De-power the individual
TheDR
Join Date: 2013-01-24 Member: 181820Members
Join Date: 2013-01-24 Member: 181820Members
The game needs a casual mod, a public mode, a whatever you want to call it mode- the name doesn't matter.
I don't think the ideas need a lot of work as a few balance changes would create a more even player field.
Many builds ago, everyone could be an overpowered onos.
At the moment, only a certain few can be an overpowered lerk/fade/shotgunner.
De-power the individual. The game has slowly been creeping towards a hero balance, where a single amazing player can control a whole game.
I’m a fairly decent player but we can’t save the game from an invincible lerk or a med packed shot gunner.
Obviously everything would need testing.
Marine Change:
Med pack percentages. Every new life each sequential med pack deals 20% less health. It resets at an armoury (the numbers would need a bit of juggling).
Make Exos viable in public play (more health?).
Alien Change:
For lerk, Increase the hitbox and increase the health to compensate. Make them easier to hit so they can’t do the ridiculous flying twitch that only a small percentage have mastered.
Flame could slow the fade the down (or even stop blink completely). This would encourage teamwork and would make the flamethrower more useful. It would also give the fade a specific weakness. I have had lots of games recently where one player has 27:1. It’s doesn’t work and it’s not an enjoyable experience for the majority.
I'm not saying this should be the only way to play NS2, but the people who feel left behind would like a way to enjoy the game again.
I don't think the ideas need a lot of work as a few balance changes would create a more even player field.
Many builds ago, everyone could be an overpowered onos.
At the moment, only a certain few can be an overpowered lerk/fade/shotgunner.
De-power the individual. The game has slowly been creeping towards a hero balance, where a single amazing player can control a whole game.
I’m a fairly decent player but we can’t save the game from an invincible lerk or a med packed shot gunner.
Obviously everything would need testing.
Marine Change:
Med pack percentages. Every new life each sequential med pack deals 20% less health. It resets at an armoury (the numbers would need a bit of juggling).
Make Exos viable in public play (more health?).
Alien Change:
For lerk, Increase the hitbox and increase the health to compensate. Make them easier to hit so they can’t do the ridiculous flying twitch that only a small percentage have mastered.
Flame could slow the fade the down (or even stop blink completely). This would encourage teamwork and would make the flamethrower more useful. It would also give the fade a specific weakness. I have had lots of games recently where one player has 27:1. It’s doesn’t work and it’s not an enjoyable experience for the majority.
I'm not saying this should be the only way to play NS2, but the people who feel left behind would like a way to enjoy the game again.
Comments
Your idea will not help. Nerfing meds will harm the lower skilled more then the higher skilled.
Hitbox increase beyond the model not only makes it odd, but the same problem applies.. Easier lerk deaths will affect lower skilled again much more then higher skilled.
Flame already does slow the fade down, of sorts. It eats away energy and a fade without energy is as fast as any other walking fade out there.
The problem you describe is a small playerbase where we can not fill enough servers with only high skilled folk.. something its hoped balance systems shall adress. Time will tell.
Designing the game to have a low skill ceiling is not.
It often just alienates the core population that can keep a game alive.
Now if you were to suggest improving the skill curve or lessening slippery slope mechanics..
trust me, then this post would be called "DE-POWER THE FADE" lol
I think what you should say is not de-power the individual, but en-power the team. Get more team work in pubs, and damn it is a enjoyable game (even if you lose). That's why I suffer 400+ pings to play in EU servers some times because the regular players that know the game are awesome to play with (that, and the fact that AUS servers are either all empty or all full).
Just a funny story... But I played on a French server once (20 players I think), and it was really cool to try and coordinate attacks when we can't use mic (I don't speak french), in the end we worked out on text (for our gorge rush...)
me: what to target? power or cc
fr player: "speaks french to others" cc
me: cc! ok.
It was awesome to play with other people from other places and connect by a game that uses team work.
tl:dr; all the game play mechanic changes can't match having good people to play with.
i had 2 ping yesterday but left because it was only 20 people there so i got bored
The Band-Aid mod also wasn't supposed to be an effort in balance, rather an attempt at "fun" (and probably subconsciously making it easier to playtest custom maps :P ).
As for depowering, how does "Make Exos viable in public play" work towards that? It seems like a general balance suggestion.
