General Points
Thunderbolt1357
Join Date: 2004-02-02 Member: 25974Members
Join Date: 2004-02-02 Member: 25974Members
<div class="IPBDescription">I'm not in your little club i'm afriad</div> This thread is basically a flame aimed towards certain types of people on these boards. Note that i am NOT attacking any of the methods for balancing the game, i am merely attacking the REASONING behind them. Your methods (unchaining, MT removal etc) may still be valid, but this is an attack on your reasoning. Do not try and defend the IDEA here, but defend your reasoning if you feel it would be useful.
I see a lot on this forum about how majorly unbalanced this game is. Now lets keep it simple. If NS was balanced, i would mean that to be when IF both teams have equally skilled players, where all players are working for the team and trying to win, THEN the game is won equally often by marines as for aliens
NS is biased towards the marines. But stop for a minute. Public games are a very bad source of data, because the marine's have an automatic command structure, whereas for the aliens to work together requires much more effort. The fact that alien teams do not work together on publics means that aliens SHOULD be losing the vast majority of thier games, as they rarely work together as much as the marines.
Instead, lets look as clanned NS. As the above test (totally even teams) cannot be carried out, i will look at something else. If that were true, then in a clan match, because it is very rare that both teams are equally matched, we would see far more 2-0 results compared to 1-1 results. And we do see this. I got took results samples from 5 different clans. Way back in time when NS was far less balanced than it is today, 1-1 results were really VERY common, a 2-0 result signified one team totally raping the other. This no longer true. A 2-0 victory is far more common than a 1-1 result, though when a 1-1 does occur, in almost every case it is the marines which win both rounds. NS is not as unbalanced as people like to make out.
We do not, therefore, need to reduce OC cost to 5, remove gorg costs, cut costs of all lifeforms to 1, or any of these other HUGE game changes suggested. All that is required is a little boost for skulks, or some other SMALL game change.
As for the other group of people, who think that ns isn't fun, or rather could be made much more fun, i'm going to address you in different groups.
First, those who want FEAR back. This includes SOME of the people who want to remove MT, and SOME of those who want SC and hence make ns scary again.... the reason ns isn't scary is because when a skulk jumps out at you and bites, you go "oh it's a skulk biting me from an ambush". When u first started playing the game, firstly u weren't expecting any ambushes, they don;t happen in other games, and secondly it was like WTH IS THAT ALIEN THINK OMG!!! This will never return, however much you remove marine sight.
Second, those who want some VARIETY in the game. The sad fact is, for everyone, that once you get good enough at a game, you will realise that it there is a best way to do things. Maybe this "best way" will be just getting carapace, or maybe it's a team of "1 cloaker + 1 SOF + 1 silence + 1 carapace + a regen lerk"... but at the end of the day, games will end up "stale" (as you call it) as there is a best way to do things. At the moment that is the defense chamber. Unchaining will not make this problem go away, it was just mean that for a period of 2 weeks, we don't know the best way to play.
Third, those who want rine ramboing to stop... Wake up. In clan games you do get ramboing rines, but aliens rambo more. Though it is true that to attack something the aliens have to group up, this is true for marines as well! If you want to fix the problem of marine rambos, you need to educate people so that as aliens they ambush. In fairly even clan games, if i ambush a rine on my own i get him 50% of the time. If people were sensible and only ever attacked in a group of ambushing, rine ramboing would cease to be effective. And as for the manual saying "rines huddle together whereas aliens are 1 man armies"... while this is true, the game of NS has evolved past this, the manual is out of date, and i'm afraid that time has been and gone.
Finally, for you people who believe that ns needs to be unbalanced for it to be fun... Please don't reply. I take this game more seriously than you, and i like to have even games. In my opinion they are more fun, so i disagree with you so fundamentally that there is no point you posting. Sorry.
I see a lot on this forum about how majorly unbalanced this game is. Now lets keep it simple. If NS was balanced, i would mean that to be when IF both teams have equally skilled players, where all players are working for the team and trying to win, THEN the game is won equally often by marines as for aliens
NS is biased towards the marines. But stop for a minute. Public games are a very bad source of data, because the marine's have an automatic command structure, whereas for the aliens to work together requires much more effort. The fact that alien teams do not work together on publics means that aliens SHOULD be losing the vast majority of thier games, as they rarely work together as much as the marines.
