CompMod *Pub Friendly*

xDragon

For a while a second version of 'CompMod' has existed with a small set of additional changes to main it slightly more pub friendly. I have recently begun updating this version again to try to find some better solutions to outstanding problems.

This document should detail all (or most) of the changes currently in normal CompMod - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YOnjJz6_GhioysLaWiRfc17xnrmw6AEJIb6gq7TX3Qg/edit

The pub friendly version currently changes these additional things:
Exosuits hardcapped to 4 active at once. (I am looking to remove this once exo's are a bit more balanced)
Dual Minigun and Dual Railgun exosuit cost increased to 65 pres (Also looking to lower this once more balanced)
Exosuit research cost increased to 45 tres.
Minigun ROF doubled.
Minigun damage type changed to Puncture (Deals 2x to players) from Heavy.
Minigun damage lowered to 6
Railgun target penetration removed.
Railgun now deals small AOE of damage after impact (Similar to GL).
Exosuit thruster cooldown increased to 4 seconds.
Exosuit thruster duration shortened to .5 seconds.
Exosuit thruster horizontal acceleration increased to 50, vertical increased to 20, max speed increase upped to 5.
Exosuit thrusters can be used to move any direction now.

Gorge Tunnel HP values restored to vanilla values.
Lerk spikes decreased to 6 damage from 7.
Skulk base movement speed increased by 0.25, removed 0.25 speed bonus for being on wall.
Gorge Pres cost lowered from 8 to 7.
Lerk Pres cost lowered from 20 to 18.
Fade Pres cost lowered from 35 to 34.
Fade upgrades Pres cost lowered from 5 to 4.

As always you can find the mod on WS - http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=285843711
and also on GitHub - https://github.com/xToken/CompMod/tree/Revision-4-Pub

Ixian

Ive played with it and the mod works without any technical problem. Gameplay is another matter, which it completely ruins. Dont nerf and buff at your leasure to make up for lack of good, rewarding plays. 2 RTs for aliens means ~2:25 lerktimer, where it usually would be around 3:00-3:30. A 2 minute timing for lerks would require gorge(s) and a high amount of teamwork. Dont reward people for not knowing how to play the game. If people lose, they are not playing rewarding gameplay. I recommend everyone to look the other way. The browser should warn about compmod, public edition or not, just like it warns about 24+ servers.

Locklear

How do these changes reward people that don't know how to play? Are you saying the slightly reduced lifeform costs would be allowing aliens to make more mistakes or?

Elaborate more than just generic self proclaimed mantras towards balance and gameplay.

Telling everyone to just look the other way instead of actually providing feedback is pretty lame as well.

Actually, just completely facepalming after reading that reply.

xDragon

Given that response, I suspect you have no real understanding of what the mod is for. I suggest you stick to regular compmod, and keep your generally shit attitude to yourself.

Or perhaps PUB means different things to different people.

Ixian

Given the same kind of response that i gave, i suspect the same kind of ignorance that I portrayed so well is alive elsewhere. Let me elaborate.

Having played on a server with it, and talking to people running the server, they were kind enough to shed some light as to why the changes. Aliens were losing too much was the ansver. So the act was to buff aliens. Instead of trying to understand that quad-cysting ore on a warehouse spawn, is a poor way to get your res up. So instead this mod makes it viable, and the marines, who has to take down the single RT, which requires alot more on offence, since they have to both deny mezzanine tunnel and MUST kill the first RT the aliens get. And these are only the problems on tram. If needed, lets talk about Veil further on, and how broken that map becomes.

Just like Wooza's servers doesnt remove the commander problem, but instead makes a lesser need, this doesnt fix the problem. I fail to see why losing = game is wrong. Its an asymetrical multiplayer, and the momentum always shifts. Sometimes its stacked, sometimes you play like shit. Sometimes, you hit a perfect timing, sometimes you walk into 5 skulks.

The worst part of my experience was i found this on a captains mode, microphone required server. Which really should rule out stacks and lack of teamplay. Should. Maybe the problem is somewhere else.

I also fail so see why giving a bad review deserves these kinds of ad hominem ansvers. Can we talk about the mod? if not, why did this even get posted on the forums?

Locklear wrote: »

Elaborate more than just generic self proclaimed mantras towards balance and gameplay.

Highlighting the new lerk timing wasn't enough? Or do you decide to forget about the ~1:35 armor 1 timer, if 1 marines stays and instantly starts building the armslab. Further on this means that lerks will never meet w1 or sgs when they pop, as the marines mathematicly cannot achieve this, if just a very few medpacks are dropped.

xDragon

This really isn't designed to be played by comp teams. I'm not sure how much public play you do, but its obvious that the coordination required to do well on marines is not nearly equal to that which is required on aliens. Watching Captains games and its clear that while they are better than a pub, they still don't come close to comp teams, or even gathers for that matter. I don't believe that the game is imbalanced, but it also cannot be written off as a L2P issue entirely either. I have yet to find a better idea for fixing that issue.

