Jup, but on a normal pub server, everyone is going to kill enemys - and leave the RT/structure untouched where possible. They see this regular on publics where some clan players rule the whole server - and the conclusion is simple: "If they rule the server without touching these things (and sometime being disarmed in this time) - why I should bother building/killing these things?"
They learned a lot: ignoring the commander, walking all times alone, ignoring the team etc. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":angry:" border="0" alt="mad-fix.gif" />
And THAT'S one of the major problems of public NS. Combined with teamstacking of the 'good' players.
RFK is a solution not a problem. It only becomes a problem if your team is getting completely dominated, in which case you probably have more pressing concerns than RFK in all honesty.
<!--quoteo(post=1616070:date=Mar 21 2007, 11:35 AM:name=SEK2000Blackhawk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SEK2000Blackhawk @ Mar 21 2007, 11:35 AM) [snapback]1616070[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Jup, but on a normal pub server, everyone is going to kill enemys - and leave the RT/structure untouched where possible. They see this regular on publics where some clan players rule the whole server - and the conclusion is simple: "If they rule the server without touching these things (and sometime being disarmed in this time) - why I should bother building/killing these things?" <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Because you want the players who are good out there taking down the enemy, and the players who aren't as good doing tasks that are less combat intensive (Capping/saving res, building sieges, etc). Given a good shot and a bad shot, wouldn't you rather have the good shot pushing and the bad shot capping, rather than the other way around? When I was terrible at NS, I knew it, and I usually just permagorged the whole time or just went lerk and spored. And unlike so many of the players out there, I actually followed orders.
<!--quoteo(post=1616076:date=Mar 21 2007, 01:48 PM:name=SpaceJesus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SpaceJesus @ Mar 21 2007, 01:48 PM) [snapback]1616076[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> RFK is a solution not a problem. It only becomes a problem if your team is getting completely dominated, in which case you probably have more pressing concerns than RFK in all honesty. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Can't see the solution part, sorry <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> NS has changed from a game where you need mapcontrol (and therefore you you need RT's ) to a game where Rt's are 'nice to have'. The second part is, that RFK makes it hard to impossible for a team to have a comeback after one major failure. It is a way for speeding up the game, for the price of less teamwork and less strategy - at last on publics. One good marine can earn more res than 3-4 rt's iff well placed for spawncamping. In this situation a skulk that bites down every enemy rt will do a good job - but most time, it will be useless. You don't need mapcontrol, hivecontrol alone will do. Sorry - i dont see the solution here.
And if your team gets dominated, the RFK flow for the enemy will be much better meaning that you problem will grow. It might be a good solution for competive gameplay, but on mixed teams where you have god and less skilled players, one failed position will do. Aliens in most time have the advantage to their side. Because lonly running marines (also a failure point) will bring res.
I (for myself at last) see a big problem in this. Rage-quitting/F4-Laming is maybe also part of this problem: In realy good game (yes, they happen!) i will barely see anyone pressing f4 or quitting the game.
And that's the point where i would like to see NS: Both teams fight until the end, both teams have place for errors, and both teams are able to turn the game around.
RFK would be one major problem, yes. The solution seems non-existent. All it does is reward well skilled players and make comebacks less of an option and diminish the importance of resource towers.
<!--quoteo(post=1616103:date=Mar 21 2007, 05:26 PM:name=Haze)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Haze @ Mar 21 2007, 05:26 PM) [snapback]1616103[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->All it does is reward well skilled players<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->wrong<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->and make comebacks less of an option<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->wrong<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->and diminish the importance of resource towers.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->wrong
why do these conversations/discussions/arguments continue to stem when it is clear one side of them has absolutely no knowledge over ns
RFK helps the losing team more than the winning team. The more nodes you hold, the less RFK matters, hence the more it rewards the team with fewer nodes, often known as the "losing" team.
On aliens, better players get res faster, this is true. However, the result of that better player having more res helps the whole team. They can drop a hive sooner, fade sooner and prevent the marine team from gaining strong points, and drop chambers faster, all of these options help the team.
why do these conversations/discussions/arguments continue to stem when it is clear one side of them has absolutely no knowledge over ns <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> How are these things wrong? The first one "All it does is reward well skilled players" is wrong to a certain extent only because it gives more res/map control for the team and not just him, but besides that, it is right.
Combacks are litterally non-exsistant, atleast for the pubs. If a whole team of 4 HA's/HMG's died, thats 140 res out of the marines pockets, which is equal to 3 and 1/2 hives, almost 3 fades or 3 - 4 minutes of 3 RT's churning away. Not to mention that the aliens have an much easier time against the marines = more RFK to aliens = More lifeforms/RT's/OC's etc. This example is a major loss to the marines and a victory for the aliens, but only 4 players died. (Not the best anecdote I've used)
RFK also dimishes the importance of RT's very simply. I remember playing a game on a 10 vs 10 server as marines. It ended in a victory for the marines, but yet we only had 2 rts the whole game. We actually won by a pretty big margin, having mined up PG's and had shotguns for the whole team, and ended it a 3 - 1 score for marines. This happened because we had a bunch of good people on our team ramboing all over the place, killing skulks like there was no tomorrow. I was the only one recapping, but there wasn't much to recap; we never gained ground really.
Basically what I want to say from all of this is that I don't really see how these things are wrong. An explanation would be nice <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> ; I don't want to start a flame war or anything like that.
BTW: What i consider losing is where the team with a larger amount of deaths and have less dominance over the map.
Edit: <!--quoteo(post=1616121:date=Mar 21 2007, 08:18 PM:name=Golden)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Golden @ Mar 21 2007, 08:18 PM) [snapback]1616121[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> RFK helps the losing team more than the winning team. The more nodes you hold, the less RFK matters, hence the more it rewards the team with fewer nodes, often known as the "losing" team. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Well, RFK doesn't really diminish in importance as you go along. There is always room to upgrade in normal 10 - 15 minute games. RFK can mean the difference between the marines getting 4 minute AA or 5 minute AA, the difference between HA for the whole team or not, the difference between sc/oc coverage of the map or not (actually kinda useful they both are) and the difference between 2 fades and an onos in the endgame or 5 fades and 3 onoses endgame (making comebacks harder). This argument hold less true for aliens, but it still does.
I believe Spacejesus and tomekki on this one. That is that RFK isn't the problem. But I'm not denying that there is no problem.
And that's skill stax.
Even in 1.04 norfk days, you still had skill stax. It's no fun if nobody can leave the hive or marine start base. The game doesn't even get to start.
Even if RFK were to be removed, that wouldn't change those 50-5 score people who prevent aliens from leaving the hive due to their insane aim. I think if something could be done about this, whether handicaps or making the game easier, then you'd have less of an impact from just one player.
That would in turn result in more balanced RFK for both teams, rather than 1 pro generating 90% of the res for marines.
My suggestion is to look at the game. Would removing RFK stop players with 50-5 scores?
<!--quoteo(post=1616121:date=Mar 21 2007, 07:18 PM:name=Golden)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Golden @ Mar 21 2007, 07:18 PM) [snapback]1616121[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> RFK helps the losing team more than the winning team. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ah yes - Sorry, do you TRULY belive in this? Or is this the way you would like to see it?
<!--quoteo(post=1616143:date=Mar 21 2007, 08:32 PM:name=SmoodCroozn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SmoodCroozn @ Mar 21 2007, 08:32 PM) [snapback]1616143[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> My suggestion is to look at the game. Would removing RFK stop players with 50-5 scores? <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, but because they got no RFk, mapcontrol is the point. You would loose no matter how good one player is, if you can't secure the map.
And skillstacking....ok, got no problem with that. Not anymore.
I think there's a danger of "confusing cause and effect". People observe teams that are getting more kills also gaining more res, and so conclude that RFK is the sole reason for this. They then go on to say that RFK is the thing that is broken. But as TOmekki and Golden point out, if both teams got the same rate of kills, but different number of RTs, we'd probably say the team with fewer RTs was "losing". We'd also note that as RFK makes up a greater proportion of the "losing" team's income, it is benefiting them more than the "winning" team. So who does RFK actually benefit, the winning or losing team?
The big problem is that number of RTs and rate of kills isn't uncorrelated. If a team is getting more kills, then it's probably going to hold more of the map, push out and kill the enemy RTs, cap more of their own, and keep them alive for longer. It's easier to see this happen in a scrim but it's still true in a pub game. So even if there wasn't RFK, the team that is killing more enemies is going to get more res in the long run(barring exceptional circumstances like a massive turtle in marine start etc). So in this case RFK is driving a slippery slope, magnifying the advantage of getting more kills. However, this kinda works both ways, in that the perceived impact RFK has on a game is magnified by the non-RFK effects that killing more opponents has on resflow.
On the other hand, if one side is behind in RTs but managing to hold its own in kills, then RFK benefits that side. This is a balancing, anti-slippery-slope effect, allowing a team to make a comeback if they fight well enough to beat a team with more res behind them. You might say that this is unlikely to happen because of the combat advantages granted by having extra res, but I'd say there are two cases in which ths can hold. One is if the team hasn't had the res advantage for long. Tech advantages take time to propagate because of research length etc, and weapons/lifeforms have to reach the frontline to count. So during that "rise time" between gaining the RT advantage and gaining the combat edge, the "losing" team gains an advantage from RFK that makes it more likely to come back than if there was no RFK.
