Docking balance is really bad currently

hozz

Docking currently is a very imbalanced map, especially after the no-research Gorge tunnel availability.

Aliens start in Generator -> they die without chance for a second TP, struggle holding Maintenance or Stability
Aliens start in Departures or Locker -> insta Gorge tunnel to the other TP (rush with Skulks to defeat possible Marines), and the map is blocked off. Free win. Marines have a 2nd TP in Cafe now, but Aliens have so much money, it doesn't help the Marines anyways.

This is how 99% of my Docking pub games are. You can pretty much say who wins depending on Alien spawn and whether that Gorge tunnel gets done (usually it does). Please no arguments "Marines just need to..." and "Aliens just need to...", it doesn't happen in reality.

Just saying, the map really isn't too much fun to play at the moment

(edit: bolded for clarity, I'm talking about pub games)

Nailo

The map is fun for me ^_^ My games have always been up to the throw of the die regardless of the spawn. I'm sorry your not having any fun on the map and that all of your games have gone that way, I truly am, because in my games there has been so many different variety of games and strategies on that map, that I keep wanting to play it quite a bit ^_^. I'm assuming that sense you posted this in the general forums that you are referring to public play and not competitive by the way.

I won't argue with you if that's what you've seen but from my standpoint the gameplay on docking would be what I call, dynamic, always changing and having so many variety of strategies.

As far as things go, when we start café or term it seems really easy to me to just go through court to locker really fast, although I think with café going through bar would be faster. I'm sad to hear that you feel like a team immediately loses based upon spawns or a single gorge tunnel placed in a tech point.

If that honestly is the case though than I would only be happier to start in gen or let that gorgie get his tunnel up, because I prefer a challenge and if what you say is true, then my team has already lost by letting either happen, and that makes it fun to come back from such a state. ^_^

Oh yes, I find marines aren't doing a very good job of harassing alien economy if they aren't harassing both maintenance and stability monitoring regardless of alien spawn.

hozz

Yes I'm talking about pub games (bolded it in the OP), I see that comp players can break an Alien team that is so divided. On pub it never works.

Wob

You're saying "The aliens just need to to a gorge tunnel...." and we're not allowed to suggest counters like "You just have to...."?

Almost anything sounds imbalanced that way. "The marines just have to get arcs..." But you can't say aliens "just have to get bile bomb!!"

IMO marines are the favoured side, especially with cafe tech point being reintroduced. I feel like anything other than a generator hive is doomed because stability and maintenance are actually pretty marine friendly once set up so they can cut the cyst chain to the first RT and beyond!

SamusDroid

Can't be worse than before... with 4 TP's. It's never really been that balanced of a map. It's fun sometimes, but not too balanced.

MisterYoon

With 4 techpoints, the map was better. Aliens can dominate Docking after Cafeteria techpoint came back. Marines just can only stay in the south cos of it. I think, landing pad RT must solve that quite much

Ra1n

i feel like lockerroom is too important because of the close proximity to bar, if marines hold it bar is as good as locked down. if aliens hold it bar is basically unholdable while focusing forces elsewhere.

Squirreli_

My main beef with the Docking has always been the way it tends to force long drawn-out games. The really open marine tech points without cover make for easy marine defenses while the multiple choke-points on the northern side make stopping early marine advances easy. Late in the game - especially when server has a lot of players - the tight corridors and the choke-points seem to favour the marine side though, as you have no dodge room and will lose your higher life forms. It has never, to my knowledge, been considered a competitively interesting map. Could be wrong though.

Omega_K2

hozz wrote: »

Docking currently is a very imbalanced map, especially after the no-research Gorge tunnel availability.

Aliens start in Generator -> they die without chance for a second TP, struggle holding Maintenance or Stability
Aliens start in Departures or Locker -> insta Gorge tunnel to the other TP (rush with Skulks to defeat possible Marines), and the map is blocked off. Free win. Marines have a 2nd TP in Cafe now, but Aliens have so much money, it doesn't help the Marines anyways.
(edit: bolded for clarity, I'm talking about pub games)

Also Marine spawn, Terminal is still the best, you get cafe for free, and can get to locker and dep quickly.
Also the RTs next to gen (maint, stab) are way to easy to kill with a terminal spawn, people can just walk in there constantly and kill them though courtyard.

