Game imbalance
NecropsY
Join Date: 2012-01-23 Member: 141746Members
Join Date: 2012-01-23 Member: 141746Members
<div class="IPBDescription">with the current patch</div>Lets talk about what makes the current patch unbalanced -
1 - Power Nodes -
Power nodes offer nothing to the game and are a ridiculous weakness - taking one out is a game winning move, in addition power nodes are often in unprotectable areas outside of where marines can even defend
Power nodes simply add to the Clutter of this game creating more useless structures that have no advantage only a disadvantage -
IF YOUR GOING TO HAVE A NEW STRUCTURE IT NEEDS TO OFFER SOME BENEFIT AS WELL AS DISADVANTAGE
2 - Maps -
Currently the ns2 maps go from bad to worse , 1 lighting problems (way way way to many light sources are used causing low FPS for players in a already struggling game) (good luck getting over 15 fps past 8 mins into the game with substantial structure increase )
Maps are admittedly Alien biased with marine starts being to many walls blocking protect points choke points with ridiculous lighting or power nodes out in hallways -
Map layout is horrible, tiny rooms leading to dead ends, opening doors (never liked this idea) ladders are terrible and nearly unusable
3 - Fades - Blink - Blink as it stats is clearly a result of Story line over Game play
Marines should have some chance of at least taking out a fade if skill is on the marine side, however with Blink be a Movement skill + Invulnerability + Cloak all rolled into one -
4 - Loss - Again more of a minor gripe due to the newness of the game but I sense a lot of loss problems due to either servers not being able to handle the amount of structures or all the Alpha blending / or particles being produced - I hope this gets fixed eventually but its not game breaking at this time -
5 - Hit boxes - I've encountered times when skulk or lerk hitboxes seem to be far away from the model - could just be loss ,
6 - Culmination of all other problems results in low FPS - hopefully in time this can be remedied (some games to this day simply have crappy fps and can't be fixed )
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All this being said I'm still a big fan of NS1 - and NS2, I overall think ns2 shows great potential and find it more fun than the majority of games out today -
I just think the devs need to take a more active roll of getting their baby off the ground and into the air-
<i>edit: corrected some spelling in title and post, sorry, couldn't resist. --Zaggy</i>
1 - Power Nodes -
Power nodes offer nothing to the game and are a ridiculous weakness - taking one out is a game winning move, in addition power nodes are often in unprotectable areas outside of where marines can even defend
Power nodes simply add to the Clutter of this game creating more useless structures that have no advantage only a disadvantage -
IF YOUR GOING TO HAVE A NEW STRUCTURE IT NEEDS TO OFFER SOME BENEFIT AS WELL AS DISADVANTAGE
2 - Maps -
Currently the ns2 maps go from bad to worse , 1 lighting problems (way way way to many light sources are used causing low FPS for players in a already struggling game) (good luck getting over 15 fps past 8 mins into the game with substantial structure increase )
Maps are admittedly Alien biased with marine starts being to many walls blocking protect points choke points with ridiculous lighting or power nodes out in hallways -
Map layout is horrible, tiny rooms leading to dead ends, opening doors (never liked this idea) ladders are terrible and nearly unusable
3 - Fades - Blink - Blink as it stats is clearly a result of Story line over Game play
Marines should have some chance of at least taking out a fade if skill is on the marine side, however with Blink be a Movement skill + Invulnerability + Cloak all rolled into one -
4 - Loss - Again more of a minor gripe due to the newness of the game but I sense a lot of loss problems due to either servers not being able to handle the amount of structures or all the Alpha blending / or particles being produced - I hope this gets fixed eventually but its not game breaking at this time -
5 - Hit boxes - I've encountered times when skulk or lerk hitboxes seem to be far away from the model - could just be loss ,
6 - Culmination of all other problems results in low FPS - hopefully in time this can be remedied (some games to this day simply have crappy fps and can't be fixed )
------
All this being said I'm still a big fan of NS1 - and NS2, I overall think ns2 shows great potential and find it more fun than the majority of games out today -
I just think the devs need to take a more active roll of getting their baby off the ground and into the air-
<i>edit: corrected some spelling in title and post, sorry, couldn't resist. --Zaggy</i>
Comments
I play public all the time and my fps is 50-70 ( same as bf3 )
Hitbox works fine for me even with the 170ping & the power nodes takes over +45sec ( as a solo skulk ) to destroy.
