@ironhorse and @ren26 are correct, this map is more like an original NS game in that marines have to work together to quickly capture real estate and push forward.
this map rocks. it's the most genuine feeling natural selection map so far! great job map testers and developers!! !
I havent played much eclipse yet, 10 Rounds maybe, but most of those were marine wins. Only few good servers have it on map list and people avoid it like descent and jambi without real reasons .
And I spend a lot of time talking rookies through the game.
And that is most likely the reason why( playing a lot with rookies?). Eclipse is very hard for rookies to play as marines, which in turn makes it the best map for rookies to learn play aliens.
People just have to get used to eclipse. You need to play it differently than other ns2 maps. You need to be super aggressive, if you don't aliens will just dominate. Marines need to dictate the pace of the game, if they don't, they lose.
I can see how Eclipse might be good for a competitive match as it leads to quick and intense fights right from the get go. However, something just doesn't sit right with me in pubs when I realize that I'm on the losing team as soon as the round begins because we have a more conservative commander.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
@zenef
yes, probably. Which is why I specifically stated that with my 'alien favoured' claim.
Don't let that influence your opinion of me though. I on a personal note, love the map just as much as any other.
I just wish uwe servers ran em all again, gets a bit boring 20 in a row.
Another issue is that the tech points are fairly isolated, so if you do the standard 'go to tech point, place phase gate, move on' you will almost always get killed on res and lose.
I have almost never seen marines win this map!
And I spend a lot of time talking rookies through the game.
COuld be bad luck, even me playing all those eclipse matches is nothing compared to the ns2 population.
But rookies at the least pickup ns2 play a lot slower in eclipse, as marines.
It's probably because it's very claustrophobic and hard to "get" for someone not exposed to the game as opposed to other maps. That, and running off by yourself has even higher consequences due to lower LOS - if you're not good enough to take skulks by yourself which most noobs aren't, especially on a map with much shorter distances than other maps where they still fail anyway...
Basically, it's more "hardcore" in every way, and more "hardcore" = easier n00b fail.
NarfwakJoin Date: 2002-11-02Member: 5258Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Gold, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica PT Lead, NS2 Community Developer
Honestly, there was a lot more concern over it turning into a heavily marine-favored map as there's quite a lot of vary long hallways with no cover, as well as a few very powerful spots for ARC/phase gate bases between hives. Core Access in particular is very hard to retake because the narrow corridors that lead into it leave skulks, lerks and fades no room to maneuver and set up a shooting gallery for the marines as they cover the arcs and each other from the ends of the halls.
Access Alpha is actually so long that we had to make the railing at the south end of the hall a solid line of sight blocker to limit the maximum range of engagements there. It was actually possible to exceed the render distance if you stuck a lerk on the far south side and some marines/exos on the north side, and it's a scenario that we saw play out naturally in at least two or three test games. That problem is fixed by the railing, but the hallway is still very long and lets a marine team hold that res node fairly easily if they put the players in the right places.
The things said by experienced competitive players above are the best advice, though: Eclipse is a hyper-aggressive map and a marine team that doesn't play accordingly is going to suffer. You've got to push out fast, you've got to win early engagements, and you've got to make sure to establish a good res node lead for the opening minutes of the game before aliens start to get lerks and fades out and can shut down your aggression. I think what we're seeing now is that as players haven't learned the map the marines are struggling to win early engagements because they don't yet know how to push into rooms and win fights. As players get more used to the map and where to position in the opening minutes of the match I think we'll see a lot more marine wins.
All that said I haven't had a single public game on Eclipse where the teams seemed even remotely balanced, and while I think I saw a roughly 40%-60% marine-alien split each and every one of those games was a crushing defeat or an overwhelming victory as a result of how stacked either the marine or alien team ended up being. The only balanced matches I've yet had were playtest games, so some of my assumptions about the map may prove to be inaccurate over time as more rounds get played on public servers with a greater variety of players and strategies than what we can field internally.
Eclipse indeed does seem alien-friendly and unbalanced, but don't mention it to the tightly packed cultists of the NS1 church - they are bound together by nostalgia and righteous wrath, and will tear you to pieces. Seriously.
@narfwak you say its a case of l2p? Well ns2 has been out for a year? And pubs are still just as bad on marine aggression, I dare bet thats not gonna change.
Eclipse indeed does seem alien-friendly and unbalanced, but don't mention it to the tightly packed cultists of the NS1 church - they are bound together by nostalgia and righteous wrath, and will tear you to pieces. Seriously.