SkulkBaits

I currently like the state of docking. I've logged over 600 hours in game and many of those hours have been on ns2_docking. Docking can really go either way, and saying that the Cafe tech point is useless or doesn't help is untrue in my own opinion, two tech points for marines equal dual exo. Dual Exo's can change a game drastically on pub games if players work together, but that is just it. Everyone has to work together.

Jekt

Docking can be rough for aliens, since cafe and terminal are both so close to courtyard. I don't think it's unplayable or anything though.

Worst spawns in this game is on Mineshaft where marines are repair and aliens are forced cave. Marines can completely deny crusher and cavern with huge sight lines to boot and meanwhile it's just a short stroll to an easy double cap.

joohoo_n3d

"natural selection" not "fair and balanced selection"

Spa

I always think that the team you play with is more important than general strategies.

If they can respond well and coordinate 'balanced maps' don't matter. I don't think of maps as swayed towards aliens or marines... except on brand new 0 texture maps.

Draconis

Docking is still better than mineshaft and refinery :P

RaZDaZ

Cafeteria spawn vs locker rooms spawn = gg for marines in most cases. Same thing with Mineshaft. Repair spawn vs cave spawn = gg for aliens in most cases

joshhh

Docking should be set up with cross spawns. (Caf/Depo | Term/Gen)
Locker should never be a starting spawn imo.

lordfarva

It is true that if aliens start in Gen and they are not immediately able to gorge up and/or sercurely hold either Stability or Maintenance or both (aka, if aliens allow marines to hold either Stability or Maintenance early) then the game is pretty much over due to Gen having no vent access and thus leading to only either the Stability bottleneck or Maintenance bottleneck. That however, is not the map's fault as the Alien team should know how critical it is to garrison one of those two rooms in order to not babysit both rooms early and eventually lose one or both thus forcing the "gg"

I think a Gen vent to Ballcourt or wouldn't be a bad addition just due to the level of bottleneck surrounding Gen but that would make it pretty easy for Aliens to backdoor Marines trying to endgame push through Maintenance so maybe in practice it would be overpowered...meh...

Vetinari

lordfarva wrote: »

It is true that if aliens start in Gen and they are not immediately able to gorge up and/or sercurely hold either Stability or Maintenance or both (aka, if aliens allow marines to hold either Stability or Maintenance early) then the game is pretty much over due to Gen having no vent access and thus leading to only either the Stability bottleneck or Maintenance bottleneck. That however, is not the map's fault as the Alien team should know how critical it is to garrison one of those two rooms in order to not babysit both rooms early and eventually lose one or both thus forcing the "gg"

I think a Gen vent to Ballcourt or wouldn't be a bad addition just due to the level of bottleneck surrounding Gen but that would make it pretty easy for Aliens to backdoor Marines trying to endgame push through Maintenance so maybe in practice it would be overpowered...meh...

I think Gen is just to far away from anything.

Mestaritonttu

RaZDaZ wrote: »

Cafeteria spawn vs locker rooms spawn = gg for marines in most cases. Same thing with Mineshaft. Repair spawn vs cave spawn = gg for aliens in most cases

This lol. The first time it happened to me I knew we were dead before I even got to try it. Locker blocks ALL the exits from cafe, and has the whole map behind it.

And yeah, mineshaft marines spawning in repair is gg for aliens. 2 nearest expansion rt's are right next to marine base, and the next one is at your 2nd hive. The next one AFTER THAT is at the THIRD HIVE. Now that's harsh. :P

ScardyBob

I've always thought the solution to the docking tech point balance issue was to make the tech points form more of a pentagram shape. This mock up is a bit dated, but it gets the idea across:

It's Super Effective!