If the marines leave the power node unprotected its their own fault.
The maps are avarage "balanced". Some rooms are opend/big and some rooms are tiny.
Hitboxes ARE sometimes a bit weird, I've noticed. Skulks and lerks especially. A couple of times I've noticed that the lerk's hitbox is a bit above the model - or if I aim there I hit better with the shotgun. Skulks are strange sometimes - when a shotgun shot should decimate the skulk, sometimes it takes three or four because you hit poorly.
Powernodes are kinda OK. The equivalent requirement for aliens are the cysts, which are easier to cut up into pieces than power nodes, but there's more of them and less penalty. Of course the creep slows down marines as well, but if it were all symmetric it would be boring.
Fades - well, people just need to get better at aiming. Even though a decent fade always gets a guaranteed one hit in from blink, if the team has proper upgrades he still needs to take two. In that time two marines (you should never be alone) can pump two shotgun shells into him and kill immediately, if there's any weapon upgrades. Two shots is all it takes, sometimes three if one hits poorly. Also, fade costs 56 p.res, shotgun is just 20.
It's just unfair and imbalanced that you can turn of the power in rooms with a CC as kharaa, but marines have nothing comparable for shutting down hives. It's hard enough for marines to push into hiverooms already, because it's so easy for aliens to counter it with a baserush and force marines to retreat. (And I'm not even taking into consideration here, that as a Skulk you're able to deal some serious damage to CCs and Powernodes from the word go, whereas Marines have to wait for GLs to be able to do noteworthy damage + when you finally have GLs, Aliens are very likely to have a second hive already (and if you make an effort do destroy one of them, you're base is completely vulnerable to baserushes) whereas you hardly ever see marines with two CCs. + Aliens have cute Gorges to heal their Hives pretty much from the first second of the game, Marines need MACs, which are only available later in the game. Oh boy, there are so many issues with balancing, but I don't really want to go down that rabbithole... Probably everything is going to be a lot better with JPs anyway...)
But: UWE, please make CCs power IPs at least, better make power nodes invincible when they're connected to a CC. It's hard enough to defend Marine bases even without those powernodes.
2) Netcode is definitely off since 192. Maybe it has something to do with the choke problems but there are some real issues such as with how targets for melee attacks are detected, the ability to have mutual kills with hitscan weapons, blood effects being created without hits being actually registered (mostly against lerks), and jumping interfering significantly with rego. One symptom that is very telling is when chasing MACS from behind as a fade or a skulk, the collision detection stops you from being able to compensate for the hit registration prediction or whatnot so that you literally can't damage MACS from behind even if you are faster than them.
Powernodes are actually a quite interesting gameplay mechanic, I think the problem with them at the moment is where mappers are placing them in relation to where structures are being built. I think Atrium in Summit is a good example of good placement. It's slightly out of the way, So an alien attacking it can't just be sniped off at will, but it's close enough that a marine can just jump down on his way to Crevice and sort it out.
Killing a marine bases powernode does NOT mean game over, I've played plenty of matches where marines have got the power back on to their main base. If a team loses a powernode, they took that risk. Don't forget how easy it is to repair nodes.
And you are wrong in making the assumption that the lighting in the game is what is causing the gameplay/fps loss. Notice that every few patches the game is significantly more stable than the last? It's not because of lighting changes.
In relation to your statements about mapping, lighting never seemed an issue, and if it was, it was lack of light rather than excess. In terms of layout, some parts of the current maps are a bit dodgey, but overall it's pretty balanced. Do remember this game is still in beta and as such, mapping is something people are still getting used to. They don't quite know exactly what makes a great map because they haven't had the chance yet. Cut them a bit of slack.
Fades are a bit OP in their current form, almost no one contests that, but a skilled marine can take down a fade - you talk like that is impossible.
The rest of the issues you list are essentially the same thing, and all of which are being worked on constantly, as I said, it is only beta - these problems are inherent.
I play public all the time and my fps is 50-70 ( same as bf3 )
Hitbox works fine for me even with the 170ping & the power nodes takes over +45sec ( as a solo skulk ) to destroy.
If the marines leave the power node unprotected its their own fault.
The maps are avarage "balanced". Some rooms are opend/big and some rooms are tiny.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But think about bilebomb gorge. He just needs 1 adre bar to kill the node. Almost no time to react as Marines.
