So now that we know that a vast majority of NS forum posters would really like to see the chambers less tied down, what will happen as a result? I'm one of those ~450 yes votes, so I'd like to know if it matters at all. Is are the devs now considering the option? Are they working on implementing it? Or did they put out the vote, consider it, and dismiss it again already? Curious minds want to know. Untill we find out, I'll have to try out that server with the plug in that makes something like this happen already and see how well it works.
Yes. This is on the COFR server and it helps a lot. Even if the raw idea is somewhat iffy, it's called a beta for a reason. This would give aliens much needed teamwork, cover certain marine strats ( such as rushing a building hive or getting pgs outside). I'm not sure about big alien games, but clan games will also need a fine balance, so you can't have 2 fades, lerk, chambers and hive going up at the same time.
Now, I haven't read the entire thread, but I've read a good 3 pages from the beginning. So don't flame me if I reiterate things that people might have said, please. Thank you.
Here's what I think.
Unchaining chambers from hives would add more variety, but they would have to be heavily playtested to balance each chamber's own abilities (ie, heal, cloak, or warp) within the context of the new variety of gameplay.
Allowing multiple upgrades from the same chamber is also another interesting idea, but this may lead to alien teams that are too powerful. It would make NS play much more similar to CO play, which may or may not be a bad thing. Only field experimentation (playtesting) will tell.
I have to agree, because in an effect of having all chambers, while promising for alien upgrades, which would be needed in some effects, you would be able to create OC blockades within the first 5 minutes of game, backed by sensory, movement, and defense chambers, all in the same place, meaning the area effect of the chambers would be the same effect aliens have in the 20 minute latter.
If aliens set up huge OC blockades, then it will be a while before they have fades or a second hive. It also becomes cost effective for marines to start sieging out areas of the map, and aliens would quickly lose a huge investment. Since it wouldn't be a hive location, it would be much more difficult to defend from a siege. In other words, it wouldn't allow aliens to spam chambers everywhere.
in terms of strats, it does open a lot of possabilities. and the marines CAN adapt. they just hafta get better at countering different strategies.
obs around the map can help reduce the threat of cloak, and MT negates silence, more or less. even if their cloaked, if they DONT have silence, you can hear them running around, if you listen, and if you get good enough, you can tell from WHERE their running
the marines have the tech advantage, and usually the range advantage. let them really work on learning to use it effectively. heck, marines with LMGs and pistols, using good tactics, can easily down onos' and fades in large groups, if they work together correctly. ive seen it done.
itll push the marines to the limits if the aliens are good, but this is a GOOD thing. once the marines get better, then things will balance out themselves
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
<!--QuoteBegin-Align+Jun 21 2004, 10:21 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Align @ Jun 21 2004, 10:21 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Looks like a winner. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> this poll isn´t about "unchain the chamber for next version - or not" It´s because we requested the poll to see how many people like this idea. The results wont influence the game. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Recoup+Jun 18 2004, 05:32 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Recoup @ Jun 18 2004, 05:32 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I have to agree, because in an effect of having all chambers, while promising for alien upgrades, which would be needed in some effects, you would be able to create OC blockades within the first 5 minutes of game, backed by sensory, movement, and defense chambers, all in the same place, meaning the area effect of the chambers would be the same effect aliens have in the 20 minute latter. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Where are the aliens in YOUR game getting all this res? Where are you getting OCs that are actually effective? Cus in the game I play, aliens could drop at MOST 3 OCs, 3DCs, 1 SC and 1 MC at the start of the game and would be left with only 1 res chamber, 0 res for fades, etc etc.
Even such an "impenetrable defense" could be easily destroyed by marines (lmg only) if aliens weren't constantly guarding it, and if most aliens were guarding it, they could simply control the rest of the map (and res).
Play it before you knock it. There are plenty of servers that use it now. Aliens can't even come close to affording the scenarios the naysayers are pointing out. Walls of lame backed up by all 3 chambers in the first 5 minutes? When was the last time you saw that happen even with just DCs? Rarely can aliens even afford to get 3 of all the chambers before the second hive goes up, much less concentrated in one place behind an OC wall. Alien teams that spend all their res on upgrade chambers get owned.
I can say from experience that it's reasonably balanced, and it makes the alien game much more varied and interesting to boot. Try it yourself instead of insulting it based on theoretical situations.
