It seems there is the option to remove an upgrade with the x button. Better remove that (and just let the whole thing be clicked for removal.) or maybe different visual (the white/red x button is ugly).
Then there is the problem of spawning at the objective. Well no combat map seems to have an option for that. Maybe an additional room a bit further away from hive/chair where players spawn.
Or for current map "style" between chair/hive and center of map? well not sure if that is any better.
Turrets seemed OP, on one hand to strong against aliens when grouped together. And also it seems to give a lot of XP for the guy who dropped it. Sure placement is important and such, but its rather cheap to get kills.
Not sure, I haven't checked if gorge can drop whips?
Maybe there should be no offensive structures. But they sure are fun to use I suppose.
Last Feedback, trying to think hard what else there was:
The upgrade tree for rines was interesting, at that times I was not sure if I can buy something. Just saying at first I did not fully understand the GUI, later I understood that some values define the min Level I need to get it. It seems not totally intuitive, and maybe could use some more contrast for visibility.
Probably I was confused cause having played other combat mods, and the GUI might be fine - I am not sure about this last feedback.
It seems there is the option to remove an upgrade with the x button. Better remove that (and just let the whole thing be clicked for removal.) or maybe different visual (the white/red x button is ugly).
This will probably get removed since you can click the upgrade again to remove it from the queue (Aliens).
Then there is the problem of spawning at the objective. Well no combat map seems to have an option for that. Maybe an additional room a bit further away from hive/chair where players spawn.
Or for current map "style" between chair/hive and center of map? well not sure if that is any better.
Combat maps are small and the general play style has the player spawning instantly at base.
Turrets seemed OP, on one hand to strong against aliens when grouped together. And also it seems to give a lot of XP for the guy who dropped it. Sure placement is important and such, but its rather cheap to get kills.
Sentries being OP is a thing that has already been discussed. I will be nerfing them by enforcing a min-distance required between each sentry. They are already hard-capped.
Not sure, I haven't checked if gorge can drop whips?
Maybe there should be no offensive structures. But they sure are fun to use I suppose.
There will be whips to counter the sentries. Right now I'm still working on upgrade code, but once that's finished, the next task will be adding the additional structures for the gorges to build.
Last Feedback, trying to think hard what else there was:
The upgrade tree for rines was interesting, at that times I was not sure if I can buy something. Just saying at first I did not fully understand the GUI, later I understood that some values define the min Level I need to get it. It seems not totally intuitive, and maybe could use some more contrast for visibility.
Probably I was confused cause having played other combat mods, and the GUI might be fine - I am not sure about this last feedback.
There is an indicator on each button on the Marine Buy Menu to indicate the level/rank at which each upgrade becomes available. I will likely redo the buy menus at some point. Hopefully the next approach will be more intuitive
I've been thinking about this a little bit. Will it be possible for the basic combat leveling/upgrading model to be applied to slightly different game modes? The worst part of combat has been, generally speaking, the objective: killing the hive or cc isn't particularly thrilling, usually happens in overtime, and is more or less a war of attrition. Teams rarely work together, and the center areas of each map usually devolve into spam by midround. Player dropped pve (e.g. hydras) usually results in distraction at best, frustration at worst. And so on.
So I'm wondering if something like UT2004's onslaught map control model could be effectively married to the combat player upgrade model. Here are a few maps:
How Onslaught worked in UT2004:
-Teams: there are two teams, red and blue.
-Goal: your goal is to destroy enemy team's "power core" (which is located at their spawn) before they destroy yours.
-Detail: your power core serves as a spawn point and base with useful pve/vehicles/weapons.
-Limitation: power cores cannot be repaired once damaged.
-Limitation: you cannot damage the power cores initially; first you must "link" to them by capturing "power nodes" en route to the power core.
-Limitation: power nodes start off neutral, and it takes time to capture them (UT2004 uses the link gun for the capture process).
-Detail: once captured, a power node starts to serve as a mini-base for your team to help you push further.
