They are slow, weak and need protection for long distances + can only be healed via MACs. => you need a highly coordinated marine team(or very very bad alien team) to get it even close to a hive, and for distances like summit marine start to alien start - i dont think its even possible. (all it takes is a quick marine base rush - so they either have to beacon away from the arc, or make a base trade - which is not really viable usually :P)
So you need a phasegate next to an arc to really defend it.
PS: Aliens need some kind of beacon with cooldown too, if your team is dead and 1 single marine is alive at your hive - its over and i dont think this will get better if we get a usefull arc some time in the future.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #1: Have base defenses be a scalar of nearby players, but not very effective on their own. This means that where players are is the ultimate determinant of who will win a battle there. Ie, base defenses fall without players nearby to support them. Seems like a good idea in general.
Idea #2: Reduce health of power nodes. I have a feeling we’re not seeing a lot of power-outage recently.
Idea #3: Increase spawn times somewhat, and/or address spawn times on aliens. They are still spawning fast and it’s hard for marines to get momentum when they attack a hive room.
Idea #5: Increase sentry offense but reduce health, making them ultimately easier to whittle down.
Idea #6: Fix bug where ARCs can’t be repaired by MACs.
Idea #7: Give ability to aliens which allow skulks to be protected (Lerk umbra is the obvious one) so they can take out structures late-game.
Idea #8: Give points incrementally when damaging structures, instead of only when it’s destroyed (encourages teamwork, but this is soft).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Idea#1
This isn't going to help stale mates, since the whole reason there are stalemates to begin with is because all the marines are holding up in marine start and don't have the manpower to push anywhere else, making it hard to make the final blow since they have a room full of marines, this would just make marines even more effective if they all bunch up in one room, and discourages them to move outward because then they will become more spread out and make rooms less defensible if the number of marines in a room is proportionally related to how many marines are in the room.
Idea#2
I don't know if it really would make a difference what the health of power nodes would make other than to take out the power in marine start, i wouldn't really recommend it since if they become too weak then marines will just build power packs more often, making power nodes make a lesser impact on the game.
Idea#3
I'm not sure increasing alien spawn time would really help since most stalemates occur when marines are stuck in marine start, thus making it harder for aliens to make the final blow since if they die they already go through the much longer spawn time, and have to travel accross the map, and possibly re-evolve. It definitely would make it easier to attack aliens who only have 1 hive though, but it's already not too hard to take out aliens who never get a 2nd hive.
Idea#5
This could potentially work as a temporary solution, but i hope we would then re-store sentries when Onos gets involved. Gorge bile bomb damaging MAC's makes sentries already easier to destroy.
Idea#6
I would like this, not really because of stale mates, but makes ARC's much less of a pain to use, and would probably encourage people to use them more often.
Idea#7
Like people have said in the fundamental design of chamber abilities, allowing the commander to target the location of Umbra, or Fury would help out so much.
<i>Idea #1: Have base defenses be a scalar of nearby players, but not very effective on their own. This means that where players are is the ultimate determinant of who will win a battle there. Ie, base defenses fall without players nearby to support them. Seems like a good idea in general.</i>
This is already the case, defences are useless on their own, and only somewhat helpful with players around, it isn't a good idea because it makes defences in general useless, the point of base defences in an RTS is to make it so that you don't need to have units constantly guarding the base, they're supposed to simplify base defence by allowing you to build a few defence structures which work better than an equivalent amount of money spent on units, and cover more area more reliably. This is offset by having them be weak against specific units, usually end game ones, which you already have in the form of the onos and the ARC.
Defences aren't the problem, you can't nerf them any more than you already have, the problem is neither side has any sort of tanking ability, attacking a base directly means your mobility is useless, your stealth is useless, and your health is severely strained, as neither side has anything capable of getting beat up a lot, they have no way to stay in a base long enough to do damage to it, aliens suffer from limited firepower, marines suffer from limited health, but both have no tank units, and both have severe need for them.
<i>Idea #2: Reduce health of power nodes. I have a feeling we’re not seeing a lot of power-outage recently.</i>
They die extremely quickly to more than one alien attacking them, the problem is that attacking power nodes in a base is generally pointless as any half intelligent commander will put power packs near the IP and armory. Further, it's a general symptom of lack of tanks, as if you can't get into the base to destroy buildings, why would you be able to get in to destroy the power node? Unless you plan to make the power node so weak that all other buildings are pointless to attack, because it's simply easier to kill the power node and disable them all (which is already the case actually, power nodes are generally right behind IPs as a prime target for aliens) you aren't going to make power nodes any more desirable to attadck.
<i>Idea #3: Increase spawn times somewhat, and/or address spawn times on aliens. They are still spawning fast and it’s hard for marines to get momentum when they attack a hive room.</i>
Again, because they have no tanks, you'd have to slow spawns down a hell of a lot to make up for the time it takes marines to spawn with their crappy IP-limited spawn times and armory equip times and travel times to get to the hive, only to die in a few seconds to the first thing that attacks them. Marines have no trouble getting to a hive in numbers, they just die too quickly once they're there.
<i>Idea #4: Increase rifle starting ammo. A slightly different but related problem is the fact that marines have difficulty winning the game early. Having enough ammo to take out a hive would help and I can’t think of a downside (except a little less support is necessary from the comm).</i>
People don't use rifles on hives, most people fill up on their rifle ammo before they leave anyway, doesn't make a difference, you can't carry enough ammo to make the rifle a practical weapon for base killing. Hell people don't use rifles in general because shotguns are universally better, the only reason to use a rifle is if you don't have any money for a shotgun. I also don't think that making the game revolve around completely stonewalling alien expansion from the very start is a good idea, marine shouldn't have to viciously contest the first hive, otherwise you're essentially saying that aliens should win as soon as they get past starting gear.
<i>Idea #5: Increase sentry offense but reduce health, making them ultimately easier to whittle down.</i>
This would buff them, not nerf them, sentries already die if you look at them funny, their strength is in their added firepower and numbers, you build half a dozen sentries and they're going to be hard to kill even if they all die in one hit, especially if they do some appreciable damage.
<i>Idea #6: Fix bug where ARCs can’t be repaired by MACs.</i>
Arcs should be repairable by marines, in fact everything should be repairable by marines, if you aren't going to put the welder in soon, just make E weld work on everything.
<i>Idea #7: Give ability to aliens which allow skulks to be protected (Lerk umbra is the obvious one) so they can take out structures late-game.</i>
Or alternatively, make skulks better. If there is an ability which works on skulks to make them tougher, it's going to work a hell of a lot better on fades or lerks, probably to the point of being horribly overpowered, which means you'll nerf it to compensate, thus making skulks useless again. The problem with skulks is that they're terrible and have no role in the late game due to fades being a universally better option, much like the rifle and the shotgun. Obviously you could fix the rifle by giving it an important late game damage type (heavy springs to mind) because it's a perfectly servicable gun in all other respects. Skulks however suck because they die quickly, are easy to shoot, and don't do anything important. They aren't a good building destroyer, gorges are better at that, as a lerks for that matter. They aren't good tanks because they have rubbish health, they're just a weak alien. I would suggest retooling either the fade or the skulk into a more tanky sort of class, and keeping the other as a more damage dealer sort of class, you don't need two glass cannons.
<i>Idea #8: Give points incrementally when damaging structures, instead of only when it’s destroyed (encourages teamwork, but this is soft).</i>
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1872009:date=Aug 29 2011, 08:03 PM:name=Koruyo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Koruyo @ Aug 29 2011, 08:03 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1872009"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->They are slow, weak and need protection for long distances + can only be healed via MACs. => you need a highly coordinated marine team(or very very bad alien team) to get it even close to a hive, and for distances like summit marine start to alien start - i dont think its even possible. (all it takes is a quick marine base rush - so they either have to beacon away from the arc, or make a base trade - which is not really viable usually :P)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Anything an ARC can do, 5 marines with GLs can do better :) Also, marine TRes is usually more constrained than PRes, making ARCs cost prohibitive in most cases.