I'd say veil is a butt load more imbalanced than docking. But that's just my feels

zeq

I have never liked Docking since the beta days. The four tech point map was a lot of interesting changes, but they don't quite work now that it is back to five. I would like to see the rt returned to the central room, as well as cafe and terminal spread out to allow for a rt between them, and the vent to landing returned. Maybe a little bit less access to maintenance and stability so they are more easily defended. Perhaps make it so the entrance ways leading up to them join up before the room, because maintenance has three entrances, as does stability, I think, both of which contain one from the center room, making them easy to hit from anywhere on the map. So the center region connects to ball court rather than maintenance, which then connects to maintenance, and something similar to stability. Although that might make them too easy to defend.
Although easily the biggest reason I haven't liked it since the beta is because bar used to be both really important for aliens, and pretty easy to defend. It was a lot of fun to gorge up the door, get a some structures set up in there, and then hold off the entire marine team with just a gorge, and maybe another lifeform that just happened to be in the area. Perhaps not balanced, but it was so much fun.

tarquinbb

Jekt wrote: »

Docking can be rough for aliens, since cafe and terminal are both so close to courtyard. I don't think it's unplayable or anything though.

Worst spawns in this game is on Mineshaft where marines are repair and aliens are forced cave. Marines can completely deny crusher and cavern with huge sight lines to boot and meanwhile it's just a short stroll to an easy double cap.

i agree with this. imo docking is similar to refinery in that if aliens aren't vigilant to deny fast phase gate/sentry/armory staging area then you're pretty screwed. this is almost the same with veil and east junction/summit staging areas, but i think the 'proxy spots' are almost impossible for aliens to break in ball court or chasm.

Blarney_Stone

Cave is unequivocally the worst spawn point in this game. Not only does it have arguably the two worst naturals in all of NS2 (especially if the marines start repair) but it's an extremely marine-friendly room once they get jetpacks.

Docking's balance isn't great, but it is better than Mineshaft. Frankly I think a lot of Docking's problems could be solved by removing courtyard, or at the very least making it so it isn't so easy to get there from marine spawns.

Ghosthree3

I actually think departures AND generator are auto loss for aliens (with a small rate of wins because yes, against all odds things CAN happen). Locker is O.K. if you play it right, you can probably get a win.

xBlueXFoxx

It's Super Effective! wrote: »

I'd say veil is a butt load more imbalanced than docking. But that's just my feels

Sub sector spawn for aliens, *Marines cut cyst chain and starve the aliens from reaching Nano/Cargo.
Aliens spawn anywhere other than sub sector, *Aliens chew up RT's at skylights and pin the marines to their main.

Blarney_Stone wrote: »

Cave is unequivocally the worst spawn point in this game. Not only does it have arguably the two worst naturals in all of NS2 (especially if the marines start repair) but it's an extremely marine-friendly room once they get jetpacks.

Docking's balance isn't great, but it is better than Mineshaft. Frankly I think a lot of Docking's problems could be solved by removing courtyard, or at the very least making it so it isn't so easy to get there from marine spawns.

Mineshaft is one of my favorite maps I would say, but I do agree cave could use a bit of work since it can be cut off too easily from aliens, then bombarded with jet packs.

As for refinery, bile bomb the power from the vent on the right side of containment, that's always a fun one in pub servers.


Back on the subject, Docking is an awful map for aliens, there's definitely still a marine bias as there's always been. Maintenance/Ball court and System constantly get phase gates dropped into them, the power positioning in Generator and Departures allows for ninja phase gates to be placed. I'm aware aliens are not supposed to allow this to happen, but currently in comparison to marines, aliens have a lot more areas to look over and defend at all times while marines can freely push up, and perhaps even guard themselves early game with sentries.

Nazo

Any map that starts with a "D" is pretty bad imo

Im looking at you Descent/Docking

Ghosthree3

Descent is ok.

xBlueXFoxx

Descent is one of the better maps, honestly, it's just overlooked.

Vetinari

Nothing wrong with Descent. I never knew what the fuzz was all about (note the tense. you don't hear it often anymore).

edit: Fixed typos.