-Limitation: power nodes can be attacked during the capture process. If destroyed, they revert to a neutral state.
-Limitation: you must establish a sequential link to the enemy team's power core, step by step. Depending on the map, there may be many possible routes to the enemy team's power core.
In the case of UT2004, these maps were wide open areas with vehicular combat. But because NS2 is largely comprised of hallways and rooms, it should be easy enough to envision how the same principle would work.
How it could work in NS2:
-Have the CC/Hive serve as the "power cores"
-Use specific rooms to serve as the "power nodes". The node could simply be the existing resource node model - although using harvesters/extractors to signal whether a room has been captured might be confusing, since they won't be producing resources.
-Option 1: require welders/gorges to build the node. This encourages upgrade diversity, and because the CC/Hive cannot be healed, it will obviate the need for gorges and marines to camp in base all game.
-Option 2: have a node start being captured once touched by a marine or alien, but allow welders/gorges to capture it more quickly.
-By introducing a control point mechanic, you incentivize a minimum degree of strategic thought. Camping in base results in losing the round because you aren't capturing. Fighting randomly in large, open areas of the map (for example a central courtyard) may result in an insufficiently supported push elsewhere. It's valuable to teach players that there are places they need to be, and that their presence is a priority. That basic capacity / map awareness translates to classic.
-Once a room is captured, you could use the existing lighting and infestation mechanics to signal whether it's alien or marine controlled.
-You could also allow a minimum degree of pve to spawn (perhaps on a timer) in the room after captured: armories/crags, etc. Thus, the longer a team controls a node, the stronger it becomes. But err on the side of weakness so that capturing nodes is never impossible.
-An alternate approach would be to allow players to spend their upgrades on specific pve that would spawn for that team in a room whenever it's controlled (perhaps on a timer, again). This would help reduce the number of players who just max out their personal upgrades and would teach newer players how the structures function without really ruining combat's flow or requiring a commander.
-Using a link/control model we get a greater variety of options over the course of a round. Perhaps you mount a significant defense along one path while a smaller subset of your team starts establishing links elsewhere, for example. Perhaps you take the longer route, forcing the marines to address your progress once you start getting close, thereby allowing your team to apply greater pressure to the marine's advancement elsewhere. And so on.
I think it solves a lot of combat's fundamental problems. It incentivizes more dynamic engagements, teaches people how to work together to clear a room (which is fundamentally what NS2 engagements are about) and makes the entire mode seem more purposeful without fundamentally altering the basic idea that you're hopping in, leveling up, and fighting. The maps could be geometrically simple and still work perfectly. This mode would be a far more valuable learning tool for NS2 players than traditional combat is.
I like the idea. It's kind of like a hybrid between assault and combat, with the UT2004 spin put on it. I enjoyed that game mode from UT2004 a lot.
The bulk of the combat mod is the leveling/upgrade/progression system so I don't think it's unrealistic to take that and build a new game mode around it.
So after watching a video and doing a little read it seems this Onslaught mode is like point control with extra rules. One of these is your team has to hold certain points to start damaging the enemies Main base. Otherwise its impervious.
Sounds interesting. I could get behind some of the aspects behind this but I dont think I particularly enjoy having to take certain points to access the enemy base. One point is if the enemy team holds one of those points and it can not be taken then the game gets drug out. Unless I am misunderstanding then please ignore. I absolutely agree with everything before overtime just being a slosh of attrition back and forth until the time comes. It kind of sucks. That and all those times when each team rushed the others base and it just comes down to DPS. Again, lame.
Overtime should just be removed IMO.
Maybe another mechanic instead of overtime that would be a bit more interesting is each time the chair/hive reaches a certain threshold in health, its MAX hp lowers. Like a so -
CC goes from 1000 hp 300 armor to 740 HP 0 Armor.
Marines weld it back up but New max HP is 910 300 Armor.
A skulk bites the chair and it gets to 900 hp and 0 armor.
