Would the game be better off without static defence?
Wilson
Join Date: 2010-07-26 Member: 72867Members
Join Date: 2010-07-26 Member: 72867Members
Hey, I just wanted to start this discussion and see what everyone thought. Last night I was playing a game and for whatever reason the players decided not to build any turrets or hydras (there were a few whips but it wasn't a big deal). The game was so much more fun (not to mention the server performance was more consistent). The gameplay was a lot quicker, rather than getting stuck in a stalemate position or in a situations where you are pinned down in the same location for ages.
Obviously turrets are overpowered at the moment, but I can't help but feeling that static defences just slow the game down and make it less fun. Right now I can't think of one single situations where turrets or hydras have increased the amount of fun I've had. Even when I've placed them it's always felt kinda cheap. As a team you should be forced to spread out around the map if you want to keep your base defended from all directions. I always think it's better if you are required to engage and fight the other team rather than sitting behind a wall of defences.
It just becomes frustrating even when you have counters to it. You need to spend time getting some nade launchers or ARCS and then slowly moving up. It ends up creating more stalemates and slow games that take ages to progress and (at least for me) aren't as fun. I much prefer the push/pull on the map between the players, rather than locking down areas with defence.
Obviously turrets are overpowered at the moment, but I can't help but feeling that static defences just slow the game down and make it less fun. Right now I can't think of one single situations where turrets or hydras have increased the amount of fun I've had. Even when I've placed them it's always felt kinda cheap. As a team you should be forced to spread out around the map if you want to keep your base defended from all directions. I always think it's better if you are required to engage and fight the other team rather than sitting behind a wall of defences.
It just becomes frustrating even when you have counters to it. You need to spend time getting some nade launchers or ARCS and then slowly moving up. It ends up creating more stalemates and slow games that take ages to progress and (at least for me) aren't as fun. I much prefer the push/pull on the map between the players, rather than locking down areas with defence.
Comments
Marine (Terran) infantries are slow, but due to their ranged firepower, they're difficult to stop once they roll out as a ball. Kharaa (Zerg) units have high mobility and good map control, but are not powerful enough to charge straight at the enemy when equal in numbers.
Essentially, if the Marines move out of their base in small groups, they will be annihilated. If they push together, Kharaas will raze the Marine base before the Marines can reach the Kharaas'. In NS2, we often see aliens rushing the Marine base, wiping out the IPs while the Marines are slowly pushing to the Hive.
So you're right about static defences slowing down the pace of the game. But it also makes the game more forgiving for the defending side. Tweaking the effectiveness of static defense in NS2, however, is very difficult with the flawed current resource system.
Static defences are there to allow the players to move out and actually play, rather than sit around being a base bi... female dog :p
What needs to be done is to limit the numbers of static defences so they cant simply be spammed and must be used intelligently instead... and that will come when the really major work on balancing starts, after the remaining features are added and performance is optimised.
Trying to balance a game where many of the players can barely move due to lag or performance issues is sparta...err madness.
I don't think they need to be completely removed, but the cost of using them should be very high. In NS1, turrets were rarely used as they had a high opportunity cost. OCs were more used but even their usage was limited.
People who enjoy siege maps may like turrets and ocs.
In NS1, base was defended by tactics (as in make sure there's a marine nearby or make it too expensive for aliens to rush), mines or beacon. All of them had their flaws and depth. Turrets were not used for defense beacause of their cost, and it would have added nothing to the game if they were.
I don't think marines in small groups would be annihilated. A marine is better than an individual skulk. I move out by myself often and can take on 2-3 skulks if I play smart. Yes, if I ran into the entire alien team I would die, but then I would relay that info back to my team and they would respond to the threat by pushing more marines up that side.
Part of the reason aliens are so successful at taking out IPs is because there are no commander notifications. Often it will be a while before the commander notices the base is even under attack and a lot of the time it is too late. The marines can always leave 1 or 2 players back in the base to hold off any ninja attacks. Then when they get phase gates it's easy for them to get back to the base quickly if needed.
I also think in the early game the marines shouldn't be straying too far from their base anyway. Yes, the aliens have the mobility advantage but marines can still hold down a few res nodes if they stay in the general area. I often see marines just constantly wanting to push up without thinking about how easy it is for skulks to get behind you and take out your buildings.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Static defences are there to allow the players to move out and actually play,<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't think the aliens would be at a disadvantage without static defences because of their high mobility. Aliens can defend multiple hives because they can move around the map much faster than marines. If they are working well together and scout a lot of marines pushing towards a hive then it should be easy for them to all get back and fight it off.
