Coil, seeing your plans and ideas there has made me want to tell the story of an experiment we conducted.
The following rule I saw played out in many wars, and it made for some interesting observations:
In order to remove res exploiting without creating grey areas of unfairness for dropped players - the following simple rule was implemented:
<i>*NO* player may join any team for 90 seconds after the game has commenced</i>
If someone drops early, tough luck, their res will get donated and you can get them back after the first minute. The rule applies to marines as well so as to maintain equal numbers under similar circumstances - no team should be punished for the misfortune of another team, but if a player dropped from both teams then the marine's couldn't just get him back and the aliens could not.
Anyway, the unintended effects this simple rule had on gameplay are very interesting:
Firstly, NO alien team could get away with dumping all their res to the gorge straight off! Any team that did it was instantly dead meat, as the marine comm sees them all stuck in the RR, laughs, and rushes to decimate their hive. The 103 alien's spawning issues made it especially suicidal to have any multiple donations.
However, small numbers of players could donate initially - with the payoff being they could not get back in to the game for a bit, temporarily unevening the teams against them.
Later in the game, especially in 103, the free ability to donate at will was in fact a most fair and balancing force. The team that over-donated to get hives found themselves unable to get advancments benefitting from that hive. On the other hand, it gave the option of some team members to remain a skulk and give their cash to the gorge to get the hive up in a tight spot - it gave the aliens an extra option under pressure.
That is the point - if given a choice, it is clearly better to let everyone max out and let overflow go to the gorge so the team can take full advantage as soon as the hive completes - going to lerk and fade almost immediately. In fact donating then slows the rate the gorge will get money afterward to get movement chambers and healing stations up because those other team members are now filling up again.
However, for team under intense pressure, possibly losing, it gives them a shot at getting that second hive up before the marines manage to overpower the defenders. Doing so is not without cost, yet getting that hive up is their only chance - so they do it, and the marines have an alternate alien tactic to contend with.
I found this, personally, to be a most positive addition to the game. The silly arguments I have heard such that you would have 3 carapace skulks in the initial rush or 3 defense+2 res nodes up immediately are clearly illogical - the time it actually takes someone to start, morph to gorge, lay down a tower and then construct it - let alone three, means that even infinite res could not unbalance the very start of the game. Beyond this, spawning issues and the 90-second rule meant that trying to give the gorge a massive advantage destroys your own offensive whilst leaving your defenses open for a long time - simply suicidal.
I think such middle of the road ideas as this should also be taken into consideration before one decides how the concept unbalances or otherwise afflicts the game.
With regard to your resource restraint ideas...
>> Slightly lower the effectiveness of the marines' default weaponry, and create a new weapon to join the shotgun as an early-game droppable.
This idea I don't think is workable, because it tinkers with initial game parameters - the most sensitive in the game. At the opening stage, very few options maybe worthwhile - things either save time and money or they don't. Use of grey-area tactics to outwit your opponent are necessarily simplistic in the opening, as any mistake here will have catastrophic, certain results later.
So either kitting the marines out with the weapon will be worth it, or it won't be. Hardcore players will quickly determine whether doing so or not is more effective, and then the use of the alternate strategy will vanish from play, reducing the very variety you wanted to increase.
2) IP Spawn Cost. Each respawn costs a small amount of RPs -
I thought that tournament mode servers already had this? Regardless, I am cautious about an upgrade that would tinker with a fundamental, constant cost. Such things are reminiscent of 'increasing returns' or 'positive economic feedback' - which are quite dangerous in strategic economies. Unless the cost of the upgrade is so large that it is never used, things like this tend to have exponential effects on gameplay - the team that is doing well enough to afford the luxury of such an upgrade often cements its victory simply by reducing their overheads to such a degree that they can further outpace their doubtless struggling opponents.
And introducing slipperly slope is to be avoided wherever it is practical to do so - that is it can never perfectly be avoided in the RTS world, but needlessly encouraging it is not wise.
This idea *may* be workable, but would need extensive testing to ensure that it didn't upset the flow of the game or need to be balanced into unusability.
1) The problem with donation is that everyone assumes the whole team will donate to the gorges. Well, what if some don't? Say, in a team of 8 alien players, there's 1 gorge. The gorge piggybanks for the hive, while 5 players of the team donate any resources they receive (and remember, most players start out with around 13 resources), and a hive is up in no time. Meanwhile, you have two players who DON'T donate and instead save their resources. By the time the hive is up, the marines will probably JUST be starting to exit their base, and two players (three, if the gorge goes too) will be fades. 3 fades versus a bunch of unupgraded LMG-wielding marines - not too fair. That, would be like the marines pumping out a few HA+HMG's in seconds, and it would very well hurt the game.
2) As Flarya said, resource donation would make the aliens pretty lazy, and there wouldn't be much attacking being done. That would make the early game a hell of a lot less interesting.
3) I do believe, however, that there is a bit of a problem with alien resources at the moment. In small games, aliens dominate simply because marines can't be everywhere at once; but in large games, they lose because marines CAN be everywhere at once, in groups. Alien deathmatchy-ness works in the smaller games, but teamwork on a massive scale becomes almost a necessity to win in large servers. After all, a marine team of 5 can kill just about any group of skulks coming their way short of a massive 6-skulk-attack (which never happens much beyond the early parts of the game).
My personal analysis, and suggestions:
When in small games, things are relatively even due to the separation of the teams. However, in large games, marines dominate the map simply by their superior strength in numbers. It's not fair for the aliens, because marines can simply rush and rush and rush (distress call, quite a useful tool atm) while the aliens struggle to get enoguh resources to get a second hive and then protect it. Here are my ideas:
a) Give the alien gorge pool a set amount of resources, depending on how many players are on the team. The first gorge to access the pool gets dibs on the resources, and if he dies before he can use them, they go right back in for another gorge. These resources can be used as a little "boost" for the aliens, depending on their situation. If you're in a 5 v 5 game, then there will be barely any resources in the pool at all (given alien superiority). In a 15 v 15 game, however, there may be upwards of 50 to 60 resources, so aliens can immediately buckle down some resource nodes, build some defenses, or even secure a hive (if the aliens take the risk - a team of 6 or 7 marines could demolish it if undefended).
b) The lerk needs a serious gameplay makeover. I feel that he has no place in the early game, and that he has a lot of potential to be a big part of it. My feeling is that the lerks should be the ultimate 1-hive anti-personnel unit, but at the moment this honor still lies on the skulks. Lerks should be given a little more oomph to their attacks, or have their attacks changed altogether, so that they can effectively deal with a small group of marines without dieing. Peole might complain that this would make aliens a ltitle powerful, but you gotta rememeber the little guys are ALWAYS on the defensive and are pretty weak, to boot. It's very hard to defend all possible points of marine attack as aliens, especially when they move in large groups, so in order to retain the deathmatch attitude, ther lerks really should be made stronger. I already suggested that the lerks be given the onos's paralysis tentacles, since thr big oaf doesnt use them much anyway, and it would really help make the lerk a better marine killer. Or, the spikes should be given a serious boost in power. Either way, by the time marines start moving on the offensive for resources and hives, there will be a few alien lerk players to intercept them.
c) If my lerk ideas are implemented, then player resources should also be given boosts depending on team sizes. In small games, alien players should start with very little resources, to give the marines a chance. But in large games, players should start with a good-sized amount of resources (i.e. 25) so that they can lerk right away and counter marine expansion.
d) The shotgun really needs to be lowered in price. No one ever buys that thing, because it is so darn expensive and so easy to lose (2 bites and BAM, 20 resources down the drain). It's a shame, because while the shotgun would make the marines more effective in killing the aliens early on, it would also drain their resources quite a bit if it were frequently bought. I really think the shotgun should only cost 8-10 resources, so that marines will be buying it often and draining their resources. You can lower its power a little, as long as it is still a bit more powerful than the LMG. I really think the shotgun has a lot of potential economic balancing potential, if it were only tweaked a little.
coilAmateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance.Join Date: 2002-04-12Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Nice. (: What exactly was the point of the 90-second rule? I didn't quite follow the rationale - what can the aliens do in the first 90 seconds that they can't do after that minute and a half have passed?
Re: idea 1 (altering default weaponry & adding a new weapon)-- Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of this idea; I'm basically looking for ways to create an early-game-ONLY resource sink. The idea is to make dropping the weapon a practical idea about 50% of the time - combination of effectiveness in combat *and* cost management. A team that doesn't drop any should be at a slight disadvantage, while a team that drops them constantly should get an advantage, but at the expense of slowed tech. It's an iffy solution.