Gets welded to 910 / 300. HP didnt get lowered because it didnt reach its threshold which I arbitrarily set it to 25%.
Just an idea.
-Once a room is captured, you could use the existing lighting and infestation mechanics to signal whether it's alien or marine controlled.
I really want that to be a thing regardless. Like really bad.
Each map section already has a power node so if that is destroyed then infestation would start growing, warning lighting goes on like in the vanilla mode. Completely black then red. Not sure if this would require previous rooms to be infested because it could go either way and I would not mind either. On the marine side they would have to restore power and destroy PVE structures to gain control of the room. Structures would not be allowed to be placed on infestation and vice versa for the aliens.
-You could also allow a minimum degree of pve to spawn (perhaps on a timer) in the room after captured: armories/crags, etc. Thus, the longer a team controls a node, the stronger it becomes. But err on the side of weakness so that capturing nodes is never impossible.
love it! But I still am on the side of the team where gorges should be able to place structures like crags, shifts, whips etc. It gives them something to do in combat. This could go with the room infestation mechanic very well whichever way it goes. This would also work with marines being able to drop certain structures like obs. I feel a little odd about any marine dropping structures so maybe we would have to add a 3 point *Engineering* upgrade or something that grants users the ability to purchase structures.
As for structures maybe marines could lay them as blueprints and have to build them? Seems more in tune with the game than if you were to just drop massive structures out of your ass.
Sounds interesting. I could get behind some of the aspects behind this but I dont think I particularly enjoy having to take certain points to access the enemy base. One point is if the enemy team holds one of those points and it can not be taken then the game gets drug out. Unless I am misunderstanding then please ignore. I absolutely agree with everything before overtime just being a slosh of attrition back and forth until the time comes. It kind of sucks. That and all those times when each team rushed the others base and it just comes down to DPS. Again, lame.
I understand the concern, but a few points to consider:
1.
This would be a different game mode, just using combat's leveling mechanics. Similar but fundamentally different.
2.
Teams can already camp in their spawn locations in combat. And the node rooms would be less defensible than the spawn is. This has important consequences: for example, it's much harder for marines to effectively push the alien hive in combat as is. But if they've controlled the map via a link path en route to the alien hive, the push becomes considerably easier. And it provides the aliens with a concrete objective: push back or perish. The tug of war is far more palpable.
3.
Also consider a map like Dria (per my last post):
Let's say you're starting w/ the blue team (top left) and you want to attack the enemy base (bottom right). You could get there via the following routes:
5-8-3-2
5-6-1-2
And so on for maps of increasing complexity. Simpler maps would require less linking of course, but that just means they'd be more combat-esque.
4.
The overall goal is to add a strategic layer to the push aspect of combat both with respect to defense and offense. It also completely disincentivizes camping in base (which combat currently incentivizes for marines in particular) since you'll be ensuring your demise by doing so. And welding a CC/healing a hive doesn't teach you much about the game, whereas if support roles are encouraged to push in order to achieve the objective, they'll get a lot of useful practice that translates to classic. Also, because there are more avenues to push than standard combat, engagements will be more varied and thus more representative of the types of situations you find yourself in when playing classic.
Comments
It seems there is the option to remove an upgrade with the x button. Better remove that (and just let the whole thing be clicked for removal.) or maybe different visual (the white/red x button is ugly).
Then there is the problem of spawning at the objective. Well no combat map seems to have an option for that. Maybe an additional room a bit further away from hive/chair where players spawn.
Or for current map "style" between chair/hive and center of map? well not sure if that is any better.
Turrets seemed OP, on one hand to strong against aliens when grouped together. And also it seems to give a lot of XP for the guy who dropped it. Sure placement is important and such, but its rather cheap to get kills.
Not sure, I haven't checked if gorge can drop whips?
Maybe there should be no offensive structures. But they sure are fun to use I suppose.