The other circumstance is if a team is behind in RTs <b>because</b> it invested resources in combat equipment/lifeforms/tech rather than taking available RTs. This actually makes it an interesting tactical tradeoff, RFK makes such moves more viable than without.
So in one set of circumstances RFK helps the winning team, and in the other helps the losing team. With all this talk of comebacks though, I'd like to point out that the only way the losing team is going to make a comeback in the first set of circumstances is if they start killing more of the opposition, whether RFK is on or off. Once you start doing that RFK is working in that team's favour again, so it's a mixed bag. In the other set of circumstances, to make a comeback is to cap more RTs, which the (proportionally) greater resflow from RFK makes viable.
(Disclaimer - the above situations occur in a bubble where there are no tactical advantages to anything other than number of kills/RTs and as such is very abstract. Apply to actual games with care.)
<!--QuoteBegin-Golden+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Golden)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->RFK helps the losing team more than the winning team. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--quoteo(post=1616144:date=Mar 21 2007, 08:38 PM:name=SEK2000Blackhawk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SEK2000Blackhawk @ Mar 21 2007, 08:38 PM) [snapback]1616144[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Ah yes - Sorry, do you TRULY belive in this? Or is this the way you would like to see it? <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I believe it. Heavy D pretty much explained what we're thinking on this topic: RFK provides more capability for a team that is losing to turn the game around. If they can't turn the game around even fighting on defense on their home ground, then RFK just makes the game end faster.
<!--quoteo(post=1616218:date=Mar 22 2007, 04:06 AM:name=SEK2000Blackhawk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SEK2000Blackhawk @ Mar 22 2007, 04:06 AM) [snapback]1616218[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Isn't 'fighting on home territory' not most times the point where one team is already dominating the other? <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1615710:date=Mar 19 2007, 08:50 PM:name=SmoodCroozn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SmoodCroozn @ Mar 19 2007, 08:50 PM) [snapback]1615710[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Nope, CS is easier.
Don't bring up the crap that is Quake3.
And don't be lazy and defend your own arguments. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dude CS is 100x harder than NS will ever be. NS is about situations. You can put yourself into situations where you are invincible, and you can mistakingly get into a position where you have no chance whatsoever.
There's no way to be invincible in CS.
<!--quoteo(post=1615262:date=Mar 18 2007, 02:27 AM:name=the_x5)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_x5 @ Mar 18 2007, 02:27 AM) [snapback]1615262[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> It just proves that you can comeback but it's really, really hard. Much harder than in 2.0 and honestly I agree that the games are over too soon. It's fun to build stuff and have it last long enough to mean something. It's the building combined with teamwork in a FPS game that I like NS so much for I think. I feel that's something important to NS being fun. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Your story doesn't really prove anything. You basically said "If the winning team makes a game-costing mistake, it will cost them the game"...
Yeah, you can come back and win a game if the opposing team completely screws up. That doesn't mean that the game's design allows for comebacks among two teams who play the game correctly.
I didn't read your whole story but I assume the marines held the third hive and got 3/3 tech etc. If this is what happened, it's not really a "comeback". There's a point in the game where marines become completely overpowered and the aliens have no chance whatsoever to come back.
<!--quoteo(post=1616121:date=Mar 21 2007, 08:18 PM:name=Golden)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Golden @ Mar 21 2007, 08:18 PM) [snapback]1616121[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> RFK helps the losing team more than the winning team. The more nodes you hold, the less RFK matters, hence the more it rewards the team with fewer nodes, often known as the "losing" team.
On aliens, better players get res faster, this is true. However, the result of that better player having more res helps the whole team. They can drop a hive sooner, fade sooner and prevent the marine team from gaining strong points, and drop chambers faster, all of these options help the team. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually I've got to disagree with your logic. I've seen games, recent games, which were lost from team that was all offense and had more nodes but due to poor defense (no electrified RTs, no gorge near building hive, no base defenses) lost their AA, Arms Lab, hive, or entire base which cost them the game.
Ultimately the objective is to take out all of the enemies. This means taking down their structures that cause them to respawn. Take down the IPs or the hives quickly and then just hunt down the survivors and you'll win. Now yes resources play into this by giving your team a technology edge, but ultimately? It comes down to who gets who's spawn first.
And on aliens the better players are not just your attacking classes, in fact I'd argue it's most of all having good gorges. The fades get the resources from kills, but they don't usually drop chamber and hives. That's rare. Gorges win games. If you've played NS for as long as I and some others have you'd know that. Healer <i>and</i> structure builder with a ranged primary attack and seige-like second hive attack? Wow! If your team can rally around and protect your gorges you've got some serious power. An alien team which is all lerks and gorges at the start off of the game and has good communication will usually crush any marine team. I'd like to see gorges have a stonger healspray.
<!--quoteo(post=1616392:date=Mar 22 2007, 11:09 PM:name=the_x5)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_x5 @ Mar 22 2007, 11:09 PM) [snapback]1616392[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Actually I've got to disagree with your logic. I've seen games, recent games, which were lost from team that was all offense and had more nodes but due to poor defense (no electrified RTs, no gorge near building hive, no base defenses) lost their AA, Arms Lab, hive, or entire base which cost them the game.
Ultimately the objective is to take out all of the enemies. This means taking down their structures that cause them to respawn. Take down the IPs or the hives quickly and then just hunt down the survivors and you'll win. Now yes resources play into this by giving your team a technology edge, but ultimately? It comes down to who gets who's spawn first.
And on aliens the better players are not just your attacking classes, in fact I'd argue it's most of all having good gorges. The fades get the resources from kills, but they don't usually drop chamber and hives. That's rare. Gorges win games. If you've played NS for as long as I and some others have you'd know that. Healer <i>and</i> structure builder with a ranged primary attack and seige-like second hive attack? Wow! If your team can rally around and protect your gorges you've got some serious power. An alien team which is all lerks and gorges at the start off of the game and has good communication will usually crush any marine team. I'd like to see gorges have a stonger healspray. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
First I'll say that even though I haven't played constantly since 1.04 (I played on and off until the 3.0 betas), I can almost guarantee that I have played more hours of NS than you. Secondly, when I use the terms "winning team" and "losing team" I'm talking about res nodes and map control, not IPs and Hives. We know that the goal of NS is to eliminate the enemies ability to spawn, but <i>usually</i> it doesn't happen without eliminating their ability to gain res as well.
I enjoy gorging, as well as fading and lerking, public servers. If gorges had a stronger healspray, it would make sieging hives with anything less than 4 sieges impossible if the aliens had a competent gorge. A good gorge is indeed a potent weapon, but they still can't carry a team like a fade or lerk.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->RFK helps the losing team more than the winning team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Ah yes - Sorry, do you TRULY belive in this? Or is this the way you would like to see it?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, I do believe it. Please reread Heavy_D's first paragraph.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think there's a danger of "confusing cause and effect". People observe teams that are getting more kills also gaining more res, and so conclude that RFK is the sole reason for this. They then go on to say that RFK is the thing that is broken. But as TOmekki and Golden point out, if both teams got the same rate of kills, but different number of RTs, we'd probably say the team with fewer RTs was "losing". We'd also note that as RFK makes up a greater proportion of the "losing" team's income, it is benefiting them more than the "winning" team. So who does RFK actually benefit, the winning or losing team?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As he said, the fewer nodes a team is holding, the larger proportion of their res is made up of RFK. Hence, the more impact RFK is having on that team. If res-for-kill is removed, comebacks will become even rarer than they are now.
Sarisel.::' ( O ) ';:-. .-.:;' ( O ) '::.Join Date: 2003-07-30Member: 18557Members, Constellation
edited March 2007
<!--quoteo(post=1616148:date=Mar 21 2007, 10:00 PM:name=Heavy_D)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Heavy_D @ Mar 21 2007, 10:00 PM) [snapback]1616148[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> I think there's a danger of "confusing cause and effect". People observe teams that are getting more kills also gaining more res, and so conclude that RFK is the sole reason for this. They then go on to say that RFK is the thing that is broken. But as TOmekki and Golden point out, if both teams got the same rate of kills, but different number of RTs, we'd probably say the team with fewer RTs was "losing". We'd also note that as RFK makes up a greater proportion of the "losing" team's income, it is benefiting them more than the "winning" team. So who does RFK actually benefit, the winning or losing team?
The big problem is that number of RTs and rate of kills isn't uncorrelated. If a team is getting more kills, then it's probably going to hold more of the map, push out and kill the enemy RTs, cap more of their own, and keep them alive for longer. It's easier to see this happen in a scrim but it's still true in a pub game. So even if there wasn't RFK, the team that is killing more enemies is going to get more res in the long run(barring exceptional circumstances like a massive turtle in marine start etc). So in this case RFK is driving a slippery slope, magnifying the advantage of getting more kills. However, this kinda works both ways, in that the perceived impact RFK has on a game is magnified by the non-RFK effects that killing more opponents has on resflow.
On the other hand, if one side is behind in RTs but managing to hold its own in kills, then RFK benefits that side. This is a balancing, anti-slippery-slope effect, allowing a team to make a comeback if they fight well enough to beat a team with more res behind them. You might say that this is unlikely to happen because of the combat advantages granted by having extra res, but I'd say there are two cases in which ths can hold. One is if the team hasn't had the res advantage for long. Tech advantages take time to propagate because of research length etc, and weapons/lifeforms have to reach the frontline to count. So during that "rise time" between gaining the RT advantage and gaining the combat edge, the "losing" team gains an advantage from RFK that makes it more likely to come back than if there was no RFK.
