Balanced For 6v6?
Rapier7
Join Date: 2004-02-05 Member: 26108Members
Join Date: 2004-02-05 Member: 26108Members
<div class="IPBDescription">NO DESCRIPTION FOR YOU!</div> I'm going to make a reference here, to a really important issue.
I don't care how many people (developers included) say 6v6 is the most balanced for NS. The fact is, the average pubber wants to play with more people. For every server I see with capacity 12 and below, I see 10 other servers with capacity 18+. And guess which servers are packed? The 20-30 capacity servers. The fact is, people tend to play on servers with a larger capacity than just 12 players.
What's even worse is that the NS development team insists on balancing for 6v6, merely for the sake of clan play. I understand that clan play has importance, but it would be too foolish to disenfranchise over 90% of the Natural Selection player base.
As it is, playing as aliens is NOT as fun as the marines. Not to mention that many 'newbies (or whatever the variation is nowadays)' stack the marine team. Let's face it, the alien's learning curve is brutal, for each and every class. You want to be a good skulk? You gotta ambush. You want to be a good lerk? You gotta ambush from a distance. You want to be a good fade? You have to ambush, swipe, and get the hell out of there. Onos? Better have support, AND ambush.
The newcomers to NS are extremely frustrated with their starting class, the skulk. I know, because I've introduced about 5 of my friends to NS, and only one took enough time to bother learning how to play the game. The other four complained that the skulk died waaaaaaaaaay too easily and it was really a bother. They liked playing the marines a lot, though.
See something here?
As it is, the Natural Selection community is comprised of clan members, regular 'pubbers', and the 'newbies'. We need the 'newbies', they are the lifeblood to any successful game. Without a constant flow of new and fresh players, no game can survive.
So, this is my plea to the developers, shift your focus away from the 6v6 standard clan play, and cater more towards the larger (and obviously more popular) Natural Selection servers.
I don't care how many people (developers included) say 6v6 is the most balanced for NS. The fact is, the average pubber wants to play with more people. For every server I see with capacity 12 and below, I see 10 other servers with capacity 18+. And guess which servers are packed? The 20-30 capacity servers. The fact is, people tend to play on servers with a larger capacity than just 12 players.
What's even worse is that the NS development team insists on balancing for 6v6, merely for the sake of clan play. I understand that clan play has importance, but it would be too foolish to disenfranchise over 90% of the Natural Selection player base.
As it is, playing as aliens is NOT as fun as the marines. Not to mention that many 'newbies (or whatever the variation is nowadays)' stack the marine team. Let's face it, the alien's learning curve is brutal, for each and every class. You want to be a good skulk? You gotta ambush. You want to be a good lerk? You gotta ambush from a distance. You want to be a good fade? You have to ambush, swipe, and get the hell out of there. Onos? Better have support, AND ambush.
The newcomers to NS are extremely frustrated with their starting class, the skulk. I know, because I've introduced about 5 of my friends to NS, and only one took enough time to bother learning how to play the game. The other four complained that the skulk died waaaaaaaaaay too easily and it was really a bother. They liked playing the marines a lot, though.
See something here?
As it is, the Natural Selection community is comprised of clan members, regular 'pubbers', and the 'newbies'. We need the 'newbies', they are the lifeblood to any successful game. Without a constant flow of new and fresh players, no game can survive.
So, this is my plea to the developers, shift your focus away from the 6v6 standard clan play, and cater more towards the larger (and obviously more popular) Natural Selection servers.
Comments
Are you saying skulks should have onos hp/armor?
I enjoy about 6v6 - 8v8 but here's where the problem is.
The reason behind the being balanced for 6v6 is more or less the alien res flow in standard ns games. When it's shifted up to lets say 12v12 it takes one alien a very long time to get any res at all. This is mainly because at 12v12 if all aliens got the same amount of res as they did in smaller games, they would truely dominate. So of course, aliens are expected to work and build together in order to maximize their resource performance. Now in 12v12 pubs this aint gonna happen.
