front of their base to keep on a constant assault. With a khammander, this mechanic was judged to be too strong so artificial caps were placed on alien structures, e.g.: max 3 crags healing one target.
I think I could continue this list but I think the main issue why NS2 had lots of problems is because instead of building upon on the strengths of NS1, UWE threw them away in order to create a new game that does not have the flaws NS1 had. The result is neither the awaited successor of NS1 for the hardcore fans nor a modern FPS-RTS game that appeases the COD crowd.
I still believe everything I said to be correct. If marines actively push and see PG outposts as bases we are fine & solid.
Everytime a comm gets his marines to push out, the matches tend to last a lot longer, be more dynamic and usually end in late tech for both sides.
Problem is however if marines do NOT push out. Yes they should lose, but I still think aliens need a bigger game ended to speedup that loss.
Ive had many matches lately where marines didnt get further then there 2nd rt due to brainlessly base camping and it is indeed annoying.