Ah, Discussion. How I Love Thee.
Shockeh
If a packet drops on the web and nobody's near to see it... Join Date: 2002-11-19 Member: 9336NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
If a packet drops on the web and nobody's near to see it... Join Date: 2002-11-19 Member: 9336NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">CO, and it's place.</div> <!--QuoteBegin-Talesin+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Talesin)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Also bear in mind that Combat mode is not intended to be the full 'play' mode of NS, it is there for when there aren't enough people to get a proper game of NS going.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Apologies to Talesin for quoting him here, but I thought it was relevant. I don't (and I know from #naturalselection I'm not the only one) feel this is enough of the case. CO was originally described as something fun, dirty & interesting to do, because you didn't have enough NS players at the time.
If that's the case, my personal opinion is <b>stop trying to balance both</b>. I don't believe it's possible to achieve near-perfect balance (let's face it, perfect balance is a holy grail, and simply isn't going to happen, so let's settle for realism here folks) between such different gametypes. What is fair in NS is simply obscenely overpowered in CO, or vice versa.
But in that case, why is there so much effort going into trying? What I'd suggest is putting CO in it's place, that of a secondary gametype. Concentrate on the game that earnt so many supporters in the first place, NS. We don't want two seperate rules for each game, because then you've got people who won't play one over the other because of this or this.
I'm aware this is rambling a bit, and for that I'll apologise. Typing whilst simultaneously talking to a user doesn't do much for my concentration on the board. But I'd hope Flayra & Co would take note, maybe getting both balanced 'perfectly' is impossible. In which case, why not settle for making the game mode that was intended as close as possible, and leave the secondary where it was aimed - Secondary.
Thanks for reading all,
Shockwave
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Apologies to Talesin for quoting him here, but I thought it was relevant. I don't (and I know from #naturalselection I'm not the only one) feel this is enough of the case. CO was originally described as something fun, dirty & interesting to do, because you didn't have enough NS players at the time.
If that's the case, my personal opinion is <b>stop trying to balance both</b>. I don't believe it's possible to achieve near-perfect balance (let's face it, perfect balance is a holy grail, and simply isn't going to happen, so let's settle for realism here folks) between such different gametypes. What is fair in NS is simply obscenely overpowered in CO, or vice versa.
But in that case, why is there so much effort going into trying? What I'd suggest is putting CO in it's place, that of a secondary gametype. Concentrate on the game that earnt so many supporters in the first place, NS. We don't want two seperate rules for each game, because then you've got people who won't play one over the other because of this or this.
I'm aware this is rambling a bit, and for that I'll apologise. Typing whilst simultaneously talking to a user doesn't do much for my concentration on the board. But I'd hope Flayra & Co would take note, maybe getting both balanced 'perfectly' is impossible. In which case, why not settle for making the game mode that was intended as close as possible, and leave the secondary where it was aimed - Secondary.
Thanks for reading all,
Shockwave
Comments
combat was originally something fun to do, a fast paced break from ns, a minigame. why should ns mode suffer from the addition of combat?
There have been successful balances for both (Focus adapted to costing 2 levels in CO, but remaining in play in NS,) but that is one of few cases. I agree; concentrate on the TRUE game and, if necessary, let CO suffer as a result.
yes he does <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I wouldnt really mind if they took combat out.
But as that obviously isn't going to happen, i'm not going to compain about it, i just won't play it.
But i think the dev team needs to put more effort into balancing NS for large games before doing anything else about CO
The ironic part, in case you've actually read this far, is that we ended up requiring two wholly different versions of the game just for pubbing. Even after we tried to save the labor of balancing two versions, that's effectively what we've got now (let's not get into semantics over "game mode" and "version" -- the amount of labor for Combat is very significant, no matter what you want to call it).
In a completely uncalled-for change of subject, I think there is enormous competitive potential in a game like Natural Selection. Sadly, much like Caddyshack's gopher continually eluded Bill Murray, competitive balance continually eluded NS. I think it was probably a strategic decision to make the game more pub-friendly, which I endorse and think was the wisest route.
In closing, I think The Future™ for this whole genre rests on Unknown Worlds Entertainment, assuming a larger house doesn't have a chance to hijack it first.