Yes, they are. You would be surprised in fact if you played on a few servers, clan ones even. Simple: a gorge can build up to 3 OC's, put a sensory, defense, and movmenet behind it, all within the first few minutes of a game. By that time, the aliens have secured half the res nodes on the map due to their ALREADY LARGE ADVANTAGE of flexability. You guys should really play on the Lerk Jerky server, 3/4 times the aliens whip the marines ***. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
And I play Natural Selection more then anyone on this forum it appears. On the "How much do you play?" it seems most people only go for a "well, ABOUT twice a week, maybe a bit more". I am on NS every day for a good 5 hours or more, I think I know what I am talking about.
<!--QuoteBegin-Recoup+Jun 21 2004, 07:03 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Recoup @ Jun 21 2004, 07:03 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Yes, they are. You would be surprised in fact if you played on a few servers, clan ones even. Simple: a gorge can build up to 3 OC's, put a sensory, defense, and movmenet behind it, all within the first few minutes of a game. By that time, the aliens have secured half the res nodes on the map due to their ALREADY LARGE ADVANTAGE of flexability. You guys should really play on the Lerk Jerky server, 3/4 times the aliens whip the marines ***. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
And I play Natural Selection more then anyone on this forum it appears. On the "How much do you play?" it seems most people only go for a "well, ABOUT twice a week, maybe a bit more". I am on NS every day for a good 5 hours or more, I think I know what I am talking about. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Well you may play everyday but from the way you speak of how the game is played you are a noob.
Keep playing, but really marines own hard on large servers atm. (with competetant players, which clearly is not the case here)
<!--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-->Simple: a gorge can build up to 3 OC's, put a sensory, defense, and movmenet behind it, all within the first few minutes of a game.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I don't know about that. This could only be true on small games like 2v2 or 3v3, where alien res flow is currently overpowered.
Whenever I gorge on a 5v5 or higher, it takes forever to get enough to drop 3 chambers, and even longer to drop 4. I don't know how one could drop 6 so soon. gorge + 6 chambers is 70 res, right? Might as well drop a hive!
You are saying that a single player can spend 70 res laming up one area in the first minutes of the game? Not only is it impossible to get that much early res in teams of 5 or more without R4K, but I fail to see how this helps aliens claim most of the nodes on the map as you claim. On smaller games you might have the res flow but you wouldn't have anyone left to spend res on important things, and on larger games it would take you ages to sit around as a Gorge laming up just one area that much. Even if it were possible so early a concentrated marine effort would steamroll that handful of OCs.
I never said it had to be 3 OC's, it could be only one. In fact, it proves to be quite a shock to a marine when he comes across an OC simply backed by a sensory AND a defense chamber. Let alone two backed by a sensory and a defense chamber. That much res is not even close to impossible to achieve, since you all start out with 25 res in the game and it surprisingly increases over time rapidly. Also, given the aliens ability to secure half the res nodes on the map in 2 minutes, I dont find it surprising at all. All the game I play for NS are usually 7 to 7 or 8 to 8.
Aliens are fine the way they are. We get owned a lot by the alien team, and seldom win already. The reason aliens win a lot of games on a public server is because the one thing that just absolutely CRIPPLES marine teams, even with a very experienced comm, is AIMING. I have realised that if a team cannot down a skulk, let alone a team of three get killed by one skulk, you are just raping yourself in the **** for the rest of the match at the complete stupidity and lack of ability to HIT anything for the rest of the match. Clan servers have experienced players, people who can AIM, and for some reason my team still gets their **** kicked on the Lerky Jerky server. We are very diverse: Everyone plays on the opposing team at least 3 games in a row and then switches over. Aliens still win 75% of the games. Now if I can just find some way to tally up the results of who wins and who looses then I can have some hard evidence to start saying "BOO YA" to every time someone claims marines are too powerful and aliens are too weak like a bunch of whiny sh!ts.
One OC is nothing. It's a joke. A single marine with an LMG and maybe a little med support can and will kill it by himself. The rest of the chambers will soon follow if they come back to finish it off(which is well worth it since it cost the alien team so much of their starting res). Aliens can't "secure" all the res nodes at all; they drop what they can and then they leave them alone because all their other res is spread very thin. Even with unchained chambers, aliens simply can not afford to secure areas with multiple chamber types until they have a second hive and manage to keep their res nodes for a while. The next couple of games you play aliens(I'm assuming you play something close to 6v6), look at the minimap at the 3-4 minute mark and see how many total chambers there are on the map. Then think about just what you could feasibly do with that number of chambers if they were unchained. The answer is not a whole lot more.
