Hive 2.
Papayas
Join Date: 2010-07-01 Member: 72219Members
Join Date: 2010-07-01 Member: 72219Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Game depends too much on it.</div>Sorry if this is a repeat thread but the search doesn't work properly because of the word "Hive"...
But as the Description to this thread says "Game depends too much on it".
Which it clearly does. I have noticed a problem with it. That if the aliens don't get a second hive by ~10 minutes into the game they have lost completely because the marines will have flamers and then the game is basically over...
<u>Discussion Points:</u>
-Game depends on hive 2 too much.
-Marines upgrade too quickly (What happened to upgrading command chair?).
But as the Description to this thread says "Game depends too much on it".
Which it clearly does. I have noticed a problem with it. That if the aliens don't get a second hive by ~10 minutes into the game they have lost completely because the marines will have flamers and then the game is basically over...
<u>Discussion Points:</u>
-Game depends on hive 2 too much.
-Marines upgrade too quickly (What happened to upgrading command chair?).
Comments
I think what you are describing is simply an inferior alien team. This happens, even in completely balanced games (not that NS2 is completely balanced).
The second Hive is not the problem, it is a symptom of the problem. Which is that marines are simply not powerful enough, even vs one hive aliens. It just gets worse at the second Hive. The reversal of this, is that if Aliens cannot even get a second hive (at a point where they have the advantage) they are doomed and will eventually lose, as the marines slowly get more powerful.
Flamers are a free kill for any skulk, they are possibly the worst weapon in the entire game (including pistols) this patch.
That is only true when you aren't used to playing on the map.
We only lost one round as marines, to an early rush. The rest of the time it has played out identical to summit.
The second Hive is not the problem, it is a symptom of the problem. Which is that marines are simply not powerful enough, even vs one hive aliens. It just gets worse at the second Hive. The reversal of this, is that if Aliens cannot even get a second hive (at a point where they have the advantage) they are doomed and will eventually lose, as the marines slowly get more powerful.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well Said... can we get a thumbs up thing or something on the forums so I can agree without posting?
<u>Marines</u>
Tech -> Focus on turtling
Economy -> Focus on map control
<u>Aliens</u>
Tech -> Focus on map control
Economy -> Focus on map control
The problem has been imported exactly from NS1 and was the reason why each game played out largely the same. I thought the "unified res model" would do away with it, but it seems map control was not considered.
This makes it super easy for the marine team to decide what to focus their attacks on and kind of detracts from both sides making meaningful choices. The marines will always go for early offensive (rush) upgrades to take map control from aliens and turtle/tech style play will never really be viable. This is because the aliens taking enough map control for a hive gives such an economic boost as well as tech that they will obviously only focus on that one aspect.
<b>It makes the game strategically flat.</b>
The joy of a good strategy is balancing getting <i>just enough</i> economy and mitigating timing attacks whether by forcing or turtling for <i>just long enough</i> to result in a greater offensive force than the opponent by time X.
The alien tech tree offers no real choices or ability to balance those factors here because map control is so important to them: Get just enough economy to rush to Hive2 and defend, econ will follow later. As such, whether by hook or by cook the marine team will largely be focused on preventing the same thing every game. In NS1 we saw exactly this: Hive lockdowns on pubs or getting just enough econ to do max damage with a PG/SG rush by 4 minutes while hive2 is gestating in competitive play.
I understand that it does give the aliens the "swarm" feel in that if you leave them to it they'll take over everything and what-have-you, but that can be encouraged in other ways like linking hives with less important factors like production facilities (in the case of NS2 this already exists is increased respawn rates and increased infestation rates. You could feasibly have something like a decrease in res cost for lifeforms with each extra hive as well).
Of course, this all greatly depends on map layout. If each team gets a freebie "natural" tech point to expand to then it doesn't really matter does it? But none of the current maps do this.
NS1 kind of partitially dodged the issue due to possibilities that it had under the 1st hive play. There were more options on choosing between army strength and economy (and tech to some extend) and you had 4 well designed and refined lifeforms to choose from.
I can't say I understand NS2 system far enough to offer any proper solutions as a whole, but I think adding lifeform diversity to the 1st hive seems like a necessity. I simply can't see a way for the skulk/gorge/lerk combo to work out for extended periods of time - especially not against the amount of shotguns the marines are supposed to have in NS2.