Instead, lets look as clanned NS. As the above test (totally even teams) cannot be carried out, i will look at something else. If that were true, then in a clan match, because it is very rare that both teams are equally matched, we would see far more 2-0 results compared to 1-1 results. And we do see this. I got took results samples from 5 different clans. Way back in time when NS was far less balanced than it is today, 1-1 results were really VERY common, a 2-0 result signified one team totally raping the other. This no longer true. A 2-0 victory is far more common than a 1-1 result, though when a 1-1 does occur, in almost every case it is the marines which win both rounds. NS is not as unbalanced as people like to make out.
We do not, therefore, need to reduce OC cost to 5, remove gorg costs, cut costs of all lifeforms to 1, or any of these other HUGE game changes suggested. All that is required is a little boost for skulks, or some other SMALL game change.
As for the other group of people, who think that ns isn't fun, or rather could be made much more fun, i'm going to address you in different groups.
First, those who want FEAR back. This includes SOME of the people who want to remove MT, and SOME of those who want SC and hence make ns scary again.... the reason ns isn't scary is because when a skulk jumps out at you and bites, you go "oh it's a skulk biting me from an ambush". When u first started playing the game, firstly u weren't expecting any ambushes, they don;t happen in other games, and secondly it was like WTH IS THAT ALIEN THINK OMG!!! This will never return, however much you remove marine sight.
Second, those who want some VARIETY in the game. The sad fact is, for everyone, that once you get good enough at a game, you will realise that it there is a best way to do things. Maybe this "best way" will be just getting carapace, or maybe it's a team of "1 cloaker + 1 SOF + 1 silence + 1 carapace + a regen lerk"... but at the end of the day, games will end up "stale" (as you call it) as there is a best way to do things. At the moment that is the defense chamber. Unchaining will not make this problem go away, it was just mean that for a period of 2 weeks, we don't know the best way to play.
Third, those who want rine ramboing to stop... Wake up. In clan games you do get ramboing rines, but aliens rambo more. Though it is true that to attack something the aliens have to group up, this is true for marines as well! If you want to fix the problem of marine rambos, you need to educate people so that as aliens they ambush. In fairly even clan games, if i ambush a rine on my own i get him 50% of the time. If people were sensible and only ever attacked in a group of ambushing, rine ramboing would cease to be effective. And as for the manual saying "rines huddle together whereas aliens are 1 man armies"... while this is true, the game of NS has evolved past this, the manual is out of date, and i'm afraid that time has been and gone.
Finally, for you people who believe that ns needs to be unbalanced for it to be fun... Please don't reply. I take this game more seriously than you, and i like to have even games. In my opinion they are more fun, so i disagree with you so fundamentally that there is no point you posting. Sorry.
Comments
I agree that nothing too major is needed, though I believe variety is a nice feature... that's just me.
A few boosts here and there (COUGH COUGH skulk, OC) and NS should be fine.
the reason marines win most often is because it's easy for them to control the map and most of the resource nodes, especially the ones on the opposite side of the hive. take veil for example: if the alien hive was pipeline, marines will be able to more easily hold the nodes on the east side. if so much as one or two aliens bothered to goto the other side of the map and kill a few nodes, the marines will have a more difficult time creating sieges and upgrading to heavies. this is the problem i see most often on pugs, but less skilled clans tend to do the same too.
i disagree with you about variety. NS could use a lot of it. if you've ever played starcraft or any other RTS, you'd know that there's many different tech paths to choose from, and even more methods to counter with. in NS, everything is routine, and someone who's been playing for a while can almost predict what will happen next, depending what each team has or hasn't been doing. IMO, it'd be great to see less predictablility in NS.
You will always have a best way, if you boost up skulk, lower OC costs or put in natural-regeneration to solve the DMS problem.
Defense Chamber is the most common, they are always, always built first to support fades in mid game with regeneration. Cause fades are the only chance of winning a game for the aliens.
But marines win 90 % of clangames (good games) and that´s annoying. So changes are neccesary.