Look at the numbers. Let's say 7 aliens to a team, each with 25 res. One saves for the hive, one decides to Fade, and 3 decide to drop nodes(4 would probably be a better idea if they can do it). That leaves you 2 aliens, each of whom will spend 10 res on gorging leaving them with a total of 30 res at the beginning of the game for chambers. They'll probably spend that much on 3 Ds at the hive, if the Fade is going to be very successful at all. All the starting res is gone now and unchained chambers hasn't been used at all. Now the question is how much res are they going to accrue in the first couple of minutes in the game; I wouldn't count on more than 20 each since they're not getting R4K, but obviously it depends on the success of the nodes(and none of them have any sort of chamber defense at least until one of these guys gets 10 res). That means they have 4 chambers to drop throughout the entire map. If they do what you suggest they will "secure" one room in the map, and the rest of the map(all the nodes the aliens supposedly secured included) is completely vulnerable. A more wise use of that res would be to put down 3 sensories around the map and a movement at the hive, but even with the sensories covering nodes, a well placed ping from the commander will probably be enough to let the marines kill the node and/or the sensory.
Simply put, early game aliens can barely afford to use the chambers they currently have, much less all 3 upgrade chambers plus OCs. Your scenarios are impossible.
I'm not going to argue this with you anymore when you have no experience with the plugin. Tell me when you've tried it yourself instead of making assumptions and we'll talk.
And one more point aside from all that; don't just look at this as a balance issue and dismiss it because you think aliens win too much. This isn't just about balance. It's about breaking the extremely linear nature of alien gameplay and making the game a little more fun and strategically interesting. To dismiss it because you think it's overpowered is to ignore the entire motivation behind this change. If it overpowers aliens, and I'm not convinced it will, then marines can be improved to compensate. Is that such a terrible thing?
Voted yes. I don't want to use regen or cara always when the game begins. I'd like to use cloaking or silence but everyone wants DC because of regen. If someone builds sc or mc when the game begins, some people gets upset and may even quit. I wish Flayra unchains the chambers!
Chainless chambers have been a concept thrown about in the NS community for a very long time. It could work, but there would be some major revamping that would need happen in NS. First of all if we leave everything as it stands and just un-link the chambers from hives, it would defiantly make the game extremely unbalanced.
As Magitek said, early skulks with cloak, fades soon along with regen or Cara, all able to use a movement chamber to get to an unbuilt hive when it’s under attack. That is a lot of power for relatively few resources.
<b>The thing is the power of the chambers isn’t just in the upgrades (though they are important), but in the effects that the chambers grant when you are near them. </b> Being able to have the power to build chambers that cloak everything around them, along with chambers that heal the aliens that are running around in early game is very overpowered, not to mention the ability to get to an unbuilt hive when it is attacked.
We all know that having such a variety of upgrades will be unbalanced, but having these area of effect / special abilities just make it even more.
In competitive play, most skulks do not get upgrades, and would extremely benefit from well placed chambers. Having even 2 sensory chambers in key locations makes it very hard for marines to move around, and then the ability for the team to have 3 defense chambers soon after to help the upper life forms? Sure it would cost 50 resources, but the benefit is extreme. Or to have a team get three defense chambers, and then the gorge wait around for 10 more res for a movement to get to the new hive, it just takes away an important aspect of the game, which is importance of starting strategy.
<b>Unchaining the chambers will add a new dimension of strategy, and marine teams will have to be able to adapt to every situation on the fly. It is hard enough for marines to cope with a one chamber strategy, but lets look at a realistic situation.</b> <span style='color:yellow'>2 gorge drop res go back to skulk to attack 2 gorge drop chambers, 1 drops after res dropers go back to skulk, 1 when 40 res. 1 hive 1 fade</span> lets say one gorge drops 1 sensory on the map, then goes and drops another. Here the team would have access to l2 sent of fear, as well as cloak and focus. They would be able to tell marine movements extremely early and predict their movements to set up ambushes. Meanwhile marines would get armor one. Armor one would be counterd by the L1/L2 focus. Soon after one player gets 40 res, and drops 3 defense chambers, then waits in the hive and drops a movement as soon as another player drops the new hive.
