Fix the bad marine health and ammo system
alster
Join Date: 2003-08-06 Member: 19124Members
Join Date: 2003-08-06 Member: 19124Members
You played NS1 and NS2 for years with a bad marine health and ammo system. You could have switched to NS combat or quit playing, but lucky you didn't. UW had the right idea, but never implimented it in the best way.
What's wrong with the health and ammo system:
- It encourages marine humping the armory constantly. Not just for health, but for ammo too. You took 5 damage or shot 10 bullets oh well better go back to the armory.
-The armory is not a healing station. You get ammo, weapons, and stuff from it.
-There is no medic class or healing items. Either the com heals you, you respawn, or you hump the armory.
-The com wastes time microing med and ammo drops. For a 10 player marine team that is alot wasted time microing.
-Anyone with a costly weapon will only push the aliens a short time. As soon as he takes a little damage or he's low on ammo he goes back to the armory.
-Call of Duty, BF4, Halo, and other modern FPS games have done the health system in a good way for years. NS2 needs to catch up.
-The armory is used as a damage spunge by placing it near alien hot spots. The marines take damage and then moves back to hump the armory. This should not be a common tactic, but is often used.
-Marines with less skill are afraid to push without an armory nearby. Armory healing encourages marine turtling which is a bad strategy.
-Nano shield, stim packs, scan sweeps, and weapon drops already allow coms to directly buff marines. Health and ammo drops are not necessary.
-Phasegates and beacon already allow the marine to fast travel back to the armory at base. Most coms use alot of res by dropping multiple armories, because of the marine healing.
How to fix the health and ammo system:
-The armory does not heal. It still supplies ammo, because there is no ammo station or ammo marine class.
-Doubling ammo clips makes going back to the armory not very often required. Marine ammo clips are doubled from 4 to 8. If your low on ammo switch to pistol with 8 clips.
-Ammo armory resupply is instant like other modern fps. Armory humping is almost reduced to 0.
-The com cannot drop meds or ammo anymore. It was interesting, but coms could troll the med drops. Med and ammo drops are also OP with JP and GL marines. It makes being a com easier and less stress full, so more players can com.
-The marine has 100 health that regens 10 every second. You want an explanation how? Nano bots. It's still not the same as the alien regen, so both sides are still different.
-Alien damage needs to be increased to compensate. Skulk bite 90 dmg. Parisite 20 dmg. Lerk bite 70 poision 15 dmg sec. Hydra 30 dmg.
The updated system allows and encourages marines to push longer and take more risks. It benefits both comp and pub players. It allows new players to enjoy the game more with a simpler health regen system.
Please test this system on a balance server. I'm sure it's better than the old system.
*Cliff notes: Old health and ammo system bad. Needs to be updated. Don't be afraid of change, it'll be better.
fixed that all-caps title -Kouji_San
What's wrong with the health and ammo system:
- It encourages marine humping the armory constantly. Not just for health, but for ammo too. You took 5 damage or shot 10 bullets oh well better go back to the armory.
-The armory is not a healing station. You get ammo, weapons, and stuff from it.
-There is no medic class or healing items. Either the com heals you, you respawn, or you hump the armory.
-The com wastes time microing med and ammo drops. For a 10 player marine team that is alot wasted time microing.
-Anyone with a costly weapon will only push the aliens a short time. As soon as he takes a little damage or he's low on ammo he goes back to the armory.
-Call of Duty, BF4, Halo, and other modern FPS games have done the health system in a good way for years. NS2 needs to catch up.
-The armory is used as a damage spunge by placing it near alien hot spots. The marines take damage and then moves back to hump the armory. This should not be a common tactic, but is often used.
-Marines with less skill are afraid to push without an armory nearby. Armory healing encourages marine turtling which is a bad strategy.
-Nano shield, stim packs, scan sweeps, and weapon drops already allow coms to directly buff marines. Health and ammo drops are not necessary.
-Phasegates and beacon already allow the marine to fast travel back to the armory at base. Most coms use alot of res by dropping multiple armories, because of the marine healing.