I personally suggest increasing the alien resource resflow somewhat. Maybe have a limit saying that the alien res spread can not be any less than what it would be at 9v9 or 10v10 (saying that in a 12v12 aliens would gain resources the same speed as they would in a 9v9)
An alien team that workes together in a 12v12 most likely would dominate but as far as public play goes that doesn't happen very often and well, 3.0 is a beta right now isn't it? Isn't it the proper time to be testing these things?
Are you saying skulks should have onos hp/armor? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Did you just nitpick one or two phrases out of my paragraphs? Not to mention you are twisting my words.
I'm saying that many newcomers have too many troubles with skulks, and that puts them off the game.
And as someone else mentioned, gorges get painfully slow res flow in large 12v12 servers, and guess which servers are always full? The 12v12 ones.
More people play on larger servers, so it is obvious the developers should cater to the larger servers.
Besides, most people would agree that 6v6 is hardly entertaining, while a few so-called 'vets' may disagree, it's the vast majority versus a small minority.
*Looks at sig. Remembers why three word long posts are key to health.*
But you're still ignoring the main part of my post.
Why should we balance for 6v6 when the majority of the players play on much larger servers?
Though, the 10v10 servers are actually somewhat balanced. I see a lot more alien wins because the server that I play 10v10 on has an abundance of veterans (at any given time, there are around 5 clan members on that server).
it's a lot of fun being an alien...
i'm always an alien....
I think that NS as it is right now words really well for 6 vs 6 - 12 vs 12 anywhere in that range runs pretty smooth game wise ( in most pub situations)
its when you get really small games and really really big games that things start to get out of whack and not fun
Yes, I would say in CLAN MATCH's 6v6 seems to be the most balanced team size. For various reasons including pre-planned strats and tight nitch teams. For pubs I wouldnt say 6v6 is more balanced. In most 9v9's/10v10's I have played in it seems to be a 60%marine/40%alien split in wins. Not to big of a difference in my opinion which could use work but I think it has been reviewed for public play as well.
I think what pubbers should be doing instead discussing clan plays impact on the game is just giving flay their own suggestions. If they post and adress they FEEL that games are being balanced for small games and would like it to change for larger ones it would make a better impact then saying clan play is MESSING everything up.
got wang?
I guess we differ in opinion here.
I see "you see 1vs1 battles" as being a <i>bad</i> thing.
Why? Because it's a team game. If you're getting into 1vs1 battles, you (or your commander) have screwed up somewhere. Marines simply shouldn't be working alone.
I firmly believe that the strength of the marines should be in groups, and that lone marines should be in fear for their lives.. dire fear. As in good luck surviving until you can find someone. In my opinion, there shouldn't be a 1vs1 battle.. if it's 1vs1 it should be a slaughter.
At the same time.. if it's a group of marines, it ought to be able to hold off a decent number of skulks. 2 marines should put up a fight vs 2 skulks. 3 marines have a good chance of winning against 3 skulks, and 4 or more marines mow down an equivalent number of skulks. Basically, have the marine power ramp up much more quickly in groups than alien power does.
Now, how do you make it so that the strength of groups ramps up much quicker than the numbers in the group do? I think one way to do it is to add some knockback to the marine weapons. That way concentrated fire on something will push it away, thus adding to the advantage. The more people in the group, the more they can push things. Of course, this would take a corresponding beef to the aliens so that they had a chance of surviving when they were up close.
But hey, that's me.
I'm talking pretty much EVERY non-clanner commander I've played under sucked and just spammed turrets/elec everywhere slowly securing the map. BORING?
Not to mention pubbing marines... when they see a skulk they spaz out and shoot everywhere... a monkey could literally aim better than half of em...
Meh, us regular people have much less influence, especially since most veterans disagree with what we think are issues worth dealing with. Like elec, it's plain annoying in pub games, and not very useful in clan play(from what I gather), but it still stays in.