At this point marines usually have L2 weapons, and L1 armor, unless they rushed motion tracking or did another strategy, in which case they would have less upgrades. Aliens at this point would have a regen fade, ability to warp into the new hive, and level 2 focus, as well as sensory coverage of the map. All within 5-6 minutes of the game. Marines would have an insane time getting anywhere, with the sensory coverage, the sent of fear, cloaking, focus, fast movement to new hives, and regenerative/defensive abilities. In public play it would be even worse, as more players = more resources = more chambers = more imballence. And that is the realistic truth.
There are a few ways that it could be implemented that would help solve the problems. Here are two that I thought of.
<span style='color:red'><b>1) Link the lifeforms back to hive:</b></span> - Hive 2 needed for fade - Hive 3 needed for onos
<span style='color:red'><b>2) Raise the cost of chambers by 5-10</b></span> - 15-20 resources for any chamber.
<b><span style='color:red'>3) Remove area of effect/special usages of chambers (BAD)</span></b>
These two scenarios could help balance the issue, and there are many other ways. If NS was to unchain them right now as the game is right now, it wouldn’t work as I showed above and Magitek in his great post. I'm sure it could happen if there was enough testing of it, but it would require extensive playtesting to impliment. I voted against the change because it would take so long to implement and that in NS thusfar chambers have been made to be individualy powerfull. It would take major revamping of the game, and need extensive playtesting and manhours.
Actually Jink Jink the only really overpowering aspect you mentioned is cloaking.
Increase the cost of sensory chambers to 12 and no longer will you have 2 early sensory chambers.
Problem solved.
Also if you haven't noticed in clan games usually the first hive that is put is totally aniliated. Marines on the ball generally need to be on the ball taking down hives and they go down hard, and fast. Having a movement chamber wouldn't help save those hives too much, other than a skulk who warps in and gets blasted by a shotgun.
In fact, generally as aliens against good teams, if you ever win it's with the SECOND hive that you put up, as the first one is very easy and almost always goes down. Something to help the early first hive with one movement chamber (that you can only afford if you have the res) isn't such a bad idea.
WyzcrakPot Pie AficionadoJoin Date: 2002-12-04Member: 10447Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
<!--QuoteBegin-LdPhebos+Jun 23 2004, 12:25 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (LdPhebos @ Jun 23 2004, 12:25 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->We all know that having such a variety of upgrades will be unbalanced, but having these area of effect / special abilities just make it even more.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> This, like many other things in the post, is incorrect. Plainly put, and based on hundreds of games on a 7v7 unchained server, having such a variety of upgrades (choices, as you cannot have anymore a variety of upgrades than you do with chained chambers) is NOT unbalanced, nor is the area of effect / special abilities from those chambers.
<span style='color:yellow'><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PEOPLE: PLAY -- A LOT -- ON AN UNCHAINED SERVER OR TWO BEFORE YOU COMMENT ABOUT THIS AUTHORITATIVELY.</span></span>
Thank you ever so much. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Comments
Twilight
Here's what I think.
Unchaining chambers from hives would add more variety, but they would have to be heavily playtested to balance each chamber's own abilities (ie, heal, cloak, or warp) within the context of the new variety of gameplay.
Allowing multiple upgrades from the same chamber is also another interesting idea, but this may lead to alien teams that are too powerful. It would make NS play much more similar to CO play, which may or may not be a bad thing. Only field experimentation (playtesting) will tell.
Well, these are my observations. Hope they help.
in terms of strats, it does open a lot of possabilities. and the marines CAN adapt. they just hafta get better at countering different strategies.
obs around the map can help reduce the threat of cloak, and MT negates silence, more or less. even if their cloaked, if they DONT have silence, you can hear them running around, if you listen, and if you get good enough, you can tell from WHERE their running
the marines have the tech advantage, and usually the range advantage. let them really work on learning to use it effectively. heck, marines with LMGs and pistols, using good tactics, can easily down onos' and fades in large groups, if they work together correctly. ive seen it done.
itll push the marines to the limits if the aliens are good, but this is a GOOD thing. once the marines get better, then things will balance out themselves
voted yes
this poll isn´t about "unchain the chamber for next version - or not"
It´s because we requested the poll to see how many people like this idea. The results wont influence the game. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
But I hope so
Where are the aliens in YOUR game getting all this res? Where are you getting OCs that are actually effective? Cus in the game I play, aliens could drop at MOST 3 OCs, 3DCs, 1 SC and 1 MC at the start of the game and would be left with only 1 res chamber, 0 res for fades, etc etc.