Re: idea 2 (spawns cost RPs)-- I like this idea better, but as you say it would definitely require a lot of balancing. We actually included spawn costs in older playtest builds, but they were removed for precisely the reasons I mentioned - the commander got frustrated when his dying marines cost him too many resources.
In both cases, the "sink" is designed to be removed mid-game. In 1, upgrading the armory gives access to much better weapons (HMG, GL). In 2, a mid-game "standard" upgrade would remove spawn cost - perhaps the CC upgrade (again, required for advanced tech) would automatically make spawns free.
One question that I have to ask everyone - including myself - is whether it is *only* the early game that is unbalanced in favor of marines (in large games). Once the droppable techs come into play, does the size of the marine team effectively cancel out the increased resource income, or is their RP draw too fast through the entire game? For those with the math skills - especially the wonderful guy who made that exhaustive chart - <b>on a team with Y players, how many Fades or HA/HMGs can be produced in 5 minutes if that team controls X resource towers?</b> Knowing the answer to this question would allow us to determine whether the marine game is ALWAYS unbalanced on large servers, or only in the early game. (Note: I'm not saying 1 HA/HMG = 1 Fade... frankly, I don't know what that ratio is, and that will also need to be determined.)
If it's always unbalanced, then we don't have to worry about the RP sink "resolving" itself once the mid-game begins; it can remain through the whole game. If it's balanced once advanced tech comes into play, then the sink needs to go away.
to anyone who thinks gorge-kicking is the way to go, meh.
Aliens are not "forced" to work together like the marines should be. It is to the alien's advantage if they work together, but the marines have a comm, the aliens have a hive. There's only one big happy structure that all aliens should care about, and that's where they spawn. Working together just means you win more often.
Newbie Gorges will never learn how to play if you guys use this kind of script, and sometimes, despite all the moanings of the team, having more than one gorge *IS* useful, even in early game. You just can't consider anything outside of the "normal" strategy. It may be the fastest, and 80% of the time the most efficient, but that doesn't mean it has to be the way to go. Marines don't have to stay in their base, they could leave. It's just easier to see the many (and usually equally viable) strategies as a marine than as an alien.
[edit] I read more into this thread and saw the "more IPs, more costs" idea. That's ingenious! That forces a "marine rush" strat to either pay off, or fail. Plus it helps reduce the silly "4 IPs because my marines are too n00b to stay alive for more than 2 seconds" [/edit]
Question for you coil. Seeing how tech is the big marine edge, has a dynamic tech cost been considered for the marines? (I.E. level 1 armor costs 10 + 2 * the number of marines (numbers pulled from my bum) as compared to a flat 20 res) Of course I see a way around this right off the bat... (Have a number of marines ready room roughly equal to your IPs to lower the cost before doing and have them jump back in as soon as it starts. Maybe I'm just talking out my bum.
As for the guy wanting to give the lerk the paralyzer, as amusing as that may be, that would leave an onos helpless against jetpackers seeing as he now lacks any way to get them into his range. Plus you'd have to ditch another weapon from the lerk. spikes? you just defeated the purpose of giving him the paralyzer. Bite? Your lerk just lost an effective way to take down a building in a reasonable time and his only low adren defense. Of course this could be used to make the lerk scrictly anti personell.
Just for the record, I think we're trying to establish is that there isn't a problem with the Kharaa resource system, in terms of how fast they can upgrade/tech up (which incidentally means were off topic). There is a problem with the marine side. They tech far quicker in larger games, because res gets scaled up with player size, but the research costs stay at a flat rate.
The simplest solution I can think of is that research cost scales to the number of marine players. As I see it, thast whats imbalancing the system.
For example, armour upgrade level 1 costs 20 res. In a 4 player game, it takes longer to get those 20 res and it only effects 4(3) marines. In a 10 player game, it still costs 20 res, but that res comes signicantly quicker and you getting more bang for your buck (res), your now upgrading 10(9) marines. If they were increased/decreased with player size as myself and Clan hunter suggest, it might solve the problem.
<b>Problem : What happens when people leave or join the game ?</b>
Does the commander suddenly get 'charged' more ? Do they get a 'rebate' when a marine leaves ? If nothing happens, it leaves the fairly obvious exploit of a load of marines leaving, commander begins researching something at low cost, then they re-join. The entire idea can confuse new commanders "WTF ? This cost me 30 res last game, why is it 60 now ?" and "Wheres all my res gone. Oh, 3 marines have just joined. Theres goes the res for that siege." It seems the perfect solution but for these drawbacks
Coil, I'm not sure if creating a res sink for the commander would would work or not. I doubt it. Commanders often don't drop shotties because of the res cost, you could consider them a res sink now. Perhaps if they're res was lowered even further ? Pass. Ammo and health drops are already a res sink for the commander so perhaps increasing their costs might work, and it scales with marines as more marines means more drops.
The entire issue is tricky for sure, and I can see how it got overlooked in PT'ing. What size games did you usually play in PT'ing BTW ?
I think they're might be a slight problem with one shots later in the game, but its not really a problem with the marine res. Not only is it possible for the marines to get to the tech requirements faster then the aliens can, but they can replace it faster.
Consider the following situation. Even teams of 5, even res towers (number of res towers doesn't matter). 5 marines get 5 HA/HMG/Welders (commander jumps out as well) and 5 Kharaa evolve to basic 1.04 fades. I think thats equivalent res cost. That upgrading has left the marines with 0 res and each alien with 0 res.
They then kill each other at the same time. In theory, in a balanced game it should take the same length of time until were back to 5 HA/HMG/Welders vs 5 fades. And that is true, with one caveat.
Due to the alien res system, they all get the res to go fades at <b>the same time</b>. Whilst they've been waiting, 4 HA/HMG/Welders have been stomping about and the commanders about to drop a set for himself. I can't think of anything which balances this in the game. It explains why people complain about a never ending supply of heavies whilst a dieing fade takes ages to come back.
Heavies and fades kill each other, a couple of heavies get produced and slaughter the skulks-waiting-to-go fades and gain ground. Skulks get res to go fade. Repeat ad infinutum until the last skulks die at their hive. Marine win.
I think this partially answers your last question Coil.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->on a team with Y players, how many Fades or HA/HMGs can be produced in 5 minutes if that team controls X resource towers? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The answer is the same, only the marines can produce HA/HMG in a never ending stream of ones or twos, whilst aliens would get their res to go fades all at the same time. Again, marines get more bang for their buck. Donating would get around this however.
1) Lots of slippery slope problems. Just lost that team trying to build a resource tower? Now you've lost an extra 5*spawn cost as well. May also encourage turtling. 2) In larger games there is the increased "attrition" to take into account - aliens and marines come into far more contact, so there are far more deaths. I think (v. hard to test), that the proportion of deaths goes up past some team size limit. This factor is heavily dependant on map size. (think of Quake and how frantic it got if you had 16 players on an 8 player map). If this does effect NS (the maps may all be too big for it too be a factor), spawn costs wouldn't work.
OK, that wasn't a brilliant post. Hopefully what I'm saying makes some sort of sense. I'm not saying either of these things is a problem, just that they might be - without testing its hard to tell.
Coil - I don't think a resource sink would work for the marines, because the aliens don't lose any resources in larger games with a faster income rate - they just save them for the 2nd hive midgame, when they can start to evolve into fades. Having a sink will slow the marine teching, but they won't have the reserves to make use of when the advance armory goes up. This gets worse in larger games.
Unfortunately, I have no ideas of how to get round this, except forcing a limit on what the commander can spend on buildings. And that really sucks.
<!--QuoteBegin--coil+Jan 22 2003, 09:16 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (coil @ Jan 22 2003, 09:16 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->A playtester's perspective on the alien resource donation idea.
Some servers, such as the oft-mentioned Voogru's servers, have a modification which allows aliens to donate resources back to the team, giving a gorge a more effective income flow. Is this fair? balanced? exploitive? game-breaking? needed? wanted?
Well, let's see.
1) THE PAST. Donating was tried out during playtest, and it seemed to work fairly well. You spawned, and you had 2 options - run off because you're saving up for lerk/gorge/whatever, or donate your RPs to the hive (you +used the hive to return resources to the pool) before running off as a skulk. Eventually, however, donating was removed. The general sentiment of the developers and the playtesters was that there were two situations: -a- your team had to donate to be effective. In this scenario, aliens might be in trouble in pubs, where lone-wolf players wouldn't want to donate. This would leave the aliens high and dry for RPs. -b- your team could be effective without donation. In this scenario, clan matches would be horribly unbalanced in favor of aliens. The gorge(s) on a fully coordinated, donating team would be rolling in RPs, totally out-building the marines. For this reason - that it could not be balanced between pubs and clan matches - donating was removed.