Quoted from HAMBONE in another thread very similar to this one in the general forums:
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->In any experiment you try to lower the amount of variables. In any video game testing perhaps the largest variable of all is player skill. If you are able to secure a group of equally skilled players then you can more or less remove that variable from the equation. So of course you could take to the arduous task of finding a hundred or so average players of the same general skill level. The easiest way to do it, however, is to just get the top players. At the top of most all games you will find that individual skill among players is more or less the same and strategy and teamwork are the deciding factor in clan play. And besides it being the most effective way to gather players of equal skill, there are other advantages. For one, clan players tend to be a bit dirtier than regular pubbers. They will find bugs and exploit them. They will make it incredibly obvious when something is too strong by doing it over and over and over. Most likely they will be the first ones to find exploitative strategies.
Balancing a game is basically about two things. One, you want to find the strategies and tech routes that are not being used and make them better. Two, you want to find the strategies that are too good and nerf them. Clan players will seek out the strategies that are too good with a vigor, and perfect them. Hopefully in the end the strategy you boosted will be just as viable as the tech route you nerfed. Clan players aren't smarter or more devoted than anyone else, nor can I say that the veterans have done any more for this game than the playtesters or the constellation members, but they do offer quite a few benefits and in my opinion make the process simpler.
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More importantly, does anyone have a quote of Flayra saying he balanced the game for clan play or for 6v6? Since its inception, Natural Selection has never been balanced for clan play. 2.0 was beta tested on one 20 player server that was generally full. In 3.0 public players outmembered clan players by about 3 to 1 and more importantly it did not stray far from the balance that 2.01 had achieved. 2.0 testing had many clan players, but it was not specifically balanced for clan play or for 6v6. The idea that this game is balanced for 6v6 or for clan play is an unsubstantiated myth.
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And I replied to HAMBONE:
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Hambone brings up an excellent point.
It is interesting to note, that 1.00 was balanced around a random group of pubs, and then 1.04 was changed for clan play.
2.00 was balenced around pubs, and 2.01 was done around clan play.
3.00 was done around pubs as well, but a lot of it is the same from 2.01.
All the vets taken in, most of it was worthless.
It seems to me people would like to believe clan play has made the game 'unbalanced', but the only truth to it is the oppisite.
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Interesting to note, 1.04 was more balanced than 1.00, and 2.01 was more balanced than 2.00. Guess us vets can manage to do something right
Anyways, it really should be balanced for both larger and smaller games, and re-working the res system seems to be the most obvious answer right now.
Your generlized statements really don't make a lot of sense.
Balncing for a "large" amount of players compared to a "small" amount of players really doesn't exist.
If something works well in a smaller clan games in terms of tatics, then it will work in large games as well. The concept that changes is that there are more players, so you just need more players to do the same tatic.
For example, in a clan game typically you will have around 2 fades to combat the marines. In a larger setting of 10v10, you will want around 3 fades.
Instead of 3-4 shotgunners to kill fades, you will want 4-5 in a larger setting. Or instead of 1-2 HMGs, you will now need 2-3.
The fighting part, while I feel with larger numbers it gives more advantage to the marine side, remains quite balanced and scales very well.
My main beef, as I've stated almost 50 times (seems like), is that normally in clan play I'd be a fade by the time they are just getting lv. 2 weapons or lv. 1 HMG's or something around those marks. I know from so many scrims that if I can manage to kill so much and cap so many nodes and the marine team has so many nodes, I have pretty much memerized by what levels of tech each team should have if done perfectly.
But, on pub games, I notice that alien's tech is always sligthly lagging behind marines. Marines will be at lv. 2 weapons,, lv. 1 armor, and 4-5 sg's, and lv. 3 will be right around the courner, when I've just finally got enough res to start fading.
And I attribute this slowdown in how much longer it takes to go fade/lerk/onos on the fact that aliens have to hold more nodes in larger games, as opposed to smaller games, in order to get a modest res flow. Aliens holding a lot of territory in the begaining of the game, is an impossibility against good marines.
If you lose ONE node, instantly your res flow is cut down. Lose two, and it comes in at a crawl. Thus making it harder to get the res to put them back up as well as afford higher lifeforms and upgrades again. I'll admit, the time it takes to fade for the first time may only drop by 30 seconds to a minute, but the time it takes to refade goes up by 2-3 minutes, which is extreme.