Last Feedback, trying to think hard what else there was:
The upgrade tree for rines was interesting, at that times I was not sure if I can buy something. Just saying at first I did not fully understand the GUI, later I understood that some values define the min Level I need to get it. It seems not totally intuitive, and maybe could use some more contrast for visibility.
Probably I was confused cause having played other combat mods, and the GUI might be fine - I am not sure about this last feedback.
This will probably get removed since you can click the upgrade again to remove it from the queue (Aliens).
Combat maps are small and the general play style has the player spawning instantly at base.
Sentries being OP is a thing that has already been discussed. I will be nerfing them by enforcing a min-distance required between each sentry. They are already hard-capped.
There will be whips to counter the sentries. Right now I'm still working on upgrade code, but once that's finished, the next task will be adding the additional structures for the gorges to build.
There is an indicator on each button on the Marine Buy Menu to indicate the level/rank at which each upgrade becomes available. I will likely redo the buy menus at some point. Hopefully the next approach will be more intuitive
Thanks so much for the feedback, I appreciate it!
So I'm wondering if something like UT2004's onslaught map control model could be effectively married to the combat player upgrade model. Here are a few maps:
How Onslaught worked in UT2004:
-Teams: there are two teams, red and blue.
-Goal: your goal is to destroy enemy team's "power core" (which is located at their spawn) before they destroy yours.
-Detail: your power core serves as a spawn point and base with useful pve/vehicles/weapons.
-Limitation: power cores cannot be repaired once damaged.
-Limitation: you cannot damage the power cores initially; first you must "link" to them by capturing "power nodes" en route to the power core.
-Limitation: power nodes start off neutral, and it takes time to capture them (UT2004 uses the link gun for the capture process).
-Detail: once captured, a power node starts to serve as a mini-base for your team to help you push further.
-Limitation: power nodes can be attacked during the capture process. If destroyed, they revert to a neutral state.
-Limitation: you must establish a sequential link to the enemy team's power core, step by step. Depending on the map, there may be many possible routes to the enemy team's power core.
In the case of UT2004, these maps were wide open areas with vehicular combat. But because NS2 is largely comprised of hallways and rooms, it should be easy enough to envision how the same principle would work.
How it could work in NS2:
-Have the CC/Hive serve as the "power cores"
-Use specific rooms to serve as the "power nodes". The node could simply be the existing resource node model - although using harvesters/extractors to signal whether a room has been captured might be confusing, since they won't be producing resources.
-Option 1: require welders/gorges to build the node. This encourages upgrade diversity, and because the CC/Hive cannot be healed, it will obviate the need for gorges and marines to camp in base all game.
-Option 2: have a node start being captured once touched by a marine or alien, but allow welders/gorges to capture it more quickly.
-By introducing a control point mechanic, you incentivize a minimum degree of strategic thought. Camping in base results in losing the round because you aren't capturing. Fighting randomly in large, open areas of the map (for example a central courtyard) may result in an insufficiently supported push elsewhere. It's valuable to teach players that there are places they need to be, and that their presence is a priority. That basic capacity / map awareness translates to classic.
-Once a room is captured, you could use the existing lighting and infestation mechanics to signal whether it's alien or marine controlled.
-You could also allow a minimum degree of pve to spawn (perhaps on a timer) in the room after captured: armories/crags, etc. Thus, the longer a team controls a node, the stronger it becomes. But err on the side of weakness so that capturing nodes is never impossible.
-An alternate approach would be to allow players to spend their upgrades on specific pve that would spawn for that team in a room whenever it's controlled (perhaps on a timer, again). This would help reduce the number of players who just max out their personal upgrades and would teach newer players how the structures function without really ruining combat's flow or requiring a commander.
-Using a link/control model we get a greater variety of options over the course of a round. Perhaps you mount a significant defense along one path while a smaller subset of your team starts establishing links elsewhere, for example. Perhaps you take the longer route, forcing the marines to address your progress once you start getting close, thereby allowing your team to apply greater pressure to the marine's advancement elsewhere. And so on.
