An Unbalance Not As Noticeable.
FueL
Join Date: 2003-07-02 Member: 17857Members
Join Date: 2003-07-02 Member: 17857Members
Hello, this is the creator of TSAO Tournament CO style. One thing I have noticed while messing around with the way CO works has brought an unbalance that is not so technical.
The way the CO maps are created are quite open and not half as diverse in a sence of hiding spots as NS is.
As someone who has been trying to create a CO that is like an NS simulation, I find that range from the marine weapons give a large advantage against skulks who cannot heal in my CO or use any skills in the first 5 minutes.
Yes you may think its rediculous that I post because the changes are towards what I have created, but it is not.
The rambo'in type of play where players just bhop out gives new players a false sence of how to play NS. Getting into the sneaky habit of movement with more hiding spots supports the NS gameplay at a higher level. More hiding spots= slower moving marines towards the hive because they don't know whats around the next hiding spot give the effect of less chances to rambo into the hive and spawn kill the alien team. Also giving the effect of say a map like NS metal where there are tones of spots that you could hide in as an alien and ambush marines. I find the CO maps like co_faceoff, there are only a few spots the alien could be. Where as in the NS maps there are multiple places the aliens could be hiding in giving the alien the edge of being able to get closer to the marine.
If you view this as both teams are highly skilled you know that skulks do not stand a chance moving towards marines in the open. A good marine can take 3-4 skulks in the open in a public game because of people not knowing that the game is played differently.
The more diverse the maps are in a sence of complication. Like making a spot called "Cargo" could be a room filled with boxes and crevisis that are alien accessable added to CO maps. I do know that the new Beta 6 maps in CO are changed, but do they have enough hiding spots for match quality gameplay?
Just a quick edit for previous CO unbalance posts and for knowledge for NS developers. I have created a CO version that is like a 1vs1 2vs2 3vs3 etc that is always balanced no matter the ammount of players or what kind of lifeform.
1 marine can take 1 alien. Preventing the 60/0 fades and onos or the Jet packers with resuply to med after you keep on hitting em. If you wish to look into this or give it a try you can message me on aim at: Egonfourlife or on msn at: eNdo600@hotmail.com
Ok, one more edit. I have had many ppl messaging me for the rules so here they are. There is always room for changes.
Rules Of The Game
This is a 4vs4 NS- Combat tournament. Each team will have a turn playing on the marine and alien team. To determine who plays what first, the Number 1 Judge will flip a coin.
The rounds are 15 minutes long to gain as many kills as possible or eliminate the other teams hive or command chair.
You will gain 1.5 win points for destroying a hive or command chair. You will gain 1 win point for winning by kills-deaths if no hive or command chair is destroyed.
If time runs out and no command chair or hive is destroyed, the win and loser will be determined by the amount of kills subtracted by the amount of deaths from each team.
If in both rounds no team is able to destroy the hive or command chair, the winner will be determined by (Kills-Death First Round) + (Kills-Death Second Round)
There will be a 5-minute rule, which will be announced by a judge.
In the first 5-minutes no skills will be used by either team.
There is absolutely no healing at all. This includes no regeneration, no re-supply, no metabolize, no devour, no hive healing, no welding, and no heal-spray.
There is no armoury to heal.
You may request ammunition by binding a key to impulse 11.
The way the CO maps are created are quite open and not half as diverse in a sence of hiding spots as NS is.
As someone who has been trying to create a CO that is like an NS simulation, I find that range from the marine weapons give a large advantage against skulks who cannot heal in my CO or use any skills in the first 5 minutes.
Yes you may think its rediculous that I post because the changes are towards what I have created, but it is not.
The rambo'in type of play where players just bhop out gives new players a false sence of how to play NS. Getting into the sneaky habit of movement with more hiding spots supports the NS gameplay at a higher level. More hiding spots= slower moving marines towards the hive because they don't know whats around the next hiding spot give the effect of less chances to rambo into the hive and spawn kill the alien team. Also giving the effect of say a map like NS metal where there are tones of spots that you could hide in as an alien and ambush marines. I find the CO maps like co_faceoff, there are only a few spots the alien could be. Where as in the NS maps there are multiple places the aliens could be hiding in giving the alien the edge of being able to get closer to the marine.
If you view this as both teams are highly skilled you know that skulks do not stand a chance moving towards marines in the open. A good marine can take 3-4 skulks in the open in a public game because of people not knowing that the game is played differently.