Variety: You give the example of "1 cloaker + 1 SOF + 1 silence + 1 carapace + a regen lerk" as a possible best way to do things. If sometimes you are the SOF skulk, sometimes the silenced skulk, sometimes the carapace skulk, sometimes cloaked, and sometimes the lerk, then there is variety in your gameplay. Thus, the goal of those that want variety would be accomplished, because people can change roles.
In short, there has to be more than one viable path to victory, or the game will end up being a question of who can execute the prescribed best way more effectively. Stagnation kills gameplay. Much of the fun that comes from strategic gameplay is derived from variety. This is an especially important point to note in a FPS which offers a far lower dose of intense firefights (which are a good substitute for strategy) than most of its counterparts. The Marine game is doing a good job at offering some semblance of varied gameplay, although admittedly NS cannot be too complex in order to facilitate pub play. The Aliens, nonetheless, are an extremly boring side to play, and the fact that they get owned most of the time really exacerbates the problem.
anyway I think such threads are good to represent the heart and main idea of Natural-Selection, which shouldn´t be linear and boring gameplay.
Without my dictionary I say: Marines are nice, aliens suck <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
EDIT: Typo D';
Please reconcile these two statements. When a 1-1 occurs, it is the marines that win both rounds and therefore NS is not unbalanced?
Or are they unrelated, are you saying "NS isn't as unbalanced as before (even though it <b>is</b> unbalanced) because there aren't as many 1-1s"? Have you perhaps thought that maybe there's another reason such as with the death of some of the more experienced clans, the reason that there's more 2-0's is simply because there's more clan rapage going on, ie, the skill levels of the clans have broadened.
Just pointing it out, because if you're flaming folks reasoning abilities here, you should first make sure your own is pretty solid.
<!--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-->First, those who want FEAR back. This includes SOME of the people who want to remove MT, and SOME of those who want SC and hence make ns scary again.... the reason ns isn't scary is because when a skulk jumps out at you and bites, you go "oh it's a skulk biting me from an ambush". When u first started playing the game, firstly u weren't expecting any ambushes, they don;t happen in other games, and secondly it was like WTH IS THAT ALIEN THINK OMG!!! This will never return, however much you remove marine sight.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Really? So explain why I, as a fairly new player, experienced a <i>noticable</i> drop in my level of tension as a marine in the game when we shifted from 2.xx to 3.xx? I'll tell you what I think the reasons are.. skulks became paper, onos became cowards, and fades simply became too fast for tension to build. All the changes made to the game have been with this constant goal in mind of speeding it up. But fear needs time to build up in a person. So, considering that it was a version change that dropped the fear and not just a lessening over time, I think your explanation doesn't cover the full situation.
<!--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-->Second, those who want some VARIETY in the game. The sad fact is, for everyone, that once you get good enough at a game, you will realise that it there is a best way to do things.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's just BS as any research into game theory will quickly show you. As a simple example, what is the best strategy for "Rock, Paper, Scissors"? How about football? Poker? Yahtzee? The list of games that don't have a "best" strategy is endless. With good game design, a "best" strategy does not exist.
<!--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-->Third, those who want rine ramboing to stop... Wake up. In clan games you do get ramboing rines, but aliens rambo more. Though it is true that to attack something the aliens have to group up, this is true for marines as well! If you want to fix the problem of marine rambos, you need to educate people so that as aliens they ambush. In fairly even clan games, if i ambush a rine on my own i get him 50% of the time. If people were sensible and only ever attacked in a group of ambushing, rine ramboing would cease to be effective. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Explain to me how aliens are supposed to be able to "group up" to ambush, when map control is so vital for the alien game? If they group up, they're leaving large areas of the map uncovered, not to mention not putting down the RTs which are also vital.
If you manage to ambush a lone level 0 marine as a lone level 0 skulk, you should be able to win >50% of the time. Why? Because ambushing is reactive. You have to get yourself in a position to ambush, and hope the marine comes by. You are taking a risk that your efforts in setting up the ambush may be wasted. Because of that, when that risk pays off (in the form of a lone rambo coming by) you should have a better than average chance of capitalizing on it. If your rambo doesn't come by, or you get a group coming by, then that's the downside of taking that lone risk.
Only that if there were 2 teams against each other and they were both equally skilled, then the rines should have to work their butts off to win a round, instead of waltzing through the map like they do now...
seconded.