2) THE PRESENT. Donating exists only on those servers that have added plugin code for it - e.g. voogru's servers. In my opinion, this is unbalancing in favor of the aliens; they are currently balanced to not require donation, and so the extra flow of RPs allows the gorge to build structures much faster than he ought to be able to.
Whether or not the original fear of the devs and playtesters - that donation requires more teamwork than can be expected from pub serves - I do not know. I've seen a great deal of teamplay and coordination on pub servers, though my experience has been unfortunately limited (silly "classes" and "senior year thesis"). My inclination from a lot of what I've seen is that teamplay is more common than we feared (that's good), but still not high enough to allow *necessary* donation to become an added element.
3) THE FUTURE. In my opinion, donation might be a viable option. Regardless, the alien resource system needs some reworking to allow multiple gorges to not bankrupt a team, and this alteration is planned for 1.1.
However, I think the current system allows a more open-ended gameplay than a donation system would. Currently, an early-game gorge that drops a resource tower is down to 0 RPs while the skulks around him are at 25 or so by that point. It might be advantageous to wait for the skulks to "cap out" at 33, but then again it might be better for one of the skulks to switch with the gorge and drop his own RT. A 6-man team could have 4+ Resource Towers and a blindingly fast RP income if they're willing to slightly delay their 2nd hive. It also gives each player on the team a chance at different roles, while a donation system can quickly let a single person stay gorge the whole game. While some people are happier that way, I think a more open-ended system makes for a more interesting game.
So my opinion? Donation might be feasible; at least some parts of the community have shown a great willingness to play as team members and not just frag-hunters. Regardless of its feasibility, however, I think a no-donation system, especially once the resource model is tweaked to allow more flexibility, will offer a more varied and interesting game.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> What exactly is the purpose of this thread?? We added res. donating because we wanted it. Your opinion on the matter doesn't really matter on the subject.
You playtesters have nothing better to do? Like test for Flayra numerous bugs that needs fixn'?
Gonna add llama cage to game.. Look for you playtesters to enter, and throw you in it. Is that unbalance of game play? No, I don't think so.. 50 n00bs better then 1 playtester with negative agenda.
Voogru.com running 2 NS servers - ip ns.voogru.net, ns2.voogru.net FULL 24/7 both 24 slot servers. Of the 300+ 100ms ping servers, 3-5 are full, of the 3-5; 2 are voogru's. You get the picture?
King, back off a bit. He was merely debating resource donation in general. No where does he say "...and thats why Voogru sucks", those he ?
I understand people have had a pop at the Voogru servers for no good reason and you've been right to defend them on those occasions. This is not such an occasion.
Let's calm down and be friends, OK ? Incidentaly res donation isn't even being discussed now.
you never stopped to think that most people play on voogru because 1) it's a 24 slot server 2) they get decent pings ? I honestly don't think your plugin is that popular.
coilAmateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance.Join Date: 2002-04-12Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Kahuna, I think the voogru servers have added some great things to the community in their many utility scripts/mods/plugins - for instance, I believe voogru was one of the (if not the) first to offer a workaround to the so-called skinhack problem. Personally, I dislike some of the modifications the voogru servers use, and I don't play on them for those reasons; that's not at issue.
The original post was designed to open a dialogue, and in my opinion has led to the best discussion I have EVER had on these forums - even pre-release. Resource Donation was brought up merely as a possibility; I never passed judgement, merely stated my own personal opinion of the situation. Frankly, the fact that voogru's servers have it - and are popular - suggests that maybe donation WOULD be a good thing. I'm open to new ideas.
That said, there's been a lot of evidence in this thread that donation *is* unbalancing, at least a bit. If it is included, I just want it done correctly, which is what this thread is about now - creating a resource system that works. If you can't contribute helpfully, please don't contribute at all. I never attacked anyone; there's no reason to attack me.
<!--QuoteBegin--coil+Jan 23 2003, 11:31 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (coil @ Jan 23 2003, 11:31 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Kahuna, I think the voogru servers have added some great things to the community in their many utility scripts/mods/plugins - for instance, I believe voogru was one of the (if not the) first to offer a workaround to the so-called skinhack problem. Personally, I dislike some of the modifications the voogru servers use, and I don't play on them for those reasons; that's not at issue.
The original post was designed to open a dialogue, and in my opinion has led to the best discussion I have EVER had on these forums - even pre-release. Resource Donation was brought up merely as a possibility; I never passed judgement, merely stated my own personal opinion of the situation. Frankly, the fact that voogru's servers have it - and are popular - suggests that maybe donation WOULD be a good thing. I'm open to new ideas.
That said, there's been a lot of evidence in this thread that donation *is* unbalancing, at least a bit. If it is included, I just want it done correctly, which is what this thread is about now - creating a resource system that works. If you can't contribute helpfully, please don't contribute at all. I never attacked anyone; there's no reason to attack me.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> This dialogue has been beat to death... As a playtester, I would expect from you a little better leadership. Seems like you and DOOMbringer simply want to advertise for us all the time.
The more you bash what we do on our OWN server; the more users we get. There should be a message there for you, him, and Flayra.
Voogru Servers FULL 24/7 - why? voogru mods. As for the skin hack, Flayra was aware of the major bug for well over a month before doing anything about it.
You certainly have the rights to your opinions to decent; that being said, we have the same rights to decent. We handle our problems with the developer in a different manner; We don't come here flaming him for what he does/does not do. We simply write our OWN bug fixes, and write our OWN code modifications. As for the for mentioned "voogru server(s)" There is only 1 other server running our game play mods. We're not sharing what we have, not to the first; nor to the last.
<!--QuoteBegin--pielemuis+Jan 23 2003, 10:39 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (pielemuis @ Jan 23 2003, 10:39 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->you never stopped to think that most people play on voogru because 1) it's a 24 slot server 2) they get decent pings ? I honestly don't think your plugin is that popular.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> DBL post intentional.
Come by and see for yourself one day then. You'll see why.
I read most of this thread but I didn't see one option that I was thinking about (unless i skimmed over it)
Why not make the alien res truly individual?
The number of aliens would not affect how much res the res towers give out. Perhaps 1 for skulk and 3 for gorge, this would need testing of course, ie: on a team with 1 skulk the res tower gives out 1 res, on a team with 16 skulks the res tower gives out 16 res
Advantages- Multiple gorges. Team size doesnt have an affect on how fast res come in. Skulks using their res doesn't slow down the gorges res.
Some things that would probably have to change- You wouldn't get all your res back when you died.(to prevent seemingly endless supply of res for aliens late game)
King, this thread has nothing to do with Voogru's servers. Resource donation was a) In early builds, b) Possible by F4ing, c) been many times suggested in suggestion forums as a way to counter marines teching faster in larger games.
Right, back to the point. After my previous post, it occured to me that scaled upgrades could work, if marines were made weaker to start with and more upgrades made available. As in the marine resource sink is not wasted resources. However, there are two problems I can see with it. 1) Easily exploitable. Things can be done to counter this, but its extra complications. 2) Makes it more of a two hive game. The marines tech constantly. Right before the aliens get second hive, the marines are comparitively strong, since they've been teching, while the aliens haven't been able to tech much at all. After the 2nd hive goes up, the aliens suddenly have loads of resources to make use, of and become more powerful. So getting get that 2nd hive quickly is extremely important.
OK, so two ways round it I can see. Make aliens tech proportional to marines in all games. OR have a different upgrade scheme for aliens, and make hives less important.
Actually, I may well be wrong. I hope I am, because both those ideas are terrible. These things may not actually be a problem. Am I just waffling to myself, or am making any sense?
<!--QuoteBegin--mojojojo+Jan 24 2003, 02:22 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (mojojojo @ Jan 24 2003, 02:22 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->King, this thread has nothing to do with Voogru's servers. Resource donation was a) In early builds, b) Possible by F4ing, c) been many times suggested in suggestion forums as a way to counter marines teching faster in larger games.