---
Oh and Mu's thoughts are worth reading too. I think I'm kind of willing to live with some of the NS1 issues and predictability as long as the whole package works as good of an FPS/RTS as NS1 did, but certainly strategical versatility would be a huge improvement too.
<!--quoteo(post=1886278:date=Nov 23 2011, 01:47 PM:name=MuYeah)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MuYeah @ Nov 23 2011, 01:47 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1886278"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Of course, this all greatly depends on map layout. If each team gets a freebie "natural" tech point to expand to then it doesn't really matter does it? But none of the current maps do this.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is something I disagree a bit. Even if you give the freebie natural expand, the 2nd hive is still too big. You'd still end up rushing for it almost instantly because it unlocks all the possibilities. It's limited strategical play.
In RTS games you can decide when and how you take the natural expansion. For example you can put up aggression and expand behind it or turtle up at your expand. You can also tech up to a certain point or so. Meanwhile in NS2 you have to get the 2nd hive before you can get those options avaible. That's extremely limited.
In RTS games you can decide when and how you take the natural expansion. For example you can put up aggression and expand behind it or turtle up at your expand. You can also tech up to a certain point or so. Meanwhile in NS2 you have to get the 2nd hive before you can get those options avaible. That's extremely limited.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes you're right. StarCraft can provide some insight into the phenomenon (as usual): Protoss and Terran expansions only increase economy, Zerg expansions increase production and economy (so you see zerg fast expand in nearly every game) while NS2 Kharaa expansions increase tech, production and economy.
Perhaps an equilibrium can be found between the number of bonuses an expansion confers and team balance. SC2 manages to balance the teams with only 1 extra bonus from expanding, so maybe balance could be found by increasing the Marine team's dependence on expansion by 1 factor or decreasing the Kharaa dependence on expansion by 1.
This would still limit strategical play compared to having both teams only rely on expansion for one thing, but perhaps it would be below a threshold of limitation where you can work around it while allowing the "feel" of the teams and their asymmetry to be preserved.
Would also like clarification on this.
I would like to see less dependence on the second hive but I don't really know the solution as most ideas lead to the same slippery slope scenario (alliteration ^_^), where it becomes very difficult for the losing team to come back.
I really think that the best way to add in more strategic options is to have much bigger tech trees that include even basic abilities. Things like lerk gas should be required to be researched. Other upgrades can be things like increased accuracy and improved reload times / bigger ammo clips, damage and armour upgrades for specific weapons / classes rather than for everything.
as for flamethrowers, its useless weapon. this weapon was suppose to fight infestation but now infestation is easily countered.
The weapon was designed for easy combat, no aiming required and anybody can spam it in any direction. Its one of those things ns2 doesn't need but only here because it looks cool in-game or in trailers for the game.
I'd go back with unchaining lifeforms from the hives and chaining melee/armor to hive count. Like ns1.
As generally once you unlock fades in midgame, they are usually always melee/armor 3. Which is supposed to be lategame.
Thread.
That isn't true. Such builds are reliant on early wins, before marine tech comes into play. In a public match, your team aren't usually organised or skilled enough to finish a game. And if they are the game will probably end fast, no matter what the commander does. In an organised match, winning early is down to the team you are playing against making mistakes. So it makes more sense to follow the longer term 2nd hive build.
It <b>isn't</b> used because people have thought about it and it doesn't make any sense.
Go back to raging ingame! :)
It is scientifically proven that using caps makes a stronger statement and has a stronger effect on the human subconsciousness. ;D
No matter how strong the effect of that post is it gives nothing productive to this thread.
I agree that the 2nd hive is too important at this moment and there's a serious lack of tech and content in the game. But I think that's how it is supposed to be in this state of the development and developers are aware of it. I also like Wilson's idea of making abilities like lerk gas upgrades instead of intristic abilities. It would be also cool to some modding on this part of the game. I wonder how difficult it would be to make already existing abilities, lifeforms, etc to be required to upgraded. I also wonder if all of this could be done in a server mod. It might be a cool way to prototype larger and more complex tech trees.
Anyway, I agree that Tier 2 has way too much to go for it... Tier 1 is very basic and rather bad when it comes to combat. Tier 2 is where the action happens. This needs to change.