In a 6v6 setting, losing 1-2 nodes puts you at a big disadvantage, but it's still very possible to win the game. I've won countless alien games where my team is knocked down to it's starting node, but we managed to use our res on DC's, a fade or two, and a hive that's going up. We use it like an investment, take back ground, and get up some more nodes, and the process continues. This only happens because even on one node, someone will get enough res within 2 minute or less to get up another node (of course with res for kills this can be even shorter, usually around 1 min in my experience).
On a large game, being knocked down to 1 node is pretty much a GG. 1 node support 6 players is hard enough, but supporting 12 it's just suicide.
Meanwhile, lets say marines are knocked down to 1 node in a small game: They are probably losing, won't be able to afford much in the upgrade department, and might have some extra res for some big weapons.
On a larger game setting, marines transpose very well into 1 node as well as they would in a small game, if not <b>better</b>! Weapons you drop will be more likely to stay around, and any universal upgrade you manage to save up for will be much more effective with more people.
That's why I've always felt that marines need a small nerf in how fast they can get their universal upgrades, as it's too cheap and effective for what they can do with a stock marine to dominate the map as well as kill aliens.
Making universal upgrades cost slightly more in proportion with how many marines are playing would make this game adjust extreamlly well from small game to large game.
But do realize why it makes me cringe every time I see some post make a convulted claim of why the skulk is too weak, the marine's are too strong, fades are invincible, onos are game enders, etc. etc.
My reasoning on the tatics is that if some loser clanner can work a way around these tatics so they think it's fine, then there's no logical reason why the pubber cannot also.
Also, I know from plenty of pub experience (people think clanners don't play pub games... wrong!!) that 3 fades can beat a group of shotgunners, that skulks can take on large packs of marines (slightly harder tho), that marines can flat out own the alien with proper node control.
Bingo.
You telling me, that facing this situation, the same tactics used in small clan games would be applied? In the beginning of every game, pubbers face the dilemma of having more gorges to cap more nodes (for the required res) or having more skulks to defend them. More skulks? you wont have enough res to tech to be on par with marines. More Gorges? the early marines will wipe the floor with you. Even you say that it is impossible against good marines (alien wins are due to...duh duh duh! poor marines <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->)...understand why people arent having fun?
The res system, marine upgrades, and any other relevant variable needs to be adjusted for games to work out in medium sized games. That should, hopefully, have minimal impact on both small size games, and large size games.
Its not hard to imagine clanners pubbing every once in a while...in fact, I see 1 or 2 almost every game. However, have you guys had a large size game with ONLY clanners? How is the balance then?
I personally think 18 man servers are the best way to go!!!
I remember back in 2.01 a server called "THE HAMPTONS" run by clan HAM.
Any member of a vetren clan got a reserved slot.
For the first month it was up, it was awesome. All of the clanners just pubbing around having fun.
However, it wasn't long for me before I noticed something. Marines won again. And again. And again. And again.
I wish I had the server stats for it, but almost 80% of the games I played on it were marine wins. It was awful. With skilled marines, they almost never lost.
I never thought that it was because marines were stronger, per se, because I remembered CLEARLY back in 2.00 how marines got raped time and again. Then I remembered the changes from 2.00 to 2.01, and almost all of them made marine upgrades and weapons cheaper. Nothing was done to boost marine combat effectiveness, it was just made to pop in sooner.
Therefore, the idea of marines being supperior combat wise just didn't make sense to me. It was obviously that marines were owning hard in THE HAMPTONS because the marines got their good stuff before aliens could get theirs. The timing was off. And I knew from 6v6 clan play that the timing was spot on in terms of marine vs. alien tech balance, so I quickly attributed it to the slowed down tech rate of aliens in large games.
Aliens in pubs shouldn't have to be perfect with their gorge coordination in order to have a stable economy. However, I realized that while marines were teching up slightly faster, it wasn't that much. It was just enough to put the aliens in their place after a long game.
The marines just needed a slightly more expensive universal upgrades, to help compensate for slower alien res flow.
And that's the bulk of the problem.