The other circumstance is if a team is behind in RTs <b>because</b> it invested resources in combat equipment/lifeforms/tech rather than taking available RTs. This actually makes it an interesting tactical tradeoff, RFK makes such moves more viable than without.
So in one set of circumstances RFK helps the winning team, and in the other helps the losing team. With all this talk of comebacks though, I'd like to point out that the only way the losing team is going to make a comeback in the first set of circumstances is if they start killing more of the opposition, whether RFK is on or off. Once you start doing that RFK is working in that team's favour again, so it's a mixed bag. In the other set of circumstances, to make a comeback is to cap more RTs, which the (proportionally) greater resflow from RFK makes viable. (Disclaimer - the above situations occur in a bubble where there are no tactical advantages to anything other than number of kills/RTs and as such is very abstract. Apply to actual games with care.) <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That is actually a very nice post compared to most of what is being thrown around here.
There is a problem however with RFK in that it benefits the marines much more than aliens in mid-to-late stages of the game. This is because aliens always respawn with the skulk lifeform, which is most vulnerable. When marines respawn, they can get a shotgun (10res) or an hmg (15res), which is enough to challenge higher lifeforms (which cost 30,50,75? res) - skulks get destroyed for 2-3 res a pop, end of story. Since the majority of respawning aliens are in the state of the skulk, RFK works better for the marines if they have significant tech.
The reason why I don't say that it has the same effects in early game is because the aliens need the res much more than the marines do, to get fades in that 4 min time window before the tech really starts to roll out.
So, I encourage you to look beyond the "winning side" and "losing side", and actually consider the mechanics of the game and what RFK does. Yes, in general it works with the slippery slope concept. However, it can also seriously affect the direction of a game once tech imbalance sets in and higher lifeforms become more scarce.
<!--quoteo(post=1616407:date=Mar 23 2007, 12:26 AM:name=Sarisel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sarisel @ Mar 23 2007, 12:26 AM) [snapback]1616407[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> There is a problem however with RFK in that it benefits the marines much more than aliens in mid-to-late stages of the game. This is because aliens always respawn with the skulk lifeform, which is most vulnerable. When marines respawn, they can get a shotgun (10res) or an hmg (15res), which is enough to challenge higher lifeforms (which cost 30,50,75? res) - skulks get destroyed for 2-3 res a pop, end of story. Since the majority of respawning aliens are in the state of the skulk, RFK works better for the marines if they have significant tech. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here, but I think you're saying that a skulk is worth less than a marine when spawning(particularly in the late game). This is something I'd possible agree with. A lot of people have in the past suggested that RFK should be changed to different values depending on what lifeform you kill, from 1 for a skulk up to 5 for an onos. This seems to miss the point of RFK slightly - it was put in as an alternative to charging res for players to respawn. So in that respect RFK should be thought of as the charge for the <b>spawning<b> player, ie a basic marine or skulk. The onos already cost the player 75 res, and the loss of that is the penalty for death. So I'd say there's possibly an argument for 1-3 res for a marine, 1-2 for a skulk, although I'm not sure if everyone would agree a skulk is only worth 3/4 of a lmg marine.
I'm not sure that when you start adding equipment you can say that RFK is the problem. Yes, the skulk doesn't have a cheap option of requipping when they die, but the prices are balanced, and the accumulated RFK is just as beneficial for working towards a fade as it is for getting a shotgun out. On the flip side, when you are a fade the idea is that you're doing damage without ever giving up RFK, even if you do less damage while you run away compared to a skulk that's willing to die. If you think of the lifetime of several skulks and then one fade(all the same player, over time), is it fair to suggest the number of deaths is about the same as a series of marines living in the same period? I don't have the figures to back that one up, but I don't think it sounds unreasonable.
One final thing is that, even without RFK, surely there's an advantage to being a marine spawning in the mid to late game as you describe. You can get re-equipped for only 10-15 res, while the skulk can't do anything until he hits 50. I suppose you could say this is an imbalance because it shortens the rise time between gaining a res advantage and gaining a combat advantage on the marine side. On the other hand, the marine side is slower than the alien side at getting round the map, which I guess is one of the balancing factors of their quick equipping. Gestation times against getting ammo doesn't really compare.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> So, I encourage you to look beyond the "winning side" and "losing side", and actually consider the mechanics of the game and what RFK does. Yes, in general it works with the slippery slope concept. However, it can also seriously affect the direction of a game once tech imbalance sets in and higher lifeforms become more scarce. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> What I was trying to describe in my first post was this: Suppose we were playing a game where the two sides were exactly balanced, imagine them as two identical teams with the same tech, weapons and all this, on a perfectly balanced map. We also imagine that RFK is something that could be turned on or off. Then given that, would RFK tend to accelerate the advantage of a team with the upper hand, or help the team that is behind, giving them more of a chance of a comeback? I know I used terms like lifeforms and weapons, but they were illustrative and not meant to suggest either aliens or marines was winning/losing in the examples.
Whether RFK affects the two asymmetrical sides we actually see in NS is a bit more of a challenging question. You feel that once aliens start to lose, and have few lifeforms out in the field, RFK creates a slippery slope. I'd say that there's a slippery slope anyway, in that once you lose higher lifeforms for no gain, the marines have a clear advantage, and if you don't manage to inflict some severe damage on them somewhere(RTs, tech or killing off lots of them) they should be able to win even if there was no RFK. Are there circumstances you can imagine where you manage to pull off some such coup, and would make a comeback, were it not for RFK?
Well, yes, sometimes. It's easy to imagine that sometimes the aliens would kill off a few of the marines weapons, but the RFK the marines get is enough to replace them and so the marines maintain dominance. But there are also times when an alien, in pulling such a thing off, gets enough RFK to go fade 30-45 seconds sooner than they would have otherwise. This could easily be the difference between maintaining the momentum of a comeback, and losing the game anyway.
DC_DarklingJoin Date: 2003-07-10Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
I'd say get rid of rfk comletely cause if you do lose your rts, its your own damned fault that you lack res. When it was introduced I was playing on kharaa in a match with a team full of newbies. Within 5 min we had no rt left. Only reason we 'made' it was cause I ranked up 25 res and get a rt back online. We eventually still lost that match, but we should have lost around that 5 min mark.
If large teams have res probs I prefer they make another 'feature' rather then use rfk. If you lose all rts, either the game was hugely stacked or you just deserved to lose. Its not that it should be that one single fade can still own up his res and get a hive or something. thats just wrong.
Also on the gorges I totally agree. They are the driving force of a kharaa team. Not only due to there building qualities, but now also to there increased combat abilities. A battlegorge could be a pain already on the frontline, but now it also heals itself its quite hard to down a cara adren gorge while being backed up by other lifeforms. On good days I helped rampage a spot with a gorge buddy and skulks alone and we got the spot each time. While without the gorge support we atleast needed fade for the job.
Sarisel.::' ( O ) ';:-. .-.:;' ( O ) '::.Join Date: 2003-07-30Member: 18557Members, Constellation
I'm saying that RFK is more biased towards the marine team in the mid-late game. It is easier for the marines to gain more RFK with less risk and less resources invested. This is due to the way they tech. I don't think the prices are balanced for what the aliens have to accomplish in order to get RFK when the tech is out. However, while aliens are desperately trying to get some RFK, the marines will be getting 2-3 times as much (mostly just from slaughtering skulks) if they are any good. You touched on it here:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->One final thing is that, even without RFK, surely there's an advantage to being a marine spawning in the mid to late game as you describe. You can get re-equipped for only 10-15 res, while the skulk can't do anything until he hits 50. I suppose you could say this is an imbalance because it shortens the rise time between gaining a res advantage and gaining a combat advantage on the marine side. On the other hand, the marine side is slower than the alien side at getting round the map, which I guess is one of the balancing factors of their quick equipping. Gestation times against getting ammo doesn't really compare.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I was thinking about RFK in competitive matches and the reason why it's sort of balanced is because the RFK mostly goes into medpacks for the marines. In pub games, it is not balanced at all since not only is there much more RFK going to marines, but the comm can afford not to give medpacks and just save for game-ending tech while marines keep respawning in swarms.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Whether RFK affects the two asymmetrical sides we actually see in NS is a bit more of a challenging question. You feel that once aliens start to lose, and have few lifeforms out in the field, RFK creates a slippery slope. I'd say that there's a slippery slope anyway, in that once you lose higher lifeforms for no gain, the marines have a clear advantage, and if you don't manage to inflict some severe damage on them somewhere(RTs, tech or killing off lots of them) they should be able to win even if there was no RFK. Are there circumstances you can imagine where you manage to pull off some such coup, and would make a comeback, were it not for RFK? <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The slippery slope starts as soon as marines get any decent tech and skulks become fodder. Second hive skulks with leap are a good example of how RFK effectively kills comebacks. Once the alien side is depleted of the majority of higher lifeforms, there is usually an effort to take back regions using the skulk and leap. However, this is quickly stopped because the RFK from these efforts quickly gives the marines a big advantage. It also ensures that rushes on fortified locations pay for any damage by the RFK.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> Well, yes, sometimes. It's easy to imagine that sometimes the aliens would kill off a few of the marines weapons, but the RFK the marines get is enough to replace them and so the marines maintain dominance. But there are also times when an alien, in pulling such a thing off, gets enough RFK to go fade 30-45 seconds sooner than they would have otherwise. This could easily be the difference between maintaining the momentum of a comeback, and losing the game anyway. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think this is a very important point. We need to look at the frequency of the two events: an alien getting many kills to get fade sooner vs marines maintaining dominance just by fighting aliens, since they can easily pay for their losses just by the RFK that they get.