I also don't think that you would need to sit in your base constantly defending. If you push up one side of the map then you know that marines aren't going to be coming from there. You can hold general areas with a few players rather than building defence. Pushing up and putting pressure on the opposition is the best way to keep them at bay.
You must also consider that in rushing to defence you are not ambushing or selecting the terms of the engagement, you are rushing at speed to a loction the enemy is expecting you to rush to.
Marines will be in the same boat, even with phasegates and such... the difference will be that instead of all on the IP's some will be at the phasegate instead.
Not to mention you also advise the Marines to: ' <i>The marines can always leave 1 or 2 players back in the base to hold off any ninja attacks. </i>'
This is one of the reasons there is a need for static defences, which players get to sit at base while the rest get to rush off ? How do you determine who does what ? What if the player doesnt want to sit at base ?
Again I say the real issue isnt the presence of static defences, its the number of them that is often deployed, and part of that is that Hydras are weak individually and SG's are too vunerable to leap / blink out of the guns arc tricks.
One way to balance the SG would be to limit the number that can be deployed but allow the gun to slowly be able to turn around and fire in a 360 arc ( like the SG's in TF2 , they have a limited sweep arc where they can aim and fire nearly instantly, but are much slower to turn and respond to attacks out of the arc ).
I love hopping around as a skulk and take out turrets one by one =)
currently the static defences have gone overboard on the marine side, but I think with the upcoming changes to turrets and future techs, it will get back to a reasonable level. Not to mention server performance.
why turtle and spam a bazillion turrets when there is fancy techs like exo and jp to get?
and by then onos will most likely be in game and they should be able to level a turret farm.
I don't see turtle tactics being viable later in development, and map control will be increasingly important for marines. witch makes static defences useful for blocking a corridor or similar so a pair of skulks cant just run past, and the marines can focus on the frontlines.
You must also consider that in rushing to defence you are not ambushing or selecting the terms of the engagement, you are rushing at speed to a loction the enemy is expecting you to rush to.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Aliens really can get between hives pretty quickly. Obviously if the marines are standing right next to the hive before you even notice then it's a bit late, but again I think that you should always have players scouting the map to look out for pushes.
For example, lets say you were going for a hive in surface access on summit and you sent most of your team there to defend it. One skulk could go to heli and peak into flight control to give scouting information and do a bit of harass if it's undefended. If he spots 5 marines moving up to heli then you know they are going to try and push the hive. That's plenty of time for the aliens to respond. They can either choose to run back and defend it, or try and push marine start as they know it will take the marines a while to get back.
When you have static defence it removes this need for scouting as much and make it much easier for teams to just sit back rather than constantly trying to see what the enemy is doing and responding to it.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Marines will be in the same boat, even with phasegates and such... the difference will be that instead of all on the IP's some will be at the phasegate instead.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, if you only notice your base is under attack when skulks are chomping on the IPs and phasegates then it's too late. You should have marines spread around the map a bit to watch out for these kind of pushes.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Not to mention you also advise the Marines to: ' <i>The marines can always leave 1 or 2 players back in the base to hold off any ninja attacks. </i>'
This is one of the reasons there is a need for static defences, which players get to sit at base while the rest get to rush off ? How do you determine who does what ? What if the player doesnt want to sit at base ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The marines need to do this currently with static defences anyway. You need a com and at least 1 player to build things. If your base comes under an early attack then the com can hop out and help defend. Once the main buildings are up you still can't all push miles away from the base until the sentry farm is up and running. Once that happens the game just slows down and becomes boring. If the players don't want to defend that's fine, I'm sure some aliens will be happy to chomp on their buildings. Believe it or not but having static defence actually causes more boring play because you are engaging with other players less. I'm happy to build up the base and react to threats in flight control and vent at the start of the game, it's fun.
If you can imagine CO + depleteduranium/cybernetic upgrades + commander/s, then that's ns2 without static defense.
When there are better commander notifications you won't see so many ninja attacks on the IPs.
Seriously... one of the main reasons for turret spam is there's nothing else to put those points into. Give commanders better options, and they'll do something else. Until we have those better options, though, most of those res go to waste unless farms are getting built (and farms, of course, are annoying).
The Zerg Queen in SCII for example, is so slow off of Creep that she's essentially bound to it, which makes her a (very weak) mobile base-defense early game. She doesn't need gamey tower balance because she's controlled by the Commander like other units, and while her implementation in SCII doesn't make her the best defense against anything short of a Drone rush, it's still an interesting concept that perhaps could be expanded on.