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited August 2011
Re: Stalemates
Some of my observations:
I find that Marines usually do not have much trouble finishing off the Kharaa, because: <ol type='1'><li>Slow egg spawning (especially with large teams).</li><li>One Hive aliens are very weak against max tech Marines.</li><li>ARCs and Sentries can help break any defenses Kharaas have.</li><li>During late game, Marines suffer less down time, with fast weapon re-purchasing/switching, Phase Gates teleport, and Beacon.</li></ol>
On the other hand, Kharaa have trouble finishing Marines due to: <ol type='1'><li>Sentries & ranged Marine weapons - Most aliens lack the health to survive long against the combined fire power of Marines and Sentries. Skulks and Fades can deal respectable damage to structures, but only if they can stay alive. Gorge is the only available "siege unit", but does not deal enough damage against Sentries.</li><li>Weapon recycling - Marines almost never lose their advanced weapons, when they respawn almost next to where they dropped their weapons.</li><li>Beacon - a longer cooldown is very much needed.</li><li>All of the above factors make turtling Marines very resistant to attrition.</li></ol>
From design log: <!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #2: Reduce health of power nodes. I have a feeling we’re not seeing a lot of power-outage recently.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Power outage can be catastrophic for Marines before they can afford Power Packs. On the other hand, the high health of Power Nodes are making them unattractive targets, as they're often protected by multiple marines and/or Sentries. <!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->If damaging a Power Node partially can make a noticeable game impact (eg. Sentries becoming disabled when a PN is almost destroyed), then they will become more important points of conflict.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #3: Increase spawn times somewhat, and/or address spawn times on aliens. They are still spawning fast and it’s hard for marines to get momentum when they attack a hive room.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Frankly, that is not necessary. We're already experiencing long spawning queues on the alien side in large games. It only takes one direct hit from a Grenade, or an upgraded Shotgun to kill an egg. One or two Marines can spawn camp a Hive to prevent any egg from hatching. If anything needs to change, aliens need a mean to respawn <b>faster</b> on one hive, as Marines can build two, or three (or even more) Infantry portals to respawn faster from just one base.
There's an idea I have that may help make respawn timers scale better in larger pub games: What if: <!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->Each Infantry Portal respawns marines faster (eg. every 8 seconds), but each player has a minimum death time (~10 seconds).<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> For example, with 8 dead marines in a 16v16 game, it takes 40 seconds to respawn all 8 marines from 2 Infantry Portals. With the proposed change, it would take 34 seconds for all 8 Marines to respawn. The first two marines would respawn from the two IPs after 10 seconds. But after that, each IP would spawn one marine every 8 seconds (for those who have already spent at least 10 seconds dead).
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #5: Increase sentry offense but reduce health, making them ultimately easier to whittle down.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> However, Sentries need to be tough enough to be worth their cost. I offer a suggestion: <!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->Instead, allow Sentries to be crippled (or disabled) as their health drop.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> This will allow Aliens to harrass undefended Sentries and wear them out, but Marines will not lose all their investment if they retake control. I also like the idea to allow marine to repair all Marine structures (especially Power, Sentries and Extractors).
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #7: Give ability to aliens which allow skulks to be protected (Lerk umbra is the obvious one) so they can take out structures late-game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->The unimplemented Crag optional upgrades (eg. Carapace) should sufficiently buff Skulks' survival late game. A late-game upgrade that provides a "second life", which resurrects dead Skulks would increase their up-time dramatically.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> IMO Skulks should not be leading the van of late-game assaults, as their role is to deal damage. If (Whip) Fury buffs aliens for longer (~20 seconds), then Skulks will be able to deal much more damage in the first few seconds of the attack (after receiving Fury from a forward base).
I definitely think static defence needs to be pretty weak when there are no players around. Hydras are like this once marines get nade launchers (imo the rifle and pistol should be more effective against hydras - it's quite hard to shoot them right now), but sentries can lock down areas for too long even when there are no marines around.
I think power nodes health being reduced is a good idea. At the moment it just takes too long to destroy/repair them. (I also really like having a period of complete darkness when the power is first cut out. Perhaps this should be made a bit longer to encourage aliens to time cutting the power as the marines move into the area.)
I agree that the aliens spawn a little too fast which can make it hard for the marines to push them early game. The danger of making it too long though is that 1 marine could sneak into the hive and prevent all spawns too easily. Perhaps giving the alien com (or gorge) and ability to regrow all the eggs instantly would be a good way to prevent this. It would sort of be like the alien version of beacon. Or just have more eggs spawn in more locations - on summit once you have killed all the eggs the first one always respawns right next to the hive so it's easy to just sit there and keep preventing spawns.
I don't want to see the sentry buffed at all. It's already too strong IMO and can be very frustrating for the aliens to play against. I would like to see reduced health and in general more ways for the alien team to deal with them.
The game already starts in a bit of a sudden death mode for marines. They need to get their IPs up and if they don't defend their base it can be game over pretty quickly. Perhaps the aliens should start with no eggs and they should slowly generate in the first few minutes to balance this out. Again though I feel you need to be careful with changes like this as it might make a rambo marine rushing the hive too effective.
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
When it comes to stalemates, I think the major problem the aliens has is that they can't translate resources into any game advantage. The only thing they can do is to build crag/whip outposts but they need to be kept away from the marine base as otherwise they will just get wiped out by ARCs and scans, so they don't have any real impact on the game.
Compare that with the marines, whose sentries and ARCS are useful and much, much harder to kill. Marines have no problems in translating a resource advantage into a game win - ARCS and sentries stay useful the whole game, as the aliens have no counter to them.
I'd like to see aliens being able to usefully spend their team res late in the game. One way might be to evolve team-wide assault abilities, like spending 50 team res to give all aliens 1 level of fury for one minute - repeatable and stackable. Maybe add another 50 res ability to give them an ignore death abiliity for a while (aliens keep fighting 10 seconds after they die)... or have all aliens extrude umbra... details doesn't really matter, the point being that if the marines lets the alien stack up 200+ team res, aliens should be able to crack even the most well-defended marine base.
Useful ways to spend personal res for temporary boosts would also be welcome. Paying a pres to trigger a whips Fury ability would certainly see it used more often. Maybe using a crag to get a temporary regeneration boost or some temporary armor could be useful as well.
Aliens have an energy bottleneck at mid-late game. They can't take advantage of owning the entire map as well as marines. Drifters should probably cost something other than energy.
Also, healing in the hive takes too long - even with a couple crags to support. It needs to be brought back to NS1 levels (doubled) so that marines don't have as much time to recover between assaults and aliens can finish the game faster. It's often necessary to build healing stations of 6+ crags before aliens can win.
But really, changing those things will only help so much. The resource model is going to need to be looked at eventually. At least consider changing med/ammo cost to team resources so that the marine team can better invest in a early game push. It would also reduce sentry spam because sentries would then have to compete with med/ammo.
fanaticThis post has been edited.Join Date: 2003-07-23Member: 18377Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
edited August 2011
<!--quoteo(post=1872020:date=Aug 30 2011, 06:05 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Aug 30 2011, 06:05 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1872020"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is already the case, defences are useless on their own, and only somewhat helpful with players around, it isn't a good idea because it makes defences in general useless, the point of base defences in an RTS is to make it so that you don't need to have units constantly guarding the base, they're supposed to simplify base defence by allowing you to build a few defence structures which work better than an equivalent amount of money spent on units, and cover more area more reliably. This is offset by having them be weak against specific units, usually end game ones, which you already have in the form of the onos and the ARC.