How to fix the health and ammo system:
-The armory does not heal. It still supplies ammo, because there is no ammo station or ammo marine class.
-Doubling ammo clips makes going back to the armory not very often required. Marine ammo clips are doubled from 4 to 8. If your low on ammo switch to pistol with 8 clips.
-Ammo armory resupply is instant like other modern fps. Armory humping is almost reduced to 0.
-The com cannot drop meds or ammo anymore. It was interesting, but coms could troll the med drops. Med and ammo drops are also OP with JP and GL marines. It makes being a com easier and less stress full, so more players can com.
-The marine has 100 health that regens 10 every second. You want an explanation how? Nano bots. It's still not the same as the alien regen, so both sides are still different.
-Alien damage needs to be increased to compensate. Skulk bite 90 dmg. Parisite 20 dmg. Lerk bite 70 poision 15 dmg sec. Hydra 30 dmg.
The updated system allows and encourages marines to push longer and take more risks. It benefits both comp and pub players. It allows new players to enjoy the game more with a simpler health regen system.
Please test this system on a balance server. I'm sure it's better than the old system.
*Cliff notes: Old health and ammo system bad. Needs to be updated. Don't be afraid of change, it'll be better.
fixed that all-caps title -Kouji_San
Comments
Isn't it the Armory's purpose? It gives you ammo and health as much as your Commander if you request some.
It has always been like it is now. Well, except about armor but this is not your issue here anyway.
There's no class in NS2 and this is not going to change as far as I know. Dropping an Armory near PG or strategic points is an important thing on the game regarding many strategies. It also allows your Commander to not drop plenty of mepdacks to heal his soldiers on the field. 2 mepdacks are needed to fully heal a lone marine = 2 TRES. An Armory costs 10 TRES. I let you count. The Armories are definitely very important in the Marines gameplay and let say that it's an important factor concerning the team resources.
He doesn't wasting time 'cause he's the Commander. Take a look on a different Commander who skips the ammo and medpacks dropping part and you'll be sure the game is lost.
That's a part of the gameplay. Aliens can push behind Marines to attack their PG, Armory or whatever you want while Marines are fighting near their Hive, just an example. + when the Marines are retreating to their base or Armory, Aliens have possibility to take back their positions, tend some ambushes, etc.
Probably why I bought and I'm playing this game. NS2 isn't BF4, CoD, or even Halo. It's not a classic FPS.
It's a common tactic. That makes sense, no more. The Aliens have the ability to put some Crags, Shifts and all that stuff to regain energy and health. This is only the same thing but on the Marines side. And do not tell me the Aliens Commander never extends near important Marines spots with Whips, Crags, etc.
Why is it bad?
Nanoshield and CatalystPacks need a research to be used. Dropping some weapons is a huge cost for the Commander, that's why it's quiet rare to see that. You're talking about removing Armory ability to heal and those that allow the Commander to drop ammo and health?
Crags, Shits, and Shades should be removed then. + Drifters abilities. And as I said, it's cheaper to drop an Armory on public and larger servers than dropping many and many medpacks and ammos.
Doesn't make sense or I did not get it. There's no classes on NS2 so isn't it out of subject there? This is a structure that gives you some health and ammunition. Or let's divide the Armory onto two different structures, one for healing and another one for giving back ammo.
You're supposed to waste some time to come back to the Armory and stock up on ammos. You're not purchasing a new Rifle or something but you're here to take back some ammo, so it seems legit to have a delay before getting your weapon full.
WHAT? Remove the ability for the Commander to command? Less stressful, of course but who wants to be Commander if it's not to support your soldiers on the field? + how do you feel when you're seeing your teammates dying on your screen but cannot do anything to help these guys?
Are still different but so closer... Where's the Marines Crag by the way? I'm a skulk, at the start of the game, I've bitten twice that Marine ahead and I know he's pretty low, no medpacks but I'm not sure... Wait, I've been waited for too long, now he's midlife and I need 2 bites again to kill that guy. Anyway, I never got the point to regain the life thanks to breathing the good air. Nano bots make more sense?