ChocolateThe Team MascotJoin Date: 2006-10-31Member: 58123Members
The point I argue about in RFK is that because of this feature, you have a "slippery slope" (which I'm partially confused about now). If one team (for example the marine team) is "winning" by the definition of having more RT's, they'd most likely be out teching the aliens. Because they out tech the aliens, they get more kills which means more res. This is my definition of slippery slope for me.
The only time I really see the RFK advantaging the "losing" team is when there is a slight losing and winning for any given team. If the marines have 5 RTs and the aliens have 6 RT's, it would certainly advantage the marine team more in general because there isnt a severe out tech. But if 2 minutes latter the marine team had 4 RT's (even 5) and the aliens had 6 RT's, the alien team would/should be out-teching the marines in whichever way they can (excluding exceptions like 2 hive lockdowns). The aliens get more kills because of this out-teching which is like adding grease to that slippery slope <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> .
I'm not saying that its such a bad thing, but its not a very good thing. It takes less "work" to get to the "point of no return" which that point happens now-a-days more often than not earlier in a match. Also considering that the teams are stacked more often than not, RFK makes rambo teams more able to win, and deviate off of one of NS's focuses, teamwork.
RFK does bring advantages like some that are already said above (I'm not sure which ones exactly (except for shorten inevitable games) but I know they were said already <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> ) which is a good thing. But considering what this topic is focused on, longer games; which is also linked to a more buildings based game (which is linked to a more teamwork based game), I would probably prefer to have a game without RFK to achieve this goal rather than a game with it.
Also, I agree 100% with DC_Darkling in the fact that, you lose RT's, its your problem and you deserve to die. A team with 1 RT the whole game should die, even if they are ranking up a 3 - 1 score. <b>
</b>There are holes in my argument, but there are some in the RFK arguments too, thats why I see no RFK as in a better choice for a longer game.
PS. I think that the gorge should be the most important unit of the aliens, and still wish that he still got extra res <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" /> .
<!--quoteo(post=1616717:date=Mar 24 2007, 10:06 PM:name=Chocolate)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Chocolate @ Mar 24 2007, 10:06 PM) [snapback]1616717[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> The point I argue about in RFK is that because of this feature, you have a "slippery slope" (which I'm partially confused about now). If one team (for example the marine team) is "winning" by the definition of having more RT's, they'd most likely be out teching the aliens. Because they out tech the aliens, they get more kills which means more res. This is my definition of slippery slope for me. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> But this would happen without RFK. The team would have more RTs, out-tech them, kill them more often, and so strengthen their superiority in RTs - just by virtue of controlling more of the map, saving their own RTs from destruction, being able to push their opponents RTs and so on. So it's not just as simple as removing RFK to get rid of the slippery slope, and as my previous post point out, there are situations where having RFK helps the side that is behind, counteracting the slippery slope.
I'll admit that I agree that these arguments about RFK only benefiting the side that is behind if the gap between the teams is reasonably small, although I'm sure we'd disagree on what reasonably small counts as. So instead I'd like to look at games where the gap is large, like say 6 RTs against 2. By this point, yes RFK stops being beneficial because the other team is getting such a greater income, and as you point out, it's probably unfair to expect a team that's losing so badly in the RT department to be achieving the same rate of kills as their much better equipped opponents. You could make the case that even so, it's unlikely that they are getting 3 times the number of kills, so the proportion of RFK gained by the team that's behind is greater.
I'd take a slightly different, some might say harsh, attitude to this one. The losing team is going to lose, RFK or no. At some point you have to accept the team is behind for a reason, and that the RFK isn't really what's holding them back from making a comeback. There's a slippery slope, but it's speeding what's already a foregone conclusion to a swifter end. The original topic of this thread was about whether the game is going too fast, and I'd agree that RFK makes foregone conclusions go faster than without it. But going through the motions of sieging a hive that can't save itself or wearing down the marine turtle is rarely fun, and I don't mind if these things end faster.
In summary, my opinion is: RFK gives a slippery slope to games that are foregone conclusions. RFK counteracts a slippery slope in games that are close/still in the balance. both of which are positive effects, and that somewhere in the middle there are some games that a comeback could have been made but RFK gives the team with the upper hand enough to keep their advantage.
Personally, I feel that this third category, the games where RFK has a negative effect, is not only outweighed by the other two cases(particularly the second outcome which gives a good, longer game), but it's outweighed by a large margin. By outweighed, I largely mean that almost all games fall into one of the first two catagories, and so the fact that a small number of games are hurt by RFK is the price to pay for the many that benefit. Here's where have the statistics on winning games would be really useful. You could compare level of advantage with percentage wins with and without RFK, and backup or discount such a claim. I don't have those kinds of statistics at hand, but the NS team themselves might(I've heard it is how they make decisions on gameplay decisions like this). In other words, there's no argument I can make about the frequency of each occuring, so barring stats we'll have to disagree.
<!--quoteo(post=1616402:date=Mar 23 2007, 12:47 AM:name=Golden)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Golden @ Mar 23 2007, 12:47 AM) [snapback]1616402[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> First I'll say that even though I haven't played constantly since 1.04 (I played on and off until the 3.0 betas), I can almost guarantee that I have played more hours of NS than you.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> What the hell? So you are saying that you assume my opinion doesn't matter? Hell I could argue that I care more about NS than you, but that doesn't mean your opinion doesn't matter.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Secondly, when I use the terms "winning team" and "losing team" I'm talking about res nodes and map control, not IPs and Hives. We know that the goal of NS is to eliminate the enemies ability to spawn, but <i>usually</i> it doesn't happen without eliminating their ability to gain res as well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> In all honesty, winning and loosing is just perception and probability. You have a win or loss, period. Of course resources and control over the map's resources are critically important to achieving your primary objective. But they aren't mutally inclusive necessarily.
<!--quoteo(post=1616402:date=Mar 23 2007, 12:47 AM:name=Golden)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Golden @ Mar 23 2007, 12:47 AM) [snapback]1616402[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I enjoy gorging, as well as fading and lerking, public servers. If gorges had a stronger healspray, it would make sieging hives with anything less than 4 sieges impossible if the aliens had a competent gorge. A good gorge is indeed a potent weapon, but they still can't carry a team like a fade or lerk.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Well marines can turret farm and seige through walls. This would kind of force them to come out and deal with the gorges. And if they have resources marines can drop more seiges. They do 400 damage per hit and fire once every 4 seconds when a target is visible to the marine team. I'm not talking about an extreme change, please don't make it sound like I'm saying that. "Don't hate it until you try it" If you like playing gorge like me then you might like this.
I read Heavy_D's first paragraph and I can agree that removing RFK could cause that to some effect, though not fully. In fact, people who don't like drawn out games would like that better. One solution -- and hear me out on this -- is to remove RFK but create a time based tick of bonus resources. Just like in some Warcraft maps where if you don't wipe out the other guy after some time he'll get resources enough to comeback and start rebuilding. This makes it important to hunt them down.
ChocolateThe Team MascotJoin Date: 2006-10-31Member: 58123Members
<!--quoteo(post=1617100:date=Mar 26 2007, 04:29 PM:name=the_x5)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_x5 @ Mar 26 2007, 04:29 PM) [snapback]1617100[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> I read Heavy_D's first paragraph and I can agree that removing RFK could cause that to some effect, though not fully. In fact, people who don't like drawn out games would like that better. One solution -- and hear me out on this -- is to remove RFK but create a time based tick of bonus resources. Just like in some Warcraft maps where if you don't wipe out the other guy after some time he'll get resources enough to comeback and start rebuilding. This makes it important to hunt them down. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I like this idea. It could defiantly use some work because only the marine team could benifit from this because the aliens die out quickly without a hive and the comm is usually dead when lone marines roam around.
Besides that, I'm convinced that RFK isn't too bad and it isn't a huge comeback killer, but I'd still prefer for it to not be included if we were to slow down NS. 1 or 2 extra minutes at the end of a round is not a big deal because I, like most NS players, have much time to spend when I'm gaming. Also this slowed down version would probably focus more on teamwork, which is reduced to some extent by RFK.
