<!--QuoteBegin--voodoospork+Nov 15 2002, 11:00 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (voodoospork @ Nov 15 2002, 11:00 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->... I don't think any of the original CS map are still played really. ...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Does de_dust, de_dust2, cs_italy, de_office, etc. count as the original CS maps?
Also what about in TFC? 2fort, well, epicenter, rock2, dustbowl, etc are still played even more then the custom maps.
I don't think the maps will ever change (much) but more maps shal be added.
I don't know if any of you are mappers or modders, but I have some small experience in this area and I gotta tell ya that Relic is right.
I don't know how long it would take to alter the siege cannon (though I strongly suspect that changing the range would take only the changing of some numbers in some file). However, I can definitely tell you that even a small change in a finished map can take a really, really long time. Making maps taks days. When I say it takes days to make a map, I don't mean s couple of hours each afternoon for a couple of weeks. I'm talking about dozens, sometimes even hundreds of hours of work to make a real quality map. Anyone who's ever mapped on the HL engine before knows what I mean.
I've never heard of the siege cannon having a LoS-only attack, and I think that might make it more or less useless, but I definitely concur that the cannon should be changed, and not the map.
Bast is not a good map, and if the game designers changed something that ended up ruining it, then something's gotta give. A hive should not be so close to a marine base like that, and if it's unreasonable to change it or the seige turrets, then bast needs to be taken out of the official rotation. It also gives an unfair adavantage to Marines in that all the ways into the base have articifical slowdown involved, waiting for the elevator or airlock (assuming the vent is welded shut) means a even a dominating alien team has to file in one or two at a time to their base which makes it very difficult to leverage a great advantage in resources against the marines, since they get so much time to repair. It reminds me of cs_seige for counter-strike in that one team has to navigate areas where they're easy pickings for the other team in order to even get to the fight, which is patently unfair.
Today I played a round of ns_bast that took over two hours, depsite the fact that the Khaara had all three hives within twenty minutes. We held all resource nodes the entire time after that, but because the marine commander had turtled into his own base, it took us an hour and a half to whittle his defenses down to the point where we won. Their spawn is so large, open, and isolated that they were able to build four turret factories, twenty or thirty sentry turrets, four seige turrets, and two armories in the base, making death all but instant even for a fully-upgraded Onos, especially one stuck waiting for an elevator or an airlock to turn to get in.
Eventually, by using a lerk using umbra to defend four fades with a gorge to heal them, we were able to kill their resource harvester and two turret factories, which shut down enough turrets for two onoses to go in and take the rest. I think that was a fair amount of teamwork for a public server.
Maybe it's a problem that could be fixed by limiting certain game values, number of turrets, the amount of resources marines need to build things (since they were able to keep repairing everything depsite having just one res node), but is it worth it to unbalance other maps to keep Bast sane? If aliens are weakened a bit (as I think they might be a tiny bit) how are they ever going to win against a commander who chooses this tactic?
The Marine commander kept gloating that the Marines were <i>winning.</i> When in reality, he had exploited the map's flaws to force a near stalemate. This is not how the game should go. Maybe some balance changes will minimize this, but no one wants for this mod to become a game of two hour battles, everyone would quit rather than finish a round, which is what the marine commander was banking on. It wasn't fun for anyone, and if gameplay starts to turn to those kinds of games, then no one will be having fun with the mod at all.
<!--QuoteBegin--Relic25+Nov 14 2002, 06:00 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Relic25 @ Nov 14 2002, 06:00 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Ravlin: Next time they are turtled like that, here's something to try.
Keep harassing the marines with various attacks to keep the preoccupied, while at ;east one gorge quietly builds about 20 offensive chambers on the cargo lift below. Once the chambers are built, send the elevator up, and as soon as the chambers begin firing, have every available alien swarm into the marine start. The complete chaos that ensues gives the aliens a nice edge, and the chambers provide a nice distraction for those grenade spammers. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Also, it's possible to sit in a spot in the vent that overlooks that room where most grenades that are lobbed at you will tumble down the shaft and explode harmlessly behind you. I know because I've used it many a time as a fade.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> that dose't work is they have S-Senterys in there HQ (and any good commander has them by mid game in there HQ) and that vent trick dose't work if they weld it shut (again any good com whould do that.)
Amen .... always do the easier thing <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I've never had a problem getting into that last base in bast.... just got to corridinate(spelling) your attack well.. use the vents... lerks are always a must.
Siege turrest definetly can ruin any aliens day. It's not the maps fault siege turrets fire through walls, which is basically the main complaint. Bast is a tough map for aliens, I really don't like it as much as some others, however it's still a decent map. The hive should be positioned far enough from the marines starting point to not be hit with siege.
Other gripes with siege: Aren't they supposed to attack only structures? If so shouldn't the splash damage only hit structures and not the aliens? Thats a big advantage for the marines.
Ooh! I have an idea! How about if the siege cannon attacks through walls for a *small* radius, UNLESS the enemy structure can be seen by a marine AND that thing is within a radius similar to the current one? This could add some interesting kind of "spotting for the siege cannon" elements to the game.