The more diverse the maps are in a sence of complication. Like making a spot called "Cargo" could be a room filled with boxes and crevisis that are alien accessable added to CO maps. I do know that the new Beta 6 maps in CO are changed, but do they have enough hiding spots for match quality gameplay?
Just a quick edit for previous CO unbalance posts and for knowledge for NS developers. I have created a CO version that is like a 1vs1 2vs2 3vs3 etc that is always balanced no matter the ammount of players or what kind of lifeform.
1 marine can take 1 alien. Preventing the 60/0 fades and onos or the Jet packers with resuply to med after you keep on hitting em. If you wish to look into this or give it a try you can message me on aim at: Egonfourlife or on msn at: eNdo600@hotmail.com
Ok, one more edit. I have had many ppl messaging me for the rules so here they are. There is always room for changes.
Rules Of The Game
This is a 4vs4 NS- Combat tournament. Each team will have a turn playing on the marine and alien team. To determine who plays what first, the Number 1 Judge will flip a coin.
The rounds are 15 minutes long to gain as many kills as possible or eliminate the other teams hive or command chair.
You will gain 1.5 win points for destroying a hive or command chair. You will gain 1 win point for winning by kills-deaths if no hive or command chair is destroyed.
If time runs out and no command chair or hive is destroyed, the win and loser will be determined by the amount of kills subtracted by the amount of deaths from each team.
If in both rounds no team is able to destroy the hive or command chair, the winner will be determined by (Kills-Death First Round) + (Kills-Death Second Round)
There will be a 5-minute rule, which will be announced by a judge.
In the first 5-minutes no skills will be used by either team.
There is absolutely no healing at all. This includes no regeneration, no re-supply, no metabolize, no devour, no hive healing, no welding, and no heal-spray.
There is no armoury to heal.
You may request ammunition by binding a key to impulse 11.
Comments
Maybe next time actually listen to the input from the people testing your mini-tournament - instead of telling them how they should be playing?
Seriously, this crys for some serious cranial/posterior dislocation.
In the first 5-minutes no skills will be used by either team.
There is absolutely no healing at all. This includes no regeneration, no re-supply, no metabolize, no devour, no hive healing, no welding, and no heal-spray.
There is no armoury to heal.
You may request ammunition by binding a key to impulse 11. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Which team can kill the enemy without taking hits? Oh yeah, it's the marines. Totally unbalanced.
<!--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-->a game could never be completely "balanced" or there would be no end!!!<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It would end. It would just be decided by skill rather than unbalance.
Couldnt have put it better myself.
Rough example is chess, the <b>game</b> is perfectly balanced.
Couldnt have put it better myself.
Rough example is chess, the <b>game</b> is perfectly balanced. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
^^
chess is not perfectly balanced, both players have different options, cause of white having a speed advantage.
A perfectly balanced game is a game, where everyone has the same options.
So 1 one 1 insta gib in a cube like map with fixed spawn points would be perfectly balanced......and dull for that matter <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I would like to have a 1vs1 with you in CO, see if you can beat me and live up to your word instead of talking trash.
As for us playing in our tournament, i through guys in there from our community. We didn't play in it to win...
Only me and hellfire where there from our clan, and if you had watched the match it would have been obvious.
You people are childish, the purpose of this was to prove the point of CO not having many hiding spots in the map. It wasn't about the tournament. If you kids even decided to read, you may understand something for once.
If you want the be taken serious i recommend not to start a post with: lol
Remember that a vanilla skulk is considerably weaker than a vanilla marine. Given remotely equal levels of skill, the skulk must attack by surprise or it *will* die. Even attacking by surprise, there's a good chance the marine will manage to kill the skulk, and will at least significantly wound it. A wounded skulk won't get a second kill against a vanilla marine, unless the skill of the skulk is vastly above the skill of the marine.
To compensate for this, aliens have healing abilities from the get go. That's the whole point of a "hit & run" class. You hit.. then you get away to heal up back at the hive, and then you hit again.
So your tournament rules immediately cripple the alien class.
To add to that, you have the no upgrade rule in the first five minutes.. so you make sure the alien class is crippled for the first third of the game.
Then comes the time when they can upgrade.
Given that the alien class has been crippled for the first third, who do you think has the most points to upgrade?
Yeah.