<!--quoteo(post=1617100:date=Mar 26 2007, 04:29 PM:name=the_x5)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_x5 @ Mar 26 2007, 04:29 PM) [snapback]1617100[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> <!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->First I'll say that even though I haven't played constantly since 1.04 (I played on and off until the 3.0 betas), I can almost guarantee that I have played more hours of NS than you.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> What the hell? So you are saying that you assume my opinion doesn't matter? Hell I could argue that I care more about NS than you, but that doesn't mean your opinion doesn't matter. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, I said that in response to you claiming that I hadn't played as much NS as you, here:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you've played NS for as long as I and some others have you'd know that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In all honesty, winning and loosing is just perception and probability. You have a win or loss, period. Of course resources and control over the map's resources are critically important to achieving your primary objective. But they aren't mutally inclusive necessarily.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Of course winning and losing is just perception. Everything in life is based on perception. What I'm saying is that during an ongoing game, most often the "winning" team controls more map area and resources. I never said that just because they control more at one point they're going to win.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well marines can turret farm and seige through walls. This would kind of force them to come out and deal with the gorges. And if they have resources marines can drop more seiges. They do 400 damage per hit and fire once every 4 seconds when a target is visible to the marine team. I'm not talking about an extreme change, please don't make it sound like I'm saying that. "Don't hate it until you try it" If you like playing gorge like me then you might like this.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And most siege areas limit you to at most 5 sieges within range of the hive. This is without building the sieges in the middle of the hive, since if you're able to build those, you should be able to shotgun the hive down. If the gorge healspray were any stronger, sieging a hive would be absolutely useless, especially with the most recent DC changes.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I read Heavy_D's first paragraph and I can agree that removing RFK could cause that to some effect, though not fully. In fact, people who don't like drawn out games would like that better. One solution -- and hear me out on this -- is to remove RFK but create a time based tick of bonus resources. Just like in some Warcraft maps where if you don't wipe out the other guy after some time he'll get resources enough to comeback and start rebuilding. This makes it important to hunt them down. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Now this is an interesting idea. Any thoughts on implementation? Some problems I see with it:
-It would probably promote marine ramboing in a team based game, not something we should want to happen.
-It would have to be hooked to the number of resource towers controlled otherwise it would make holding RTs less important. The proper ratios would be a nightmare to figure out.
I think RFK has less of an impact on marines, and more of an impact on aliens than many of you believe. If you do some experimentation, you'll find that the res generated by kills barely covers the meds and ammo drops required to even get those kills. Over the course of a 15 minute game, I'd say less than 20 res resulting from kills is spent on things other than meds and ammo (don't ask me where I got that, I'm usually pretty good at guestimating these types of things).
With the alien side, on the other hand, in a 6 v 6 game, probably about 25% of your individual resources will come from RFK. As the team sizes increase, more and more of your personal res will come from RFK. In a 16 v 16 game, for a decent player RFK would probably provide more than half of your personal resources.
When I think of the impact messing with RFK will have on the game, I tend to think of it in terms of the team it has the most affect on - aliens. When I read most of the other posts in this thread, it seems to me that most of you are thinking in terms of the marine half. Why this is, I have no idea.
While you are correct that the amount of marine income from RFK will rarely exceed the cost of meds and ammo, imagine for a moment what the marine options would be without RFK...
--Buy less meds and ammo, and let marines die in the field more --Buy just as many meds and ammo, but get fewer upgrades
Its not quite correct to say RFK only pays for medpacks. More accurately, RFK pays for whichever item you <i>wouldn't</i> buy if you had that much less res. Depending on your comm, that could be just about anything, but the point is the res is available.
All that said, I still think RFK benefits aliens more. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
Comments
They learned a lot: ignoring the commander, walking all times alone, ignoring the team etc.
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":angry:" border="0" alt="mad-fix.gif" />
And THAT'S one of the major problems of public NS. Combined with teamstacking of the 'good' players.
Jup, but on a normal pub server, everyone is going to kill enemys - and leave the RT/structure untouched where possible. They see this regular on publics where some clan players rule the whole server - and the conclusion is simple: "If they rule the server without touching these things (and sometime being disarmed in this time) - why I should bother building/killing these things?"
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Because you want the players who are good out there taking down the enemy, and the players who aren't as good doing tasks that are less combat intensive (Capping/saving res, building sieges, etc). Given a good shot and a bad shot, wouldn't you rather have the good shot pushing and the bad shot capping, rather than the other way around? When I was terrible at NS, I knew it, and I usually just permagorged the whole time or just went lerk and spored. And unlike so many of the players out there, I actually followed orders.
RFK is a solution not a problem. It only becomes a problem if your team is getting completely dominated, in which case you probably have more pressing concerns than RFK in all honesty.
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Can't see the solution part, sorry <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" /> NS has changed from a game where you need mapcontrol (and therefore you you need RT's ) to a game where Rt's are 'nice to have'. The second part is, that RFK makes it hard to impossible for a team to have a comeback after one major failure. It is a way for speeding up the game, for the price of less teamwork and less strategy - at last on publics. One good marine can earn more res than 3-4 rt's iff well placed for spawncamping. In this situation a skulk that bites down every enemy rt will do a good job - but most time, it will be useless. You don't need mapcontrol, hivecontrol alone will do. Sorry - i dont see the solution here.
And if your team gets dominated, the RFK flow for the enemy will be much better meaning that you problem will grow. It might be a good solution for competive gameplay, but on mixed teams where you have god and less skilled players, one failed position will do. Aliens in most time have the advantage to their side. Because lonly running marines (also a failure point) will bring res.
I (for myself at last) see a big problem in this. Rage-quitting/F4-Laming is maybe also part of this problem: In realy good game (yes, they happen!) i will barely see anyone pressing f4 or quitting the game.
And that's the point where i would like to see NS: Both teams fight until the end, both teams have place for errors, and both teams are able to turn the game around.
why do these conversations/discussions/arguments continue to stem when it is clear one side of them has absolutely no knowledge over ns
On aliens, better players get res faster, this is true. However, the result of that better player having more res helps the whole team. They can drop a hive sooner, fade sooner and prevent the marine team from gaining strong points, and drop chambers faster, all of these options help the team.
wrong
wrong
why do these conversations/discussions/arguments continue to stem when it is clear one side of them has absolutely no knowledge over ns
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How are these things wrong?
The first one "All it does is reward well skilled players" is wrong to a certain extent only because it gives more res/map control for the team and not just him, but besides that, it is right.
Combacks are litterally non-exsistant, atleast for the pubs. If a whole team of 4 HA's/HMG's died, thats 140 res out of the marines pockets, which is equal to 3 and 1/2 hives, almost 3 fades or 3 - 4 minutes of 3 RT's churning away. Not to mention that the aliens have an much easier time against the marines = more RFK to aliens = More lifeforms/RT's/OC's etc. This example is a major loss to the marines and a victory for the aliens, but only 4 players died. (Not the best anecdote I've used)
RFK also dimishes the importance of RT's very simply. I remember playing a game on a 10 vs 10 server as marines. It ended in a victory for the marines, but yet we only had 2 rts the whole game. We actually won by a pretty big margin, having mined up PG's and had shotguns for the whole team, and ended it a 3 - 1 score for marines. This happened because we had a bunch of good people on our team ramboing all over the place, killing skulks like there was no tomorrow. I was the only one recapping, but there wasn't much to recap; we never gained ground really.
Basically what I want to say from all of this is that I don't really see how these things are wrong. An explanation would be nice <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> ; I don't want to start a flame war or anything like that.
BTW: What i consider losing is where the team with a larger amount of deaths and have less dominance over the map.
Edit:
<!--quoteo(post=1616121:date=Mar 21 2007, 08:18 PM:name=Golden)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Golden @ Mar 21 2007, 08:18 PM) [snapback]1616121[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--> RFK helps the losing team more than the winning team. The more nodes you hold, the less RFK matters, hence the more it rewards the team with fewer nodes, often known as the "losing" team.
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Well, RFK doesn't really diminish in importance as you go along. There is always room to upgrade in normal 10 - 15 minute games. RFK can mean the difference between the marines getting 4 minute AA or 5 minute AA, the difference between HA for the whole team or not, the difference between sc/oc coverage of the map or not (actually kinda useful they both are) and the difference between 2 fades and an onos in the endgame or 5 fades and 3 onoses endgame (making comebacks harder). This argument hold less true for aliens, but it still does.
And that's skill stax.
Even in 1.04 norfk days, you still had skill stax. It's no fun if nobody can leave the hive or marine start base. The game doesn't even get to start.
Even if RFK were to be removed, that wouldn't change those 50-5 score people who prevent aliens from leaving the hive due to their insane aim. I think if something could be done about this, whether handicaps or making the game easier, then you'd have less of an impact from just one player.
That would in turn result in more balanced RFK for both teams, rather than 1 pro generating 90% of the res for marines.
My suggestion is to look at the game. Would removing RFK stop players with 50-5 scores?
RFK helps the losing team more than the winning team. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ah yes - Sorry, do you TRULY belive in this? Or is this the way you would like to see it?
<!--quoteo(post=1616143:date=Mar 21 2007, 08:32 PM:name=SmoodCroozn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SmoodCroozn @ Mar 21 2007, 08:32 PM) [snapback]1616143[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
My suggestion is to look at the game. Would removing RFK stop players with 50-5 scores?
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, but because they got no RFk, mapcontrol is the point. You would loose no matter how good one player is, if you can't secure the map.
And skillstacking....ok, got no problem with that. Not anymore.
The big problem is that number of RTs and rate of kills isn't uncorrelated. If a team is getting more kills, then it's probably going to hold more of the map, push out and kill the enemy RTs, cap more of their own, and keep them alive for longer. It's easier to see this happen in a scrim but it's still true in a pub game. So even if there wasn't RFK, the team that is killing more enemies is going to get more res in the long run(barring exceptional circumstances like a massive turtle in marine start etc). So in this case RFK is driving a slippery slope, magnifying the advantage of getting more kills. However, this kinda works both ways, in that the perceived impact RFK has on a game is magnified by the non-RFK effects that killing more opponents has on resflow.