Your first point... i said quite clearly that NS _IS_ unbalanced. I have no doubt of that. But it isn't AS unbalanced as people claim. There is no contradiction. However your point about skill of clans broadening I had not considered. I belive this not to be the cause, because in a clan game, now, you need serious marine tactics every game, even though they are won more often than not. In previous versions when the game was bias towards aliens instead, alien tactics (at least at the level i was playing at) were barely needed to win the alien rounds. In my mind this confirms that, even if some skill broadening has occured, the game is pretty balanced.
Your second point on my reasoning on the fear, doesn't truly hold. You say that you played 2.xx and you found it scary, but then u played 3.xx and it wasn't scary anymore.... You haven't contradicted me. Restating that NS is unbalanced will not convince me either. I disagree with you over that reasoning, and there is truly no point is having a big "IT IS!!!" "IT ISN'T!!!" battle..... I would be interested to talk to someone who has only ever played 3.xx though....
Thirdly, there is a "best way" to play rock paper scissors. First you find out which one they are going to pick, and then you counter it. Of course a "certain tactic" won't be best, but there will always be a best "set of tactics" where each particular tactic corresponds to a certain tactic employed by the opposition. This is also seen in RTS games.... they build infantry, you get anti-inf tanks, they get tank destruction, u get inf... but far more complex. NS is not a simple enough game for one particular tactic to be best. Even at the moment, if the marines make some sort of SG rush on you at the start, some might argue that SCs was the best way to play it, but this would not discount the arguement that DCs were "generally" the best tactic. As for the other games you mentioned... i'm afraid i don't know what yangzee is... And i'm afraid i don't know enough about theory of football to answer that idea. However, I suspect that football tactics depend largely on what the opposing team decide to do. If there are 4 people marking you, pass it to someone open. This makes the "set of tactics" extremely large, but you should not mistake an extremely complex solution, for no solution at all.
Your fourth point demonstrates that you are not very familiar with competitive clan play. In a clan game, 6v6, it is not uncommon to see 4 or even 5 skulks rushing all at the same time to a single marine position. Their base, Cargo on tanith, south loop on eclipse, a PG position outside a hive... the list goes on.
STARCRAFT LOVERS:
Starcraft is a brilliant game, and it is very hard to match it in terms of balance and pace. I am not a very experienced SC player, but i expect that if you know what they are doing, there is a "best way" to beat them. There are many routes to victory is SC, but are there any zerg tactics you know which involve not building any more drones? Are they are Terran tactics where you refuse to build Supply Depots? Does requiring certain teams to build certain buildings make the whole game predictable? No. Similarly, there is no reason why having DCs first should make NS predicatable.
But as i said earlier... maybe unchaining chambers would be a good thing for NS, but there is no reason to suppose, like many of you SEEM to be saying, that it is required that for NS to have variety DMS has to go.
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i'll take this one..."rock, paper, scissors", poker, and yahtzee all rely on one thing inherently....LUCK. You don't know what the other person will pick or what cards you will be dealt or what numbers you will throw on the dice. As for football, there is always a "best" strategy. It just happens to be dependent on the other teams current offense or defense. If they are blitzing then you pass quickly. If the play deep coverage you run it. The same applies to NS in the form of SC means early MT and fades mean shotguns go out. Both of you made decent points but calling his argument bs and backing it up with an equally faulty one is a kind of silly in my opinion.
Sure, you can shotty rush, you can skulkrush the base (not really since 2.0, since skulks die if you look hard at them now), you can try a MC lerk rush, but they're really novelties. If you're playing to win, against an equally skilled team, you play the way listed above, and that's it.
Sure, you can shotty rush, you can skulkrush the base (not really since 2.0, since skulks die if you look hard at them now), you can try a MC lerk rush, but they're really novelties. If you're playing to win, against an equally skilled team, you play the way listed above, and that's it. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Still, things you aren't looking at:
- Armor 1 or MT first?
- How many marines stay at base to build?
- What order do you build structures at base?
- Where do you place phases?
- When do you get phase tech?
- Early shotgun or two?
- DC first is reliable, but can we use other chambers on this map?
- 2 fades? 3 fades?
- 2 starting nodes? 3? 4?