I think it solves a lot of combat's fundamental problems. It incentivizes more dynamic engagements, teaches people how to work together to clear a room (which is fundamentally what NS2 engagements are about) and makes the entire mode seem more purposeful without fundamentally altering the basic idea that you're hopping in, leveling up, and fighting. The maps could be geometrically simple and still work perfectly. This mode would be a far more valuable learning tool for NS2 players than traditional combat is.
Thoughts?
The bulk of the combat mod is the leveling/upgrade/progression system so I don't think it's unrealistic to take that and build a new game mode around it.
Sounds interesting. I could get behind some of the aspects behind this but I dont think I particularly enjoy having to take certain points to access the enemy base. One point is if the enemy team holds one of those points and it can not be taken then the game gets drug out. Unless I am misunderstanding then please ignore. I absolutely agree with everything before overtime just being a slosh of attrition back and forth until the time comes. It kind of sucks. That and all those times when each team rushed the others base and it just comes down to DPS. Again, lame.
Overtime should just be removed IMO.
Maybe another mechanic instead of overtime that would be a bit more interesting is each time the chair/hive reaches a certain threshold in health, its MAX hp lowers. Like a so -
CC goes from 1000 hp 300 armor to 740 HP 0 Armor.
Marines weld it back up but New max HP is 910 300 Armor.
A skulk bites the chair and it gets to 900 hp and 0 armor.
Gets welded to 910 / 300. HP didnt get lowered because it didnt reach its threshold which I arbitrarily set it to 25%.
Just an idea.
I really want that to be a thing regardless. Like really bad.
Each map section already has a power node so if that is destroyed then infestation would start growing, warning lighting goes on like in the vanilla mode. Completely black then red. Not sure if this would require previous rooms to be infested because it could go either way and I would not mind either. On the marine side they would have to restore power and destroy PVE structures to gain control of the room. Structures would not be allowed to be placed on infestation and vice versa for the aliens.
love it! But I still am on the side of the team where gorges should be able to place structures like crags, shifts, whips etc. It gives them something to do in combat. This could go with the room infestation mechanic very well whichever way it goes. This would also work with marines being able to drop certain structures like obs. I feel a little odd about any marine dropping structures so maybe we would have to add a 3 point *Engineering* upgrade or something that grants users the ability to purchase structures.
As for structures maybe marines could lay them as blueprints and have to build them? Seems more in tune with the game than if you were to just drop massive structures out of your ass.
1.
This would be a different game mode, just using combat's leveling mechanics. Similar but fundamentally different.
2.
Teams can already camp in their spawn locations in combat. And the node rooms would be less defensible than the spawn is. This has important consequences: for example, it's much harder for marines to effectively push the alien hive in combat as is. But if they've controlled the map via a link path en route to the alien hive, the push becomes considerably easier. And it provides the aliens with a concrete objective: push back or perish. The tug of war is far more palpable.
3.
Also consider a map like Dria (per my last post):
Let's say you're starting w/ the blue team (top left) and you want to attack the enemy base (bottom right). You could get there via the following routes:
5-8-3-2
5-6-1-2
And so on for maps of increasing complexity. Simpler maps would require less linking of course, but that just means they'd be more combat-esque.
4.
The overall goal is to add a strategic layer to the push aspect of combat both with respect to defense and offense. It also completely disincentivizes camping in base (which combat currently incentivizes for marines in particular) since you'll be ensuring your demise by doing so. And welding a CC/healing a hive doesn't teach you much about the game, whereas if support roles are encouraged to push in order to achieve the objective, they'll get a lot of useful practice that translates to classic. Also, because there are more avenues to push than standard combat, engagements will be more varied and thus more representative of the types of situations you find yourself in when playing classic.
You should probably make a separate post with this information. I like the idea and would like to try it out.
Yeah I agree. A separate thread to begin brainstorming/solidifying ideas and deriving requirements would be nice.
I'm down to contribute anything needed from the code aspect.
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/154838/combat-offshoot-combat-onslaught-this