Both The Immediate And Long-term Future Of Ns
Rapier7
Join Date: 2004-02-05 Member: 26108Members
Join Date: 2004-02-05 Member: 26108Members
As an opening note, I'd like to state that Playtesters and people in the "know" should please stay out, I don't want you guys losing your jobs, or making the ever so slight insinuation to boost your egos, it's unwanted.
Okay, I'm sure that the....more experienced (read: smarter) people who inhabit this forum have noticed trends in Natural Selection in terms of balance. In short, you cannot say that this game is balanced. There are many problems that keep Natural Selection from being the fun, engaging, game it once was (1.00) What kept us playing back then was the how different, how engaging, how exciting this game first was.
That phase is over, it's gone. It'll never come back.
To keep the vets and clanners lingering, and to keep the pubbers and newbs permanently, is through balance. Very thorough and even balance.
Now, before I see someone type, "But if the game was perfectly balanced, you'd never have a winner." This type of quote really pisses me off, because in a perfectly balanced game, skill would be the only factor in determining the win or loss of a team or player.
In this game, that cannot be said.
Short term balance issues:
What do you think will most likely make it in the final build of this game? I think we're going to see:
A stronger skulk: Face it, this thing is pathetically weak. Sure, it's fine when it can close the gap and still take some hits, but the skulk only truly shines when it can get close to the opponent, and still take enough hits.
It really irritates me when I do the ambush, and I get in my bites, but the marine is still able to kill me because the LMG shoots faster than I can bite. This should not ever be the case when a skulk can do all the right things.
A slightly stronger gorge, slightly faster res-flow: As it is, the gorge only appeals to the....cremé de la cremé of team players. In short, the people who love to see a team victory, and not something for their own personal gain. Gorging is a pain for vets, who could fade, and impossible for a newbie, as they want to fade as well.
Example: Romano (or any other god-like player) is playing in a server. He accumulates 50 resources. He promptly goes fade and owns a lot of marines. NSPlayer(1) is playing in the same game on Romano's team as well. He has 50 resources. He decides not to drop the hive, and fade, dies to a lone shotgunner, and is back to square one.
Simply put, it is more effective for Romano to fade, and for NSPlayer(1) to drop the hive, instead of having two fades, but one die before doing any real damage.
I think we know why he didn't go gorge. Gorging is BORING. You build a hive, and then you get to be a skulk again, who promptly dies in .6 seconds of LMG fire. That's just not very fun, is it? So we have the whole team hurting, instead of the individual player. If you make the gorge fun to play, then there is a greater incentive to go gorge. It's that simple.
Those two buffs for the aliens is a change that I'm almost positive that will go into the final build of 3.0.
What do you think will honestly make it in the final build?
Okay, I'm sure that the....more experienced (read: smarter) people who inhabit this forum have noticed trends in Natural Selection in terms of balance. In short, you cannot say that this game is balanced. There are many problems that keep Natural Selection from being the fun, engaging, game it once was (1.00) What kept us playing back then was the how different, how engaging, how exciting this game first was.
That phase is over, it's gone. It'll never come back.
To keep the vets and clanners lingering, and to keep the pubbers and newbs permanently, is through balance. Very thorough and even balance.
Now, before I see someone type, "But if the game was perfectly balanced, you'd never have a winner." This type of quote really pisses me off, because in a perfectly balanced game, skill would be the only factor in determining the win or loss of a team or player.
In this game, that cannot be said.
Short term balance issues:
What do you think will most likely make it in the final build of this game? I think we're going to see:
A stronger skulk: Face it, this thing is pathetically weak. Sure, it's fine when it can close the gap and still take some hits, but the skulk only truly shines when it can get close to the opponent, and still take enough hits.
It really irritates me when I do the ambush, and I get in my bites, but the marine is still able to kill me because the LMG shoots faster than I can bite. This should not ever be the case when a skulk can do all the right things.
A slightly stronger gorge, slightly faster res-flow: As it is, the gorge only appeals to the....cremé de la cremé of team players. In short, the people who love to see a team victory, and not something for their own personal gain. Gorging is a pain for vets, who could fade, and impossible for a newbie, as they want to fade as well.
Example: Romano (or any other god-like player) is playing in a server. He accumulates 50 resources. He promptly goes fade and owns a lot of marines. NSPlayer(1) is playing in the same game on Romano's team as well. He has 50 resources. He decides not to drop the hive, and fade, dies to a lone shotgunner, and is back to square one.
