Following what ironhorse said, once a team has a certain part of the map they can just enter stall mode, stalling when you have the advantage leads to exponential growth. And marines have shitloads of turtle mechanics like armory blocking and weapon pickup that rewards defensive play way more than offensive play.
Im not sure how to fix this sort of thing, but im sure there's a solution. It would likely need to be drastic, though.
Following what ironhorse said, once a team has a certain part of the map they can just enter stall mode, stalling when you have the advantage leads to exponential growth. And marines have shitloads of turtle mechanics like armory blocking and weapon pickup that rewards defensive play way more than offensive play.
Im not sure how to fix this sort of thing, but im sure there's a solution. It would likely need to be drastic, though.
@Mattk50 I can't agree with this too much, as the Alien side always have more mobility, so can hit multiple locations quickly and really put pressure on the Marine team. Marines can't take a "certain" part of the map (and just hold til JP), unless they already own a large part of the map. The game is geared toward going on the offense. Harass RTs and make pokes at the other team. Pull their players away from pushes, and strike when they are spread thin.
Following what ironhorse said, once a team has a certain part of the map they can just enter stall mode, stalling when you have the advantage leads to exponential growth. And marines have shitloads of turtle mechanics like armory blocking and weapon pickup that rewards defensive play way more than offensive play.
Im not sure how to fix this sort of thing, but im sure there's a solution. It would likely need to be drastic, though.
@Mattk50 I can't agree with this too much, as the Alien side always have more mobility, so can hit multiple locations quickly and really put pressure on the Marine team. Marines can't take a "certain" part of the map (and just hold til JP), unless they already own a large part of the map. The game is geared toward going on the offense. Harass RTs and make pokes at the other team. Pull their players away from pushes, and strike when they are spread thin.
Indeed, the problem really is that Marines need to be WAY more aggressive than aliens to stay in the game. The biggest imbalance here is between the alien and marine economy. Aliens can safely sit around on 3 or so RTs until Fades, where as marines need to at least sit on 5 or more in order to remain competitive on teching. As a result, marines are under immense pressure early on to keep alien RTs down, despite the fact that traditionally and intuitively they are not as offensively oriented as aliens are. (Sure they can play aggressive, as competitive and high skilled players will show, but I would argue that because of the way the faction is designed it is not actual their 'base state'). Marines really can't afford to turtle, unless they have a big enough RT advantage.
I should have perhaps stated it more clearly. I think it is the RTS economy imbalance that we need to address, not any other perceived imbalance.
Early marine RT harassment is indeed the least intuitive part of the game by a huge long shot.
This isn't something that can be addressed by tweaking the economy's basic numbers due to how the alien-marine balance shifts along the games skill curve.
How could early RT harassment be made more intuitive?
That's as troublesome a question as "how can teamplay be made more intuitive?" - since you cant win a game with the entire team harassing res, the same way you cant win with none of them harassing res.
Maybe some kind of fog-of-war effect on the map could be used to display reasonable distances for marines to stand apart. You could instruct marine players to try and reduce the amount of 'dark' map areas through positioning. Something like that. That might cover the teamwork aspect in some sense?
In terms of making early RT harassment, I dont know. I think a better explanation of how this mechanic works in the rookie tutorials would be a start.
Following what ironhorse said, once a team has a certain part of the map they can just enter stall mode, stalling when you have the advantage leads to exponential growth. And marines have shitloads of turtle mechanics like armory blocking and weapon pickup that rewards defensive play way more than offensive play.
Im not sure how to fix this sort of thing, but im sure there's a solution. It would likely need to be drastic, though.
@Mattk50 I can't agree with this too much, as the Alien side always have more mobility, so can hit multiple locations quickly and really put pressure on the Marine team. Marines can't take a "certain" part of the map (and just hold til JP), unless they already own a large part of the map. The game is geared toward going on the offense. Harass RTs and make pokes at the other team. Pull their players away from pushes, and strike when they are spread thin.
Indeed, the problem really is that Marines need to be WAY more aggressive than aliens to stay in the game. The biggest imbalance here is between the alien and marine economy. Aliens can safely sit around on 3 or so RTs until Fades, where as marines need to at least sit on 5 or more in order to remain competitive on teching. As a result, marines are under immense pressure early on to keep alien RTs down, despite the fact that traditionally and intuitively they are not as offensively oriented as aliens are. (Sure they can play aggressive, as competitive and high skilled players will show, but I would argue that because of the way the faction is designed it is not actual their 'base state'). Marines really can't afford to turtle, unless they have a big enough RT advantage.
I should have perhaps stated it more clearly. I think it is the RTS economy imbalance that we need to address, not any other perceived imbalance.
While I definitely agree that aliens can usually be comfortable at 3 rts, and it can appear difficult, especially for new players to keep the rt count below that number; The problem I see with changing the RTS economy imbalance, as you put it, is that aliens often have a really hard time getting a 4th harvester on most maps.
So what is the alternative? Give marines a bigger economic advantage? I, for one, would require a very compelling argument to support that route.