You nerfed the Marines and want to increase the Aliens damages? If a such gameplay exists, let me only play Aliens then. 2 bites = dead.
The old system that made people to buy the game? The one here from the start of the game? Well, I don't think so but nice argumentation at least. Honestly, this is very very bad idea. You plan to change one of the most important part of the NS2 gameplay to make it closer to the CoD, kind of games like that and that doesn't make any sense. I didn't purchase NS2 to play BF. I thought the idea to remove the regain of armor via the Armory was a good idea, but this one is clearly not in my mind as positive.
...
Houston, we have a troll.
Then someone made a 'armory also heals' mod and servers ran it.
It became popular.
It became more requested on servers to run the mod.
It became very popular.
Due to popular demand it was implemented in ns1 eventually.
ns2 inherited this.
the public has spoken?
Armories also once repaired armor, but that was changed for the better.
If NS 2 wants to get new players it needs to get with the times.
Please, no.
\:D/
Marines do NOT need an incentive to push longer or harder - because pushing as far as you can in a game of ns2 rewards itself.
Perhaps I was not clear enough that ns1 started without any armory heals.
So I desided to help with explaining this even more.
Look healing is in the official ns1 3.0 version:
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/78472/armory-healing
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/56375/3-0c-changelog/p1 (see O Armory now occasionally gives health back when used)
Voogru ran a mod when it did not heal yet:
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/18470/healing-armories
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/comment/717412#Comment_717412
You're absolutely right.
People wanted health regen so UW fixed it with the armory.
It's still not good enough. UW should have fixed it by having health regen without needing an armory or med drops.
CDT please give the people what they really want.
There has been no such mod for regular marine health regen for the base game in NS2, or if it exists, it certainly isn't very popular because I've yet to see it in any of the servers I've played on.
Combat Mod isn't even relevant to the discussion, since it is a completely different gametype with completely different balance. Resupply is meant to emulate the commander dropping you stuff in an environment where the commander doesn't exist, not serve as a flimsy justification for rebalancing the standard game mode.
New Female Medic Marine , Shoot at teamate to heal ( Killing Floor)
no guys, this is going nowhere.
Scenario: Marine gets bit a lot but then kills bitey things, he can now hide and cry for a few seconds to restore his HP to 100 - however he still has no armor, so he will die in 2 bites (rather than the 1 bite it would have taken).
Question: Does this make medding redundant? Because I'm sure we all know that without medding, commanding is not a full-time job. I'll come back to this observation in a second though.
The answer is partially.
This makes commander medding redundant outside of combat (medspam) situations.
Gameplay-wise, we have to think about whether or not auto-healing would
a) save a lone marine that was dead anyway
b) increase survivability in combat
As for b) I'm sure you guys all realise that it's not going to require that marines need an extra hit or anything in combat, so long as auto-heal is given a significant time-till-activation-out-of-combat.
Most alien hit-run-hit-run etc... volleys give the marines a break of a few seconds, tops. Not long enough for a marine to start auto-healing.
In the case of a), auto-healing would have the effect of making that lone marine that stumbled through hydras and hellfire to get to your natural RT a 2-bite kill rather than a... 2 bite kill at the expense of a commander medpack.
So basically it will give marines one bites-worth of additional survivability without the comm's aid, in common but admittedly niche gameplay scenarios.
Remember that thing I said I'd come back to? Back up there ^^^^
Marine commanding is a full time job. Like, alien comm can kinda breeze through games without too much to worry about, but marine comm is a delightful (not delightful) bombardment of marines spamming you for medpacks and ammo in any and all situations, while having to manage upgrades etc.
Statement: Most beginner comms, and many, many experienced comms find this frequently overwhelming.
Statement: Auto-heal would take some of the workload off of the marine commander.
It would also free the comm of a few Tres per game. I dont think it'd be a hugely significant amount but would of course need to be looked at regarding balance.