Simply put, it is more effective for Romano to fade, and for NSPlayer(1) to drop the hive, instead of having two fades, but one die before doing any real damage.
I think we know why he didn't go gorge. Gorging is BORING. You build a hive, and then you get to be a skulk again, who promptly dies in .6 seconds of LMG fire. That's just not very fun, is it? So we have the whole team hurting, instead of the individual player. If you make the gorge fun to play, then there is a greater incentive to go gorge. It's that simple.
Those two buffs for the aliens is a change that I'm almost positive that will go into the final build of 3.0.
What do you think will honestly make it in the final build?
Comments
The game is supposed to be a RTS/FPS and that was the first reason it intrigued me so much. Nobody knew what strat worked the best; it had a real RTS feel to it.
These days everybody uses a alien round and marine round so similiar that RT->Fade instead of straight fade is a huge change. I want more strategy diversity. Clan matches all come down to skill these days, not half as much thinking as it required early in 2.0 and 2.01.
In summary: More fun. NS needs to feel more RTS'ish. I don't even mind if balance is disturbed.
The gorge doesn't need much of a HP/AP boost, but some additional way of getting res would be very nice. Maybe he can get res from healing others? (Not taking their res, just getting some for helping them.)
If the skulk have silence or cloaking it will be much harder for the marines. The problem is, the both chamber as first are hardly working, because you will most likely get owned by static defence.
Gorges:
An older idea I had, was, that all the R4K by Aliens is only for the Gorges. Early chambers, exspecially MC or SC would be much better, because you'll most likely kill more in early-game.
Gorges:
An older idea I had, was, that all the R4K by Aliens is only for the Gorges. Early chambers, exspecially MC or SC would be much better, because you'll most likely kill more in early-game.
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I quite like the idea <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--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-->Endless
These days everybody uses a alien round and marine round so similiar that RT->Fade instead of straight fade is a huge change. I want more strategy diversity. Clan matches all come down to skill these days, not half as much thinking as it required early in 2.0 and 2.01.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
True, the skill of the fades for the alien team more or less wins or loses the game. In clan matches (where marines will always be in groups of at least 2) the skulk become less usefull as ambush becomes difficult. Also at the start if marines have some ace players, they can just rambo around in groups and take hives easy, unlike before in 1.04 and such where aliens could build effective static defences.
The game has shifted from aliens building lame in good places, and heal stations etc to, who is the best fade.
Shame really.
Am I allowed to talk about the order in public? *shifty dog eyes*
Stop saying it's unbalanced in big games or small games, because it doesn't matter. Now, if it's unbalanced in 5-7v5-7 play, then something is wrong.
- Paracite and SOF show on minimap
- Hive sight shows alien rts
- Hive sight shows all marines currently visable to your team.
- Rts give a small res bonus to the player who built it - providing they remain a gorge. (gives the gorges the res boost they need due to lack of RFK bonus)
- Gorges can recycle dropped guns for small res bonus (1 res for lmg, 2 for sg etc)
- Slight increase of skulk armour, speed and/or quieter base movement volume.
- Make carapace worth the evolution cost.
- Automatic SOF on all lone marines. Marines lose SOF when with teammates.
- Automatic SOF on all marines in range of a Sensory Chamber (reinvention of the v1.0 SC-paracite feature)
If the team is doing good for resources, I find that some people do not go Fade, and drop the hive or build fun OC Walls. That's the part I like about the Gorge, you spend the same amount of res, but you can still kill people, and Gorge 'em with spit!
actually i LOVE playing gorge on pub matches, it's so rewarding when you are the one responsible for dropping 2 hives and all the chambers and see you fade/onoes/lerk teammates kill al those pesky marines without any real troubles....
sure it's a bit less intensive as playing a fade where you have to react much more rapidly, but at least it allows you to play relaxed (eat, drink, smoke some weed <!--emo&:0--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif' /><!--endemo--> ) during the game whhile the res flow is trickling in <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
So a skulk who kills 5 marines gets nothing, but the gorges who may or may not be helping gets res for nothing?
The theory is that skulks kill and give points to the gorge who build RTS, but it wont always work like that. What will happen is players will just gorge for the free res, and then ignore the team and make OCs off on their own.
I know gorges are generally less fun that skulks but they should still have to earn their keep. They need to be rewarded, but not given hand outs.