Either that, or the ability of attacking a hive could be taken away.
Or (and perhaps this is the most viable solution) the siege cannon could have a reduced VERTICAL attack radius.
I understand that both of these changes would take much more work than simply tweaking the radius, but I assume that a Player's Line of Sight code is already in there from the alien's hive sight.
-------
About Bast, I see no reason why it should be rebuilt at all. True, the problem could be solved entirely by making the Engine Access hallway with the red floor and the fog sprites simply bend away from the marine base, but this would still be a tricky job (imagine the required rotation of rooms and reworking of the ductwork).
About Bast, it remains one of my favorites. It's no error that earned it second or third place in the fave map poll. I was playing as alien earlier, and the marines took over Feedwater Hive THREE (countem, THREE) times, but in the end we were able to secure all three hives. The marines even had a siege cannon that was blowing up things all through the Main Aft Juntion, but with our Onoses charging and our Fades bombing (and me in the back frantically building defense chambers as the old ones were getting blown to pieces), we were able to end the game in maybe fifteen minutes, a much shorter final assault time than in other maps. If the marines' base is too hard to attack, then it is just as hard for the marines to escape.
Oh, and Plinko, your suggestion of taking Bast out of the official rotation is ludicrous.
<!--QuoteBegin--Plinko+Nov 15 2002, 03:43 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Plinko @ Nov 15 2002, 03:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Bast is not a good map, and if the game designers changed something that ended up ruining it, then something's gotta give. A hive should not be so close to a marine base like that, and if it's unreasonable to change it or the seige turrets, then bast needs to be taken out of the official rotation.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Considering that Siege Turrets can fire through an unlimited number of walls up to their maximum distance...it could take 15 minutes of crawling through vents to get to that Hive and as long as it's within that predefined "range", it's hittable.
So really, the actual physical location of the Hive on the map is near-meaningless to anything BUT the Siege Turret. As it could take ages to plain-old walk there, even if it is next to the Marine spawn. That's not really a sign of bad map design.
Would it be a solution to make seige turret damage a function of their range? The further away, the less damage?
Or changing them so they can ONLY target Offensive Chambers..? That would be a huge difference. Still take away the enemy's ability to fight, but not target other assets like resource towers. You'll have to send the boys in for that...
You can then alter the oft flamed flavour text (sonic weapon) and say it homes in on a chemical chamber in the towers and fires a radioactive stream that disrupts it and causes it to explode.
Or maybe have do no splash damage unless the target structure is destroyed, then it does 1/2 it's normal hit points to a certain radius..?
<!--QuoteBegin--ken20banks+Nov 14 2002, 11:19 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (ken20banks @ Nov 14 2002, 11:19 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I'm not saying that anyone has, but if you're going to reply to this thread with a certain map in mind, PLEASE avoid saying something like "I hate ns_whatever! I can't stand it, it's by far the worst one in the bunch."
This thread could be helpful if people say <i>why</i> they don't like something about a level (and preferably add suggestions on how to improve this), but if not, it will just end up like the stickied poll above where the designers swim through a bunch of posts with people telling him that his map sucks, and that he should just dig a hole in the ground to live in.
Heh, thanks.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I think there should be a snack bar in the cargo hive of NS_Nothing. I'm always tired and hungry after a long session of clearing turrets out of the cargo hive from the vent entrance at the back. Wouldn't it be nice if I could sit back and enjoy a Snickers and a Mountain Dew afterwards? Snickers really satisfies. Mountain Dew , do the Dew.
Comments
Does de_dust, de_dust2, cs_italy, de_office, etc. count as the original CS maps?
Also what about in TFC? 2fort, well, epicenter, rock2, dustbowl, etc are still played even more then the custom maps.
I don't think the maps will ever change (much) but more maps shal be added.
I don't know how long it would take to alter the siege cannon (though I strongly suspect that changing the range would take only the changing of some numbers in some file). However, I can definitely tell you that even a small change in a finished map can take a really, really long time. Making maps taks days. When I say it takes days to make a map, I don't mean s couple of hours each afternoon for a couple of weeks. I'm talking about dozens, sometimes even hundreds of hours of work to make a real quality map. Anyone who's ever mapped on the HL engine before knows what I mean.
I've never heard of the siege cannon having a LoS-only attack, and I think that might make it more or less useless, but I definitely concur that the cannon should be changed, and not the map.
Wubba#3
It also gives an unfair adavantage to Marines in that all the ways into the base have articifical slowdown involved, waiting for the elevator or airlock (assuming the vent is welded shut) means a even a dominating alien team has to file in one or two at a time to their base which makes it very difficult to leverage a great advantage in resources against the marines, since they get so much time to repair. It reminds me of cs_seige for counter-strike in that one team has to navigate areas where they're easy pickings for the other team in order to even get to the fight, which is patently unfair.