For lerks maybe leave the hitboxes as they are but change the movement so they cant do an instantaneous 180 degree turn mid air and immediately reswoop, maybe force a slight arc or something.
For fades maybe make them vulnerable to bullets while blinking *if* they are touching a surface - as though the surface contact creates a temporary bridge to the unit in its hyperspace movement.
For marines maybe introduce a battle scarring mechanic where successive health loss and med pack usage causes movement speed to degrade over time until the marine visits an armory to regen.
Blink used to make Fades invulnerable a long time ago... but I guess that was too OP
I think so far this discussion has yeilded the best ideas for something similar to what you're thinking. But without affecting the game in any game-changing ways.
Low FPS can still be an excuse? :P If I miss an alien thats usually what I use
When ever you're in the situation where you have to do those crazy mouse movement twitches, I think you've already made your fatal mistake as a lerk, just for letting your self be in that situation.
Lerk should be about chip damage, and maybe moving in at the opportune time for the quick bite-frag. Instead it has gotten one of the best abillities in the game to juke bullets, and as such is often the lifeform that initiates in the early to mid-game.
Changing this now however, I feel will make the lerk next to useless again. Because you need that power to initiate a crush in the mid-game before fades are out. So if we were to go that route, I suggest we try to make battle-gorges in the mid-game viable.
I imagine it as a sort of sacrificial piece to win crucial engagements, by forcing marines to spend bullets on the gorge.
idk. I'm sitting here at work, havn't really thought it that much through, perhaps you guys can finish the thought or shoot me down.
Just because something is hard to track doesnt mean we need to play the "realism" card. I heard the same story back when people didn't know how to deal with pogo-marines.
Your saying that a genetically enhanced (by bacteria) giant flying bat that can shoot an unlimited number of spikes out of its wings is unrealistic in how it flies? As a moderately good lerk I will say these maneuvers you are speaking of are good, but only because lerks die so easily. Sit out in the open too long and an lMG takes half your health. Get near a good shotgun shot, you're dead.
at that rate we can say the entire game is unrealistic but why stop there -_-
I don't think the lerk is op either by any means. I'd just prefere it had a slightly different role. I'd prefere it had to rely a little bit more on its team mates to bait bullets, while maintaining its unparallelled killing power.
I think it's funny, if you look at comp ns2 right now, you rarely see anyone go below 2 lerks, there's simply no reason to have any less. Very often you even see 3 or a full lerk team. If you go back 6 months or something, if you saw a prem team have 2 lerks, it was because they were pressured hard to do it. Because 2 lerks, meant 2 less fades.
And I think most of us can agree that this is the better game. More variety and less punishing and snowbally for losing higher lifeforms.
Now imagine in that light, that the gorge relieved some of the current lerk role. I think it'd be a much better game overall.
@DCMAKER please believe me when I say this: the lerk is not op.
Comp lerk players in rookie servers are op. That is not the fault of the lerk. Without the breadth of movement, the lerk will be totally useless (except probably for comp lerks in pubs). There is a reason that you don't balance a game around low level play, which is what you're suggesting. I'll let you work out why that might be.
@DCMAKER please believe me when I say this: the lerk is not op.
Comp lerk players in rookie servers are op. That is not the fault of the lerk. Without the breadth of movement, the lerk will be totally useless (except probably for comp lerks in pubs). There is a reason that you don't balance a game around low level play, which is what you're suggesting. I'll let you work out why that might be.
no shit
The lerk you can not beat when you have the ability to go up, down, back, and forward instantly. As a marine you can't counter a lerk in any way that can instantly bite you from the front go in then down bit again, then fly behind you do a 180 instantly and bite you again. Doesn't matter if you are a pro shot when a lerk can literally be infront of you above you and behind you in less then a second. That is not balanced on any level. Have you not seen the pro players that can fly in bit fly up go down bit fly behind turn around and bit again? There is nothing you can do again players like that and that isn't balanced. That is like giving jet packs ESF sytle control and saying you can't hate on a good jet packer rofl
Hey everyone listen to this awesome intelligent clever cool epic player guy who has no life because he has 3000 posts and thinks he is cool. don't be a childish tool. Please be better than that.
I would like to put it this way. Why should a rookie/average player that maybe plays a few hours a week have even the most remote chance of killing you when you spend many hours a day playing a game?
Roo is right but its not the lifeform/weapon that is OP, it's the skill difference between the players.