I think to change the RTS economy would almost certainly require changes on all the maps as well. You could make it so aliens would need 4 harvesters to stay comfortable, but it would require that aliens would have a natural 4th on all the maps imo. You could make it so marines would only need 4 extractors to be comfortable, but it would again require maps where marines wouldn't be able to secure them so easily.
So if we are going the route of changing the RTS economy, and assuming we need to change the maps accordingly - then why not skip a step, and just alter the maps in a slight favor towards the marines, and keep the economy as it is?
RT harassment/biting is important during the entire game, not just early game. For aliens, I don't think buildings stay parasited forever like in NS1. If we made structure parasiting permanent, I think it would be a welcomed feature for newer players to remember to bite res, and put them on their way to becoming a better player. Just seeing that outline structure through a nearby wall would encourage them not to just run around with no idea where to go. And I don't think it would have a huge effect on balance. I still always parasite RTs first as I'm hopping to them.
The IS a healthy chance for either team to turn the game around at any given time. But not if they are outskilled beyond the point where small victories (such as hive down, onos down) could lead to a change of tables.
That's what tournaments are all about.
Oh I agree, but this assumes that the skill level required to pull off these comebacks match the skill floor. They do not. So what good are mechanics that 95% of the playerbase cannot exercise?
There's a reason you see more come backs in tournaments:
Much better coordination / teamwork
Higher skill levels and deeper understanding of mechanics.
Also, not everything that sounds like a comeback, actually is one.
One example: Maintaining tech / ups after the structure / map control has been lost, more often just prolongs the inevitable instead of providing a hail mary pass comeback scenario.
A good rule is that if you have to categorize it as a "soft" comeback mechanic then it's not a comeback mechanic at all. Employing such a thing should have a notable impact.
(see my prior post's small text for what I consider to be propercomeback design parameters)
Comments
Im not sure how to fix this sort of thing, but im sure there's a solution. It would likely need to be drastic, though.
@Mattk50 I can't agree with this too much, as the Alien side always have more mobility, so can hit multiple locations quickly and really put pressure on the Marine team. Marines can't take a "certain" part of the map (and just hold til JP), unless they already own a large part of the map. The game is geared toward going on the offense. Harass RTs and make pokes at the other team. Pull their players away from pushes, and strike when they are spread thin.
Indeed, the problem really is that Marines need to be WAY more aggressive than aliens to stay in the game. The biggest imbalance here is between the alien and marine economy. Aliens can safely sit around on 3 or so RTs until Fades, where as marines need to at least sit on 5 or more in order to remain competitive on teching. As a result, marines are under immense pressure early on to keep alien RTs down, despite the fact that traditionally and intuitively they are not as offensively oriented as aliens are. (Sure they can play aggressive, as competitive and high skilled players will show, but I would argue that because of the way the faction is designed it is not actual their 'base state'). Marines really can't afford to turtle, unless they have a big enough RT advantage.
I should have perhaps stated it more clearly. I think it is the RTS economy imbalance that we need to address, not any other perceived imbalance.
This isn't something that can be addressed by tweaking the economy's basic numbers due to how the alien-marine balance shifts along the games skill curve.
How could early RT harassment be made more intuitive?
That's as troublesome a question as "how can teamplay be made more intuitive?" - since you cant win a game with the entire team harassing res, the same way you cant win with none of them harassing res.
Maybe some kind of fog-of-war effect on the map could be used to display reasonable distances for marines to stand apart. You could instruct marine players to try and reduce the amount of 'dark' map areas through positioning. Something like that. That might cover the teamwork aspect in some sense?
In terms of making early RT harassment, I dont know. I think a better explanation of how this mechanic works in the rookie tutorials would be a start.
While I definitely agree that aliens can usually be comfortable at 3 rts, and it can appear difficult, especially for new players to keep the rt count below that number; The problem I see with changing the RTS economy imbalance, as you put it, is that aliens often have a really hard time getting a 4th harvester on most maps.
So what is the alternative? Give marines a bigger economic advantage? I, for one, would require a very compelling argument to support that route.
I think to change the RTS economy would almost certainly require changes on all the maps as well. You could make it so aliens would need 4 harvesters to stay comfortable, but it would require that aliens would have a natural 4th on all the maps imo. You could make it so marines would only need 4 extractors to be comfortable, but it would again require maps where marines wouldn't be able to secure them so easily.
So if we are going the route of changing the RTS economy, and assuming we need to change the maps accordingly - then why not skip a step, and just alter the maps in a slight favor towards the marines, and keep the economy as it is?
Oh I agree, but this assumes that the skill level required to pull off these comebacks match the skill floor. They do not. So what good are mechanics that 95% of the playerbase cannot exercise?
There's a reason you see more come backs in tournaments:
Also, not everything that sounds like a comeback, actually is one.
One example: Maintaining tech / ups after the structure / map control has been lost, more often just prolongs the inevitable instead of providing a hail mary pass comeback scenario.
A good rule is that if you have to categorize it as a "soft" comeback mechanic then it's not a comeback mechanic at all. Employing such a thing should have a notable impact.
(see my prior post's small text for what I consider to be proper comeback design parameters)