I don't think Combat needs to be completely ignored and Classic given 100% of the attention for the remainder of the beta. Rather, balance changes need to be made with classic in mind first and foremost, and after that's done, combat-specific changes can be made to partially compensate for that. Combat has a lot of factors you can balance that don't affect classic, like spawn times, point costs, the time limit, etc. If Flayra refuses to use different numbers for the two game types, then we need to balance the game for classic and stick to these combat variables to bring it as close to balance as possible.
personaly i beleave co has killed the team work that ns inspired (do to the influx of dm type players).
i like co as is (exsept the spawn system. exfall have a nice spawn plug) but ns should not get the short end of the stick. ns is what makes this game great and not another dm DoD CS clone...
make them equile but seperate. its more work but look at it this way co is fine as is, all that is left (apart form the bugs) is to fix ns...
edit...
sorry about the double post. hit the wrong button and did not notice
in response to shockwave's post he is totaly right. CO cannot be balanced along with NSC and ive yet to hear anyone give a convincing argument to the contrary.
-term
I've found the rpg aspect and customizing your alien/marine much more fun than the slow paced NS. It's also nice how skilled players can advance much faster in the game and have a greater effect on the outcome.
I've found the rpg aspect and customizing your alien/marine much more fun than the slow paced NS. It's also nice how skilled players can advance much faster in the game and have a greater effect on the outcome. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
skifly - I believe that was the point.
Pre CO's introduction, a single 'skilled' player could not make that much difference, because one of the tenets of NS (Which I may be completely wrong about, in which case I've wasted the last nearly 2 years on this game) was that Teamwork was greater than Skill.
A well co-ordinated team, using the abilities that complement each other across species/weaponry (Umbra, Primal Scream, Onos running distraction for Fades/Skulks, Shotgun/GL/HMG mixes) should always defeat a team that may be individually better players, but only out for themselves.
- Shockwave
Well, that was the theory, anyway. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
- Shockwave
NS for the most part is reasonably balanced, I find myself wishing that the first fade on the map wasn't so much the deciding factor that it now is, and I don't particularly mind the proposal of unchaining the chambers, but in terms of marine wins vs alein wins the game is reasonably even at this point.
The argument that a skilled player shouldn't be able to tip the balance for a team one way or the other I find preposterous. This game is a first person shooter, skill WILL come into effect, if you think it should be otherwize go play starcraft. There is no way to balance a first person shooter in such a way where teams won't rely on the more skilled players to do the things that will end up winning them the game.
Maybe I'm dreaming though...
That's exactly what I miss, in NSC, too. I miss it so much that I've gone entirely the other way; I've only played CO since it was released. I'd rather have a really short game or a really long game, rather than work hard to get a good game going and having it end seemingly early.
And when i put a Co (with few people) i make a rules, Small Cos No FAdes NO Onos and No HA. It is because a 3 vs 3 and 2 Fades and a Onos is very sad.
That combats with Lerks , skulks ans gorges are funny and balanced
I was also a little unpleasantly surprised when it turned out to be much more than what I read about. Then I got into playing it, and thought it was great. Now I think it's old and boring. I don't like it anymore. NS classic's the way to go.
Mindless fragging that doesn't really hurt the team like in the 'shotgun/fade selection' gametype.
But the problem is..
The vets have always complained since beta testing that combat should not share balance issues with regular NS. This would make both for better experiences which the developers have not chosen to implement, yet.
But the other problem is..
Newbies. Not that i'm saying all newbies are bad, I myself would have killed for something like a training or trial run of NS before I actually tried the real deal, but that combat seems to also have started to appeal to newbies too much. talesin can say whatever he wants, but arguably the true purpose for combat was to have it appeal to CS players of all people, I say this judging from my experience in the vet program. New players don't seem to understand that NS even exists, a lot of them find NS to be nothing but a bigger, slower, lamer game of combat and proceed to leave the server every time it might switch to regular NS, for one running a CO map.
But the worst problem is..
Newbies getting brutalized in combat and then thinking NS sucks so they just give up on it, because that is how combat works. Shouldn't they see the potential NS has to offer in terms of beginner stuff and skills before they can make the decision to leave? Isn't this all I have to say?
Focus and implementation for combat should be continued as a very important part of NS for the reasons i've stated, but I think that a lot of people, especially new people, have been shown that 50 minute combat games of umbra and onoses against a camping marine team can be fun? What the **** is up with that?
Bite the bullet. Regular NS and NS:C are two games which now should have two different roles, and in that, require two different balances.