- Hive goes up asap, or after the fades, or lame up second hive first?
- There are generally two entry ways for all maps. How many skulks should we send to each?
- What nodes should the gorges cap?
Small stuff, but makes a big difference...
Unfortunately, it's a concept most people can't seem to understand.
You might as well ask a toddler which thumb they suck during nap time. That thumb is going to get sucked, and it happens naturally, without thinking. I don't want a person telling me, obviously you want to suck the thumb on your left hand because of some long winded explanation that at best, gives you the slightest edge or saves you the slightest time in accomplishing something you want to do.
Strategy, not tactics, strategy.
Here are tactics:
- 3 marines are approching south loop
- You, the aliens, have 1 gorge who is building his node and 2 skulks protecting the gorge
- 1 other skulk is watching over power sub junction, 1 other alien is building comp core's node, and 1 other skulk is at traid
- Your hive is eclipse
- The skulk at triad sees a marine approching triad
- The skulk at sub junction sees a marine building the node at station access alpha
What should the 3 aliens at south loop do? Request backup, leaving holes in their frontline, or try and see if 2 skulks and a gorge can take on 3 marines?
What should you do?
This is an example of tactics. It gets a lot more complicated than this because in game situations change so often.
I see your points, Forlorn. I'm just left wishing for something larger. Maybe the game can't handle as much variable strategy as I'd like it to have. But deciding which upgrade to get first just isn't enough strategic variation. It'd be nice if there were choices in the game that really had counters and counter-counters and so on. As it is there's pretty much sensory = get an obs, which you already have and which is probably already researching phase tech. And HA = get an onos. For everything else, standard strategy encompasses it already.
<!--QuoteBegin-Ness-Earthbound+Aug 2 2004, 04:44 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Ness-Earthbound @ Aug 2 2004, 04:44 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'm very afraid that I won't have people in my little club. Join me, damnit.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Joined! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Really? So explain why I, as a fairly new player, experienced a noticable drop in my level of tension as a marine in the game when we shifted from 2.xx to 3.xx? I'll tell you what I think the reasons are.. skulks became paper, onos became cowards, and fades simply became too fast for tension to build. All the changes made to the game have been with this constant goal in mind of speeding it up. But fear needs time to build up in a person. So, considering that it was a version change that dropped the fear and not just a lessening over time, I think your explanation doesn't cover the full situation.
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the first time I was ambushed as a marine, i jumped ten feet out of my chair. after a while, you start to expect ambushes, and rather then yelping in surprise, your body learns to react to them. whether or not skulks are "paper" really don't make a difference -- i find your entire argument to be even less solid then these so called "paper" skulks.
1. skulks now take 9 LMG shots to kill, as opposed to 11. END OF THE WORLD.
2. Onos don't stand a chance again 2-3 HMG marines in 2.0 as well. the smaller hitbox just compensated for the lower hitpoints.
3. fades were made slower, not faster.
go back and play 2.0 a little, see if the fact that a skulk can last 10% longer makes any difference in game "tension."
<!--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-->that's just BS as any research into game theory will quickly show you. As a simple example, what is the best strategy for "Rock, Paper, Scissors"? How about football? Poker? Yahtzee? The list of games that don't have a "best" strategy is endless. With good game design, a "best" strategy does not exist.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
agreed. stale games = boring games, unless you play them on a competitive level (CS for example). some people find fun in how they can improve in a game, these people are usually those who've been playing a long time, and have already explored all the different aspects of the game.
<!--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-->
Explain to me how aliens are supposed to be able to "group up" to ambush, when map control is so vital for the alien game? If they group up, they're leaving large areas of the map uncovered, not to mention not putting down the RTs which are also vital.