@OP I disagree with you that Fades are OP. Soloed so many times even good fades. Always try to track that black cloud and cyrclestrafe as Marine.
Turn around if a fade blinks to you, the most of the time blink behind you.
Try to trap fades. F.e. Hide around a corner ona mainroute, that often grants you a free PB.
And always keep an eye on the minimap to locate the fades. Always hunt running fades and don't turn your back to a fleeing fade, they often just go out for adre regen to get in an slash you from behind.
And last never walk backwards.
IMO the maps out there (tram,summit) are well lit.
I agree with the other points.
It is hard to tell if there are really imbalances. In pub you can't really say smth about balance because a pro lerk can kill whole groups of "bad" marines, while a beginner fade will die against a pro SG very fast. And that is the situation we actually have on the servers.
I'd be very interested to see how the minigun impacts fade/lerk performance.
I haven't noticed any problems with hitboxes; there is however an issue that prevents people from aiming properly and gives the impression of low framerate which I'm hoping will get fixed PDQ.
The game is not feature complete - so lets wait and see what the future brings. (giev motion tracker and better alerts)
The game is not feature complete - so lets wait and see what the future brings. (giev motion tracker and better alerts)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
it's pretty easy for me
I look at my map, and if I see aliens idling on the part of the map where the nodes are, I know they're attacking them
(an idle lerk a short distance away is probably shooting from there)...it's also the commander's job to identify things like that and tell the team
these are skills to be developed, rather than overcome by brute force in the form of game changes...people just aren't good at this game yet so some things are lacking as a result
Powered rooms do not provide an advantage, unpowered rooms only result in disadvantage. Powered rooms are not territory, as was intended: the power node is simply an <b>artificial weak point</b>. Ordinarily, this would be fine, but despite being an <b>artificial weak point</b>, breaking a power node (a relatively low-risk endeavour) is a game-winning move.
Let's have an analogy. The CC is the King in chess. It has a limited ability to move and a limited ability to defend itself and taking (rather, trapping) the piece wins the game, but there's only one on the board. (Multiple CCs means you have multiple Kings, but there are still very few, and they still have limited ability to move and limited ability to defend themselves, and in order to win you have to take ALL of the Kings on the board.) The power node would be some trash piece that has no ability to move, no ability to defend itself, there're multiple around the board, and taking the piece automatically wins the game. Does that sound fun to you?
Therefore, broken power nodes should not disable:
- The CC
- The IPs
- Possibly the RTs
That means that attacking this <b>artificial weak point</b> still confers a strong temporary advantage, but does not automatically win you the game.
<!--sizeo:1--><span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>just making it clear</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
a) Made defence really hard. If the enemy can effectively strip your defensive advantage and force you out of your best defensive position, you're pretty much forced to match your opponent's strength at all times.
b) Provided gimmicky victories. You just needed to have the routine to have something watching that back door and it didn't go much further from there. Always when I got back to the game, there were games where I played 10 minutes and then went "Oh, didn't check that, I lose". It's certainly my bad for not guarding the rocks, but if that's all they're worth I'd rather do without them as a whole.
One thing Brood War did better with it's destructibles was that there were stacked piles of them. As a result you had a choise to invest in splash damage to destroy them quickly or to wear them down very slowly one by one without splash. The investment at the very least meant that there was an actual risk-reward situation rather than just poking in and seeing if you can pull off a game winning move because your opponent didn't have a fool proof defensive routine. I don't know if NS2 can do that kind of investment risk-reward with it's style though.
Excellent.
The sc destructibles analogy makes some sense, but I would rather compare them to the future destructible doors, it's something that change the map layout (powernodes don't do that). The problem maybe with some of the destructibles in sc2 is that they open directly into your base, which is a bit radical. We will see but putting a destructible door just next to marine cc in ns2 might turn out to be a bad idea.
I'm not referring the rocks in the map layout sense.
The backdoor rocks are more of instant win thingy that you just have to routinely defend, which is something the powernodes might turn out to be unless the design is well thought out. They just lead to a plenty of cheap victories, blind gambles or overly cautious defensive play, but not much interesting gameplay depth in the longer run.
a) Made defence really hard. If the enemy can effectively strip your defensive advantage and force you out of your best defensive position, you're pretty much forced to match your opponent's strength at all times.
b) Provided gimmicky victories. You just needed to have the routine to have something watching that back door and it didn't go much further from there. Always when I got back to the game, there were games where I played 10 minutes and then went "Oh, didn't check that, I lose". It's certainly my bad for not guarding the rocks, but if that's all they're worth I'd rather do without them as a whole.