Marines and aliens both need defenses to protect their bases against rambo rushes. If either team secures an area, they should be able to place defenses to assist holding that area. If you remove defenses, it's too easy for either team to rush in and take out a hive or multiple marine buildings. Turrets and hydras should be effective in limited use, but not to the point where they dominate the game (i.e. marines spend the entire time taking down alien defenses instead of battling alien players and vice versa).
However, the proper role of static defenses should be to slow down an attack, not stop it. In SC1/2, there are no static defenses that can't be broken, but they usually required time and firepower to do so. For NS2, I think this could be fixed by
1. Limiting the number of static defenses in a given area
2. Improving the aliens anti-structure attacks/class (i.e. make bilebomb more useful and release the onos)
But on some places you need one or two hydras/sentries to defent you positioon.. like the growing hive or the IPs in marine base (especially since the game is losts if you loose all your IPs.. no matter if you have an active commander)
At the momend, I prefer the limitation we use in clanwars.
- limit sentries (2 max per RT)
- limit hydras (3 max per RT)
This limits the spam, but you can still secure strategic positions and it forces you plant your turrets/hydras in a more strategic way as well.
2. But make the static defense things a bit more powerful and expensive. It would encourage thinking of the whole base placement. For example, from the get go, think of where to build the IPs so that the turret can cover them later.
Why are two different games being played?
For one, HUD and COMM info is lacking. So response is downright poor when it comes to defending areas of the map.
As for the sentries, I dont think they will work until they are like chess pieces for blocking particular areas of the map.
30-40 Team Res
Very Powerful
Auto-Reload - Takes 10 seconds
You'd only see a few on the map, and they'd actually be useful in both public and clan games.
Win win.
I will be interested to see the upcoming patch, I will be surprised if it works.
If they are cheap, they have to be useless. If they are useless, they have to be cheap. It always leads to spam, and is killing the marine vs alien gameplay.
I don't actually see a problem with the above possible solution?
I just played a game where we didn't place sentries and we had to keep running around the map killing hives. We killed 4 but every time one died it just got replaced by another one and without using sentries there wasn't much we could do.
IMO it would be much better if the <b>team res limit was 50 instead of 999.</b> This would mean that if an alien team placed a hive that they would be back down to 0 and would at least need to wait a while before placing another. It would also stop massive amounts of team res accumulating late game and would force the aliens to keep defending their extractors. Having such a high limit just leads to the res becoming meaningless because you have so much you don't need to make any choices.
Perhaps there should also be a lower limit on Pres as well to encourage players to spend it once the limit is reached and to stop loads of hydras being placed at once.
Currently extractors importance decreases as the game goes on. If there were lower limits on res it would mean you would require a constant supply throughout the game and this would make extractors just as important in the late game.
It will be to easy for marines to stop the 2nd hive and you cant do strategies like double/fake hive.
Of course, that does none of us any good right now...
<ul>* notifications broken
* low playercount games
* people with ADD don't want to defend
* spawning too slow, movement too slow, maps too big for rush back to base to be practical</li></ul>
Looking deeper, I don't think we should confuse two different issues.
1) Is static-D inherently evil? I say no. It has a place in the game, as it does in all RTS type games. Done right, it adds a viable strategy to the game. The ability to slow (not stop) an attack, to literally "buy time." And the ability to ward off scouting forces.
2) Is the NS2 static-D bad? Well, of course. But that's only because the game isn't finished. As the siege breakers get implemented, and sentries get tweaked, these issues will vanish.
it is useful for areas that cannot be monitored
it also provides more of a atmosphere
I think the main problem is that they are not capped in any sort of way.
1) hard limits
2) multiple of hive/cc owned <---problem is marines do not occupy
3) the resource nodes expire
I have been suggesting the resource nodes expire for some time now.
A good portion of RTS games have resources that expire.
It forces more expansion in general.
It makes buying things more of a debate. Currently games can run until both sides buy every upgrade.
It would force pub games to end.
My hope would be that this leads to pub players wanting to beat the clock. (Invade before we are out of res)
You could even be gentler and not have the resources totally expire but slow to drip, but this could lead to confusion
between the commander and units.
nope.
Why are two different games being played?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Same reason classes are weeded out in TF2 competitive, characters are weeded out in fighting games competitively, classes are weeded out in high-end raiding/pvp in MMO's, etc etc.
*if* your team is awesome with a few select methods, they will not need other methods. This is not a bad thing. It would be much worse if a life form was useless or a marine weapon was useless.
> Shotgun > Portal > Hive
Just as lockable doors can change the game dynamics, I'd like to see sentries changing map control and route dynamics.
But like I say, not possible when they can be spammed.
I think I saw every weapon used in different ways in clan matches.