Today I played a round of ns_bast that took over two hours, depsite the fact that the Khaara had all three hives within twenty minutes. We held all resource nodes the entire time after that, but because the marine commander had turtled into his own base, it took us an hour and a half to whittle his defenses down to the point where we won. Their spawn is so large, open, and isolated that they were able to build four turret factories, twenty or thirty sentry turrets, four seige turrets, and two armories in the base, making death all but instant even for a fully-upgraded Onos, especially one stuck waiting for an elevator or an airlock to turn to get in.
Eventually, by using a lerk using umbra to defend four fades with a gorge to heal them, we were able to kill their resource harvester and two turret factories, which shut down enough turrets for two onoses to go in and take the rest. I think that was a fair amount of teamwork for a public server.
Maybe it's a problem that could be fixed by limiting certain game values, number of turrets, the amount of resources marines need to build things (since they were able to keep repairing everything depsite having just one res node), but is it worth it to unbalance other maps to keep Bast sane? If aliens are weakened a bit (as I think they might be a tiny bit) how are they ever going to win against a commander who chooses this tactic?
The Marine commander kept gloating that the Marines were <i>winning.</i> When in reality, he had exploited the map's flaws to force a near stalemate. This is not how the game should go. Maybe some balance changes will minimize this, but no one wants for this mod to become a game of two hour battles, everyone would quit rather than finish a round, which is what the marine commander was banking on. It wasn't fun for anyone, and if gameplay starts to turn to those kinds of games, then no one will be having fun with the mod at all.
Keep harassing the marines with various attacks to keep the preoccupied, while at ;east one gorge quietly builds about 20 offensive chambers on the cargo lift below. Once the chambers are built, send the elevator up, and as soon as the chambers begin firing, have every available alien swarm into the marine start. The complete chaos that ensues gives the aliens a nice edge, and the chambers provide a nice distraction for those grenade spammers. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Also, it's possible to sit in a spot in the vent that overlooks that room where most grenades that are lobbed at you will tumble down the shaft and explode harmlessly behind you. I know because I've used it many a time as a fade.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
that dose't work is they have S-Senterys in there HQ (and any good commander has them by mid game in there HQ) and that vent trick dose't work if they weld it shut (again any good com whould do that.)
I've never had a problem getting into that last base in bast.... just got to corridinate(spelling) your attack well.. use the vents... lerks are always a must.
Other gripes with siege:
Aren't they supposed to attack only structures? If so shouldn't the splash damage only hit structures and not the aliens? Thats a big advantage for the marines.
Either that, or the ability of attacking a hive could be taken away.
Or (and perhaps this is the most viable solution) the siege cannon could have a reduced VERTICAL attack radius.
I understand that both of these changes would take much more work than simply tweaking the radius, but I assume that a Player's Line of Sight code is already in there from the alien's hive sight.
-------
About Bast, I see no reason why it should be rebuilt at all. True, the problem could be solved entirely by making the Engine Access hallway with the red floor and the fog sprites simply bend away from the marine base, but this would still be a tricky job (imagine the required rotation of rooms and reworking of the ductwork).
About Bast, it remains one of my favorites. It's no error that earned it second or third place in the fave map poll. I was playing as alien earlier, and the marines took over Feedwater Hive THREE (countem, THREE) times, but in the end we were able to secure all three hives. The marines even had a siege cannon that was blowing up things all through the Main Aft Juntion, but with our Onoses charging and our Fades bombing (and me in the back frantically building defense chambers as the old ones were getting blown to pieces), we were able to end the game in maybe fifteen minutes, a much shorter final assault time than in other maps. If the marines' base is too hard to attack, then it is just as hard for the marines to escape.
Oh, and Plinko, your suggestion of taking Bast out of the official rotation is ludicrous.
Considering that Siege Turrets can fire through an unlimited number of walls up to their maximum distance...it could take 15 minutes of crawling through vents to get to that Hive and as long as it's within that predefined "range", it's hittable.
So really, the actual physical location of the Hive on the map is near-meaningless to anything BUT the Siege Turret. As it could take ages to plain-old walk there, even if it is next to the Marine spawn. That's not really a sign of bad map design.
Or changing them so they can ONLY target Offensive Chambers..? That would be a huge difference. Still take away the enemy's ability to fight, but not target other assets like resource towers. You'll have to send the boys in for that...
You can then alter the oft flamed flavour text (sonic weapon) and say it homes in on a chemical chamber in the towers and fires a radioactive stream that disrupts it and causes it to explode.
Or maybe have do no splash damage unless the target structure is destroyed, then it does 1/2 it's normal hit points to a certain radius..?
This thread could be helpful if people say <i>why</i> they don't like something about a level (and preferably add suggestions on how to improve this), but if not, it will just end up like the stickied poll above where the designers swim through a bunch of posts with people telling him that his map sucks, and that he should just dig a hole in the ground to live in.
Heh, thanks.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think there should be a snack bar in the cargo hive of NS_Nothing. I'm always tired and hungry after a long session of clearing turrets out of the cargo hive from the vent entrance at the back. Wouldn't it be nice if I could sit back and enjoy a Snickers and a Mountain Dew afterwards? Snickers really satisfies. Mountain Dew , do the Dew.
ugh, what am i doing? i think its time for bed...