One thing Brood War did better with it's destructibles was that there were stacked piles of them. As a result you had a choise to invest in splash damage to destroy them quickly or to wear them down very slowly one by one without splash. The investment at the very least meant that there was an actual risk-reward situation rather than just poking in and seeing if you can pull off a game winning move because your opponent didn't have a fool proof defensive routine. I don't know if NS2 can do that kind of investment risk-reward with it's style though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This one's the best analogy to SC, I've found so far. How would you solve it in NS though, apart from scrapping the grid altogether?
When marines lose a power node, it's much more severe than when aliens lose a cyst chain. While powernodes are easier to keep alive (and there's many ways to do it: mac, self-repair, mines, turrets, beacon) than cyst chains, the loss of one is still too large in comparison.
It's hard to figure out a neat solution for it, which would please everyone (devs, pubbies, competitive players).
I would start myself with making the gorge bilebomb cost more adrenaline or make it do less damage, and see how it goes from there.
As for the latest NS2HD recording: If you have the entire alien team in your base while you're taking out theirs, I do think you deserve an equal exchange.
There are a number of reasons I could enumerate with the problems I think there are with power nodes but ultimately I think it's all going to come down the following statement.
"There are a number of elements in Natural Selection, really, any game with RTS elements, where the scale of an operation is really badly defined, often expanded well beyond a reasonable, realistic scope, which leads to realism problems, which can often translate into gameplay problems because games, ultimately model reality in some way, despite having fictitious elements."
Lets look at an example of this bad scale that is translated into a very gamey (read: Unimmersive) but successful concept. Tiberium, Mineral, or Ore Collection in C&C, SC or C&C:RA. It's completely ridiculous to imagine first, that a literal battleground is home to two opposed war material harvesting operations. The idea that your gold field that you need to "purchase" your troops, or your mineral field that you seem to make everything out of is literally within miles of the front line of a major enemy force with the same requirements is silly. No group would be able to maintain such operations, much less security for them without taking troops off the main battle, which would lead to lost ground, which would lead to the harvesting operation being attacked and taken. That's why we don't do it. You don't endeavor to fight where your base is or where your logistics are, and when you have to, it's an operation based on standing forces, not on people being pumped out of buildings. These RTS games use the "resourcing" to provide another tactic for the game, but ultimately, in any realistic scenario, it's terribly silly. In any case, you'd always have guard on those operations.
Now lets look at how NS2 does it. Power Nodes, Cysts, and Harvesters of all types effectively provide some form of resources, some of which are directly expendable, some of which are not. The problem is it's the same scale problem of having your resource operation, mining, refining, shaping, welding, your steel on the front line within sight of the enemy, refining oil into gasoline to power tanks within spitting distance, etc. I understand the fiction behind it, these nozzles are full of magical nanobots that do magical nanobot things that allow you to build things, I understand the heritage (rts games in general), but these sorts of operations are going to be under guard no matter what, it's just the sensible thing to do. The problem is that guard duty is boring. So what you have is something that requires the boring minutiae of war, but have players who don't want to do the boring minutiae of war (and rightly so.)
So how do you solve that? Well there's an obvious route of simply giving them automated defenses, but when there are so many resource points, you'd be covering the map with automated harvester defenses. There's incentives for guarding, but getting candy for guarding something doesn't make it any less boring. There's making them tougher so people can respond, but ultimately spending an entire game responding to alerts (essentially playing "flag tag") is boring and frustrating as well as you seem to get caught in a purgatorial cycle of endlessly responding to enemy aggression and requiring more force to respond well than the enemy must expend to seriously threaten your holdings. If one skulk attacks one harvester, he can kill it. If one marine goes to kill that one skulk, the marine may not win, he may also win, but simply have to deal with the respawned skulk 20 seconds later. It's very easy to just keep going back over and over.