So, given that you've stuck the aliens with a handicap for the whole game, you really expect anybody to take you seriously when you come in here and say that the game is imbalanced in favor of the marines?
either way. you are pointing out a flaw in map design, what u think is a flaw, not in gameplay. you can not force ppl to play some way, the game is played, the way the game is played.
Ive tested my modification over 100 times, no exageration.
With maps like Angst, its great because there are many places for the aliens to hide and not get hit.
Also lerks have spores, then marines have HA, then aliens have stomp and webs.
Its all about stealth and not getting hit.
I think ive done pretty damn well on trying to make it like NS type of combat.
If you Bhop up to someone say in a clan like exigent ur **** is so smoked.
I think you guys gotta see the fact that its like an NS simulation that ive created.
But I find that even in the CO that they have now, public games are like a joke with scores that go insanely high.
With the CO I have done the scores are pretty damn close in an equally skilled match. Like I said you guys are welcome to try it.
I just find that the maps need more detail and size.
Reason I have the 5 minute rule in place so that it simulates the first 2-3 minutes of an NS match. I have it as 5 minutes for a reason that if you watch skilled players play, they sneak and take their time and its not enough time with 2-3 min to get enough skills to turn out to be like an NS match at 3 minutes.
Ive been thinking to let skills like metabolize go, and try reducing the ammount of healing power healspray has, but I do not have enough scripting knowledge to do this. I have not had the time to try out as many possibilities as I intend to do in the future. What I have is like a beta version of CO, it is not final.
What I say would help out the CO would be to make the maps more alien friendly.
SlatzBad, I dont understand "Maybe next time actually listen to the input from the people testing your mini-tournament - instead of telling them how they should be playing?"
How were you told to play? How is it different then being told how to play regular combat?
QUOTE
It would end. It would just be decided by skill rather than unbalance.
Couldnt have put it better myself.
Rough example is chess, the game is perfectly balanced.
^^
chess is not perfectly balanced, both players have different options, cause of white having a speed advantage.
A perfectly balanced game is a game, where everyone has the same options.
So 1 one 1 insta gib in a cube like map with fixed spawn points would be perfectly balanced......and dull for that matter <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
True.
I should have put "almost perfectly". Chess was the only game i could think of that is even remotely "balanced". "Simultaneous chess" would probably be perfectly balanced (both makes turns at the same time, dont ask me how it would work...).
Find out <a href='http://www.kungfuchess.com' target='_blank'>here.</a>
Comparing a game where both sides have the same thing is not comparible to a game where there are more than 1 race. Thats what makes it an interesting game.
The fact that I have changed around things and still is pretty damn close to being balanced is not far away from success.
You could always bash the NS team for making the game unbalanced in low player situations. Yet I have created something that takes this away.
Ups of the CO- Requires skill and thought, needs team work, more communication between players, more strats can be applied, more tournament/competitive based
Kill/Death ratio for win instead of forcing players to move with time limits.
Downs of the CO- Not so newbie friendly, maps can through the balance towards marines or aliens. I find maps like Angst, or Pulse cater to aliens. Where as a map with long hallways such as Daimos there is less cover and caters to the marines.
Public games will not be as fun since players can ruin things quickly.
Which brings up my topic of the post that the map can have an effect, and most maps are marine friendly. Maps that where open on the marine side, and detailed on the alien side could mix things up a little.
Nice and small marine starts would make it better for aliens trying to attack it without having the marine sit there and wait. A crazy map with lots of entrances would mix it up better.
Public games will not be as fun since players can ruin things quickly. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
what does this mean
I started my own server to mess around on the other day, loaded up co_sava and found so many great places for skulks to ambush ( the room with the glowing blue thingies ) I never even knew existed, the reason, marines never go that way.
This is due to the fact that this is meant to be ran in tournament mode and plans are meant to be created. Friendly fire is also on while in tournament mode. You can think about many thinks ppl do with friendly fire.
When you create a plan in this type of CO it is like you must stick with it and you require all teamates to takepart in the plan.
Recall back to what I stated about it being 1vs1, 2vs2, 3vs3 all up to 10vs10.
1 person makes all the difference. You may be an awsome fade and take 2 marines down. But that 3rd marine enflics enough damage to render you useless until you respawn. If your teamate cannot take that 3rd person out because hes jerkin his nuts somewhere else on the map and doesn't care, its gonna cause a lot of arguments on the servers.
This is why I recomend it for quick practice matches with your clans or in scrims.
Nobody ever has a scrim in CO really... its mainly just NS. But hopefully ppl will start doing the CO scrims and stuff.