You mean with... stating their opinion? Sounds terrible, yes.
Eclipse indeed does seem alien-friendly and unbalanced, but don't mention it to the tightly packed cultists of the NS1 church - they are bound together by nostalgia and righteous wrath, and will tear you to pieces. Seriously.
You mean with... stating their opinion? Sounds terrible, yes.
With sarcasm and disagree flags, man. You don't know how THAT hurts.
This map will probably end up being bit alien favored. The main reason being there is way to much alien cover in every room. But after teams memorize all the new hiding spots things might play out different.
This is more true to the eclipse area, everything is just way to narrow there and to much unnecessary clutter.
Outside the computer core, generator and eclipse area the map is mostly ok.
AurOn2COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS!AustraliaJoin Date: 2012-01-13Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
edited December 2013
Early phasegates will be prominent for marine victory, i think. It's just too damn hard to hold your natural res to get those early upgrades without gates. @Amb Go. Away. And don't take it to the ausns2 forums either.
I've literally never been in a match where the map, itself, was op for one team or another. I've seen both alien and marine wins... maybe the marine wins were on maint start tho...
The only thing I feel confident is saying is that Marine Start needs to be easier to siege when Marines decide to stall the game out since Marines can do that so bloody easily.
AiorosJoin Date: 2003-03-24Member: 14850Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
pls considers that 6 rounds played on a "new" map srsly doesnt count as testing of a map.
Most marins do not know the map and travling across the map is much easier as aliens.
Marins need teamplay and aliens do not need it as much.
So many points you need to consider.
In about one month and after another (50 rounds) you can myb call it "unbalanced" and myb explain why you think so.
Why are people always calling stuff imbalanced right of the start without even testing it?
In every fucking game people are crying "PLS NERF" "UNFAIR" "OP" after 1 day ....
After playing the map enough times you can generally figure out which team is going to win within the first 3 or 4 mins.
That being said I still stand by my opinion that eclipse was a great map in NS1 and this is NS2, it’s not so great anymore.
1. Marines lock down just 1 other tech point and aliens get screwed.
2. Marines always start in the same location.
3. Why are there ladders in the vent? If some moronic marine wants to get stuck in the vent then that’s their choice, don’t give them a easy way out.
There are completely different mechanics in game play from the way we played NS1 and imo the biggest is tech points. Marines didn’t need 2 command stations but aliens still needed 3 hives, that’s why on both veil and eclipse you can clearly see its 1 tech point vs. 3.
One big thing bad about eclipse after repeated play is the same start locations. Sure there is a reason for that, but if you play the map 10 or 20 times it gets old.
It is easy to forget that a good marine player would do well on almost any map with long or short los. Making the map with a bit too many turns only punishes the casual players.
In NS1 aliens had to use the vents to flank the marines. In pub play it's almost always head on which makes most engagements too predictable.
For gameplay purposes I hope this map is improved, so people can stop complaining about it.
Don't want to make a new thread for this so I'll just ask it here.
Why is it we can't vote for Eclipse (either via shine admin mod, or esc>vote) - On every server I've visited in my ping range (west coast US) Eclipse doesn't show up as an option when voting... Have admins disabled it or what?
It would certainly make learning the map alot easier if it was available for voting so it would come up more. I've only played it once outside of a UWE official server, and that was when the admin changed the map himself.
After playing the map enough times you can generally figure out which team is going to win within the first 3 or 4 mins.
I feel this represents almost every match I've played on any map. The first skirmish at the two nearest Marine res nodes seems to be a pretty good indicator.
Don't want to make a new thread for this so I'll just ask it here.
Why is it we can't vote for Eclipse (either via shine admin mod, or esc>vote) - On every server I've visited in my ping range (west coast US) Eclipse doesn't show up as an option when voting... Have admins disabled it or what?
It would certainly make learning the map alot easier if it was available for voting so it would come up more. I've only played it once outside of a UWE official server, and that was when the admin changed the map himself.
Best guess, they haven't added it into the file where the choices are stored. Only takes about 10 seconds to do, but if they don't know that it doesn't automatically add the line, they most likely won't look at it.
Comments
this map rocks. it's the most genuine feeling natural selection map so far! great job map testers and developers!! !