Right, back to the point. After my previous post, it occured to me that scaled upgrades could work, if marines were made weaker to start with and more upgrades made available. As in the marine resource sink is not wasted resources. However, there are two problems I can see with it. 1) Easily exploitable. Things can be done to counter this, but its extra complications. 2) Makes it more of a two hive game. The marines tech constantly. Right before the aliens get second hive, the marines are comparitively strong, since they've been teching, while the aliens haven't been able to tech much at all. After the 2nd hive goes up, the aliens suddenly have loads of resources to make use, of and become more powerful. So getting get that 2nd hive quickly is extremely important.
OK, so two ways round it I can see. Make aliens tech proportional to marines in all games. OR have a different upgrade scheme for aliens, and make hives less important.
Actually, I may well be wrong. I hope I am, because both those ideas are terrible. These things may not actually be a problem. Am I just waffling to myself, or am making any sense?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Sorry, but I'm sure I read his name if the very first message of this thread. If I'm mistaken, accept my appoligies. I have no intentions to offend anyone.
Coils first message - very 1st line of his message. Note the tenor of his comment, word for word please.
A playtester's perspective on the alien resource donation idea.
Some servers, such as the oft-mentioned Voogru's servers, have a modification which allows aliens to donate resources back to the team, giving a gorge a more effective income flow. Is this fair? balanced? exploitive? game-breaking? needed? wanted?
coilAmateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance.Join Date: 2002-04-12Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
<!--QuoteBegin--kInG kAhUnA+Jan 24 2003, 04:48 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (kInG kAhUnA @ Jan 24 2003, 04:48 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Coils first message - very 1st line of his message. Note the tenor of his comment, word for word please.
A playtester's perspective on the alien resource donation idea.
Some servers, such as the oft-mentioned Voogru's servers, have a modification which allows aliens to donate resources back to the team, giving a gorge a more effective income flow. Is this fair? balanced? exploitive? game-breaking? needed? wanted?
Well, let's see.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm sorry if you felt this was an attack on Voogru's server modifications; it was not intended as such. As I mentioned later in that post, donation was tried in playtest and actually worked very well. What I wanted to discuss was
a) whether donation can work in both pub and clan play b) whether the system in place on the voogru server is a good one (I don't know it very well; other modifications on the server make it one that I don't enjoy playing on) c) whether donation would be a beneficial addition to NS in the future, and d) if so, how best to implement it
I was not trying to imply any judgement on voogru's donation modification; as I said, I don't even know how it works very well, or what effect it has on gameplay. I was simply asking questions that (a) I wanted the answers to, and (b) I wanted to get other people thinking about. Personally, as I said before, I think it has sparked one of the best discussions this board has seen in a LONG time. __________
mojojojo: I wouldn't consider a resource sink "wasteful" - it would only be seen as such in the present build, which doesn't need a sink. Gameplay would be altered so that the sink is functional. For example, buying HMGs is a resource sink - why not make them a permanent, long-term upgrade like MT? Because marines need to constantly expend RPs to be balanced with the aliens.
Looking at the late-game, it appears to me that the mid-game resource system does appear to be balanced. Generally speaking, on larger servers the kharaa will be able to field more Fades than the marines can HA/HMG/Welders. However, not all these aliens are going fade (some will be lerk/gorge), not all marines will get this kit (some may be just HA/HMG, or HA/Welder, or light/welder, etc). Additionally, some resources will go to building - in large games, more OCs must be built by the aliens to delay larger marine teams, while marines seldom put down more than 4 turrets in an area, regardless of team size.
I personally don't see a huge issue with aliens having "extra" resources to go Fade right when the second hive goes up; the re-fade time will allow the marines to bridge the tech gap and field their own squad of HMGs by the time the 2nd round of Fades shows up again. In the current system, aliens often reach the 2nd hive before marines have comparable tech, but you don't see instant victories at that point - that leads me to believe that there isn't a big problem. As long as the marines can get a full squad of HA/HMG up in the next 3-5 minutes, they'll be ok.
One thing to note is that in an 8v8, marines and kharaa with 4 RTs can field 5 HAHMGs and 7 Fades, respectively, every 5 minutes. Personally, I think that's a pretty good balance. It's also worth noting that these values are truncated (rounded down) to the nearest "complete" unit, so the actual RP income may be nearly enough for another unit. The actual numbers in an 8v8 are 5.9 and 7.2, for instance.
So, the midgame appears balanced... what does that mean? It means there needs to be an early-game marine resource sink to balance out teching in large games. Anyone have any ideas? (:
Coil: <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Nice. (: What exactly was the point of the 90-second rule? I didn't quite follow the rationale - what can the aliens do in the first 90 seconds that they can't do after that minute and a half have passed? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Uh...the res exploit? Rejoining the game several times in the first minute of the game to get your free 10 res only to donate it back to the team. If the whole team does it cyclicly, before the 'happyhour' runs out the aliens could gather several hundred res like this. In 104 it is halved in effectiveness, but still broken.
Anyway, the 90 seconds stops this and the bit of extra time ensures there is some additional 'payment' for donating - players for res, effectively.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Note: I'm not saying 1 HA/HMG = 1 Fade... frankly, I don't know what that ratio is, and that will also need to be determined.)<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well I have succesfully taken out 4 carapaced fades in 1 HMG clip without dying, and wounding a 5th.
As a fade I have, with only 1 skulk as backup, killed 2 heavy marines sitting in a turret camp.
I suppose it depends on relative skill levels, recall the ha hmg can be kept alive much more easily than a fade with welder and comm, and that he is much faster to get into battle - spawn, pick up waiting gear and get in phase gate - compared to spawning, morphing, evolving, evolving, using movemennt chamber to approximate location (where applicable), and then walking over the intervening space to battle, all the while hoping that blinking in the wrong place won't send you into a piece of wall and totally waste your 58 res and 2 minutes of time.
But I'm not bitter. Not me. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->So, the midgame appears balanced... what does that mean? It means there needs to be an early-game marine resource sink to balance out teching in large games. Anyone have any ideas? (: <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well I think the answer is easy. Look at starcraft. What is the fundamental rule of resource gathered economies?
That in the first part of the game, resource gathering is exponential - 8 minerals at the start could mean getting 800 before an opponent - as you make another drone that mines enough for another drone...
Whilst the issue is not so straightforward in NS' hybrid resource economy, I still think the answer lies in increasing early costing such that it slows the marines starting economy, whilst being saddled with these costs later is not even noticable. These costs do not have to be in resources, they can be in time. What if the marine's first res node was not constructed? Combine that with making their resource nodes take a few seconds longer to construct (or make them cost 23 res) and you have your early balance without making any real change later on.
One-off early costs are the same - maybe make ips, armories and observatories all cost 1-2 res more. Since they rarely get built more than once, later on the effect disappears.
Imagine if Terran SCVs cost 1 res more than probes or drones. The terrans would certainly notice at the start. But later on, assuming such a change was balanced, such an increase would scarcely even be noticable.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Whilst the issue is not so straightforward in NS' hybrid resource economy, I still think the answer lies in increasing early costing such that it slows the marines starting economy, whilst being saddled with these costs later is not even noticable. These costs do not have to be in resources, they can be in time. What if the marine's first res node was not constructed? Combine that with making their resource nodes take a few seconds longer to construct (or make them cost 23 res) and you have your early balance without making any real change later on.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your missing the point, just slightly. The marine resource economy is not unbalanced as such, its just that it gets faster to tech in bigger games, where as aliens tech at about the same speed in all games. So a resorce sink is needed that slows the marines more in bigger games, and hardly at all in smaller games. But you may be right, only a small tweak may be required.
Coil - if the marines have a resource sink that simply gobbles up resources for no reward, then they will be disadvantaged in larger games. In a larger game: Marines: more resources lost to the "sink" Aliens: More resources stored for after the second hive goes up.
The marines don't earn more than the aliens in bigger games - they simply get to use it straight away, while the aliens are forced to save it until the second hive goes up.
Ok, so by sepeating the "building" res entirely (the one that was suggested only the gorge could access) you remove the multiple respawn cheat. By seperating them entirely, you wouldn't get gorge-to-fade syndrome either. I think it would be easily workable, as the build and evolve menus are sepearte anyway.
coilAmateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance.Join Date: 2002-04-12Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
It is a point that an early-game sink would put the marines in a worse position than the aliens when entering the midgame, as the aliens will have a nice little "rainy day" supply of RPs saved away. Elevating costs across the board could actually be pretty damaging to marines; in large games, they're already at a resource disadvantage (see chart). Conversely, raising the costs of early-game structures would probably not have a big enough impact.