My point is this:
Although I agree that from my personal perspective, I dont give a tiny rat's tiniest ass about getting auto-healed or not, balance issues aside (balance issues that would surely be minor with thoughtful implementation, though i'm sure there's something I've not thought of here, someone please point it out
- Little tiny portions of commander time freed up
- A familiar mechanic that rookies can cling to in a harsh, unforgiving new game. Like Mr Blanket.
Like, I really don't think it'd be that bad, providing marine res income was balanced accordingly, and the time before auto-heal considers you out of combat was significantly large.
edit
At least, it wouldnt be that bad in pubs. I'd even go so far as to say it'd probably be a good mod to have on rookie-friendly pub servers.
However I just realised that much of the aforementioned overwhelmingness of marine commanding comes from the fact that people start comming on 10v10 servers where there are many more players to manage. 6v6 it's obviously not going to be a problem.
tl;dr - someone make a mod for this for large public servers. It'd be great.
Marine Yolo takes 2 bites and kills the skulk(s). He makes a quick run to another position and hunkers down to avoid the aliens knowing where he is (maybe he can catch another one later unawares). He wasn't medded immediately by the comm.
He now doesn't want to give his position away, so tells the comm not to med him yet (noisy meds), but to wait for him to initiate the engagement.
Does your auto-out-of-combat-med idea make a normal med noise? If so, that marine would be mighty annoyed if it went off at the worst possible time and gave him away while he's being sneaky trying to trap a fleeing lifeform...
If not, well that'd be OP, right?
18 disagrees, 0 agrees.
Thanks, CDT, that was fast!
Like I said many times, there are way more people expecting health regen in a modern fps than those that do not. We need these players for the future of NS 2.
The only people against this seems to be the old NS 1 and NS 2 players who think the only big changes should be new maps, weapons, or front end. You guys are the reason NS2 is dying and you don't even know it.
Yolo would not be OP, because he has no amor left. He would be a happy player with full health, lot's of ammo left, and not needing a com to help him out. Just like how alot of other players would feel like if they had health regen.
That's not a good thing, and no amount of magically regenerating health for supposed player convenience will solve that. It would mean rebalancing the game entirely. Again. The game really doesn't need that right now.
You imagined a scenario where it would change the gameplay slightly- and I bet if you tried you could think of a way to modify the mechanic so that this wouldn't be an issue. Even without mentioning what noises would/wouldnt be made when a marine auto-heals there are behavioural adjustments you could make that would negate the situation also.
It's an easy idea to make straw men out of.
that said, i'm not giving my agree for that reason and neither because i think the suggestion is better than the old one. it is because i think the idea is worth trying out at least (shouldn't be hard to implement). i also don't like various things about modern shooters but that doesn't mean every single gameplay element they come up with is necessarily bad.
personally, i never liked medpacks appearing out of thin air in abundance (or not at all). yes that has some strategic element to it (spend the res or not), but it's bit odd for people on the field and artificially increases the gap between the vets (who usually get more meds as soon as the com notices they will contribute significantly if kept alive) compared to rookies.
question is wether people would actually accept such a change or not. judging from this thread, probably not. and yes, it can easily screw up balance for a while.
I disagreed because I read the post, considered what was being said, and didn't agree. That is probably true of most people who disagreed with it.
If I posted a topic here saying "Ammo is bad, UWE are idiots because there should be no limitation on ammo", I should, and no doubt would, get a couple of metric tonnes of disagrees. The system is working entirely as intended, there.
In addition, when posting such ideas, it's probably wise to do so in a tone that isn't simultaneously so aggressive and bewilderingly belligerent...
Giving the commander no meds or ammo means he does what, exactly? Waits for resources to drop buildings and start research? That sounds really tedious, good luck getting a comm if all they have to do is that!
several people i know (including myself) prefer alien com as they struggle with medpack accuracy (i don't mind using enzyme etc., timing can be learned). the open-end-ness comes through the social leadership task though. delegating and motivating people definately is more fun for me as a com compared to medpack skillshots and i'd appreciate having more focus on that as it's one of the aspects making ns2 rather unique in it's design.