Defences aren't the problem, you can't nerf them any more than you already have, the problem is neither side has any sort of tanking ability, attacking a base directly means your mobility is useless, your stealth is useless, and your health is severely strained, as neither side has anything capable of getting beat up a lot, they have no way to stay in a base long enough to do damage to it, aliens suffer from limited firepower, marines suffer from limited health, but both have no tank units, and both have severe need for them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Have we been playing the same game? The vast majority of rounds I've played in 185 devolved into massive turretspam followed by an incredibly slow but inevitable marine win. Turrets are overpowered if anything.
Uhh, I don't believe turrets to be that overpowered. If there's only like 3-4 in a room it's easy to find the one not being covered take it down, then find the nextd and the next. The problem with turrets is when they are mass spammed in a room 7-10. Each one is covering another one, and just enough so that it can also aim at aliens coming into the room.
But turrets in themselves are very weak and easily destroyed.
I put up the idea that power nodes after destroyed the 2nd time. Their full health percentage decreases, so destroy a power node 2 times, when rebuilt it's at 80%, destroyed again, 60%, until it can no longer be repaired again.
Another idea I put forward was how the amount of energy that is regained should depend on how many power nodes you have up. If you only have marine spawn power node up, then energy should come in very slowly, which would eventually lead to not having the energy to beacon (which should happen.) Also for late game if you have a bunch of power nodes up, then it should be regained quickly, so it's obvious that you have control of the map. (or should). This would pretty much make power packs used a lot more. (Because right now... yeah.. they aren't being used so much)
<!--quoteo(post=1872123:date=Aug 30 2011, 07:14 PM:name=fanatic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fanatic @ Aug 30 2011, 07:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1872123"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Have we been playing the same game? The vast majority of rounds I've played in 185 devolved into massive turretspam followed by an incredibly slow but inevitable marine win. Turrets are overpowered if anything.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That only works if marines are supporting the turrets.
Unsupported turrets will be absolutely massacred by gorges, spamming them only makes them easier to kill due to bile bomb having a blast radius.
Like I said, turrets work if marines support them because they provide extra firepower and something else to shoot, as actual defences however they're bloody useless, all they do is buy time, they don't deter attacks from anything other than a skulk.
It's marines that make turret spam a problem, not turrets, turrets don't do enough damage on their own and don't have enough health, marines on the other hand do quite a lot of damage and are impervious to the things that kill turrets.
So I had a thought, why not have the aliens get like 6 eggs but the alien comm can use P Res to drop a egg on infest within a certain proximity to the hive? this would allow aliens to continue to spawn in the case of egg camping since they wont know where the egg will drop and could provide something similar to beacon for aliens that would allow them to spawn more of the team if strapped to one hive. Just a thought?
<!--quoteo(post=1872209:date=Aug 31 2011, 03:16 AM:name=WasabiOne)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (WasabiOne @ Aug 31 2011, 03:16 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1872209"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So I had a thought, why not have the aliens get like 6 eggs but the alien comm can use P Res to drop a egg on infest within a certain proximity to the hive? this would allow aliens to continue to spawn in the case of egg camping since they wont know where the egg will drop and could provide something similar to beacon for aliens that would allow them to spawn more of the team if strapped to one hive. Just a thought?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1872196:date=Aug 30 2011, 05:49 PM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Aug 30 2011, 05:49 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1872196"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That only works if marines are supporting the turrets.
Unsupported turrets will be absolutely massacred by gorges, spamming them only makes them easier to kill due to bile bomb having a blast radius.
Like I said, turrets work if marines support them because they provide extra firepower and something else to shoot, as actual defences however they're bloody useless, all they do is buy time, they don't deter attacks from anything other than a skulk.
It's marines that make turret spam a problem, not turrets, turrets don't do enough damage on their own and don't have enough health, marines on the other hand do quite a lot of damage and are impervious to the things that kill turrets.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pretty much this, Sentries are so useless on their own, especially now that Bile bomb damages MAC's it really only takes 1 determined gorge to take down an entire undefended room full of sentries, and there is no way the commander can repair them all since you can't afford to replace every MAC going down.
The problem with stalemates is precisely because when the marines are contained within their start, the sentries are much harder to take out because the marines are there as meat-shields, keeping aliens at bay just enough to keep the base alive, which includes sentries that make the marine's job easier, but in no way shape or form can take the place of the marines. Fade's can do what they can after being nerfed for practically the past 10 patches, and Gorges can only do so much when there self heal has been reduced to 50% of what it was before, and you've got the entire marine team holed up defending what little space they have left.
Yes, turrets die easily when not defended, but they're still light years ahead of hydras at the moment simply because of Grenade Launchers.
The problems are pretty evident from what I've seen in 185. First, the aliens get a hive first, lock the marines in the base, the turrets plus marines spawning in base make it impossible for the aliens to advance so they sit on it and tech up. Then they get grenade launchers and the entries to marine start become a veritable constant explosion, forcing the aliens back. Then the marines push out at high tech levels and the aliens have no counters. Marines fortify forward positions with sentries and keep pushing out. If they fail to push, the marines/aliens get bored and leave, the teams become unbalanced, and the game ends due to overwhelming numbers.
Adding onos as it is would cause serious problems, yes, we need teir 3 stuff, but aliens would almost inevitably reach T3 before marines and then you'd just end up with the same scenario but the aliens would also bust into MS with Onos and butcher everyone.
If you want the game to last attacking a defensive point has to be a big undertaking, but not a common undertaking. This means turrets (and hydras) need to be good, very good, but they need to be limited to areas well under control so they don't suddenly become offensive weapons. Maybe they could be upgraded or the like, but a large part of RTS game play and NS2 is taking and holding land. Since you can't have players constantly sitting on points waiting for attacks, you need AI to take main control of defending from anything but a coordinated and serious push. This leaves us with a serious problem in NS2 maps, there isn't any "No Man's Land." The area in between the two fortifications that the two sides clash in as they try to push forward. The maps are small and constrained, which means you end up with travel from marine start to alien start and the reverse, as very quick.
Defenses need to be strong in NS2 because without them, players are relegated to eternally sitting around and defending areas, the defenses need to be slow to build however, something you couldn't put down until firm control over an area had been achieved. Gameplay needs a distinct purpose and focus to be fun and engaging, and the actions you take must be fairly evident without tons of study. Right now the game play is messy. Everyone is everywhere, running around, doing random things, lone people are serious threats to entire bases and ultimately it's like playing a small scale FPS trying to pretend its a massive battle game.
Some things I've noticed: 1: There's a lot of "irritating" game play aspects in the RTS section, mainly Cysts and lone resource towers. Cyst chains are obnoxious busy work to keep up, especially when its constantly some random marine killing one cyst. It's annoying to build the chain, it's annoying to have to constantly put more down, it's annoying that one person can cause a bunch of headache that rather than adding a fun game play aspect, just requires finding the area it's been cut from and plopping down yet another one, like the equivalent of trying to get a smoke alarm to shut up, digging around in drawers looking for the stupid batteries. Same with resource towers, you put them down, 5 minutes later some lone skulk eats it, and you need another one yet again. There's so many of them you can't have marines guarding them all without totally negating any forward momentum you have, so you just sigh and place yet another tower to be killed 5 minutes later yet again.
2: The game play encourages avoidance. Game play is all about lone skulks and marines making life a pain in the ass for the commander of the opposing team. It's much easier to kill a base due to it not currently being looked at than it is to actually form and assault an enemy defended base. In the end, I don't think we want a game of flag tag, we don't want a game that emphasizes avoiding the enemy to attack their structures, but that is exactly what weak defenses encourage, that we go to undefended bases because enemy players are what make bases hard to assail, not their defenses. In short, base defenses should be there not to delay, but to utterly butcher loners trying to ninja a base without support so that the game doesn't become an endless set of reactions.