I think the lower shotgun price will help a little, if comms can be convinced to start distributing them. However, another idea:
Aliens always tech at the same rate because the gorge always takes, at minimum, about 10 minutes to put the 2nd hive up. This is *excellent*. One possible way to create balance is to force the marines to wait till the 10-minute point to get their heavy weapons as well. This could be done by 1) adding an upgrade to the Comm Chair, which is required for advanced structures (such as the Adv. Armory), and 2) increasing the upgrade time of the Adv. Armory.
If the two of these upgrades together took about 4-5 minutes to research (exact time, of course, would need tweaking - that might be too much), the marines would be *forced* to wait for the mid-game to get their heavy gear. In the meantime they would build up a slight surplus, which could be used once the AA was finished.
Yeah, that could work. Maines will probably moan about something like that a lot, and it would make the small marine game even harder-especially if it cost much resources to do the long upgrade. Also, if the upgrade time is 4-5 minutes, there could still be problems in larger games, although greatly reduced. Its not ideal. I keep thinking, why not just set a timer from the bigging of the match, and the marines cannot build an advanced armory until the timer has run out? But conceptually, with a bit of working around, it could solve the problem. If its an Advanced Armory upgrade, probably want to make em a bit tougher with it, because it becomes very important to the marines.
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
Yes, I think one should look at several possible marine builds, and then try to balance the cost involved in following them so that they 1. are possible no matter the teamsize (this means making things cheaper/faster for small marine teams - currently, teching up is impossible for small marine teams) 2. requires the marines to hold a certain number of resnodes to make it possible to get the anti-fade equipment before being overwhelmed by the aliens (which means that larger marine teams need to pay more somehow). Basically, saying that if the marines hold 3 res nodes, they are "on plan", if they hold four, they are ahead. If they only hold two, they are in a bad shape[1]
Whether or not to balance things by tweaking the marine resource model, or try to introduce a resource sink to slow down the marine development for larger teams will in the end come out the same. While I think it would be far easier to twiddle the resources, it may be estetically more pleasing to introduce the resource sink.
I have some ideas, but I want to develop them further before posting them ... probably sunday.
[1] Of course, this DOES mean that there will be a recommended number of respoints on maps. Some maps - I didn't say ns_nothing - have just a bit too many respoints.
Comments
The following rule I saw played out in many wars, and it made for some interesting observations:
In order to remove res exploiting without creating grey areas of unfairness for dropped players - the following simple rule was implemented:
<i>*NO* player may join any team for 90 seconds after the game has commenced</i>
If someone drops early, tough luck, their res will get donated and you can get them back after the first minute. The rule applies to marines as well so as to maintain equal numbers under similar circumstances - no team should be punished for the misfortune of another team, but if a player dropped from both teams then the marine's couldn't just get him back and the aliens could not.
Anyway, the unintended effects this simple rule had on gameplay are very interesting:
Firstly, NO alien team could get away with dumping all their res to the gorge straight off! Any team that did it was instantly dead meat, as the marine comm sees them all stuck in the RR, laughs, and rushes to decimate their hive. The 103 alien's spawning issues made it especially suicidal to have any multiple donations.
However, small numbers of players could donate initially - with the payoff being they could not get back in to the game for a bit, temporarily unevening the teams against them.
Later in the game, especially in 103, the free ability to donate at will was in fact a most fair and balancing force. The team that over-donated to get hives found themselves unable to get advancments benefitting from that hive. On the other hand, it gave the option of some team members to remain a skulk and give their cash to the gorge to get the hive up in a tight spot - it gave the aliens an extra option under pressure.
That is the point - if given a choice, it is clearly better to let everyone max out and let overflow go to the gorge so the team can take full advantage as soon as the hive completes - going to lerk and fade almost immediately. In fact donating then slows the rate the gorge will get money afterward to get movement chambers and healing stations up because those other team members are now filling up again.
However, for team under intense pressure, possibly losing, it gives them a shot at getting that second hive up before the marines manage to overpower the defenders. Doing so is not without cost, yet getting that hive up is their only chance - so they do it, and the marines have an alternate alien tactic to contend with.
I found this, personally, to be a most positive addition to the game. The silly arguments I have heard such that you would have 3 carapace skulks in the initial rush or 3 defense+2 res nodes up immediately are clearly illogical - the time it actually takes someone to start, morph to gorge, lay down a tower and then construct it - let alone three, means that even infinite res could not unbalance the very start of the game. Beyond this, spawning issues and the 90-second rule meant that trying to give the gorge a massive advantage destroys your own offensive whilst leaving your defenses open for a long time - simply suicidal.
I think such middle of the road ideas as this should also be taken into consideration before one decides how the concept unbalances or otherwise afflicts the game.
With regard to your resource restraint ideas...
>> Slightly lower the effectiveness of the marines' default weaponry, and create a new weapon to join the shotgun as an early-game droppable.
This idea I don't think is workable, because it tinkers with initial game parameters - the most sensitive in the game. At the opening stage, very few options maybe worthwhile - things either save time and money or they don't. Use of grey-area tactics to outwit your opponent are necessarily simplistic in the opening, as any mistake here will have catastrophic, certain results later.
So either kitting the marines out with the weapon will be worth it, or it won't be. Hardcore players will quickly determine whether doing so or not is more effective, and then the use of the alternate strategy will vanish from play, reducing the very variety you wanted to increase.
2) IP Spawn Cost. Each respawn costs a small amount of RPs -
I thought that tournament mode servers already had this? Regardless, I am cautious about an upgrade that would tinker with a fundamental, constant cost. Such things are reminiscent of 'increasing returns' or 'positive economic feedback' - which are quite dangerous in strategic economies. Unless the cost of the upgrade is so large that it is never used, things like this tend to have exponential effects on gameplay - the team that is doing well enough to afford the luxury of such an upgrade often cements its victory simply by reducing their overheads to such a degree that they can further outpace their doubtless struggling opponents.
And introducing slipperly slope is to be avoided wherever it is practical to do so - that is it can never perfectly be avoided in the RTS world, but needlessly encouraging it is not wise.
This idea *may* be workable, but would need extensive testing to ensure that it didn't upset the flow of the game or need to be balanced into unusability.
1) The problem with donation is that everyone assumes the whole team will donate to the gorges. Well, what if some don't? Say, in a team of 8 alien players, there's 1 gorge. The gorge piggybanks for the hive, while 5 players of the team donate any resources they receive (and remember, most players start out with around 13 resources), and a hive is up in no time. Meanwhile, you have two players who DON'T donate and instead save their resources. By the time the hive is up, the marines will probably JUST be starting to exit their base, and two players (three, if the gorge goes too) will be fades. 3 fades versus a bunch of unupgraded LMG-wielding marines - not too fair. That, would be like the marines pumping out a few HA+HMG's in seconds, and it would very well hurt the game.
2) As Flarya said, resource donation would make the aliens pretty lazy, and there wouldn't be much attacking being done. That would make the early game a hell of a lot less interesting.
3) I do believe, however, that there is a bit of a problem with alien resources at the moment. In small games, aliens dominate simply because marines can't be everywhere at once; but in large games, they lose because marines CAN be everywhere at once, in groups. Alien deathmatchy-ness works in the smaller games, but teamwork on a massive scale becomes almost a necessity to win in large servers. After all, a marine team of 5 can kill just about any group of skulks coming their way short of a massive 6-skulk-attack (which never happens much beyond the early parts of the game).