If you manage to ambush a lone level 0 marine as a lone level 0 skulk, you should be able to win >50% of the time. Why? Because ambushing is reactive. You have to get yourself in a position to ambush, and hope the marine comes by. You are taking a risk that your efforts in setting up the ambush may be wasted. Because of that, when that risk pays off (in the form of a lone rambo coming by) you should have a better than average chance of capitalizing on it. If your rambo doesn't come by, or you get a group coming by, then that's the downside of taking that lone risk.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
map control isn't as important for aliens, since they play a defensive game for the most part. patrolling the map is important though -- you can't have one marine sneaking up in a hive and building a PG for example. however, aliens are extremely mobile, meaning you can have 4-5 aliens group up in double node, wipe out the area (hopefully) and immediately return to patrolling the map. what doesn't work is when a bunch of newbie skulks decide to run/jump/bhop straight at a marine or group of marines and don't accomplish anything, which is usually what happens in pubs.
as for setting up ambushes, it's incredibly easy to predict where a marine's headed to next. if you see or hear a marine coming down a path, you simply have to find a spot where he probably won't check, wait for him to pass it, and get a free kill. there are no "risks," it's only a matter of patience. besides, what other alternatives do you have? run up at him and hope to get a bite in? maybe if the marine's never played a FPS before.
The problem at hand... and one that I highly doubt will EVER be fixed (until only a single NS player or less is in existence)... is perspective. Each person's own perspective will shape their individual arguments and these arguments will largely be biased by what that individual's perspective deems more/most important above all other aspects of this game.
As an example I would offer the difference in perspectives in the dedicated competitive player and the casual experience-driven player. Generally speaking (as there are always exceptions to the rule), the dedicated competitive player is more inclined to devote more attention to the balance, or fairness, of gameplay. This is because his competitive spirit tells him that the best kind of victory is one where skill and only skill is the deciding factor. The casual experience-driven player is more inclined to devote more attention to the environmental believability, adherence to storyline, and diversity in gameplay. This is because his desire to be pulled into the game and truly experience the game are heightened by impressive visuals and aurals, a believable expectations of the world around them, and the ability to freely explore this new world.
Obviously one kind of player does not discount the other aspects of the game as simply irrelevant. If that were so the competitive player could be equally gripped by seeing simple, wireframe objects, occasional distinguishing sound blips to give aural indication of the situation at hand, and a clearly defined set of absolutely unbreakable and absolutely balanced rules by which each player is able to compete under. Likewise, the casual player might as well simply sit through an interactive movie with scripted events that simply let the player explore completely uninhibited.
Instead, we must simply view these things as "what's important to me" kinds of things and then find a happy medium that will please both crowds as much as possible.
Unfortunately we have discussions like these where the opening argument makes the assumtion that playing competitively is inheirently more important and/or more fun than playing any other way, and as such changes to the game should strictly follow guidelines that would benefit the competitive community. Especially considering that the players constituting the very serious levels of competitive play are a very stark minority of the community at large, making such assumptions are ludicrous. On the flipside, it is also ludicrous to suggest that any random joe blo pubber should have the innate ability to be an uber demi-god that can single-handedly rip through the enemy ranks like a hot knife through butter. In the end the casual players are going to have to come to terms that they are going to be limited in what they do and that, yes, someone else is likely better at it than they are. On the other hand the competitive crew is going to have to deal with a game where perfect balance will never be achieved because of the concessions that make the game bearable for all the other non-competitive players.
The simple solution to this would be to create two different rulesets that are toggled through the tourney flag. That way both worlds can be happy.
Now that that is pretty much out of the way I can make the very short quick rebuttals that I originally wanted to make.
1. Who cares which team wins (or the ratio of wins for that matter) as long as I had fun playing it?
2. Applying the majority-rule law it would actually be more accurate to state that pubs are more accurate for depicting balance than the clan matches. This due only because of the stark minority of the community and the games played that clan matches constitute. Sure I'm just playing the semantics game here, but I'd rather do what is most important for most of the people rather than what is most important for the least amount of people.
3. I actually agree with you in the sense that small changes need to be made rather than large ones. But then I would suggest that perhaps many things you find small are large to me and many things i find small are large to you. Remember it all comes back to perspective.
4. Losing the fear factor is more an effect of speeding the game up than anything else you might suggest. The slow games allowed for the rationale to actually make the larger units something to be feared because of the large investment required to get them (both time and resources). Also, fear is not so much a matter of "**** in my pants" terror so much as a respect for the presence of an alien. In other words, the aliens were powerful enough as a lone unit to warrant any lone marine thinking about taking one on (yes even for skulks).
5. "best way" to do what? like i said in (1) your purpose for defining a best way may be different for someone else. In other words, you would like to find the best way to simply win the game, whereas someone else might want to find the best way to mess with your enemies' heads. Granted, the majority of the people would rather know the best way to win, but I'll make the more important point surrounding "best way" next.