The natural downsides to rushing something like fade would be you will obviously not have all the upgrades you would have if you had your full tech, and you're paying more, maybe significantly more, to do it. At the same time, there's less stress to get that hive up super fast. Marines can be on the other side, getting themselves a shotgun for 40 res instead of the standard 20 (25?) res, it's good if you want that quick shotgun if you need it. Later on the commander could do the upgrade "Efficient shotgun production" and have the shotgun cost be lowered to what it is now. These could also be passive, like evolving to fade at the normal cost of when you have two hives. (To be clear I meant without an upgrade) It also might not necessarily apply to everything, or have costs that are so upsettingly high you wouldnt see it under most scenarios. (Evolve to Onos with 1 hive costs 300 p.res :D)
This could be tied in with other things like "You don't get lerk gas until upgraded", as previously mentioned by Wilson. Even those upgrades could or could not be cheapened by the presence of a hive. This way if aliens are determined to do upgrades before they get a hive they still have the possibility of getting higher tiered aliens, again at a higher cost, it also likely means that at those stages you won't be seeing fade or nade spam when the team doesn't have two hives or a second comm chair or whatever marines might have.
The idea here is you still won't see fades or nades *super* early in the game, as it would still take time to build up those resources. It also rewards players who get those early kills and build up their p.res, allowing them to do more for their team early on besides sit on 70 res waiting for the hive to drop, or not being able to buy superior marine weaponry because your commander has been focusing on other upgrades/tech. This allow allows commanders (Alien or marine) to take more liberties with how they tech up, building and upgrading around how the match goes more fluidly. The end result is more varied gameplay, commanders taking a more active role in what equipment/evolutions their team is using, or planning to use.
I agree that the 2nd hive is too important at this moment and there's a serious lack of tech and content in the game. But I think that's how it is supposed to be in this state of the development and developers are aware of it. I also like Wilson's idea of making abilities like lerk gas upgrades instead of intristic abilities. It would be also cool to some modding on this part of the game. I wonder how difficult it would be to make already existing abilities, lifeforms, etc to be required to upgraded. I also wonder if all of this could be done in a server mod. It might be a cool way to prototype larger and more complex tech trees.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oke I'll be productive!
Second alien hive should be important and needed to win over a capable marine team. In 95% of public games right now a second hive is needed in most cases because there is no teamwork or its just dropped because the alien com has nothing better to do. There will be balance mods for different servers eventually. Hard to say if that is a good thing for people actually learning the game or not.
Making alien abilities into upgrades is going help a lot with map designs for completely random spawns. Right now marines need A LOT more resources. There also will most likely be more abilities for aliens to choose from once marine arsenal increases. Could even make upgrades for alien abilities like longer skulk leap or faster cooldown and faster movement for blink. Or try to implement some sort of combat mode system into normal NS for specific upgrades to give players a more personal feeling of playing how they like.
The possibilities here are almost endless.
Please continue.
I would like to see less dependence on the second hive but I don't really know the solution as most ideas lead to the same slippery slope scenario (alliteration ^_^), where it becomes very difficult for the losing team to come back.
I really think that the best way to add in more strategic options is to have much bigger tech trees that include even basic abilities. Things like lerk gas should be required to be researched. Other upgrades can be things like increased accuracy and improved reload times / bigger ammo clips, damage and armour upgrades for specific weapons / classes rather than for everything.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Totally agree with Wilson here.
I just recall the battle for res being the main focus of NS1, and it seems the current #'s make res too easy to obtain. This creates the stalemate problems everyone is familiar with. It also makes the construction of a 2nd hive come quickly and often. I guess I'd just liek to see more of the economic conflict from NS1 featured in NS2.
Like adrenaline, celerity, and stuff...
I am sure they will be adding this in but I really would like it this way.
It <b>isn't</b> used because people have thought about it and it doesn't make any sense.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've won several organized matches this way, and yes, you do understand it pushes for an early win.
I don't recognize your name, so it's understandable to second guess me I guess as we don't know each other.
If you have a clan, hit me up, we'll play.
I've won games against GP, Duplex, and PubEU in this manner.
I don't recognize your name, so it's understandable to second guess me I guess as we don't know each other.
If you have a clan, hit me up, we'll play.
I've won games against GP, Duplex, and PubEU in this manner.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Arga is in Duplex btw ;)