- Get 10 more armor.
- 5 more damage to spit.
- He says he will try to make sure that 13+3% healspray is put in.
Those are nice boosts because it doesn't unbalance anything and yet makes gorging a lot more enjoyable. By the way, those heal rates would mean the onos gets 34 healed per spray, as opposed to 16 per spray a skulk gets. Some food for thought.
And the damage and armor upgrades means a lone gorge, if he fights a lone vinalla marine, will be able to kill him if none of the spits miss and the gorge starts attacking at the same time the rine does. Of course throw in medspam and the gorge is doomed, but at least the commander will have to spend 2 or 4 res to kill your gorgeh butt.
So a skulk who kills 5 marines gets nothing, but the gorges who may or may not be helping gets res for nothing?
The theory is that skulks kill and give points to the gorge who build RTS, but it wont always work like that. What will happen is players will just gorge for the free res, and then ignore the team and make OCs off on their own.
I know gorges are generally less fun that skulks but they should still have to earn their keep. They need to be rewarded, but not given hand outs. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
NS is a team game. of you can't depend on your teammates to help you out then you're doomed already. so any gorge recveiving his teammates' RFK would spend them in a way HE thinks is wise for his team.
a big problem with this idea is however this. a fade who makes a lot of kils gets enough RFK + 'regular' res to immediately remorph into a fade when he happens to die. if all his RFK would go to the gorge(s) on the team, her would die and be reborn with about 20 - 30 res, a long time away from being a fade again.
Its a team game, but you have to tailor it to a pub environment where people dont know each other and generally just play for themselves.
So a skulk who kills 5 marines gets nothing, but the gorges who may or may not be helping gets res for nothing?
The theory is that skulks kill and give points to the gorge who build RTS, but it wont always work like that. What will happen is players will just gorge for the free res, and then ignore the team and make OCs off on their own.
I know gorges are generally less fun that skulks but they should still have to earn their keep. They need to be rewarded, but not given hand outs. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I can tell you a sad story,
as marines all the R4K you'll make will get your commander. And he can drop turrets in base with it, or drop the next Shotgun for SOMEONE ELSE!
<!--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-->Coma, the point is you should reward players after they do the teamwork, rather than handing them a bunch of res they did earn and hoping they do the right thing with it.
Its a team game, but you have to tailor it to a pub environment where people dont know each other and generally just play for themselves.
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And, what is so important about the R4K? When I'm fade I dont need any res, and I would be happy if someone else can spend them on something useful, while I fight.
both your points are valid, skulks and gorges have problems that need to be fixed for NS to be fun to play. I think a change in the res flow would take care of gorges, and there are a lot of great threads out there dealing with skulks and how they need boosts.
what hapened to the old resource system where gorges recieved 3 shares compared to everyone elses 1 share? I liked that system, i didn't have to wait as long to drop things and gorging was on the whole, a lot faster. I'm sure there was an excellent reason to drop the system and bring in RfK, I just haven't heard it.
Why not have both systems? combat forms earn resource for getting kills while gorges get most of the resources from nodes. (3:1 was a good ratio).
Once an alien fades they usually won't die till they have very near to 50 resources again. Good fades that know when to run usually won't die till they have 50-100 resource. Most of that is RfK, let em keep it. They don't need as much resource from nodes, give that to the gorges. it makes sense.
chaos, taking RfK and giving most or all of it to gorges wouldn't leave the skulk with "nothing" for getting his kills. Unless the gorge dumps all that rez into OCs, it'l come back to the skulk in the form of upgrades and hives, things he wants. I admit though, without RfK fades won't show up fast enough. While it wouldn't make sense to give a skulks RfK to a gorge, it makes even less sense saying that the skulk gets nothing from the transfer. Since i doubt that the old 3:1 system is coming back, I think a good solution is to take 1 res from each RfK and give it to the gorges. I think that's reasonable.
If this could be 'balanced' in some way (about the only way i can think is a way to 'eject' a gorge) then id love to see a return to the days of being able to perma-gorge and not have to wait for days just to get enough res to drop an oc.
People don't play mods cause eventually they just get boring.
I.E. TFC its got really old now most old HLers will have played it to death.
DoD it was fun for a while until you had nothing else to do especially when you have been through that phase...i'll play MGer only for a weak..then sniper etc.
CS well for me it just got boring same thing over and over.
Ns is different as it really needs that team factor.