You need game play to focus on players fighting players and to do that, you need to focus players on important locations. That means that any lone players should die quite readily to any base defenses the commander has set up, while base defenses should fail against coordinated assaults leaving players to battle players. Get rid of avoidance based game play, get rid of lone players decimating structures, encourage team play by giving obvious focal points to fight at rather than having random individuals running around in random points. The game has to decide whether it's a battle game, where two sides clash, or a atmospheric shooter where people make their way through a detailed environment on alert for random dangers. NS2 is trying to do too many genre's in my opinion.
I couldn't disagree more with you azimaith. Turrets don't need to be very good at all. They need to be weak and simply delay the enemy team a little if they are no players around. You don't need defence in every area where you have buildings. If it were possible to lock down every area like you are suggesting then it would become very boring. Fighting would take place in one part of the map and there wouldn't be any option to do anything else.
The best form of defence is attack. This is true in RTS games as well as FPS. If you are pushing on the enemies hive then you don't need to worry about defending your RT in heliport because if the enemy chooses to attack that, they will leave their base undefended and you will win the game. If 5 skulks are rushing your base then they don't need to worry about the guy shooting their RT in crevice because that's just one less player to help defend at the base.
The key thing is balancing when you attack and when you defend and deciding when to push on the enemy and from what part of the map. Locking down the map with static defence would completely destroy this aspect of gameplay.
I think I understand where you're coming from. I get the impression that you've played some public games where your team mates have been pretty clueless and not defended your buildings. This has led you to become frustrated, which is understandable, but I don't think it means that more powerful defence is required. When you play with a team of players who listen and communicate then it's very hard for a lone skulk to do any kind of significant damage.
You don't need to constantly babysit RTs. You can defend multiple areas on one side of the map by moving through and then pushing up and putting pressure on the enemy. If you leave your base undefended then the enemy should be able to do damage. With things like phase gates and beacon, moving around to where you are needed is easy. Yes, there are some problems with commander notifications etc. at the moment, but those will be improved eventually - more powerful static defence is not the answer.
While posting in this thread I just wanted to mention something else. I think the alien spawning system needs to be changed. Right now, the aliens spawn too quickly when there are lots of eggs around but too slowly in big games where many players are dying (sometimes I've had to wait up to 60 seconds to respawn). I think the egg regeneration rate should be changed back to what it was a couple of builds ago, but there should be some other limit to stop super quick respawns (maybe an 8 second respawn timer for aliens regardless of how many eggs there are?). Or maybe a limit is needed on the number of aliens that can hatch at once. I definitely think it needs to be looked at though.
I'd also like to see how infestation would work if instead of slowing the marines down it increased the speed of aliens. I think the slowing of marines makes it harder for them to push into the alien hive. By changing it you would still keep the alien combat advantage without this passive disadvantage for marines. I also think that cysts should have more health closer to the hive and a cloaking upgrade / way of hiding them (perhaps making only the last cyst in the chain visible, until it is destroyed and then you can see the next one).
In general I still don't understand why there must be such emphasis in turrets.
In NS1 mines ended up being more versatile, interesting and dynamic in almost every aspect. They make excellent use of the fact that NS works in full 3D enviroment with lifeforms that are capable of using each and every surface and angle. All in all I always thought the mines were brilliantly combining the RTS and FPS worlds rather than just trying to mimic an already somewhat dull RTS concept of static defence.
<!--quoteo(post=1872233:date=Aug 31 2011, 02:26 AM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Aug 31 2011, 02:26 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1872233"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I also think that cysts should have more health closer to the hive and a cloaking upgrade / way of hiding them (perhaps making only the last cyst in the chain visible, until it is destroyed and then you can see the next one).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
When I see 2 hydras and a crag somewhere, I just run past them and and kill the next 2 cysts, then I go back and try to snipe the First cyst and a hydra. then I close in for axing the crag. And if I die the othe rhydras will expire from itself.
= Alot of alien res/energy wasted by a vanilla marine.
fanaticThis post has been edited.Join Date: 2003-07-23Member: 18377Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
<!--quoteo(post=1872237:date=Aug 31 2011, 09:34 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Bacillus @ Aug 31 2011, 09:34 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1872237"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In general I still don't understand why there must be such emphasis in turrets.
In NS1 mines ended up being more versatile, interesting and dynamic in almost every aspect. They make excellent use of the fact that NS works in full 3D enviroment with lifeforms that are capable of using each and every surface and angle. All in all I always thought the mines were brilliantly combining the RTS and FPS worlds rather than just trying to mimic an already somewhat dull RTS concept of static defence.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This.
IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
Unfortunately with mines being limited to the mac, mines won't see the amount of versatility and use as it's ns1 brethren. (Wall mines, ceiling mines, mine jumping, and you need a mac to place them.) And currently it's much easier to lockdown a place with turrets.
swalkSay hello to my little friend.Join Date: 2011-01-20Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #2: Reduce health of power nodes? I have a feeling we’re not seeing a lot of power-outage recently.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Don't do this please, power nodes are already the weakest link on in the marines defenses. And a health nerf would be out of place. It would also encourage baserushing even more. <!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #5: Increase sentry offense but reduce health, making them ultimately easier to whittle down.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This would be a good thing, maybe a cost increase also? Try 15. Or even better, make them cost personal res for the commander. That would make them equal to hydras (compared to res costs). And sentryspam in endgame will be decreased alot, since you keep getting team res in that you cant use for anything else than turrets. You need personal res for meds/ammo/weapons. Sentrys support marines, personal res is the commanders support pool. <!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #7: Give ability to aliens which allow skulks to be protected (Lerk umbra is the obvious one) so they can take out structures late-game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes, this is much needed for those sentrys. And later on for the exosuits. <!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #8: Give points incrementally when damaging structures, instead of only when it’s destroyed (encourages teamwork, but this is soft).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yeah thats quite soft :P Skulks are already happy chewing an extractor.
IeptBarakatThe most difficult name to speak ingame.Join Date: 2009-07-10Member: 68107Members, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow
edited August 2011
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #2: Reduce health of power nodes? I have a feeling we’re not seeing a lot of power-outage recently.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Possible reason as to why this is the case, is that every marine can repair nodes without cost. You spend money on a gorge to bile a node, and 5 rines come around the corner to kill you and instantly repair the node without fees.
Once the nodes require a welder or mac to repair. They will probably be taken out more.
<!--quoteo(post=1872302:date=Aug 31 2011, 04:54 PM:name=IeptBarakat)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (IeptBarakat @ Aug 31 2011, 04:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1872302"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Once the nodes require a welder or mac to repair. They will probably be taken out more.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's kind of like saying aliens need to tech up a bit and spend money in order to build a hive, or an extractor, or any structure.
The reason marines can repair power nodes without cost is because they need them in order to build any structures, to expand. If five marines are working on a room that's a pretty major investment on the marines' part. Building nodes with smaller groups is very slow.
I don't honestly see the problem with power nodes, I always take out the power node if it's open, obviously you take out other things first, which is as it should be, if the marines build a base you should have to actually attack the base, you know? Not just run for the power node and ignore everything else. Power nodes are an excellent way for aliens on the ground to turn a room to their favour if nothing else is available, and they know that, aliens on the frontline will quite quickly take out a power node, a good place you will see this happen is flight control on summit, if aliens are skirmishing in that room they'll kill the node, because keeping structures up is hard in that room, but the power node is quite helpful to aliens.