On the other hand, if one side is behind in RTs but managing to hold its own in kills, then RFK benefits that side. This is a balancing, anti-slippery-slope effect, allowing a team to make a comeback if they fight well enough to beat a team with more res behind them. You might say that this is unlikely to happen because of the combat advantages granted by having extra res, but I'd say there are two cases in which ths can hold. One is if the team hasn't had the res advantage for long. Tech advantages take time to propagate because of research length etc, and weapons/lifeforms have to reach the frontline to count. So during that "rise time" between gaining the RT advantage and gaining the combat edge, the "losing" team gains an advantage from RFK that makes it more likely to come back than if there was no RFK.
The other circumstance is if a team is behind in RTs <b>because</b> it invested resources in combat equipment/lifeforms/tech rather than taking available RTs. This actually makes it an interesting tactical tradeoff, RFK makes such moves more viable than without.
So in one set of circumstances RFK helps the winning team, and in the other helps the losing team. With all this talk of comebacks though, I'd like to point out that the only way the losing team is going to make a comeback in the first set of circumstances is if they start killing more of the opposition, whether RFK is on or off. Once you start doing that RFK is working in that team's favour again, so it's a mixed bag. In the other set of circumstances, to make a comeback is to cap more RTs, which the (proportionally) greater resflow from RFK makes viable.
(Disclaimer - the above situations occur in a bubble where there are no tactical advantages to anything other than number of kills/RTs and as such is very abstract. Apply to actual games with care.)
<!--quoteo(post=1616144:date=Mar 21 2007, 08:38 PM:name=SEK2000Blackhawk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SEK2000Blackhawk @ Mar 21 2007, 08:38 PM) [snapback]1616144[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Ah yes - Sorry, do you TRULY belive in this? Or is this the way you would like to see it?
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I believe it. Heavy D pretty much explained what we're thinking on this topic: RFK provides more capability for a team that is losing to turn the game around. If they can't turn the game around even fighting on defense on their home ground, then RFK just makes the game end faster.
Isn't 'fighting on home territory' not most times the point where one team is already dominating the other?
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No.
Nope, CS is easier.
Don't bring up the crap that is Quake3.
And don't be lazy and defend your own arguments.
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Dude CS is 100x harder than NS will ever be. NS is about situations. You can put yourself into situations where you are invincible, and you can mistakingly get into a position where you have no chance whatsoever.
There's no way to be invincible in CS.
<!--quoteo(post=1615262:date=Mar 18 2007, 02:27 AM:name=the_x5)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_x5 @ Mar 18 2007, 02:27 AM) [snapback]1615262[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
It just proves that you can comeback but it's really, really hard. Much harder than in 2.0 and honestly I agree that the games are over too soon. It's fun to build stuff and have it last long enough to mean something. It's the building combined with teamwork in a FPS game that I like NS so much for I think. I feel that's something important to NS being fun.
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Your story doesn't really prove anything. You basically said "If the winning team makes a game-costing mistake, it will cost them the game"...
Yeah, you can come back and win a game if the opposing team completely screws up. That doesn't mean that the game's design allows for comebacks among two teams who play the game correctly.
I didn't read your whole story but I assume the marines held the third hive and got 3/3 tech etc. If this is what happened, it's not really a "comeback". There's a point in the game where marines become completely overpowered and the aliens have no chance whatsoever to come back.
On aliens, better players get res faster, this is true. However, the result of that better player having more res helps the whole team. They can drop a hive sooner, fade sooner and prevent the marine team from gaining strong points, and drop chambers faster, all of these options help the team. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually I've got to disagree with your logic. I've seen games, recent games, which were lost from team that was all offense and had more nodes but due to poor defense (no electrified RTs, no gorge near building hive, no base defenses) lost their AA, Arms Lab, hive, or entire base which cost them the game.
Ultimately the objective is to take out all of the enemies. This means taking down their structures that cause them to respawn. Take down the IPs or the hives quickly and then just hunt down the survivors and you'll win. Now yes resources play into this by giving your team a technology edge, but ultimately? It comes down to who gets who's spawn first.
And on aliens the better players are not just your attacking classes, in fact I'd argue it's most of all having good gorges. The fades get the resources from kills, but they don't usually drop chamber and hives. That's rare. Gorges win games. If you've played NS for as long as I and some others have you'd know that. Healer <i>and</i> structure builder with a ranged primary attack and seige-like second hive attack? Wow! If your team can rally around and protect your gorges you've got some serious power. An alien team which is all lerks and gorges at the start off of the game and has good communication will usually crush any marine team. I'd like to see gorges have a stonger healspray.
Actually I've got to disagree with your logic. I've seen games, recent games, which were lost from team that was all offense and had more nodes but due to poor defense (no electrified RTs, no gorge near building hive, no base defenses) lost their AA, Arms Lab, hive, or entire base which cost them the game.
Ultimately the objective is to take out all of the enemies. This means taking down their structures that cause them to respawn. Take down the IPs or the hives quickly and then just hunt down the survivors and you'll win. Now yes resources play into this by giving your team a technology edge, but ultimately? It comes down to who gets who's spawn first.
And on aliens the better players are not just your attacking classes, in fact I'd argue it's most of all having good gorges. The fades get the resources from kills, but they don't usually drop chamber and hives. That's rare. Gorges win games. If you've played NS for as long as I and some others have you'd know that. Healer <i>and</i> structure builder with a ranged primary attack and seige-like second hive attack? Wow! If your team can rally around and protect your gorges you've got some serious power. An alien team which is all lerks and gorges at the start off of the game and has good communication will usually crush any marine team. I'd like to see gorges have a stonger healspray.
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First I'll say that even though I haven't played constantly since 1.04 (I played on and off until the 3.0 betas), I can almost guarantee that I have played more hours of NS than you. Secondly, when I use the terms "winning team" and "losing team" I'm talking about res nodes and map control, not IPs and Hives. We know that the goal of NS is to eliminate the enemies ability to spawn, but <i>usually</i> it doesn't happen without eliminating their ability to gain res as well.
I enjoy gorging, as well as fading and lerking, public servers. If gorges had a stronger healspray, it would make sieging hives with anything less than 4 sieges impossible if the aliens had a competent gorge. A good gorge is indeed a potent weapon, but they still can't carry a team like a fade or lerk.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->RFK helps the losing team more than the winning team.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Ah yes - Sorry, do you TRULY belive in this? Or is this the way you would like to see it?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, I do believe it. Please reread Heavy_D's first paragraph.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think there's a danger of "confusing cause and effect". People observe teams that are getting more kills also gaining more res, and so conclude that RFK is the sole reason for this. They then go on to say that RFK is the thing that is broken. But as TOmekki and Golden point out, if both teams got the same rate of kills, but different number of RTs, we'd probably say the team with fewer RTs was "losing". We'd also note that as RFK makes up a greater proportion of the "losing" team's income, it is benefiting them more than the "winning" team. So who does RFK actually benefit, the winning or losing team?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As he said, the fewer nodes a team is holding, the larger proportion of their res is made up of RFK. Hence, the more impact RFK is having on that team. If res-for-kill is removed, comebacks will become even rarer than they are now.
I think there's a danger of "confusing cause and effect". People observe teams that are getting more kills also gaining more res, and so conclude that RFK is the sole reason for this. They then go on to say that RFK is the thing that is broken. But as TOmekki and Golden point out, if both teams got the same rate of kills, but different number of RTs, we'd probably say the team with fewer RTs was "losing". We'd also note that as RFK makes up a greater proportion of the "losing" team's income, it is benefiting them more than the "winning" team. So who does RFK actually benefit, the winning or losing team?
The big problem is that number of RTs and rate of kills isn't uncorrelated. If a team is getting more kills, then it's probably going to hold more of the map, push out and kill the enemy RTs, cap more of their own, and keep them alive for longer. It's easier to see this happen in a scrim but it's still true in a pub game. So even if there wasn't RFK, the team that is killing more enemies is going to get more res in the long run(barring exceptional circumstances like a massive turtle in marine start etc). So in this case RFK is driving a slippery slope, magnifying the advantage of getting more kills. However, this kinda works both ways, in that the perceived impact RFK has on a game is magnified by the non-RFK effects that killing more opponents has on resflow.
On the other hand, if one side is behind in RTs but managing to hold its own in kills, then RFK benefits that side. This is a balancing, anti-slippery-slope effect, allowing a team to make a comeback if they fight well enough to beat a team with more res behind them. You might say that this is unlikely to happen because of the combat advantages granted by having extra res, but I'd say there are two cases in which ths can hold. One is if the team hasn't had the res advantage for long. Tech advantages take time to propagate because of research length etc, and weapons/lifeforms have to reach the frontline to count. So during that "rise time" between gaining the RT advantage and gaining the combat edge, the "losing" team gains an advantage from RFK that makes it more likely to come back than if there was no RFK.
The other circumstance is if a team is behind in RTs <b>because</b> it invested resources in combat equipment/lifeforms/tech rather than taking available RTs. This actually makes it an interesting tactical tradeoff, RFK makes such moves more viable than without.