6. The way that people want variety in the game tends to be broader than just "give me more options than the 'best way'". You have to look at the reason they want more options. The reason (i'm guessing a little here) is they want the strategy mechanics to be more forgiving if/when a mistake is made along the way so that they can fairly quickly make changes to the strategy to once again become effective. This means that when a team decides to spice things up with some creative strategy that turns out to be absolutely ineffective that not all is lost. Currently, mistakes in strategy are simply too debilitating to have much fun past the time that the mistake was made. This goes moreso for the alien team, but the marines can feel the effects too.
7. The effectiveness of ramboing would generally be stopped when the "fear" mentioned in (4) is addressed, by slowing the game down and making the larger investments in time and resources more worthwhile. While I don't particularly care one way or the other for the existence of lone rambos it tends to be one of the "experience-driven" things that annoys the snot out of a lot of people and figure it should be addressed for that reason.
8. The argument is not that ns needs to be unbalanced in order to be fun, the argument is that ns does not have to be balanced to be fun. Frankly I'm disturbed that you take this game so seriously from the competitive / game-balance perspective that you are not willing to regard the opinions of those who can actually find fun without requiring the insane attention to balance.
HOLY COW!!! I think that's the longest damned post I've ever written. Props to you if you actually read through all of it.
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Aliens have better information control. From the start of the game, aliens have the ability to track ever movement of both their team and the enemies. The aliens can remove valuable traits from the game that make combat essential. removal of a marines ability to see hear smell or find a target at all means he isn't very combat effective.
From a strategic point of view control of information is generally stronger than pure force, but takes more understanding to use. Think how much easier a game of Star Craft could be if you saw the entire map and the enemy couldn't see you unless he had very special units. You would probably ownz him six was from sunday if you used the information wisely, but if you attack him head on you will still lose.
But over the versions marines have gained more control over the information field with motion tracking and scans being more powerful than cloaking or terrain advantage. Like wise the offensive abilities of aliens degraded from v1.04 to v2.x and thier health and armour have been increased. This has forced aliens into a more direct combat strategy, where they are still not as powerful as their marine counter parts.
The proper way to 'balance' NS will never be solved unless an agrement is reached on how the teams should be played. According to v1.04 team work on the alien side is minimul with each unit being able to stand on their own as destructive force to be recond with. So in v1.04 any cordinated team work on the alien side was devistating, which is why end game lasted minutes rather than hours like it does today.
In v2.x and 3.x there is more focus on teamwork on the alien side, and to keep some sense of balance, each unit is weakend. Skills are swaped and atributes tweaked so that no one class is to powerful in any given area. To keep the game fair, aliens are unchained and res for kill was added so that the proper tools could be obtained for the new tactics. However the strategic mind set did not change.
With this new evoltion structure, team work plan, and res structure there is a tendancy for large cordnated assualts to prosper more than small skrimishes. Since the mind set is still aliens = stealth, marines = strength the system is in favor of the marine team.
I will give an example
say in v1.04 you wanted to crack a hive lock down
The marines have in this hive a turret gen with several turrets, and a phase gate.
If i was a skulk, reguardles of the chamber layed down, i could use my speed and small size to quickly go from cover to a weak point by the gen, often times wedging myself between the wall and gen. I could chomp happily away until either
1) a rine phases in
2) the gen goes down
Depending on the chamber avliable i may survive the marine conflict and still take down the gen, unlikely but possible.
If an advanced life form (lerk or fade) attacked that outpost, the chances of it going down even with a marine or two coming through the phase is greater. The differnce being they will probably have advanced weapons and armour, making the fight more fair if mor than 1 marine appears.
Now in v2.x
The skulk, while it still packs the punch to tear apart an outpost, can't do the job becuase of Electricity. The lerk loses it's bite so killing structures is very time consuming. The gorge now has the punch but not the ability to defend its self, leaving the fade to be the only logical choice. The fade like wise has also lost power do to slower blink and the removal of acid rocket.