If you want to make power nodes die more, make infestation kill them, the main situation I see power nodes being left up is if the room is already taken and nobody wants to sit and do mindless busy work by killing nodes behind the lines.
swalkSay hello to my little friend.Join Date: 2011-01-20Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
edited August 2011
<!--quoteo(post=1872304:date=Aug 31 2011, 04:00 PM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Aug 31 2011, 04:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1872304"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you want to make power nodes die more, make infestation kill them, the main situation I see power nodes being left up is if the room is already taken and nobody wants to sit and do mindless busy work by killing nodes behind the lines.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>+1</b> (Reactor Core :P)
Kill them, over time.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->- Add cooldown to distress beacon (maybe even global)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> No, make it cost 15 team res instead, this will prevent stalemates alot. If marines only have their base left, they won't have the res to keep using distress beacon. Right now, having several observatories gives you infinite beacon, with no relation to how the team is doing economical wise. This is also the way it worked in NS1.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->- This is out of left-field but: what if players on both sides couldn’t respawn until a few minutes into the game? Ie, the game starts in a kind of sudden-death mode? Or if spawn times were limited early and increased over time? This could also be only on the alien side, and completely controlled by the hive spawning eggs over time. This could add a delicious early-game tension. Thinking.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> That would make the early game even more unpredictable, and it would be very boring with all the waiting. Have eggs spawning in 16 random locations near the hive. All around the room, some near the hive, some hidden from sight. And for the hive not to seem like its spammed with eggs, let a hive have a maximum of 6 eggs to balance it. Also aliens should be able to choose which egg they want to spawn from. This would do the trick.
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited August 2011
Re: Squads & Making game easier to learn
Visual indications and tooltips should be sufficient to educate and encourage players to stay together.
It would be great if Power Nodes emit light, so curious new players will investigate them. Right now, they're just boring looking boxes that blend into the environment.
Marines, too, blend into the background visually. It can also be difficult to gauge the team's presence when the marines don't have their flashlights on. Visually, if each marine carry a stronger presence (eg highlights, or glowing lights), visible to their own team, it would be much more psychologically encouraging for marines to group together.
On the game-play side, players need to be able to check teammates' health at a glance. Hints should prompt Marines to weld damaged armor, and Gorges with hints to heal their fellows.
aeroripperJoin Date: 2005-02-25Member: 42471NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
edited August 2011
As far as any tutorial type system that may be implemented in NS2, PLEASE try to mimic the one found in the L4D series\Portal 2 as much as possible. I don't think a separate tutorial is the way to go, but should be worked into the game itself.
AsranielJoin Date: 2002-06-03Member: 724Members, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
<!--quoteo(post=1872511:date=Sep 1 2011, 03:24 PM:name=kingmob)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kingmob @ Sep 1 2011, 03:24 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1872511"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Please put resources on my HUD.
When I am saving for Fade, flamethrower, etc. I hate that I have to check using the armory or trying to morph etc.
If people see a number Then they see a res for kills number +1 then their number increases by 1.....hopefully they will get it :-)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You can always open the scoreboard to see your resources, just in case :)
Comments
They are slow, weak and need protection for long distances + can only be healed via MACs.
=> you need a highly coordinated marine team(or very very bad alien team) to get it even close to a hive, and for distances like summit marine start to alien start - i dont think its even possible. (all it takes is a quick marine base rush - so they either have to beacon away from the arc, or make a base trade - which is not really viable usually :P)
So you need a phasegate next to an arc to really defend it.
PS: Aliens need some kind of beacon with cooldown too, if your team is dead and 1 single marine is alive at your hive - its over and i dont think this will get better if we get a usefull arc some time in the future.
Idea #2: Reduce health of power nodes. I have a feeling we’re not seeing a lot of power-outage recently.
Idea #3: Increase spawn times somewhat, and/or address spawn times on aliens. They are still spawning fast and it’s hard for marines to get momentum when they attack a hive room.
Idea #5: Increase sentry offense but reduce health, making them ultimately easier to whittle down.
Idea #6: Fix bug where ARCs can’t be repaired by MACs.
Idea #7: Give ability to aliens which allow skulks to be protected (Lerk umbra is the obvious one) so they can take out structures late-game.
Idea #8: Give points incrementally when damaging structures, instead of only when it’s destroyed (encourages teamwork, but this is soft).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Idea#1
This isn't going to help stale mates, since the whole reason there are stalemates to begin with is because all the marines are holding up in marine start and don't have the manpower to push anywhere else, making it hard to make the final blow since they have a room full of marines, this would just make marines even more effective if they all bunch up in one room, and discourages them to move outward because then they will become more spread out and make rooms less defensible if the number of marines in a room is proportionally related to how many marines are in the room.
Idea#2
I don't know if it really would make a difference what the health of power nodes would make other than to take out the power in marine start, i wouldn't really recommend it since if they become too weak then marines will just build power packs more often, making power nodes make a lesser impact on the game.
Idea#3
I'm not sure increasing alien spawn time would really help since most stalemates occur when marines are stuck in marine start, thus making it harder for aliens to make the final blow since if they die they already go through the much longer spawn time, and have to travel accross the map, and possibly re-evolve. It definitely would make it easier to attack aliens who only have 1 hive though, but it's already not too hard to take out aliens who never get a 2nd hive.
Idea#5
This could potentially work as a temporary solution, but i hope we would then re-store sentries when Onos gets involved. Gorge bile bomb damaging MAC's makes sentries already easier to destroy.
Idea#6
I would like this, not really because of stale mates, but makes ARC's much less of a pain to use, and would probably encourage people to use them more often.
Idea#7
Like people have said in the fundamental design of chamber abilities, allowing the commander to target the location of Umbra, or Fury would help out so much.
Idea#8
This would probably be good just in general.
This is already the case, defences are useless on their own, and only somewhat helpful with players around, it isn't a good idea because it makes defences in general useless, the point of base defences in an RTS is to make it so that you don't need to have units constantly guarding the base, they're supposed to simplify base defence by allowing you to build a few defence structures which work better than an equivalent amount of money spent on units, and cover more area more reliably. This is offset by having them be weak against specific units, usually end game ones, which you already have in the form of the onos and the ARC.
Defences aren't the problem, you can't nerf them any more than you already have, the problem is neither side has any sort of tanking ability, attacking a base directly means your mobility is useless, your stealth is useless, and your health is severely strained, as neither side has anything capable of getting beat up a lot, they have no way to stay in a base long enough to do damage to it, aliens suffer from limited firepower, marines suffer from limited health, but both have no tank units, and both have severe need for them.
<i>Idea #2: Reduce health of power nodes. I have a feeling we’re not seeing a lot of power-outage recently.</i>
They die extremely quickly to more than one alien attacking them, the problem is that attacking power nodes in a base is generally pointless as any half intelligent commander will put power packs near the IP and armory. Further, it's a general symptom of lack of tanks, as if you can't get into the base to destroy buildings, why would you be able to get in to destroy the power node? Unless you plan to make the power node so weak that all other buildings are pointless to attack, because it's simply easier to kill the power node and disable them all (which is already the case actually, power nodes are generally right behind IPs as a prime target for aliens) you aren't going to make power nodes any more desirable to attadck.
<i>Idea #3: Increase spawn times somewhat, and/or address spawn times on aliens. They are still spawning fast and it’s hard for marines to get momentum when they attack a hive room.</i>
Again, because they have no tanks, you'd have to slow spawns down a hell of a lot to make up for the time it takes marines to spawn with their crappy IP-limited spawn times and armory equip times and travel times to get to the hive, only to die in a few seconds to the first thing that attacks them. Marines have no trouble getting to a hive in numbers, they just die too quickly once they're there.
<i>Idea #4: Increase rifle starting ammo. A slightly different but related problem is the fact that marines have difficulty winning the game early. Having enough ammo to take out a hive would help and I can’t think of a downside (except a little less support is necessary from the comm).</i>
People don't use rifles on hives, most people fill up on their rifle ammo before they leave anyway, doesn't make a difference, you can't carry enough ammo to make the rifle a practical weapon for base killing. Hell people don't use rifles in general because shotguns are universally better, the only reason to use a rifle is if you don't have any money for a shotgun. I also don't think that making the game revolve around completely stonewalling alien expansion from the very start is a good idea, marine shouldn't have to viciously contest the first hive, otherwise you're essentially saying that aliens should win as soon as they get past starting gear.