So in one set of circumstances RFK helps the winning team, and in the other helps the losing team. With all this talk of comebacks though, I'd like to point out that the only way the losing team is going to make a comeback in the first set of circumstances is if they start killing more of the opposition, whether RFK is on or off. Once you start doing that RFK is working in that team's favour again, so it's a mixed bag. In the other set of circumstances, to make a comeback is to cap more RTs, which the (proportionally) greater resflow from RFK makes viable.
(Disclaimer - the above situations occur in a bubble where there are no tactical advantages to anything other than number of kills/RTs and as such is very abstract. Apply to actual games with care.)
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That is actually a very nice post compared to most of what is being thrown around here.
There is a problem however with RFK in that it benefits the marines much more than aliens in mid-to-late stages of the game. This is because aliens always respawn with the skulk lifeform, which is most vulnerable. When marines respawn, they can get a shotgun (10res) or an hmg (15res), which is enough to challenge higher lifeforms (which cost 30,50,75? res) - skulks get destroyed for 2-3 res a pop, end of story. Since the majority of respawning aliens are in the state of the skulk, RFK works better for the marines if they have significant tech.
The reason why I don't say that it has the same effects in early game is because the aliens need the res much more than the marines do, to get fades in that 4 min time window before the tech really starts to roll out.
So, I encourage you to look beyond the "winning side" and "losing side", and actually consider the mechanics of the game and what RFK does. Yes, in general it works with the slippery slope concept. However, it can also seriously affect the direction of a game once tech imbalance sets in and higher lifeforms become more scarce.
There is a problem however with RFK in that it benefits the marines much more than aliens in mid-to-late stages of the game. This is because aliens always respawn with the skulk lifeform, which is most vulnerable. When marines respawn, they can get a shotgun (10res) or an hmg (15res), which is enough to challenge higher lifeforms (which cost 30,50,75? res) - skulks get destroyed for 2-3 res a pop, end of story. Since the majority of respawning aliens are in the state of the skulk, RFK works better for the marines if they have significant tech.
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I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here, but I think you're saying that a skulk is worth less than a marine when spawning(particularly in the late game). This is something I'd possible agree with. A lot of people have in the past suggested that RFK should be changed to different values depending on what lifeform you kill, from 1 for a skulk up to 5 for an onos. This seems to miss the point of RFK slightly - it was put in as an alternative to charging res for players to respawn. So in that respect RFK should be thought of as the charge for the <b>spawning<b> player, ie a basic marine or skulk. The onos already cost the player 75 res, and the loss of that is the penalty for death. So I'd say there's possibly an argument for 1-3 res for a marine, 1-2 for a skulk, although I'm not sure if everyone would agree a skulk is only worth 3/4 of a lmg marine.
I'm not sure that when you start adding equipment you can say that RFK is the problem. Yes, the skulk doesn't have a cheap option of requipping when they die, but the prices are balanced, and the accumulated RFK is just as beneficial for working towards a fade as it is for getting a shotgun out. On the flip side, when you are a fade the idea is that you're doing damage without ever giving up RFK, even if you do less damage while you run away compared to a skulk that's willing to die. If you think of the lifetime of several skulks and then one fade(all the same player, over time), is it fair to suggest the number of deaths is about the same as a series of marines living in the same period? I don't have the figures to back that one up, but I don't think it sounds unreasonable.
One final thing is that, even without RFK, surely there's an advantage to being a marine spawning in the mid to late game as you describe. You can get re-equipped for only 10-15 res, while the skulk can't do anything until he hits 50. I suppose you could say this is an imbalance because it shortens the rise time between gaining a res advantage and gaining a combat advantage on the marine side. On the other hand, the marine side is slower than the alien side at getting round the map, which I guess is one of the balancing factors of their quick equipping. Gestation times against getting ammo doesn't really compare.
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So, I encourage you to look beyond the "winning side" and "losing side", and actually consider the mechanics of the game and what RFK does. Yes, in general it works with the slippery slope concept. However, it can also seriously affect the direction of a game once tech imbalance sets in and higher lifeforms become more scarce.
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What I was trying to describe in my first post was this: Suppose we were playing a game where the two sides were exactly balanced, imagine them as two identical teams with the same tech, weapons and all this, on a perfectly balanced map. We also imagine that RFK is something that could be turned on or off. Then given that, would RFK tend to accelerate the advantage of a team with the upper hand, or help the team that is behind, giving them more of a chance of a comeback? I know I used terms like lifeforms and weapons, but they were illustrative and not meant to suggest either aliens or marines was winning/losing in the examples.
Whether RFK affects the two asymmetrical sides we actually see in NS is a bit more of a challenging question. You feel that once aliens start to lose, and have few lifeforms out in the field, RFK creates a slippery slope. I'd say that there's a slippery slope anyway, in that once you lose higher lifeforms for no gain, the marines have a clear advantage, and if you don't manage to inflict some severe damage on them somewhere(RTs, tech or killing off lots of them) they should be able to win even if there was no RFK. Are there circumstances you can imagine where you manage to pull off some such coup, and would make a comeback, were it not for RFK?
Well, yes, sometimes. It's easy to imagine that sometimes the aliens would kill off a few of the marines weapons, but the RFK the marines get is enough to replace them and so the marines maintain dominance. But there are also times when an alien, in pulling such a thing off, gets enough RFK to go fade 30-45 seconds sooner than they would have otherwise. This could easily be the difference between maintaining the momentum of a comeback, and losing the game anyway.
When it was introduced I was playing on kharaa in a match with a team full of newbies. Within 5 min we had no rt left. Only reason we 'made' it was cause I ranked up 25 res and get a rt back online. We eventually still lost that match, but we should have lost around that 5 min mark.
If large teams have res probs I prefer they make another 'feature' rather then use rfk. If you lose all rts, either the game was hugely stacked or you just deserved to lose. Its not that it should be that one single fade can still own up his res and get a hive or something. thats just wrong.
Also on the gorges I totally agree. They are the driving force of a kharaa team. Not only due to there building qualities, but now also to there increased combat abilities. A battlegorge could be a pain already on the frontline, but now it also heals itself its quite hard to down a cara adren gorge while being backed up by other lifeforms. On good days I helped rampage a spot with a gorge buddy and skulks alone and we got the spot each time. While without the gorge support we atleast needed fade for the job.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->One final thing is that, even without RFK, surely there's an advantage to being a marine spawning in the mid to late game as you describe. You can get re-equipped for only 10-15 res, while the skulk can't do anything until he hits 50. I suppose you could say this is an imbalance because it shortens the rise time between gaining a res advantage and gaining a combat advantage on the marine side. On the other hand, the marine side is slower than the alien side at getting round the map, which I guess is one of the balancing factors of their quick equipping. Gestation times against getting ammo doesn't really compare.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I was thinking about RFK in competitive matches and the reason why it's sort of balanced is because the RFK mostly goes into medpacks for the marines. In pub games, it is not balanced at all since not only is there much more RFK going to marines, but the comm can afford not to give medpacks and just save for game-ending tech while marines keep respawning in swarms.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Whether RFK affects the two asymmetrical sides we actually see in NS is a bit more of a challenging question. You feel that once aliens start to lose, and have few lifeforms out in the field, RFK creates a slippery slope. I'd say that there's a slippery slope anyway, in that once you lose higher lifeforms for no gain, the marines have a clear advantage, and if you don't manage to inflict some severe damage on them somewhere(RTs, tech or killing off lots of them) they should be able to win even if there was no RFK. Are there circumstances you can imagine where you manage to pull off some such coup, and would make a comeback, were it not for RFK? <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The slippery slope starts as soon as marines get any decent tech and skulks become fodder. Second hive skulks with leap are a good example of how RFK effectively kills comebacks. Once the alien side is depleted of the majority of higher lifeforms, there is usually an effort to take back regions using the skulk and leap. However, this is quickly stopped because the RFK from these efforts quickly gives the marines a big advantage. It also ensures that rushes on fortified locations pay for any damage by the RFK.
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Well, yes, sometimes. It's easy to imagine that sometimes the aliens would kill off a few of the marines weapons, but the RFK the marines get is enough to replace them and so the marines maintain dominance. But there are also times when an alien, in pulling such a thing off, gets enough RFK to go fade 30-45 seconds sooner than they would have otherwise. This could easily be the difference between maintaining the momentum of a comeback, and losing the game anyway.
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I think this is a very important point. We need to look at the frequency of the two events: an alien getting many kills to get fade sooner vs marines maintaining dominance just by fighting aliens, since they can easily pay for their losses just by the RFK that they get.
The only time I really see the RFK advantaging the "losing" team is when there is a slight losing and winning for any given team. If the marines have 5 RTs and the aliens have 6 RT's, it would certainly advantage the marine team more in general because there isnt a severe out tech. But if 2 minutes latter the marine team had 4 RT's (even 5) and the aliens had 6 RT's, the alien team would/should be out-teching the marines in whichever way they can (excluding exceptions like 2 hive lockdowns). The aliens get more kills because of this out-teching which is like adding grease to that slippery slope <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" /> .
I'm not saying that its such a bad thing, but its not a very good thing. It takes less "work" to get to the "point of no return" which that point happens now-a-days more often than not earlier in a match. Also considering that the teams are stacked more often than not, RFK makes rambo teams more able to win, and deviate off of one of NS's focuses, teamwork.