Personally, I think a better way of doing this sort of stuff is gated, goal oriented gameplay, but the game is really pretty far developed in it's current style to go that way. Gated, goal oriented gameplay basically means the game basically begins in "gated" areas, meaning it's very hard to move from one area into an enemies territory (perhaps if you're particularly sneaky...) This can be accomplished by a number of methods but the end result is the same, combat is concentrated in a handful of areas at the rough middle of the map and individual rooms there may switch hands many times. Eventually however, one side will push through the other, and the gates will "shift" against the losing side. Now suddenly the winning side controls more rooms and is pushing against the enemy, once again, in a relatively limited area for direct approach. By this means games effectively snowball, with the winning team stacking victory on victory unless the enemy can push them back meaning games will typically only go in one direction, whoever can break the other first.
For example, lets take summit, though the map is really too small (and the rooms would need to cluster) for this style of gameplay and use the most obvious method (and possibly least liked mean of gating areas, automated defenses. Lets say the aliens and marines are meeting in Xroads/Datacore/Flight Control. These three rooms are full of combat from the teams, lets say there are 6 per side, so 2 per room, there are no harvesters hear nor is there a powernode or cysts, it's too hard to keep them up without good control. Beyond this room there are automated defenses however protecting harvesters making it difficult to sneak beyond the line and avoid combat to do player versus structure.
So the aliens finally get the advantage in flight control with a gorge pushing hydra hedges forcing the marines back and the aliens take hold of FC, locking it down with structures and cysts. The marines are not starting to lose ground. The power node drops and the auto turrets go down in the next set of marine rooms while the aliens can not expand with full force from flight control into the marines because they don't need to worry about 1 guy chopping a cyst or murdering a hive. They have less "flag tag" to do. Less "fires to put out" so to speak. The game becomes more about player fighting players, not players fighting structures (because they can't fight the enemy auto defense) and follows a narrative sort of timeline that can be traced leading to a "climactic final battle" around the hive or CC rather than a strangled gasp. Effectively it means an enemy force could become more difficult to wipe out entirely as they were defeated and deployed heavier equipment, but would ultimately be overcome by the side with the most resources to deploy them due to victories earlier on.
The Pros:
1: Prevents flag tag run around allowing players to focus on killing each other.
2: Prevents power nodes/harvesters/cysts from being liabilities with a single obnoxious enemy player.
3: Allows for control over game progression and difficulty due to locking areas, meaning games will follow somewhat predictable patterns. (IE Data will always fall before Vent.) Imagine what this would do to ARC's (shudder)
4: Provides a simple narrative timeline that players can reflect on punctuated by large victories.
The Cons:
1: Severely limits game play options. Gated areas still need to be gated. While you might not artificially limit people by actually placing walls or doors, it would limit people because they would have few places they could go (or this wouldn't work) without being decimated by automatic defense.
2: Could cause games to become predictable in pattern, will cause games to rarely see a large reversal in fortune.
3: Game becomes less dependent on skill after initial battles provide a resource advantage to one side.
4: May or may not, depending on map design, cause problems with ambush style play due to battles being very localized in "hot spots."
5: Requires a complete redesign of the maps, not to mention changes to the core gameplay elements.
Benefits are great for gated games, but the costs are pretty high, especially for a game that appears to be an arcade shooter with a veneer or an immersive atmospheric shooter taped over it. (I kind of wish they would decide on one or the other because they don't really work well together.)
What part of them is "a quite interesting gameplay mechanic"? The part were they force the players to stare at an inanimate object and hold a button for significant parts of the game? The part where they look ugly, out of place and ruin the esthetics of just about every map? The part where they allow for cheap, lucky wins?
Or maybe you're referring to the part where they add a territorial tug of war; powergrid vs. infestation? No wait, that can't be it, because they don't actually do that.
I wouldn't be so opposed to the powergrid system if it actually added something to the gameplay, something that outweighed the cons, but that simply just isn't there at the moment and I haven't seen anything from the devs to suggest it will be appearing anytime soon either.
I personally think this is silly. Authenticity, not realism. Game, not simulation.
In regards to gated rooms, it makes map awareness and positioning basically irrelevant. I'm of the opinion that good game design always increases the number of conduits through which players can interact with each other such as movement, metagame etc. Gated rooms also do not add any goal orientation but rather takes away one (resource control) to make another one (kill the enemy) the only option.
Flag tags occur when a team has more rt's than they can hold. Risk vs Reward. Skulk chewing on extractors means one less marine available for your pressure team if you choose to save it instead of recycle. By gating rooms you also negate a very big design advantage skulks have - that being their mobility and ability to ambush and harass. The game becomes a boring and one dimensional meat grind. Theres a reason why LMG/shotgun vs skulk early game is probably the best part of NS and i think it has alot to do with freedom of map movement and pure player vs player.