The new power of electricity, plus faster res accumilation on both sides, plus weakening of the alien offensive power equals need for larger, more costly life froms to do a skulks job. Either a fade goes in on his own so the rest of the team can patrol the map, or several team mates attack leaving the rest of the map exposed. marines have functional static defenses (electric) that can not be 'stealthed' passed only strong armed. This defence lets marins focus as a team on one point. Aliens cannot as OCs are flawed in their design and no other static defense exsits. This means aliens need to be spread out to hold the front securly, while rines can move as a single unit and break through not focused defences.
The introduction of CO is now making the NS crew have balanced stats for both head to head combat and area control. head to head combat is the domain of the marines and area control introduces the need for information. They are different games, but slowly becoming one.
For the games to be one the teams must be even in both aspects of area control and head to head combat. If the stratigec mindset changes so that both teams can go head to head then normal NS will be just a slightly longer version of CO with the deck stacked in the marines' favor (range and attack power).
I'm sure a simple tweak like quality OCs or lowered marine attack power would help, but the game would always have a very static feel to it. I believe a better solution lies in the res system and mentality on how the teams should work togather.
If you ask clanners why they are leaving NS, they will tell you "NS is boring", or "NS isn't fun anymore".
Ask them why it's not fun, and you get "Because the balance sucks, etc. etc.e tc."
BTW, What makes you think that those posting ideas are all wrong and your always right? They are just ideas, you need to relax.
And it's very true. The alien team is in an identity crisis with 3.0. Are they still ambushers from the shadows, or are they just brute force? Are they strong in controlling an area, or are they strong in breaking past defenses? Are they the teamwork team or the individual strength team? It seems that the aliens should be very strong in holding an area, while the marines should be very strong in assaulting an area. (at the moment, it's the marines that are strongest in both, strangely enough)
The addition of the time limit and the attacker/defender modes to combat gives me some hope. With this, the game can be balanced back in the other direction and the alien team can become more what they should be, even while using the same stats in NS mode and CO mode. We can only hope that this was on some developer's mind when the attack/defend concept was added, and wait to see if any actual changes will come out of it.
If it was balanced properly, you would see a lot fewer alien wins in CO by destroying the chair, and people wouldn't complain that it was 'lame' when aliens won by time limit. But it would be a pretty large change from what we have now, which is why people are mostly ignoring it. Most servers set the time limit so high that it doesn't matter, and of course, why shouldn't they? Nothing fundamental about the game was changed, an artificial time limit was simply added. Of course it feels silly now. Hopefully future changes will make it seem more sensible. Only time will tell.
Main points you agree with me (or at least don't disagree) with me on:
1) NS is not as unbalanced as people like to make out.
2) We do not NEED to remove MT, gives lots of cloaking etc to add fear to the game.
3) There will always be a best way TO WIN.
4) Marine ramboing will always be an effective tactic to win on public games, as a marine should be effective 1v1, and aliens will not very often group up on public games.
5) NS can be balanced AND fun.
This is all i have said.... I'm sorry, the points you made so appear to be true, but you are not the sort of person i am attacking, i'm afraid. Point 8 is especially enlightening. There are people out there who believe that NS "MUST be unbalanced to be FUN". You are not one of them, so this comment does not apply to you. Read what i said please. I might just have meant it.
In my post I am talking about balancing the game so that each team can win equally often, and you have put forward no case that a game cannot be simulatiously "balanced for serious players" and "fun for casual players". I am not assuming that all players take the game seriously, i'm just saying that casual players do not CARE about finely tuned balance, as you yourself have demonstrated nicely in points 1,5 and 6.
I'm afraid palin you have strayed off topic. No disrespect meant, but i think your points, although accurate and well reasoned, are not relevent to this thread.
------SOME FINAL POINTS SO YOU KNOW I HAVE READ YOUR POST------
Casual gamers are as important as serious ones, but they do not care about balance.
Balance and immersiveness/atmosphere/fear are not mutally exclusive.
You are (or at least talk like) a casual gamer.
The best source of SERIOUS games is clanned games.
My post is about balance, yours is about fun.
The games there show how NS is balanced or not. atm it's not and it's sometimes frustrating to lose as alien against a team that is worses than yours but just used their advantages on marine and won a few key situations that make them winning a whole game. Such games contain long endgames... frustrating not funny :/
so balance an important point for a game to be funny