RFK does bring advantages like some that are already said above (I'm not sure which ones exactly (except for shorten inevitable games) but I know they were said already <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" /> ) which is a good thing. But considering what this topic is focused on, longer games; which is also linked to a more buildings based game (which is linked to a more teamwork based game), I would probably prefer to have a game without RFK to achieve this goal rather than a game with it.
Also, I agree 100% with DC_Darkling in the fact that, you lose RT's, its your problem and you deserve to die. A team with 1 RT the whole game should die, even if they are ranking up a 3 - 1 score. <b>
</b>There are holes in my argument, but there are some in the RFK arguments too, thats why I see no RFK as in a better choice for a longer game.
PS. I think that the gorge should be the most important unit of the aliens, and still wish that he still got extra res <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" /> .
The point I argue about in RFK is that because of this feature, you have a "slippery slope" (which I'm partially confused about now). If one team (for example the marine team) is "winning" by the definition of having more RT's, they'd most likely be out teching the aliens. Because they out tech the aliens, they get more kills which means more res. This is my definition of slippery slope for me.
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But this would happen without RFK. The team would have more RTs, out-tech them, kill them more often, and so strengthen their superiority in RTs - just by virtue of controlling more of the map, saving their own RTs from destruction, being able to push their opponents RTs and so on. So it's not just as simple as removing RFK to get rid of the slippery slope, and as my previous post point out, there are situations where having RFK helps the side that is behind, counteracting the slippery slope.
I'll admit that I agree that these arguments about RFK only benefiting the side that is behind if the gap between the teams is reasonably small, although I'm sure we'd disagree on what reasonably small counts as. So instead I'd like to look at games where the gap is large, like say 6 RTs against 2. By this point, yes RFK stops being beneficial because the other team is getting such a greater income, and as you point out, it's probably unfair to expect a team that's losing so badly in the RT department to be achieving the same rate of kills as their much better equipped opponents. You could make the case that even so, it's unlikely that they are getting 3 times the number of kills, so the proportion of RFK gained by the team that's behind is greater.
I'd take a slightly different, some might say harsh, attitude to this one. The losing team is going to lose, RFK or no. At some point you have to accept the team is behind for a reason, and that the RFK isn't really what's holding them back from making a comeback. There's a slippery slope, but it's speeding what's already a foregone conclusion to a swifter end. The original topic of this thread was about whether the game is going too fast, and I'd agree that RFK makes foregone conclusions go faster than without it. But going through the motions of sieging a hive that can't save itself or wearing down the marine turtle is rarely fun, and I don't mind if these things end faster.
In summary, my opinion is:
RFK gives a slippery slope to games that are foregone conclusions.
RFK counteracts a slippery slope in games that are close/still in the balance.
both of which are positive effects, and that somewhere in the middle there are some games that a comeback could have been made but RFK gives the team with the upper hand enough to keep their advantage.
Personally, I feel that this third category, the games where RFK has a negative effect, is not only outweighed by the other two cases(particularly the second outcome which gives a good, longer game), but it's outweighed by a large margin. By outweighed, I largely mean that almost all games fall into one of the first two catagories, and so the fact that a small number of games are hurt by RFK is the price to pay for the many that benefit. Here's where have the statistics on winning games would be really useful. You could compare level of advantage with percentage wins with and without RFK, and backup or discount such a claim. I don't have those kinds of statistics at hand, but the NS team themselves might(I've heard it is how they make decisions on gameplay decisions like this). In other words, there's no argument I can make about the frequency of each occuring, so barring stats we'll have to disagree.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Secondly, when I use the terms "winning team" and "losing team" I'm talking about res nodes and map control, not IPs and Hives. We know that the goal of NS is to eliminate the enemies ability to spawn, but <i>usually</i> it doesn't happen without eliminating their ability to gain res as well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> In all honesty, winning and loosing is just perception and probability. You have a win or loss, period. Of course resources and control over the map's resources are critically important to achieving your primary objective. But they aren't mutally inclusive necessarily.
<!--quoteo(post=1616402:date=Mar 23 2007, 12:47 AM:name=Golden)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Golden @ Mar 23 2007, 12:47 AM) [snapback]1616402[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I enjoy gorging, as well as fading and lerking, public servers. If gorges had a stronger healspray, it would make sieging hives with anything less than 4 sieges impossible if the aliens had a competent gorge. A good gorge is indeed a potent weapon, but they still can't carry a team like a fade or lerk.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Well marines can turret farm and seige through walls. This would kind of force them to come out and deal with the gorges. And if they have resources marines can drop more seiges. They do 400 damage per hit and fire once every 4 seconds when a target is visible to the marine team. I'm not talking about an extreme change, please don't make it sound like I'm saying that. "Don't hate it until you try it" If you like playing gorge like me then you might like this.
I read Heavy_D's first paragraph and I can agree that removing RFK could cause that to some effect, though not fully. In fact, people who don't like drawn out games would like that better. One solution -- and hear me out on this -- is to remove RFK but create a time based tick of bonus resources. Just like in some Warcraft maps where if you don't wipe out the other guy after some time he'll get resources enough to comeback and start rebuilding. This makes it important to hunt them down.
I read Heavy_D's first paragraph and I can agree that removing RFK could cause that to some effect, though not fully. In fact, people who don't like drawn out games would like that better. One solution -- and hear me out on this -- is to remove RFK but create a time based tick of bonus resources. Just like in some Warcraft maps where if you don't wipe out the other guy after some time he'll get resources enough to comeback and start rebuilding. This makes it important to hunt them down.
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I like this idea. It could defiantly use some work because only the marine team could benifit from this because the aliens die out quickly without a hive and the comm is usually dead when lone marines roam around.
Besides that, I'm convinced that RFK isn't too bad and it isn't a huge comeback killer, but I'd still prefer for it to not be included if we were to slow down NS. 1 or 2 extra minutes at the end of a round is not a big deal because I, like most NS players, have much time to spend when I'm gaming. Also this slowed down version would probably focus more on teamwork, which is reduced to some extent by RFK.
My final conclusion: Meh.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->First I'll say that even though I haven't played constantly since 1.04 (I played on and off until the 3.0 betas), I can almost guarantee that I have played more hours of NS than you.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What the hell? So you are saying that you assume my opinion doesn't matter? Hell I could argue that I care more about NS than you, but that doesn't mean your opinion doesn't matter. <!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, I said that in response to you claiming that I hadn't played as much NS as you, here:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you've played NS for as long as I and some others have you'd know that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In all honesty, winning and loosing is just perception and probability. You have a win or loss, period. Of course resources and control over the map's resources are critically important to achieving your primary objective. But they aren't mutally inclusive necessarily.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Of course winning and losing is just perception. Everything in life is based on perception. What I'm saying is that during an ongoing game, most often the "winning" team controls more map area and resources. I never said that just because they control more at one point they're going to win.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well marines can turret farm and seige through walls. This would kind of force them to come out and deal with the gorges. And if they have resources marines can drop more seiges. They do 400 damage per hit and fire once every 4 seconds when a target is visible to the marine team. I'm not talking about an extreme change, please don't make it sound like I'm saying that. "Don't hate it until you try it" If you like playing gorge like me then you might like this.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And most siege areas limit you to at most 5 sieges within range of the hive. This is without building the sieges in the middle of the hive, since if you're able to build those, you should be able to shotgun the hive down. If the gorge healspray were any stronger, sieging a hive would be absolutely useless, especially with the most recent DC changes.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I read Heavy_D's first paragraph and I can agree that removing RFK could cause that to some effect, though not fully. In fact, people who don't like drawn out games would like that better. One solution -- and hear me out on this -- is to remove RFK but create a time based tick of bonus resources. Just like in some Warcraft maps where if you don't wipe out the other guy after some time he'll get resources enough to comeback and start rebuilding. This makes it important to hunt them down.
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Now this is an interesting idea. Any thoughts on implementation? Some problems I see with it:
-It would probably promote marine ramboing in a team based game, not something we should want to happen.
-It would have to be hooked to the number of resource towers controlled otherwise it would make holding RTs less important. The proper ratios would be a nightmare to figure out.
I think RFK has less of an impact on marines, and more of an impact on aliens than many of you believe. If you do some experimentation, you'll find that the res generated by kills barely covers the meds and ammo drops required to even get those kills. Over the course of a 15 minute game, I'd say less than 20 res resulting from kills is spent on things other than meds and ammo (don't ask me where I got that, I'm usually pretty good at guestimating these types of things).
With the alien side, on the other hand, in a 6 v 6 game, probably about 25% of your individual resources will come from RFK. As the team sizes increase, more and more of your personal res will come from RFK. In a 16 v 16 game, for a decent player RFK would probably provide more than half of your personal resources.
When I think of the impact messing with RFK will have on the game, I tend to think of it in terms of the team it has the most affect on - aliens. When I read most of the other posts in this thread, it seems to me that most of you are thinking in terms of the marine half. Why this is, I have no idea.
--Buy less meds and ammo, and let marines die in the field more
--Buy just as many meds and ammo, but get fewer upgrades
Its not quite correct to say RFK only pays for medpacks. More accurately, RFK pays for whichever item you <i>wouldn't</i> buy if you had that much less res. Depending on your comm, that could be just about anything, but the point is the res is available.
All that said, I still think RFK benefits aliens more. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />