Sentry turrets too expensive and too slow
Pat (GER)
Join Date: 2010-12-13 Member: 75646Members
Join Date: 2010-12-13 Member: 75646Members
since the 161 build release the sentry are so expensive (20 Carbon) last build they cost 20 Plasma so its very difficult to protect marine base or other outposts. hydras are for free and there reacting time is also better ( a fade can easily enter base without any hit of a sentry)
what do you guys think?
what do you guys think?
Comments
They are there for cover and help not to do the job for you. For example 1 sentry can be set to cover ip and armory but it is vulnerable, but attacking the turret skulk becames vulnerable, when either marine can get back to base or comm can jump out (I cant recommed if you are new).
I bet many are eager to build their undestructable base just to prolong but it should not be part of fast phased game MOD at best.
A Hydra costs 10 Plasma afaik. They aren't free.
But I agree with you.
20 Plasma was fine, but 20 carbon is way to much.
I wonder what the right price would be if they stick with carbon.
Maybe 10C ?
What do you think?
a gorge can rush marine base and vomit 5 hydras before he dies. (saw this many times)
Maybe in a build it will be changed back to plasma again, or the cost changed. On a small map like rockdown you don't need loads of turrets, since you should have enugh manpower around, and on tram you don't need that much either, if you cut down the alien mobility by sealing off areas with doors, and place the sentries properly.
see my post above ;)
But I admit, there is no hint in the game which says that a hydra costs 10 P
I disagree here.
A turret is way more powerful then a Hydra.
In my oppinion the difference 10P for Hydra and 20P for Turret was fine.
On the other hand if the turret costs carbon the commander has to rely more on the marines (and also has more plasma to spend for medpack and ammopack)
But as I said, 20C is to much, I think.
On the NS2UK servers they are 80 plasma. Very annoying.
Sentries are actually quite powerful, if you use them in support of your infantry. Place one to cover where your marines are pushing, either aliens have to go after the sentry and the marines can shoot them up, or they go after the marines and they end up getting shot by the sentry.
What they aren't very good at is base defence.
Whips on the other hand are much better, they slow marines down as they blow them up. Sentries kinda slow aliens down but mostly they cost you money. One marine against a crag and whip would be hard pressed to make progress, one fade against two sentries is no contest.
If you're comparing whips and sentries they are really different. Whips have about 1/5 of the range of a sentry and are much more visible. Also take into account marine's superpowered weapons. One marine can easily take out a whip and a crag with the flamethrower or grenade launcher.
About the only time I can see Gorges having enough Plasma to spam Hydras at will is at the end of a game, where the Marines have turtled and cant get a second CC, the rest of the time Hydras have had very little impact on a Marine advance.
I think the SG's have been balanced well at this stage, prior to 161 the number of SG's about was getting silly... it was becoming the only strat to march SG's to the Alien hives , now they have been relagated to extra firepower to assist the Marines at a high cost.
Could cost you as much as that upgrade you need, or that bit of tech that would be usefull.
At most I would expect to see the Hydra cost increase and prehaps the damage a individual Hydra can deal increase but as far as the SG's are concerned its seems rather well balanced... just now with the extra plasma available for med pack spam it makes taking out Flamer Marines at the hive even harder, a few med packs and all the damage done is undone in a instant.
Sentries are actually quite powerful, if you use them in support of your infantry. Place one to cover where your marines are pushing, either aliens have to go after the sentry and the marines can shoot them up, or they go after the marines and they end up getting shot by the sentry.
What they aren't very good at is base defence.
Whips on the other hand are much better, they slow marines down as they blow them up. Sentries kinda slow aliens down but mostly they cost you money. One marine against a crag and whip would be hard pressed to make progress, one fade against two sentries is no contest.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is only a temporary measure as I am fed up of people logging on and spamming hydras everywhere causing lag :(. It will be reduced in the future.
This is probably the plan, with every alien structure. Graphically they all look very odd placed on metal surfaces, I believe they have been designed to be placed on Infestation only.
Yesterday I was in the (awesome looking btw) new marine expansion on tram. And had a nostalgic feeling for the old design. I kid you not. NS2 isn't even out yet and already I'm starting to have moments where I think about the good old days of early NS2. I thought that was kind of funny.
The balance in the previous build was better, the only thing that needed to change was a flamer nerf..
I don't mind them being more expensive to prohibit excessive use, but 30 plasma would be more reasonable. I can at least get 5 or so in a round that way. If I do nothing else other than go gorge, I can get 1 or maybe 2, which is kind of useless.
Now, instead of being used for area denial, sentry guns are used to support defence of an area by marine players. NS is about two teams of human players, not about two commanders playing tower defence.
There ok and not to slow, are there a lot of cs player moved to ns2?
Everybody play marines and want them more op...
Maybe its because they can "buy" their own weapons.
Noted. I might change this tomorrow and see how it goes. :)
<!--quoteo(post=1825135:date=Jan 18 2011, 12:20 AM:name=NS2HD)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (NS2HD @ Jan 18 2011, 12:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1825135"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I've found the new sentry gun economics to be excellent, and conducive to much more free-flowing team based play.
Now, instead of being used for area denial, sentry guns are used to support defence of an area by marine players. NS is about two teams of human players, not about two commanders playing tower defence.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Spot on. They should not be able to survive for long without reinforcements, but enough to scare the odd alien trying to get past.
Now, instead of being used for area denial, sentry guns are used to support defence of an area by marine players. NS is about two teams of human players, not about two commanders playing tower defence.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As a commander, I personally do not like requiring players to hang back to play defense. There have been many times in B161, where I've had to call back my team who was busy on the attack because a single skulk, lerk, or fade was demoing the main base. If I jump out to take them on, theres a good chance I'll get killed and then the main base will go down.
Also, at 20c a sentry, its makes zero economic sense to place a sentry. I'd prefer that UWE drop them to 5c, but they should at least make them an even cost to hydras (at 10c).
No, a sentry is limited by its effective area.
<b>The sentry *should* cost carbon</b>, because it is a structure, but <b>the carbon cost should be much less</b>, because it currently costs more than much more useful structures. Commanders don't really use their plasma, <b>so allowing them to buy sentries out of their plasma is OP</b>, especially when any random player can jump in a chair and spam some sentries with their abundant spare plasma. Sentries are more of a <b>base defense</b> to prevent pushing.
Plasma is abundant and you can afford to be thrifty with it, carbon is precious and you have to consider your expenditures - just by that fact, even with a lower cost (say 5 carbon) for sentries, it will prevent sentry spam.
<b>Hydras</b> on the other hand, are more of a <b>forward defense</b> for covering fire. <b>Gorges should be able to place them with their plasma</b>, but they <b>should cost more plasma than sentries cost carbon</b> (because of plasma abundance) like the 10 plasma they already cost; but a hydra placement <b>should also cost energy</b> (adrenaline, that is) so a gorge cannot simply place 10 hydras in the space of 5 seconds. If you make the energy cost say <b>50% of max energy</b>, then a gorge will only be able to place two hydras at once, and of course be unable to use their other skills for a moment** so that's something they have to actually consider.
**Actually, not true. Each ability has an independent energy cost.
Some super quick coding for adding the energy cost:
knowing that:
<i>Weapons\Alien\Ability.lua:17: Ability.kMaxEnergy = 100</i>
modify HydraAbility.lua:
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->function HydraAbility:GetEnergyCost(player)
return 50 // used to be 0
end<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
That's it. You just add one character, "5".
This won't prevent long-term spam, but it will prevent instant multi-hydra placement spam.
Now, instead of being used for area denial, sentry guns are used to support defence of an area by marine players. NS is about two teams of human players, not about two commanders playing tower defence.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Remember the good ol' Turret Factory in NS? The marines needed to build one before they could even build Sentries in that area? Ah the good ol' days. :P
I agree Sentries are still quite powerful for their cost. One trick I recently learnt is that the commander can instruct Sentries to continously attack in a direction, reducing their target acquisition time. But once an alien vanishes from its view after being spotted, the Sentry returns to its normal mode.
I think energy cost is a reasonable additional cost to Hydra placement BUT not increasing Plasma costs.
Have you considered the costs of changing forms to Gorge ? Have you also considered early game Gorges, and the difficulty that using personal resources pose to a early game Gorge ?
Between the Healspray being pretty weak, and the Gorge spit attack seemingly hard to hit anything with ( oh, please add some hit indicator ), Gorges dont have much to do as it is... not to mention that Gorges in general are vunrable targets, they are relatively big ( fat ) and stick out, plus have poor movement in general ( cant access high vents, dont have a blink like ability to escape ).
The only reason Hydras are a nuisance is due to the lag that spamming them induces, otherwise they would be just a pest that takes a short amount of time to clear out.
If you watched NS2HD's long 161 last build test match, you would of noted that the Marines didnt use the SG's as a solid wall to deny entry, but to cover the base equipment, with clever placement you can set it up so the SG's will cover the base against lone skulks, it forces the Skulk to either take fire from the SG's if the Skulk goes for the Comm or take fire from the Comm if it tries to take out the SG.
Its not like Whips and Hydras can keep the Marines out of Hive areas without player assistance either, so expecting the SG's to area deny by themselves is too much.
Now, instead of being used for area denial, sentry guns are used to support defence of an area by marine players. NS is about two teams of human players, not about two commanders playing tower defence.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The problem is that oftentimes sentry guns are all you have, there is no way to get players to go somewhere other than telling them to and hoping they comply. Even then sentries don't last long enough to be worth the investment.
They are only useful in support of attacks. As defensive measures they're useless. Nobody wants to sit and play base guard which is the only way to actually get any use out of sentries in that role.
I keep saying to hard cap them at 2 per comm chair but make them cheap and powerful, that way you can use them for good defence of an area or in support of an attack, but you can't spam them, and you don't have to worry about them being overpriced.
These structures are not meant to defend your base while your team go off, they are support structures to make it easier to defend / attack.
An aspect of team play is always to balance your offence and defence , all out Offence means you are risking being counter attacked , and obviously all in Defence means your not harrasing / hindering the enemy.
If you are having an issue with keeping team mates around to assist you defending, you are having issues with teamplay ... not a balance issue.