<!--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-->People are lazy, most combat maps have 3 routes to take to the hive and you'll always find marines taking the shortest one. Players end up knowing this route like the back of their hand and skulk ambush spots aren't a surprise anymore.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is very true, exactly my point towards maps that are maybe larger or more complicated. Such as points for the marines to reach and hold to either weld something or trigger another part of a map open to strategically reach the enemies base where the skulks can have constant access to all parts of the map.
This would cause the marines to guard the base, and send away teams. Making it like the "Assult map" for the marines. You could also switch the roles around with carefull map creations.
This also would ask a lot out of mappers, but if you want to create a successful mod you gotta go all out in my mind.
And for reasons already stated, your rules suck because you give the marines too much of a slant in the early game.
<_<
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=87154' target='_blank'>http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....showtopic=87154</a>
I would like maps with more hiding spots too.
And for reasons already stated, your rules suck because you give the marines too much of a slant in the early game. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah well CS was and is a successful mod also, and there are plugins and version of the game, example being warcraft3. TS for another example of a mod, that has similar changes. Just because the mod is successful does not mean it cant be changed or added too. And the thing that made NS successful was NS, god knows why combat was added, the goal here is to make it more fun, challenging, and teamwork based. Basically knock it off the CS style it is now and knock it on a NS style.
Its also obvious that you cant read, or just don't understand, and/or your maturity level is dragging on the floor. Do you know what constructive criticism is? Try going to dictionary.com and looking it up before typing a comment please. The rules suck how? How do marine have too much of a slant? Define slant, do you mean advantage? Have you even played this version of CO? If you bothered to post something decent that would help prove your point and/or make suggestions to the different style then maybe you would not look like such nincompoop.
Gecko, nice post, I am glad we are not alone...
Oh and this thread hurts me head. liek me head, not my. capish? ..
But don't take someone elses word, actually try it out.
And Gekgo, great idea. We could use a thinker on our team to make a difference.
For those of you who do not take the time to read the post or look into the idea with no interest what so ever, save yourself the pain and just keep ideas that do not benifit the topic to yourself.
Chess is perfectly balanced.. exept for white goes first.. but anyway.. skill comes into play? yea.. good teams beat bad clans.. balance makes this truer.
Chess is perfectly balanced.. exept for white goes first.. but anyway.. skill comes into play? yea.. good teams beat bad clans.. balance makes this truer.
If you are playing your kid sister, sure, the game may be balanced, however a skilled chess player will tell you that there are definite advantages to white.
While both teams have the same pieces, however white gets to dictate the opening, and while there are many "counters" availible, not knowing one will cost you the game.
Go find a chess database on the internet, for instance:
<a href='http://www.chessgames.com/chessstats.html' target='_blank'>http://www.chessgames.com/chessstats.html</a>
You will see that white wins about 37% of all games, where as black only wins 28%
1 person makes all the difference. You may be an awsome fade and take 2 marines down. But that 3rd marine enflics enough damage to render you useless until you respawn.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
thats ridiculous, and i fail to understand what is has to do with classic NS. the fade will rush the third guy as well, die, and refade.
<!--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-->
Nobody ever has a scrim in CO really... its mainly just NS. But hopefully ppl will start doing the CO scrims and stuff.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
hopefully not. besides, co scrims do exist (though ive never played in one).
<!--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--><!--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-->People are lazy, most combat maps have 3 routes to take to the hive and you'll always find marines taking the shortest one. Players end up knowing this route like the back of their hand and skulk ambush spots aren't a surprise anymore.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is very true, exactly my point towards maps that are maybe larger or more complicated. Such as points for the marines to reach and hold to either weld something or trigger another part of a map open to strategically reach the enemies base where the skulks can have constant access to all parts of the map.
This would cause the marines to guard the base, and send away teams. Making it like the "Assult map" for the marines. You could also switch the roles around with carefull map creations.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
that is what ns classic is for. strategies and tactics. co is a deathmatch, meant to have fun and practice different guns and techniques without having to worry too much about dying. changing it will just **** off even more people.
<!--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-->I would like maps with more hiding spots too.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
you are right, most combat maps are pretty open and all of them are tiny, so even if there are hiding spots those are easily memorized and checked.
but then, vanilla skulks are pretty weak. you cannot stay as a basic skulk for several minutes then complain how hard it is to get kills. get leap or silence, or a lerk.