Even such an "impenetrable defense" could be easily destroyed by marines (lmg only) if aliens weren't constantly guarding it, and if most aliens were guarding it, they could simply control the rest of the map (and res).
I can say from experience that it's reasonably balanced, and it makes the alien game much more varied and interesting to boot. Try it yourself instead of insulting it based on theoretical situations.
And I play Natural Selection more then anyone on this forum it appears. On the "How much do you play?" it seems most people only go for a "well, ABOUT twice a week, maybe a bit more". I am on NS every day for a good 5 hours or more, I think I know what I am talking about.
And I play Natural Selection more then anyone on this forum it appears. On the "How much do you play?" it seems most people only go for a "well, ABOUT twice a week, maybe a bit more". I am on NS every day for a good 5 hours or more, I think I know what I am talking about. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well you may play everyday but from the way you speak of how the game is played you are a noob.
Keep playing, but really marines own hard on large servers atm. (with competetant players, which clearly is not the case here)
I don't know about that. This could only be true on small games like 2v2 or 3v3, where alien res flow is currently overpowered.
Whenever I gorge on a 5v5 or higher, it takes forever to get enough to drop 3 chambers, and even longer to drop 4. I don't know how one could drop 6 so soon. gorge + 6 chambers is 70 res, right? Might as well drop a hive!
Aliens are fine the way they are. We get owned a lot by the alien team, and seldom win already. The reason aliens win a lot of games on a public server is because the one thing that just absolutely CRIPPLES marine teams, even with a very experienced comm, is AIMING. I have realised that if a team cannot down a skulk, let alone a team of three get killed by one skulk, you are just raping yourself in the **** for the rest of the match at the complete stupidity and lack of ability to HIT anything for the rest of the match. Clan servers have experienced players, people who can AIM, and for some reason my team still gets their **** kicked on the Lerky Jerky server. We are very diverse: Everyone plays on the opposing team at least 3 games in a row and then switches over. Aliens still win 75% of the games. Now if I can just find some way to tally up the results of who wins and who looses then I can have some hard evidence to start saying "BOO YA" to every time someone claims marines are too powerful and aliens are too weak like a bunch of whiny sh!ts.
Look at the numbers. Let's say 7 aliens to a team, each with 25 res. One saves for the hive, one decides to Fade, and 3 decide to drop nodes(4 would probably be a better idea if they can do it). That leaves you 2 aliens, each of whom will spend 10 res on gorging leaving them with a total of 30 res at the beginning of the game for chambers. They'll probably spend that much on 3 Ds at the hive, if the Fade is going to be very successful at all. All the starting res is gone now and unchained chambers hasn't been used at all. Now the question is how much res are they going to accrue in the first couple of minutes in the game; I wouldn't count on more than 20 each since they're not getting R4K, but obviously it depends on the success of the nodes(and none of them have any sort of chamber defense at least until one of these guys gets 10 res). That means they have 4 chambers to drop throughout the entire map. If they do what you suggest they will "secure" one room in the map, and the rest of the map(all the nodes the aliens supposedly secured included) is completely vulnerable. A more wise use of that res would be to put down 3 sensories around the map and a movement at the hive, but even with the sensories covering nodes, a well placed ping from the commander will probably be enough to let the marines kill the node and/or the sensory.
Simply put, early game aliens can barely afford to use the chambers they currently have, much less all 3 upgrade chambers plus OCs. Your scenarios are impossible.
I'm not going to argue this with you anymore when you have no experience with the plugin. Tell me when you've tried it yourself instead of making assumptions and we'll talk.
I don't want to use regen or cara always when the game begins. I'd like to use cloaking or silence but everyone wants DC because of regen. If someone builds sc or mc when the game begins, some people gets upset and may even quit.
I wish Flayra unchains the chambers!
As Magitek said, early skulks with cloak, fades soon along with regen or Cara, all able to use a movement chamber to get to an unbuilt hive when it’s under attack. That is a lot of power for relatively few resources.