My personal analysis, and suggestions:
When in small games, things are relatively even due to the separation of the teams. However, in large games, marines dominate the map simply by their superior strength in numbers. It's not fair for the aliens, because marines can simply rush and rush and rush (distress call, quite a useful tool atm) while the aliens struggle to get enoguh resources to get a second hive and then protect it. Here are my ideas:
a) Give the alien gorge pool a set amount of resources, depending on how many players are on the team. The first gorge to access the pool gets dibs on the resources, and if he dies before he can use them, they go right back in for another gorge. These resources can be used as a little "boost" for the aliens, depending on their situation. If you're in a 5 v 5 game, then there will be barely any resources in the pool at all (given alien superiority). In a 15 v 15 game, however, there may be upwards of 50 to 60 resources, so aliens can immediately buckle down some resource nodes, build some defenses, or even secure a hive (if the aliens take the risk - a team of 6 or 7 marines could demolish it if undefended).
b) The lerk needs a serious gameplay makeover. I feel that he has no place in the early game, and that he has a lot of potential to be a big part of it. My feeling is that the lerks should be the ultimate 1-hive anti-personnel unit, but at the moment this honor still lies on the skulks. Lerks should be given a little more oomph to their attacks, or have their attacks changed altogether, so that they can effectively deal with a small group of marines without dieing. Peole might complain that this would make aliens a ltitle powerful, but you gotta rememeber the little guys are ALWAYS on the defensive and are pretty weak, to boot. It's very hard to defend all possible points of marine attack as aliens, especially when they move in large groups, so in order to retain the deathmatch attitude, ther lerks really should be made stronger. I already suggested that the lerks be given the onos's paralysis tentacles, since thr big oaf doesnt use them much anyway, and it would really help make the lerk a better marine killer. Or, the spikes should be given a serious boost in power. Either way, by the time marines start moving on the offensive for resources and hives, there will be a few alien lerk players to intercept them.
c) If my lerk ideas are implemented, then player resources should also be given boosts depending on team sizes. In small games, alien players should start with very little resources, to give the marines a chance. But in large games, players should start with a good-sized amount of resources (i.e. 25) so that they can lerk right away and counter marine expansion.
d) The shotgun really needs to be lowered in price. No one ever buys that thing, because it is so darn expensive and so easy to lose (2 bites and BAM, 20 resources down the drain). It's a shame, because while the shotgun would make the marines more effective in killing the aliens early on, it would also drain their resources quite a bit if it were frequently bought. I really think the shotgun should only cost 8-10 resources, so that marines will be buying it often and draining their resources. You can lower its power a little, as long as it is still a bit more powerful than the LMG. I really think the shotgun has a lot of potential economic balancing potential, if it were only tweaked a little.
Re: idea 1 (altering default weaponry & adding a new weapon)--
Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of this idea; I'm basically looking for ways to create an early-game-ONLY resource sink. The idea is to make dropping the weapon a practical idea about 50% of the time - combination of effectiveness in combat *and* cost management. A team that doesn't drop any should be at a slight disadvantage, while a team that drops them constantly should get an advantage, but at the expense of slowed tech. It's an iffy solution.
Re: idea 2 (spawns cost RPs)--
I like this idea better, but as you say it would definitely require a lot of balancing. We actually included spawn costs in older playtest builds, but they were removed for precisely the reasons I mentioned - the commander got frustrated when his dying marines cost him too many resources.
In both cases, the "sink" is designed to be removed mid-game. In 1, upgrading the armory gives access to much better weapons (HMG, GL). In 2, a mid-game "standard" upgrade would remove spawn cost - perhaps the CC upgrade (again, required for advanced tech) would automatically make spawns free.
One question that I have to ask everyone - including myself - is whether it is *only* the early game that is unbalanced in favor of marines (in large games). Once the droppable techs come into play, does the size of the marine team effectively cancel out the increased resource income, or is their RP draw too fast through the entire game? For those with the math skills - especially the wonderful guy who made that exhaustive chart - <b>on a team with Y players, how many Fades or HA/HMGs can be produced in 5 minutes if that team controls X resource towers?</b> Knowing the answer to this question would allow us to determine whether the marine game is ALWAYS unbalanced on large servers, or only in the early game. (Note: I'm not saying 1 HA/HMG = 1 Fade... frankly, I don't know what that ratio is, and that will also need to be determined.)
If it's always unbalanced, then we don't have to worry about the RP sink "resolving" itself once the mid-game begins; it can remain through the whole game. If it's balanced once advanced tech comes into play, then the sink needs to go away.
Aliens are not "forced" to work together like the marines should be. It is to the alien's advantage if they work together, but the marines have a comm, the aliens have a hive. There's only one big happy structure that all aliens should care about, and that's where they spawn. Working together just means you win more often.
Newbie Gorges will never learn how to play if you guys use this kind of script, and sometimes, despite all the moanings of the team, having more than one gorge *IS* useful, even in early game. You just can't consider anything outside of the "normal" strategy. It may be the fastest, and 80% of the time the most efficient, but that doesn't mean it has to be the way to go. Marines don't have to stay in their base, they could leave. It's just easier to see the many (and usually equally viable) strategies as a marine than as an alien.
[edit] I read more into this thread and saw the "more IPs, more costs" idea. That's ingenious! That forces a "marine rush" strat to either pay off, or fail. Plus it helps reduce the silly "4 IPs because my marines are too n00b to stay alive for more than 2 seconds" [/edit]
As for the guy wanting to give the lerk the paralyzer, as amusing as that may be, that would leave an onos helpless against jetpackers seeing as he now lacks any way to get them into his range. Plus you'd have to ditch another weapon from the lerk. spikes? you just defeated the purpose of giving him the paralyzer. Bite? Your lerk just lost an effective way to take down a building in a reasonable time and his only low adren defense. Of course this could be used to make the lerk scrictly anti personell.
The simplest solution I can think of is that research cost scales to the number of marine players. As I see it, thast whats imbalancing the system.
For example, armour upgrade level 1 costs 20 res. In a 4 player game, it takes longer to get those 20 res and it only effects 4(3) marines. In a 10 player game, it still costs 20 res, but that res comes signicantly quicker and you getting more bang for your buck (res), your now upgrading 10(9) marines. If they were increased/decreased with player size as myself and Clan hunter suggest, it might solve the problem.
<b>Problem : What happens when people leave or join the game ?</b>
Does the commander suddenly get 'charged' more ? Do they get a 'rebate' when a marine leaves ? If nothing happens, it leaves the fairly obvious exploit of a load of marines leaving, commander begins researching something at low cost, then they re-join. The entire idea can confuse new commanders "WTF ? This cost me 30 res last game, why is it 60 now ?" and "Wheres all my res gone. Oh, 3 marines have just joined. Theres goes the res for that siege." It seems the perfect solution but for these drawbacks
Coil, I'm not sure if creating a res sink for the commander would would work or not. I doubt it. Commanders often don't drop shotties because of the res cost, you could consider them a res sink now. Perhaps if they're res was lowered even further ? Pass. Ammo and health drops are already a res sink for the commander so perhaps increasing their costs might work, and it scales with marines as more marines means more drops.
The entire issue is tricky for sure, and I can see how it got overlooked in PT'ing. What size games did you usually play in PT'ing BTW ?
I think they're might be a slight problem with one shots later in the game, but its not really a problem with the marine res. Not only is it possible for the marines to get to the tech requirements faster then the aliens can, but they can replace it faster.
Consider the following situation. Even teams of 5, even res towers (number of res towers doesn't matter). 5 marines get 5 HA/HMG/Welders (commander jumps out as well) and 5 Kharaa evolve to basic 1.04 fades. I think thats equivalent res cost. That upgrading has left the marines with 0 res and each alien with 0 res.
They then kill each other at the same time. In theory, in a balanced game it should take the same length of time until were back to 5 HA/HMG/Welders vs 5 fades. And that is true, with one caveat.
Due to the alien res system, they all get the res to go fades at <b>the same time</b>. Whilst they've been waiting, 4 HA/HMG/Welders have been stomping about and the commanders about to drop a set for himself. I can't think of anything which balances this in the game. It explains why people complain about a never ending supply of heavies whilst a dieing fade takes ages to come back.
Heavies and fades kill each other, a couple of heavies get produced and slaughter the skulks-waiting-to-go fades and gain ground. Skulks get res to go fade. Repeat ad infinutum until the last skulks die at their hive. Marine win.
I think this partially answers your last question Coil.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->on a team with Y players, how many Fades or HA/HMGs can be produced in 5 minutes if that team controls X resource towers? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The answer is the same, only the marines can produce HA/HMG in a never ending stream of ones or twos, whilst aliens would get their res to go fades all at the same time. Again, marines get more bang for their buck. Donating would get around this however.
1) Lots of slippery slope problems. Just lost that team trying to build a resource tower? Now you've lost an extra 5*spawn cost as well. May also encourage turtling.
2) In larger games there is the increased "attrition" to take into account - aliens and marines come into far more contact, so there are far more deaths. I think (v. hard to test), that the proportion of deaths goes up past some team size limit. This factor is heavily dependant on map size. (think of Quake and how frantic it got if you had 16 players on an 8 player map). If this does effect NS (the maps may all be too big for it too be a factor), spawn costs wouldn't work.
OK, that wasn't a brilliant post. Hopefully what I'm saying makes some sort of sense. I'm not saying either of these things is a problem, just that they might be - without testing its hard to tell.
Coil - I don't think a resource sink would work for the marines, because the aliens don't lose any resources in larger games with a faster income rate - they just save them for the 2nd hive midgame, when they can start to evolve into fades. Having a sink will slow the marine teching, but they won't have the reserves to make use of when the advance armory goes up. This gets worse in larger games.
Unfortunately, I have no ideas of how to get round this, except forcing a limit on what the commander can spend on buildings. And that really sucks.
Some servers, such as the oft-mentioned Voogru's servers, have a modification which allows aliens to donate resources back to the team, giving a gorge a more effective income flow. Is this fair? balanced? exploitive? game-breaking? needed? wanted?
Well, let's see.
1) THE PAST.
Donating was tried out during playtest, and it seemed to work fairly well. You spawned, and you had 2 options - run off because you're saving up for lerk/gorge/whatever, or donate your RPs to the hive (you +used the hive to return resources to the pool) before running off as a skulk. Eventually, however, donating was removed. The general sentiment of the developers and the playtesters was that there were two situations:
-a- your team had to donate to be effective. In this scenario, aliens might be in trouble in pubs, where lone-wolf players wouldn't want to donate. This would leave the aliens high and dry for RPs.
-b- your team could be effective without donation. In this scenario, clan matches would be horribly unbalanced in favor of aliens. The gorge(s) on a fully coordinated, donating team would be rolling in RPs, totally out-building the marines.
For this reason - that it could not be balanced between pubs and clan matches - donating was removed.
2) THE PRESENT.
Donating exists only on those servers that have added plugin code for it - e.g. voogru's servers. In my opinion, this is unbalancing in favor of the aliens; they are currently balanced to not require donation, and so the extra flow of RPs allows the gorge to build structures much faster than he ought to be able to.
Whether or not the original fear of the devs and playtesters - that donation requires more teamwork than can be expected from pub serves - I do not know. I've seen a great deal of teamplay and coordination on pub servers, though my experience has been unfortunately limited (silly "classes" and "senior year thesis"). My inclination from a lot of what I've seen is that teamplay is more common than we feared (that's good), but still not high enough to allow *necessary* donation to become an added element.
3) THE FUTURE.
In my opinion, donation might be a viable option. Regardless, the alien resource system needs some reworking to allow multiple gorges to not bankrupt a team, and this alteration is planned for 1.1.
However, I think the current system allows a more open-ended gameplay than a donation system would. Currently, an early-game gorge that drops a resource tower is down to 0 RPs while the skulks around him are at 25 or so by that point. It might be advantageous to wait for the skulks to "cap out" at 33, but then again it might be better for one of the skulks to switch with the gorge and drop his own RT. A 6-man team could have 4+ Resource Towers and a blindingly fast RP income if they're willing to slightly delay their 2nd hive. It also gives each player on the team a chance at different roles, while a donation system can quickly let a single person stay gorge the whole game. While some people are happier that way, I think a more open-ended system makes for a more interesting game.
So my opinion? Donation might be feasible; at least some parts of the community have shown a great willingness to play as team members and not just frag-hunters. Regardless of its feasibility, however, I think a no-donation system, especially once the resource model is tweaked to allow more flexibility, will offer a more varied and interesting game.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What exactly is the purpose of this thread?? We added res. donating because we wanted it. Your opinion on the matter doesn't really matter on the subject.
You playtesters have nothing better to do? Like test for Flayra numerous bugs that needs fixn'?
Gonna add llama cage to game.. Look for you playtesters to enter, and throw you in it. Is that unbalance of game play? No, I don't think so.. 50 n00bs better then 1 playtester with negative agenda.
Voogru.com running 2 NS servers - ip ns.voogru.net, ns2.voogru.net FULL 24/7 both 24 slot servers. Of the 300+ 100ms ping servers, 3-5 are full, of the 3-5; 2 are voogru's. You get the picture?
I understand people have had a pop at the Voogru servers for no good reason and you've been right to defend them on those occasions. This is not such an occasion.
Let's calm down and be friends, OK ? Incidentaly res donation isn't even being discussed now.
The original post was designed to open a dialogue, and in my opinion has led to the best discussion I have EVER had on these forums - even pre-release. Resource Donation was brought up merely as a possibility; I never passed judgement, merely stated my own personal opinion of the situation. Frankly, the fact that voogru's servers have it - and are popular - suggests that maybe donation WOULD be a good thing. I'm open to new ideas.
That said, there's been a lot of evidence in this thread that donation *is* unbalancing, at least a bit. If it is included, I just want it done correctly, which is what this thread is about now - creating a resource system that works. If you can't contribute helpfully, please don't contribute at all. I never attacked anyone; there's no reason to attack me.
The original post was designed to open a dialogue, and in my opinion has led to the best discussion I have EVER had on these forums - even pre-release. Resource Donation was brought up merely as a possibility; I never passed judgement, merely stated my own personal opinion of the situation. Frankly, the fact that voogru's servers have it - and are popular - suggests that maybe donation WOULD be a good thing. I'm open to new ideas.
That said, there's been a lot of evidence in this thread that donation *is* unbalancing, at least a bit. If it is included, I just want it done correctly, which is what this thread is about now - creating a resource system that works. If you can't contribute helpfully, please don't contribute at all. I never attacked anyone; there's no reason to attack me.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This dialogue has been beat to death... As a playtester, I would expect from you a little better leadership. Seems like you and DOOMbringer simply want to advertise for us all the time.
The more you bash what we do on our OWN server; the more users we get. There should be a message there for you, him, and Flayra.
Voogru Servers FULL 24/7 - why? voogru mods. As for the skin hack, Flayra was aware of the major bug for well over a month before doing anything about it.
You certainly have the rights to your opinions to decent; that being said, we have the same rights to decent. We handle our problems with the developer in a different manner; We don't come here flaming him for what he does/does not do. We simply write our OWN bug fixes, and write our OWN code modifications. As for the for mentioned "voogru server(s)" There is only 1 other server running our game play mods. We're not sharing what we have, not to the first; nor to the last.
DBL post intentional.
Come by and see for yourself one day then. You'll see why.
Some good posts were being put up. Any chance of getting back on-topic ? I <i>was</i> enjoying the discussion.
Why not make the alien res truly individual?
The number of aliens would not affect how much res the res towers give out. Perhaps 1 for skulk and 3 for gorge, this would need testing of course,
ie: on a team with 1 skulk the res tower gives out 1 res, on a team with 16 skulks the res tower gives out 16 res
Advantages-
Multiple gorges.
Team size doesnt have an affect on how fast res come in.
Skulks using their res doesn't slow down the gorges res.
Some things that would probably have to change-
You wouldn't get all your res back when you died.(to prevent seemingly endless supply of res for aliens late game)
Right, back to the point. After my previous post, it occured to me that scaled upgrades could work, if marines were made weaker to start with and more upgrades made available. As in the marine resource sink is not wasted resources. However, there are two problems I can see with it.
1) Easily exploitable. Things can be done to counter this, but its extra complications.
2) Makes it more of a two hive game. The marines tech constantly. Right before the aliens get second hive, the marines are comparitively strong, since they've been teching, while the aliens haven't been able to tech much at all. After the 2nd hive goes up, the aliens suddenly have loads of resources to make use, of and become more powerful. So getting get that 2nd hive quickly is extremely important.
OK, so two ways round it I can see. Make aliens tech proportional to marines in all games. OR have a different upgrade scheme for aliens, and make hives less important.
Actually, I may well be wrong. I hope I am, because both those ideas are terrible. These things may not actually be a problem.
Am I just waffling to myself, or am making any sense?
Right, back to the point. After my previous post, it occured to me that scaled upgrades could work, if marines were made weaker to start with and more upgrades made available. As in the marine resource sink is not wasted resources. However, there are two problems I can see with it.
1) Easily exploitable. Things can be done to counter this, but its extra complications.
2) Makes it more of a two hive game. The marines tech constantly. Right before the aliens get second hive, the marines are comparitively strong, since they've been teching, while the aliens haven't been able to tech much at all. After the 2nd hive goes up, the aliens suddenly have loads of resources to make use, of and become more powerful. So getting get that 2nd hive quickly is extremely important.
OK, so two ways round it I can see. Make aliens tech proportional to marines in all games. OR have a different upgrade scheme for aliens, and make hives less important.
Actually, I may well be wrong. I hope I am, because both those ideas are terrible. These things may not actually be a problem.
Am I just waffling to myself, or am making any sense?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sorry, but I'm sure I read his name if the very first message of this thread. If I'm mistaken, accept my appoligies. I have no intentions to offend anyone.
Coils first message - very 1st line of his message. Note the tenor of his comment, word for word please.
A playtester's perspective on the alien resource donation idea.