On CS you actually get team work without having to say it :/...
back to topic.
Newbs play CO and go, oo fade, once they gorge its...sit there..heal hive.., maybe it lucky get 1 spit kill. And when they try out ns_ its ...sit there waiting for res. until the point they just make whatever they want like OCs when you really need RTs or hive.
Okay, I'm sure that the....more experienced (read: smarter) people who inhabit this forum have noticed trends in Natural Selection in terms of balance. In short, you cannot say that this game is balanced. There are many problems that keep Natural Selection from being the fun, engaging, game it once was (1.00) What kept us playing back then was the how different, how engaging, how exciting this game first was.
That phase is over, it's gone. It'll never come back.
To keep the vets and clanners lingering, and to keep the pubbers and newbs permanently, is through balance. Very thorough and even balance.
Now, before I see someone type, "But if the game was perfectly balanced, you'd never have a winner." This type of quote really pisses me off, because in a perfectly balanced game, skill would be the only factor in determining the win or loss of a team or player.
In this game, that cannot be said.
Short term balance issues:
What do you think will most likely make it in the final build of this game? I think we're going to see:
A stronger skulk: Face it, this thing is pathetically weak. Sure, it's fine when it can close the gap and still take some hits, but the skulk only truly shines when it can get close to the opponent, and still take enough hits.
It really irritates me when I do the ambush, and I get in my bites, but the marine is still able to kill me because the LMG shoots faster than I can bite. This should not ever be the case when a skulk can do all the right things.
A slightly stronger gorge, slightly faster res-flow: As it is, the gorge only appeals to the....cremé de la cremé of team players. In short, the people who love to see a team victory, and not something for their own personal gain. Gorging is a pain for vets, who could fade, and impossible for a newbie, as they want to fade as well.
Example: Romano (or any other god-like player) is playing in a server. He accumulates 50 resources. He promptly goes fade and owns a lot of marines. NSPlayer(1) is playing in the same game on Romano's team as well. He has 50 resources. He decides not to drop the hive, and fade, dies to a lone shotgunner, and is back to square one.
Simply put, it is more effective for Romano to fade, and for NSPlayer(1) to drop the hive, instead of having two fades, but one die before doing any real damage.
I think we know why he didn't go gorge. Gorging is BORING. You build a hive, and then you get to be a skulk again, who promptly dies in .6 seconds of LMG fire. That's just not very fun, is it? So we have the whole team hurting, instead of the individual player. If you make the gorge fun to play, then there is a greater incentive to go gorge. It's that simple.
Those two buffs for the aliens is a change that I'm almost positive that will go into the final build of 3.0.
What do you think will honestly make it in the final build? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I disagree 100%
I liked ns 1.04 because it was HARD for marines to win and stay alive, and it was HARD for aliens to win and kill all the rines... why?
Marines were weaker... simple as that. Now, the aliens and rines have switched places...
This is the flaw IMO that NS has, aliens cannot afford to have people that are not familar with the game or cannot be as effective as they would be as a marine. NS is balanced on the fact that both sides know what they are doing, and in the case of a pub, this is rarely the case unless you have a great player base and few new people around. Combat lets you be familiar with the life forms, weapons, and basics of the individual parts of the game, this is a flaw IMO. NS was designed on as a team game, and having combat put more emphasis on the individual and even recommending that a person play combat before playing normal NS will futher push them into the idea of staying and thinking as an individual.
The NS Guide program is a great idea, but I have my doubts as to how effective it will truely be. The manual for NS is outdated and most people don't even look at it. Combat is something I do not like, to me it is just a DM type style with a shell of the original NS added.
Version 2 to Version 3 and betas seemed rushed to me. I know we all want NS to be popular, but at what cost? Some people that have been with NS since it came out are leaving and currently do not like the way it is heading. They feel ignored and that the heart of NS is being sacrified for popularity. I kinda agree.
My suggestions for the future of NS:
-Remove combat mode.
-Buff skulks slightly, or make upgrades worthwhile or free.
-Reduce marine ramboing.
-Make it easier to organize aliens.
-Balance NS for a larger game.
-Scale both sides evenly.
-Make Onos worth the 75 res to evolve into.
-Make maps more even for both sides.
I love NS, that's why I became a CM. I just don't think the game is going in the right direction. Of course this are my opinions, some might agree, some might not, I am just posting about how I feel about the past, present and future of NS.