<b>The thing is the power of the chambers isn’t just in the upgrades (though they are important), but in the effects that the chambers grant when you are near them. </b> Being able to have the power to build chambers that cloak everything around them, along with chambers that heal the aliens that are running around in early game is very overpowered, not to mention the ability to get to an unbuilt hive when it is attacked.
We all know that having such a variety of upgrades will be unbalanced, but having these area of effect / special abilities just make it even more.
In competitive play, most skulks do not get upgrades, and would extremely benefit from well placed chambers. Having even 2 sensory chambers in key locations makes it very hard for marines to move around, and then the ability for the team to have 3 defense chambers soon after to help the upper life forms? Sure it would cost 50 resources, but the benefit is extreme. Or to have a team get three defense chambers, and then the gorge wait around for 10 more res for a movement to get to the new hive, it just takes away an important aspect of the game, which is importance of starting strategy.
<b>Unchaining the chambers will add a new dimension of strategy, and marine teams will have to be able to adapt to every situation on the fly. It is hard enough for marines to cope with a one chamber strategy, but lets look at a realistic situation.</b>
<span style='color:yellow'>2 gorge drop res go back to skulk to attack
2 gorge drop chambers, 1 drops after res dropers go back to skulk, 1 when 40 res.
1 hive
1 fade</span>
lets say one gorge drops 1 sensory on the map, then goes and drops another. Here the team would have access to l2 sent of fear, as well as cloak and focus. They would be able to tell marine movements extremely early and predict their movements to set up ambushes. Meanwhile marines would get armor one. Armor one would be counterd by the L1/L2 focus.
Soon after one player gets 40 res, and drops 3 defense chambers, then waits in the hive and drops a movement as soon as another player drops the new hive.
At this point marines usually have L2 weapons, and L1 armor, unless they rushed motion tracking or did another strategy, in which case they would have less upgrades. Aliens at this point would have a regen fade, ability to warp into the new hive, and level 2 focus, as well as sensory coverage of the map. All within 5-6 minutes of the game. Marines would have an insane time getting anywhere, with the sensory coverage, the sent of fear, cloaking, focus, fast movement to new hives, and regenerative/defensive abilities. In public play it would be even worse, as more players = more resources = more chambers = more imballence. And that is the realistic truth.
There are a few ways that it could be implemented that would help solve the problems. Here are two that I thought of.
<span style='color:red'><b>1) Link the lifeforms back to hive:</b></span> - Hive 2 needed for fade
- Hive 3 needed for onos
<span style='color:red'><b>2) Raise the cost of chambers by 5-10</b></span> - 15-20 resources for any chamber.
<b><span style='color:red'>3) Remove area of effect/special usages of chambers (BAD)</span></b>
These two scenarios could help balance the issue, and there are many other ways. If NS was to unchain them right now as the game is right now, it wouldn’t work as I showed above and Magitek in his great post. I'm sure it could happen if there was enough testing of it, but it would require extensive playtesting to impliment. I voted against the change because it would take so long to implement and that in NS thusfar chambers have been made to be individualy powerfull. It would take major revamping of the game, and need extensive playtesting and manhours.
~~ eR [ Jink Jink ] ~~
from what you just wrote, i'm guessing not.
Increase the cost of sensory chambers to 12 and no longer will you have 2 early sensory chambers.
Problem solved.
Also if you haven't noticed in clan games usually the first hive that is put is totally aniliated. Marines on the ball generally need to be on the ball taking down hives and they go down hard, and fast. Having a movement chamber wouldn't help save those hives too much, other than a skulk who warps in and gets blasted by a shotgun.
In fact, generally as aliens against good teams, if you ever win it's with the SECOND hive that you put up, as the first one is very easy and almost always goes down. Something to help the early first hive with one movement chamber (that you can only afford if you have the res) isn't such a bad idea.
This, like many other things in the post, is incorrect. Plainly put, and based on hundreds of games on a 7v7 unchained server, having such a variety of upgrades (choices, as you cannot have anymore a variety of upgrades than you do with chained chambers) is NOT unbalanced, nor is the area of effect / special abilities from those chambers.
<span style='color:yellow'><span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PEOPLE: PLAY -- A LOT -- ON AN UNCHAINED SERVER OR TWO BEFORE YOU COMMENT ABOUT THIS AUTHORITATIVELY.</span></span>
Thank you ever so much. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Regards
George