<i>Idea #5: Increase sentry offense but reduce health, making them ultimately easier to whittle down.</i>
This would buff them, not nerf them, sentries already die if you look at them funny, their strength is in their added firepower and numbers, you build half a dozen sentries and they're going to be hard to kill even if they all die in one hit, especially if they do some appreciable damage.
<i>Idea #6: Fix bug where ARCs can’t be repaired by MACs.</i>
Arcs should be repairable by marines, in fact everything should be repairable by marines, if you aren't going to put the welder in soon, just make E weld work on everything.
<i>Idea #7: Give ability to aliens which allow skulks to be protected (Lerk umbra is the obvious one) so they can take out structures late-game.</i>
Or alternatively, make skulks better. If there is an ability which works on skulks to make them tougher, it's going to work a hell of a lot better on fades or lerks, probably to the point of being horribly overpowered, which means you'll nerf it to compensate, thus making skulks useless again. The problem with skulks is that they're terrible and have no role in the late game due to fades being a universally better option, much like the rifle and the shotgun. Obviously you could fix the rifle by giving it an important late game damage type (heavy springs to mind) because it's a perfectly servicable gun in all other respects. Skulks however suck because they die quickly, are easy to shoot, and don't do anything important. They aren't a good building destroyer, gorges are better at that, as a lerks for that matter. They aren't good tanks because they have rubbish health, they're just a weak alien. I would suggest retooling either the fade or the skulk into a more tanky sort of class, and keeping the other as a more damage dealer sort of class, you don't need two glass cannons.
<i>Idea #8: Give points incrementally when damaging structures, instead of only when it’s destroyed (encourages teamwork, but this is soft).</i>
Should be that way for everything honestly.
=> you need a highly coordinated marine team(or very very bad alien team) to get it even close to a hive, and for distances like summit marine start to alien start - i dont think its even possible. (all it takes is a quick marine base rush - so they either have to beacon away from the arc, or make a base trade - which is not really viable usually :P)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Anything an ARC can do, 5 marines with GLs can do better :) Also, marine TRes is usually more constrained than PRes, making ARCs cost prohibitive in most cases.
Some of my observations:
I find that Marines usually do not have much trouble finishing off the Kharaa, because:
<ol type='1'><li>Slow egg spawning (especially with large teams).</li><li>One Hive aliens are very weak against max tech Marines.</li><li>ARCs and Sentries can help break any defenses Kharaas have.</li><li>During late game, Marines suffer less down time, with fast weapon re-purchasing/switching, Phase Gates teleport, and Beacon.</li></ol>
On the other hand, Kharaa have trouble finishing Marines due to:
<ol type='1'><li>Sentries & ranged Marine weapons - Most aliens lack the health to survive long against the combined fire power of Marines and Sentries. Skulks and Fades can deal respectable damage to structures, but only if they can stay alive. Gorge is the only available "siege unit", but does not deal enough damage against Sentries.</li><li>Weapon recycling - Marines almost never lose their advanced weapons, when they respawn almost next to where they dropped their weapons.</li><li>Beacon - a longer cooldown is very much needed.</li><li>All of the above factors make turtling Marines very resistant to attrition.</li></ol>
From design log:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #2: Reduce health of power nodes. I have a feeling we’re not seeing a lot of power-outage recently.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Power outage can be catastrophic for Marines before they can afford Power Packs. On the other hand, the high health of Power Nodes are making them unattractive targets, as they're often protected by multiple marines and/or Sentries. <!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->If damaging a Power Node partially can make a noticeable game impact (eg. Sentries becoming disabled when a PN is almost destroyed), then they will become more important points of conflict.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #3: Increase spawn times somewhat, and/or address spawn times on aliens. They are still spawning fast and it’s hard for marines to get momentum when they attack a hive room.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Frankly, that is not necessary. We're already experiencing long spawning queues on the alien side in large games. It only takes one direct hit from a Grenade, or an upgraded Shotgun to kill an egg. One or two Marines can spawn camp a Hive to prevent any egg from hatching. If anything needs to change, aliens need a mean to respawn <b>faster</b> on one hive, as Marines can build two, or three (or even more) Infantry portals to respawn faster from just one base.
There's an idea I have that may help make respawn timers scale better in larger pub games:
What if:
<!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->Each Infantry Portal respawns marines faster (eg. every 8 seconds), but each player has a minimum death time (~10 seconds).<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
For example, with 8 dead marines in a 16v16 game, it takes 40 seconds to respawn all 8 marines from 2 Infantry Portals. With the proposed change, it would take 34 seconds for all 8 Marines to respawn.
The first two marines would respawn from the two IPs after 10 seconds. But after that, each IP would spawn one marine every 8 seconds (for those who have already spent at least 10 seconds dead).
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #5: Increase sentry offense but reduce health, making them ultimately easier to whittle down.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
However, Sentries need to be tough enough to be worth their cost. I offer a suggestion:
<!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->Instead, allow Sentries to be crippled (or disabled) as their health drop.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> This will allow Aliens to harrass undefended Sentries and wear them out, but Marines will not lose all their investment if they retake control. I also like the idea to allow marine to repair all Marine structures (especially Power, Sentries and Extractors).
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #7: Give ability to aliens which allow skulks to be protected (Lerk umbra is the obvious one) so they can take out structures late-game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->The unimplemented Crag optional upgrades (eg. Carapace) should sufficiently buff Skulks' survival late game. A late-game upgrade that provides a "second life", which resurrects dead Skulks would increase their up-time dramatically.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
IMO Skulks should not be leading the van of late-game assaults, as their role is to deal damage. If (Whip) Fury buffs aliens for longer (~20 seconds), then Skulks will be able to deal much more damage in the first few seconds of the attack (after receiving Fury from a forward base).
how is that going to work on big matches when the game starts. There will always be people waiting and ###### about spawning.
I definitely think static defence needs to be pretty weak when there are no players around. Hydras are like this once marines get nade launchers (imo the rifle and pistol should be more effective against hydras - it's quite hard to shoot them right now), but sentries can lock down areas for too long even when there are no marines around.
I think power nodes health being reduced is a good idea. At the moment it just takes too long to destroy/repair them. (I also really like having a period of complete darkness when the power is first cut out. Perhaps this should be made a bit longer to encourage aliens to time cutting the power as the marines move into the area.)
I agree that the aliens spawn a little too fast which can make it hard for the marines to push them early game. The danger of making it too long though is that 1 marine could sneak into the hive and prevent all spawns too easily. Perhaps giving the alien com (or gorge) and ability to regrow all the eggs instantly would be a good way to prevent this. It would sort of be like the alien version of beacon. Or just have more eggs spawn in more locations - on summit once you have killed all the eggs the first one always respawns right next to the hive so it's easy to just sit there and keep preventing spawns.
I don't want to see the sentry buffed at all. It's already too strong IMO and can be very frustrating for the aliens to play against. I would like to see reduced health and in general more ways for the alien team to deal with them.
The game already starts in a bit of a sudden death mode for marines. They need to get their IPs up and if they don't defend their base it can be game over pretty quickly. Perhaps the aliens should start with no eggs and they should slowly generate in the first few minutes to balance this out. Again though I feel you need to be careful with changes like this as it might make a rambo marine rushing the hive too effective.
Compare that with the marines, whose sentries and ARCS are useful and much, much harder to kill. Marines have no problems in translating a resource advantage into a game win - ARCS and sentries stay useful the whole game, as the aliens have no counter to them.