You are basing your feedback on what sounds like 1 game. This mod has been played for almost 6 months now, and generally the feedback has been good. It may not work for every server, but that's part of why posting it here is important at this point, especially with the exo changes in particular.

turtsmcgurt

Ixian wrote: »

Having played on a server with it, and talking to people running the server, they were kind enough to shed some light as to why the changes. Aliens were losing too much was the ansver. So the act was to buff aliens. Instead of trying to understand that quad-cysting ore on a warehouse spawn, is a poor way to get your res up.

if we're thinking about the same server (afaik there's only one that runs pub friendly) marines had a 92% winrate.

92%. that is not because aliens spent a couple extra cysts cysting a natural.

edit: from what I have been told, it is very close to 50/50 now with these changes.

Ixian

I only play public (TS wont work since i reinstalled my computer, and I am not on any team), and I have played it alot recently. I stayed for several games (on both biodome, tram and decent), but this was the one I decided to highlight. The exo changes I have no openion on - never saw them in use.

When the game starts and 2-3 minutes forward generally is heavily in favor of marines (untill lerks pop up which is a major shift. Marines generally get a major shift back when they get Shotguns). I would love to see an attemp to change how this period, rather than shorten it. One way competitive teams gets around this period is crags at naturals - more time to respond, and easier combat when responding. Maybe a buff to alien RTs, atleast when they are dropped, could help this period, where aliens are getting RTs up, which in turn would give the aliens more room for error, rather than the current which is less punishment for error. I am strongly against less punishment for error, and many times it is the commanders job to make room for error, wether it be for medpacks or any only influence he has. If the problem isnt the rotation but the combat, 10-20 more HP on skulks, would be the next step for me. Not shorter spawn queues. Again more room for error, or less punishment for error. Biomass would then have to scale less in turn.

xDragon

I am quite familiar with how comp teams in general use PVE to help hold early RTs, however that is not really relevant here. Many of these games were ending before aliens even took an RT. Increasing skulk HP by a notable amount affects much more of the game than just the first 3-5 minutes. On that same note, so does increasing RT health. In general both of those have been tried in the past, and usually had some quite drastic impacts. Lerks while powerful are really supposed to be a 'support' unit. That is also why spike damage was lowered slightly, and why I might consider changes to the poison bite. I think that the back and forth aspect of the power makes NS2 more interesting, but its important to keep it in check. Ideally that could also apply to balance and its influence from teamplay, but currently marines have a much easier time dealing with the less coordinated styles.

Ixian

I did not know increased skulk HP had been tried in the past. Only ever experienced increased skulk HP in ns2 combat which was a natural disaster. I guess this is where we disagree - where you see a need of additional balancing, I see a need for L2P. I am glad we found where we actually disagreed. Good luck with the mod

Locklear

The way you play NS2 in the public mode at the moment you're not going to get the level of teamwork and coordination needed to make it balanced for aliens to keep up with equally skilled marines. If NS2 had some systems in place that made public more structured I would lean towards L2P as well but it's simply not the case.

Mephilles

xDragon wrote: »

Minigun ROF doubled.
Minigun damage type changed to Puncture (Deals 2x to players) from Heavy.
Minigun damage lowered to 6
Railgun target penetration removed.
Railgun now deals small AOE of damage after impact (Similar to GL).

Why aren't those changes in normal compmod?

Golden

Because they're completely experimental

xDragon

CompMod was always maintained by me, but the changes were not just my ideas alone. They were the product of the CompMod group, anything that was added/changed was always agreed upon and discussed heavily. Because of that, the potential impacts, and my own time spent away from the comp scene, I really wouldn't want to make changes willy nilly. Ill be the first to admit my handle on balance in comp games is quite shaky at best now, and it would feel wrong to go against the spirit of the group which proved very effective in getting the mod where it is today.

However for the pub version I feel I can experiment a little more, and exos ala CompMod clearly cannot work in the pub setting.

meatmachine

In terms of making aliens more able to survive early-game marine fuckery, I'd be interested to know what happens with this kind of changes:

- Cysts spread infestation faster. Like 100% faster
- Alien harvester cost increase to 10 tres?? just to balance out the res buff that these other things would result in
- Increase harvester passive build speed by 100% (that'd still be kinda slow right? but not uselessly slow)

Harvesters would be slightly faster albiet more expensive to drop. Marines would gain less (in terms of damage) from de-cysting harvesters. They would also not completely cripple the early game alien tres economy by killing a drifter.

axamdeep

Skulk ... removed 0.25 speed bonus for being on wall.

I just test this in my local server and I think this makes the skulk wall jump a bit tighter for hitting the space bar. I'm not used to it.

xDragon

Walljump is pretty much a static force at this point, with diminishing gains the faster you are moving. There are no more timing or angle aspects to it anymore.