I havent played much eclipse yet, 10 Rounds maybe, but most of those were marine wins. Only few good servers have it on map list and people avoid it like descent and jambi without real reasons
And that is most likely the reason why( playing a lot with rookies?). Eclipse is very hard for rookies to play as marines, which in turn makes it the best map for rookies to learn play aliens.
yes, probably. Which is why I specifically stated that with my 'alien favoured' claim.
Don't let that influence your opinion of me though. I on a personal note, love the map just as much as any other.
I just wish uwe servers ran em all again, gets a bit boring 20 in a row.
It's probably because it's very claustrophobic and hard to "get" for someone not exposed to the game as opposed to other maps. That, and running off by yourself has even higher consequences due to lower LOS - if you're not good enough to take skulks by yourself which most noobs aren't, especially on a map with much shorter distances than other maps where they still fail anyway...
Basically, it's more "hardcore" in every way, and more "hardcore" = easier n00b fail.
Access Alpha is actually so long that we had to make the railing at the south end of the hall a solid line of sight blocker to limit the maximum range of engagements there. It was actually possible to exceed the render distance if you stuck a lerk on the far south side and some marines/exos on the north side, and it's a scenario that we saw play out naturally in at least two or three test games. That problem is fixed by the railing, but the hallway is still very long and lets a marine team hold that res node fairly easily if they put the players in the right places.
The things said by experienced competitive players above are the best advice, though: Eclipse is a hyper-aggressive map and a marine team that doesn't play accordingly is going to suffer. You've got to push out fast, you've got to win early engagements, and you've got to make sure to establish a good res node lead for the opening minutes of the game before aliens start to get lerks and fades out and can shut down your aggression. I think what we're seeing now is that as players haven't learned the map the marines are struggling to win early engagements because they don't yet know how to push into rooms and win fights. As players get more used to the map and where to position in the opening minutes of the match I think we'll see a lot more marine wins.
All that said I haven't had a single public game on Eclipse where the teams seemed even remotely balanced, and while I think I saw a roughly 40%-60% marine-alien split each and every one of those games was a crushing defeat or an overwhelming victory as a result of how stacked either the marine or alien team ended up being. The only balanced matches I've yet had were playtest games, so some of my assumptions about the map may prove to be inaccurate over time as more rounds get played on public servers with a greater variety of players and strategies than what we can field internally.
You mean with... stating their opinion? Sounds terrible, yes.
With sarcasm and disagree flags, man. You don't know how THAT hurts.
Hehe
This is more true to the eclipse area, everything is just way to narrow there and to much unnecessary clutter.
Outside the computer core, generator and eclipse area the map is mostly ok.
@Amb Go. Away. And don't take it to the ausns2 forums either.
Most marins do not know the map and travling across the map is much easier as aliens.
Marins need teamplay and aliens do not need it as much.
So many points you need to consider.
In about one month and after another (50 rounds) you can myb call it "unbalanced" and myb explain why you think so.
Why are people always calling stuff imbalanced right of the start without even testing it?
In every fucking game people are crying "PLS NERF" "UNFAIR" "OP" after 1 day ....
so sick of it
That being said I still stand by my opinion that eclipse was a great map in NS1 and this is NS2, it’s not so great anymore.
1. Marines lock down just 1 other tech point and aliens get screwed.
2. Marines always start in the same location.
3. Why are there ladders in the vent? If some moronic marine wants to get stuck in the vent then that’s their choice, don’t give them a easy way out.
There are completely different mechanics in game play from the way we played NS1 and imo the biggest is tech points. Marines didn’t need 2 command stations but aliens still needed 3 hives, that’s why on both veil and eclipse you can clearly see its 1 tech point vs. 3.
It is easy to forget that a good marine player would do well on almost any map with long or short los. Making the map with a bit too many turns only punishes the casual players.
In NS1 aliens had to use the vents to flank the marines. In pub play it's almost always head on which makes most engagements too predictable.
For gameplay purposes I hope this map is improved, so people can stop complaining about it.
Why is it we can't vote for Eclipse (either via shine admin mod, or esc>vote) - On every server I've visited in my ping range (west coast US) Eclipse doesn't show up as an option when voting... Have admins disabled it or what?
It would certainly make learning the map alot easier if it was available for voting so it would come up more. I've only played it once outside of a UWE official server, and that was when the admin changed the map himself.
I feel this represents almost every match I've played on any map. The first skirmish at the two nearest Marine res nodes seems to be a pretty good indicator.
Best guess, they haven't added it into the file where the choices are stored. Only takes about 10 seconds to do, but if they don't know that it doesn't automatically add the line, they most likely won't look at it.