I'd like to see aliens being able to usefully spend their team res late in the game. One way might be to evolve team-wide assault abilities, like spending 50 team res to give all aliens 1 level of fury for one minute - repeatable and stackable. Maybe add another 50 res ability to give them an ignore death abiliity for a while (aliens keep fighting 10 seconds after they die)... or have all aliens extrude umbra... details doesn't really matter, the point being that if the marines lets the alien stack up 200+ team res, aliens should be able to crack even the most well-defended marine base.
Useful ways to spend personal res for temporary boosts would also be welcome. Paying a pres to trigger a whips Fury ability would certainly see it used more often. Maybe using a crag to get a temporary regeneration boost or some temporary armor could be useful as well.
Aliens have an energy bottleneck at mid-late game. They can't take advantage of owning the entire map as well as marines. Drifters should probably cost something other than energy.
Also, healing in the hive takes too long - even with a couple crags to support. It needs to be brought back to NS1 levels (doubled) so that marines don't have as much time to recover between assaults and aliens can finish the game faster. It's often necessary to build healing stations of 6+ crags before aliens can win.
But really, changing those things will only help so much. The resource model is going to need to be looked at eventually. At least consider changing med/ammo cost to team resources so that the marine team can better invest in a early game push. It would also reduce sentry spam because sentries would then have to compete with med/ammo.
We are getting to stalemates since there are no tier 3 units (onos, heavy etc)..
Currently the team that is leading can't convert the extra resource into game ending units simply because they don't exist..
Also doing things like making the ARC repairable and taking out structures removes upgrades will also help, the other idea's are not needed...
Defences aren't the problem, you can't nerf them any more than you already have, the problem is neither side has any sort of tanking ability, attacking a base directly means your mobility is useless, your stealth is useless, and your health is severely strained, as neither side has anything capable of getting beat up a lot, they have no way to stay in a base long enough to do damage to it, aliens suffer from limited firepower, marines suffer from limited health, but both have no tank units, and both have severe need for them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Have we been playing the same game? The vast majority of rounds I've played in 185 devolved into massive turretspam followed by an incredibly slow but inevitable marine win. Turrets are overpowered if anything.
But turrets in themselves are very weak and easily destroyed.
I put up the idea that power nodes after destroyed the 2nd time. Their full health percentage decreases, so destroy a power node 2 times, when rebuilt it's at 80%, destroyed again, 60%, until it can no longer be repaired again.
Another idea I put forward was how the amount of energy that is regained should depend on how many power nodes you have up. If you only have marine spawn power node up, then energy should come in very slowly, which would eventually lead to not having the energy to beacon (which should happen.) Also for late game if you have a bunch of power nodes up, then it should be regained quickly, so it's obvious that you have control of the map. (or should). This would pretty much make power packs used a lot more. (Because right now... yeah.. they aren't being used so much)
That only works if marines are supporting the turrets.
Unsupported turrets will be absolutely massacred by gorges, spamming them only makes them easier to kill due to bile bomb having a blast radius.
Like I said, turrets work if marines support them because they provide extra firepower and something else to shoot, as actual defences however they're bloody useless, all they do is buy time, they don't deter attacks from anything other than a skulk.
It's marines that make turret spam a problem, not turrets, turrets don't do enough damage on their own and don't have enough health, marines on the other hand do quite a lot of damage and are impervious to the things that kill turrets.
I like this.
Unsupported turrets will be absolutely massacred by gorges, spamming them only makes them easier to kill due to bile bomb having a blast radius.
Like I said, turrets work if marines support them because they provide extra firepower and something else to shoot, as actual defences however they're bloody useless, all they do is buy time, they don't deter attacks from anything other than a skulk.
It's marines that make turret spam a problem, not turrets, turrets don't do enough damage on their own and don't have enough health, marines on the other hand do quite a lot of damage and are impervious to the things that kill turrets.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pretty much this, Sentries are so useless on their own, especially now that Bile bomb damages MAC's it really only takes 1 determined gorge to take down an entire undefended room full of sentries, and there is no way the commander can repair them all since you can't afford to replace every MAC going down.
The problem with stalemates is precisely because when the marines are contained within their start, the sentries are much harder to take out because the marines are there as meat-shields, keeping aliens at bay just enough to keep the base alive, which includes sentries that make the marine's job easier, but in no way shape or form can take the place of the marines. Fade's can do what they can after being nerfed for practically the past 10 patches, and Gorges can only do so much when there self heal has been reduced to 50% of what it was before, and you've got the entire marine team holed up defending what little space they have left.
The problems are pretty evident from what I've seen in 185.
First, the aliens get a hive first, lock the marines in the base, the turrets plus marines spawning in base make it impossible for the aliens to advance so they sit on it and tech up. Then they get grenade launchers and the entries to marine start become a veritable constant explosion, forcing the aliens back. Then the marines push out at high tech levels and the aliens have no counters. Marines fortify forward positions with sentries and keep pushing out. If they fail to push, the marines/aliens get bored and leave, the teams become unbalanced, and the game ends due to overwhelming numbers.
Adding onos as it is would cause serious problems, yes, we need teir 3 stuff, but aliens would almost inevitably reach T3 before marines and then you'd just end up with the same scenario but the aliens would also bust into MS with Onos and butcher everyone.
If you want the game to last attacking a defensive point has to be a big undertaking, but not a common undertaking. This means turrets (and hydras) need to be good, very good, but they need to be limited to areas well under control so they don't suddenly become offensive weapons. Maybe they could be upgraded or the like, but a large part of RTS game play and NS2 is taking and holding land. Since you can't have players constantly sitting on points waiting for attacks, you need AI to take main control of defending from anything but a coordinated and serious push. This leaves us with a serious problem in NS2 maps, there isn't any "No Man's Land." The area in between the two fortifications that the two sides clash in as they try to push forward. The maps are small and constrained, which means you end up with travel from marine start to alien start and the reverse, as very quick.
Defenses need to be strong in NS2 because without them, players are relegated to eternally sitting around and defending areas, the defenses need to be slow to build however, something you couldn't put down until firm control over an area had been achieved. Gameplay needs a distinct purpose and focus to be fun and engaging, and the actions you take must be fairly evident without tons of study. Right now the game play is messy. Everyone is everywhere, running around, doing random things, lone people are serious threats to entire bases and ultimately it's like playing a small scale FPS trying to pretend its a massive battle game.
Some things I've noticed:
1: There's a lot of "irritating" game play aspects in the RTS section, mainly Cysts and lone resource towers. Cyst chains are obnoxious busy work to keep up, especially when its constantly some random marine killing one cyst. It's annoying to build the chain, it's annoying to have to constantly put more down, it's annoying that one person can cause a bunch of headache that rather than adding a fun game play aspect, just requires finding the area it's been cut from and plopping down yet another one, like the equivalent of trying to get a smoke alarm to shut up, digging around in drawers looking for the stupid batteries. Same with resource towers, you put them down, 5 minutes later some lone skulk eats it, and you need another one yet again. There's so many of them you can't have marines guarding them all without totally negating any forward momentum you have, so you just sigh and place yet another tower to be killed 5 minutes later yet again.
2: The game play encourages avoidance. Game play is all about lone skulks and marines making life a pain in the ass for the commander of the opposing team. It's much easier to kill a base due to it not currently being looked at than it is to actually form and assault an enemy defended base. In the end, I don't think we want a game of flag tag, we don't want a game that emphasizes avoiding the enemy to attack their structures, but that is exactly what weak defenses encourage, that we go to undefended bases because enemy players are what make bases hard to assail, not their defenses. In short, base defenses should be there not to delay, but to utterly butcher loners trying to ninja a base without support so that the game doesn't become an endless set of reactions.