Some servers, such as the oft-mentioned Voogru's servers, have a modification which allows aliens to donate resources back to the team, giving a gorge a more effective income flow. Is this fair? balanced? exploitive? game-breaking? needed? wanted?
Well, let's see.
A playtester's perspective on the alien resource donation idea.
Some servers, such as the oft-mentioned Voogru's servers, have a modification which allows aliens to donate resources back to the team, giving a gorge a more effective income flow. Is this fair? balanced? exploitive? game-breaking? needed? wanted?
Well, let's see.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm sorry if you felt this was an attack on Voogru's server modifications; it was not intended as such. As I mentioned later in that post, donation was tried in playtest and actually worked very well. What I wanted to discuss was
a) whether donation can work in both pub and clan play
b) whether the system in place on the voogru server is a good one (I don't know it very well; other modifications on the server make it one that I don't enjoy playing on)
c) whether donation would be a beneficial addition to NS in the future, and
d) if so, how best to implement it
I was not trying to imply any judgement on voogru's donation modification; as I said, I don't even know how it works very well, or what effect it has on gameplay. I was simply asking questions that (a) I wanted the answers to, and (b) I wanted to get other people thinking about. Personally, as I said before, I think it has sparked one of the best discussions this board has seen in a LONG time.
__________
mojojojo: I wouldn't consider a resource sink "wasteful" - it would only be seen as such in the present build, which doesn't need a sink. Gameplay would be altered so that the sink is functional. For example, buying HMGs is a resource sink - why not make them a permanent, long-term upgrade like MT? Because marines need to constantly expend RPs to be balanced with the aliens.
Looking at the late-game, it appears to me that the mid-game resource system does appear to be balanced. Generally speaking, on larger servers the kharaa will be able to field more Fades than the marines can HA/HMG/Welders. However, not all these aliens are going fade (some will be lerk/gorge), not all marines will get this kit (some may be just HA/HMG, or HA/Welder, or light/welder, etc). Additionally, some resources will go to building - in large games, more OCs must be built by the aliens to delay larger marine teams, while marines seldom put down more than 4 turrets in an area, regardless of team size.
I personally don't see a huge issue with aliens having "extra" resources to go Fade right when the second hive goes up; the re-fade time will allow the marines to bridge the tech gap and field their own squad of HMGs by the time the 2nd round of Fades shows up again. In the current system, aliens often reach the 2nd hive before marines have comparable tech, but you don't see instant victories at that point - that leads me to believe that there isn't a big problem. As long as the marines can get a full squad of HA/HMG up in the next 3-5 minutes, they'll be ok.
One thing to note is that in an 8v8, marines and kharaa with 4 RTs can field 5 HAHMGs and 7 Fades, respectively, every 5 minutes. Personally, I think that's a pretty good balance. It's also worth noting that these values are truncated (rounded down) to the nearest "complete" unit, so the actual RP income may be nearly enough for another unit. The actual numbers in an 8v8 are 5.9 and 7.2, for instance.
So, the midgame appears balanced... what does that mean? It means there needs to be an early-game marine resource sink to balance out teching in large games. Anyone have any ideas? (:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Nice. (: What exactly was the point of the 90-second rule? I didn't quite follow the rationale - what can the aliens do in the first 90 seconds that they can't do after that minute and a half have passed? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Uh...the res exploit? Rejoining the game several times in the first minute of the game to get your free 10 res only to donate it back to the team. If the whole team does it cyclicly, before the 'happyhour' runs out the aliens could gather several hundred res like this. In 104 it is halved in effectiveness, but still broken.
Anyway, the 90 seconds stops this and the bit of extra time ensures there is some additional 'payment' for donating - players for res, effectively.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Note: I'm not saying 1 HA/HMG = 1 Fade... frankly, I don't know what that ratio is, and that will also need to be determined.)<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well I have succesfully taken out 4 carapaced fades in 1 HMG clip without dying, and wounding a 5th.
As a fade I have, with only 1 skulk as backup, killed 2 heavy marines sitting in a turret camp.
I suppose it depends on relative skill levels, recall the ha hmg can be kept alive much more easily than a fade with welder and comm, and that he is much faster to get into battle - spawn, pick up waiting gear and get in phase gate - compared to spawning, morphing, evolving, evolving, using movemennt chamber to approximate location (where applicable), and then walking over the intervening space to battle, all the while hoping that blinking in the wrong place won't send you into a piece of wall and totally waste your 58 res and 2 minutes of time.
But I'm not bitter. Not me. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->So, the midgame appears balanced... what does that mean? It means there needs to be an early-game marine resource sink to balance out teching in large games. Anyone have any ideas? (: <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well I think the answer is easy. Look at starcraft. What is the fundamental rule of resource gathered economies?
That in the first part of the game, resource gathering is exponential - 8 minerals at the start could mean getting 800 before an opponent - as you make another drone that mines enough for another drone...
Whilst the issue is not so straightforward in NS' hybrid resource economy, I still think the answer lies in increasing early costing such that it slows the marines starting economy, whilst being saddled with these costs later is not even noticable. These costs do not have to be in resources, they can be in time. What if the marine's first res node was not constructed? Combine that with making their resource nodes take a few seconds longer to construct (or make them cost 23 res) and you have your early balance without making any real change later on.
One-off early costs are the same - maybe make ips, armories and observatories all cost 1-2 res more. Since they rarely get built more than once, later on the effect disappears.
Imagine if Terran SCVs cost 1 res more than probes or drones. The terrans would certainly notice at the start. But later on, assuming such a change was balanced, such an increase would scarcely even be noticable.
Whilst the issue is not so straightforward in NS' hybrid resource economy, I still think the answer lies in increasing early costing such that it slows the marines starting economy, whilst being saddled with these costs later is not even noticable. These costs do not have to be in resources, they can be in time. What if the marine's first res node was not constructed? Combine that with making their resource nodes take a few seconds longer to construct (or make them cost 23 res) and you have your early balance without making any real change later on.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your missing the point, just slightly. The marine resource economy is not unbalanced as such, its just that it gets faster to tech in bigger games, where as aliens tech at about the same speed in all games. So a resorce sink is needed that slows the marines more in bigger games, and hardly at all in smaller games. But you may be right, only a small tweak may be required.
Coil - if the marines have a resource sink that simply gobbles up resources for no reward, then they will be disadvantaged in larger games. In a larger game:
Marines: more resources lost to the "sink"
Aliens: More resources stored for after the second hive goes up.
The marines don't earn more than the aliens in bigger games - they simply get to use it straight away, while the aliens are forced to save it until the second hive goes up.
I think the lower shotgun price will help a little, if comms can be convinced to start distributing them. However, another idea:
Aliens always tech at the same rate because the gorge always takes, at minimum, about 10 minutes to put the 2nd hive up. This is *excellent*. One possible way to create balance is to force the marines to wait till the 10-minute point to get their heavy weapons as well. This could be done by
1) adding an upgrade to the Comm Chair, which is required for advanced structures (such as the Adv. Armory), and
2) increasing the upgrade time of the Adv. Armory.
If the two of these upgrades together took about 4-5 minutes to research (exact time, of course, would need tweaking - that might be too much), the marines would be *forced* to wait for the mid-game to get their heavy gear. In the meantime they would build up a slight surplus, which could be used once the AA was finished.
Thoughts?
Also, if the upgrade time is 4-5 minutes, there could still be problems in larger games, although greatly reduced.
Its not ideal. I keep thinking, why not just set a timer from the bigging of the match, and the marines cannot build an advanced armory until the timer has run out? But conceptually, with a bit of working around, it could solve the problem.
If its an Advanced Armory upgrade, probably want to make em a bit tougher with it, because it becomes very important to the marines.
1. are possible no matter the teamsize (this means making things cheaper/faster for small marine teams - currently, teching up is impossible for small marine teams)
2. requires the marines to hold a certain number of resnodes to make it possible to get the anti-fade equipment before being overwhelmed by the aliens (which means that larger marine teams need to pay more somehow). Basically, saying that if the marines hold 3 res nodes, they are "on plan", if they hold four, they are ahead. If they only hold two, they are in a bad shape[1]
Whether or not to balance things by tweaking the marine resource model, or try to introduce a resource sink to slow down the marine development for larger teams will in the end come out the same. While I think it would be far easier to twiddle the resources, it may be estetically more pleasing to introduce the resource sink.
I have some ideas, but I want to develop them further before posting them ... probably sunday.
[1] Of course, this DOES mean that there will be a recommended number of respoints on maps. Some maps - I didn't say ns_nothing - have just a bit too many respoints.