You need game play to focus on players fighting players and to do that, you need to focus players on important locations. That means that any lone players should die quite readily to any base defenses the commander has set up, while base defenses should fail against coordinated assaults leaving players to battle players. Get rid of avoidance based game play, get rid of lone players decimating structures, encourage team play by giving obvious focal points to fight at rather than having random individuals running around in random points. The game has to decide whether it's a battle game, where two sides clash, or a atmospheric shooter where people make their way through a detailed environment on alert for random dangers. NS2 is trying to do too many genre's in my opinion.
The best form of defence is attack. This is true in RTS games as well as FPS. If you are pushing on the enemies hive then you don't need to worry about defending your RT in heliport because if the enemy chooses to attack that, they will leave their base undefended and you will win the game. If 5 skulks are rushing your base then they don't need to worry about the guy shooting their RT in crevice because that's just one less player to help defend at the base.
The key thing is balancing when you attack and when you defend and deciding when to push on the enemy and from what part of the map. Locking down the map with static defence would completely destroy this aspect of gameplay.
I think I understand where you're coming from. I get the impression that you've played some public games where your team mates have been pretty clueless and not defended your buildings. This has led you to become frustrated, which is understandable, but I don't think it means that more powerful defence is required. When you play with a team of players who listen and communicate then it's very hard for a lone skulk to do any kind of significant damage.
You don't need to constantly babysit RTs. You can defend multiple areas on one side of the map by moving through and then pushing up and putting pressure on the enemy. If you leave your base undefended then the enemy should be able to do damage. With things like phase gates and beacon, moving around to where you are needed is easy. Yes, there are some problems with commander notifications etc. at the moment, but those will be improved eventually - more powerful static defence is not the answer.
While posting in this thread I just wanted to mention something else. I think the alien spawning system needs to be changed. Right now, the aliens spawn too quickly when there are lots of eggs around but too slowly in big games where many players are dying (sometimes I've had to wait up to 60 seconds to respawn). I think the egg regeneration rate should be changed back to what it was a couple of builds ago, but there should be some other limit to stop super quick respawns (maybe an 8 second respawn timer for aliens regardless of how many eggs there are?). Or maybe a limit is needed on the number of aliens that can hatch at once. I definitely think it needs to be looked at though.
I'd also like to see how infestation would work if instead of slowing the marines down it increased the speed of aliens. I think the slowing of marines makes it harder for them to push into the alien hive. By changing it you would still keep the alien combat advantage without this passive disadvantage for marines. I also think that cysts should have more health closer to the hive and a cloaking upgrade / way of hiding them (perhaps making only the last cyst in the chain visible, until it is destroyed and then you can see the next one).
In NS1 mines ended up being more versatile, interesting and dynamic in almost every aspect. They make excellent use of the fact that NS works in full 3D enviroment with lifeforms that are capable of using each and every surface and angle. All in all I always thought the mines were brilliantly combining the RTS and FPS worlds rather than just trying to mimic an already somewhat dull RTS concept of static defence.
When I see 2 hydras and a crag somewhere, I just run past them and and kill the next 2 cysts, then I go back and try to snipe the First cyst and a hydra. then I close in for axing the crag.
And if I die the othe rhydras will expire from itself.
= Alot of alien res/energy wasted by a vanilla marine.
In NS1 mines ended up being more versatile, interesting and dynamic in almost every aspect. They make excellent use of the fact that NS works in full 3D enviroment with lifeforms that are capable of using each and every surface and angle. All in all I always thought the mines were brilliantly combining the RTS and FPS worlds rather than just trying to mimic an already somewhat dull RTS concept of static defence.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This.
Don't do this please, power nodes are already the weakest link on in the marines defenses. And a health nerf would be out of place.
It would also encourage baserushing even more.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #5: Increase sentry offense but reduce health, making them ultimately easier to whittle down.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This would be a good thing, maybe a cost increase also? Try 15. Or even better, make them cost personal res for the commander. That would make them equal to hydras (compared to res costs). And sentryspam in endgame will be decreased alot, since you keep getting team res in that you cant use for anything else than turrets. You need personal res for meds/ammo/weapons. Sentrys support marines, personal res is the commanders support pool.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #7: Give ability to aliens which allow skulks to be protected (Lerk umbra is the obvious one) so they can take out structures late-game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes, this is much needed for those sentrys. And later on for the exosuits.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Idea #8: Give points incrementally when damaging structures, instead of only when it’s destroyed (encourages teamwork, but this is soft).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yeah thats quite soft :P Skulks are already happy chewing an extractor.
Possible reason as to why this is the case, is that every marine can repair nodes without cost. You spend money on a gorge to bile a node, and 5 rines come around the corner to kill you and instantly repair the node without fees.
Once the nodes require a welder or mac to repair. They will probably be taken out more.
That's kind of like saying aliens need to tech up a bit and spend money in order to build a hive, or an extractor, or any structure.
The reason marines can repair power nodes without cost is because they need them in order to build any structures, to expand. If five marines are working on a room that's a pretty major investment on the marines' part. Building nodes with smaller groups is very slow.
I don't honestly see the problem with power nodes, I always take out the power node if it's open, obviously you take out other things first, which is as it should be, if the marines build a base you should have to actually attack the base, you know? Not just run for the power node and ignore everything else. Power nodes are an excellent way for aliens on the ground to turn a room to their favour if nothing else is available, and they know that, aliens on the frontline will quite quickly take out a power node, a good place you will see this happen is flight control on summit, if aliens are skirmishing in that room they'll kill the node, because keeping structures up is hard in that room, but the power node is quite helpful to aliens.
If you want to make power nodes die more, make infestation kill them, the main situation I see power nodes being left up is if the room is already taken and nobody wants to sit and do mindless busy work by killing nodes behind the lines.
<b>+1</b> (Reactor Core :P)
Kill them, over time.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->- Add cooldown to distress beacon (maybe even global)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, make it cost 15 team res instead, this will prevent stalemates alot.
If marines only have their base left, they won't have the res to keep using distress beacon.
Right now, having several observatories gives you infinite beacon, with no relation to how the team is doing economical wise.
This is also the way it worked in NS1.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->- This is out of left-field but: what if players on both sides couldn’t respawn until a few minutes into the game? Ie, the game starts in a kind of sudden-death mode? Or if spawn times were limited early and increased over time? This could also be only on the alien side, and completely controlled by the hive spawning eggs over time. This could add a delicious early-game tension. Thinking.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That would make the early game even more unpredictable, and it would be very boring with all the waiting.
Have eggs spawning in 16 random locations near the hive. All around the room, some near the hive, some hidden from sight. And for the hive not to seem like its spammed with eggs, let a hive have a maximum of 6 eggs to balance it. Also aliens should be able to choose which egg they want to spawn from. This would do the trick.
Visual indications and tooltips should be sufficient to educate and encourage players to stay together.
It would be great if Power Nodes emit light, so curious new players will investigate them. Right now, they're just boring looking boxes that blend into the environment.
Marines, too, blend into the background visually. It can also be difficult to gauge the team's presence when the marines don't have their flashlights on. Visually, if each marine carry a stronger presence (eg highlights, or glowing lights), visible to their own team, it would be much more psychologically encouraging for marines to group together.
On the game-play side, players need to be able to check teammates' health at a glance. Hints should prompt Marines to weld damaged armor, and Gorges with hints to heal their fellows.
When I am saving for Fade, flamethrower, etc.
I hate that I have to check using the armory or trying to morph etc.
If people see a number
Then they see a res for kills number +1
then their number increases by 1.....hopefully they will get it :-)
When I am saving for Fade, flamethrower, etc.
I hate that I have to check using the armory or trying to morph etc.
If people see a number
Then they see a res for kills number +1
then their number increases by 1.....hopefully they will get it :-)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You can always open the scoreboard to see your resources, just in case :)