<!--QuoteBegin-Harimau+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Harimau)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Let's have an analogy. The CC is the King in chess. ... The power node would be some trash piece that has no ability to move, no ability to defend itself, there're multiple around the board, and taking the piece automatically wins the game. Does that sound fun to you?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If we want to compare to SC, i think its a better comparison to say that powernodes basically function as pylons that cost time instead of resource. I would rather they cost resources as such and have redundancies such as with the powerpacks, but arguing that powernodes are bad simply because they don't have a directly comparable unit in chess isn't very strong imo.
You could apply the same arguement to IP's. There are multiple IP's and taking them wins the game to the same degree that taking a powernode does.
- The CC
- The IPs
- Possibly the RTs<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Okay so you just removed the power node from the table...nobody is attacking it....the primary reasons now are
a) the CC takes to long
b) turrets
<!--quoteo(post=1898401:date=Jan 31 2012, 09:23 AM:name=fanatic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fanatic @ Jan 31 2012, 09:23 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1898401"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Or maybe you're referring to the part where they add a territorial tug of war; powergrid vs. infestation? No wait, that can't be it, because they don't actually do that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe I'm not seeing it but I do see the cysts/powernode as the only thing that guarantees territorial tug of war.
Too many turrets ...someone hit the powernode.
Too many hydras and whips ...pop a bunch of cysts.
The fact that you are frustrated by losing one doesn't mean it is completely broken, it's not rainbows and sunshine in FTP/RTS land.
The fact that you think it is a CHEAP win does mean it is worth discussing.
I will agree that maybe they are not complete in their implementation.
maybe there should be more powernodes per a room....so a room is zoned
maybe cysts should be tougher ...or less micro-managy <---Is that a word.
maybe cysts should grow in batches...so a click grows three or something.
I agree, Power Nodes are ridiculously awful. They're nearly as awful as alien CC. Having a node that could be 6 rooms from main cc to defend is poor implementing of an already flawed design idea. As it is currently, it just adds nothing, it's only detrimental for rines. It would be nice to see it play further into the game something along the lines of Nuclear Dawn power stations. Not there until needed and does not retroactively affect other conduits (there would clearly be fail safes in order... the game doesn't take place in 2012 and we as humans currently design better power subsystems.) Power node down in IP room within 5 minutes? gl winning rines.
Hitboxes, I don't know if it's the issue - but having to put 1-2 clips of AR into a SKULK to kill it is very ridiculous. I know when I hit (clearly, the X is not very subjective...) and that skulks only take 2 hits now is just a seriously bad balance flaw. For how long it takes to upgrade to SG from AR rines generally (while pubbing) lose within 5-10 minutes if the Aliens know whats up, aka how to play.
FPS I don't think is the issue again, but my mouse sensitivity does not seem fluid with my mouse movements. According to fraps I have 65-70 fps constantly, but as a rine it can sometimes feel VERY sluggish moving my mouse around.
I disagree with Fade's Blink. It's GREAT as a movement skill, it should just cost much much much more energy to not be abused so much. As it stands, it's much to easy to just blink in, oh I got shot blink blink blink away.
Battling over the resource network guarantees a territorial tug of war. Power nodes are just additional ballast.
@the guy who kept bolding "artificial weak point" - so what if it's artificial? The whole game is artificial...not sure what your point was other than to use a buzz word multiple times. The devs clearly see a need for that alternative weak point to exist, so they created it. These alternative weak points are not hard to defend, artificial or otherwise. It just takes a conscious decision to do so.
Oh I very much doubt that. The reason we got the power grid was that the devs wanted to add supply lines or advanced territorial gameplay. However the current implementation is just a shadow of the original idea and adds neither.
How about coming up with a better idea? The marines need to have a counter part to the cysts/infestation system. In my eyes the cysts system is already more vulnerable specialy in the early game phase, where the comm has to think about every energy he spents. And the Powernode has "tons of health" in comparison to a cyst, and can be repaired by single marine without any resource/energy spent.
I also think we should worry tooooo much about it atm since the game hasnt all the features added.
So the marines have built a turreted room.
If power nodes did not exist...
How do the aliens take back that room?
What is the weakness of a turreted room?
(Bile bomb is 2nd hive and Onos isn't implemented)
discuss.
<!--quoteo(post=1898434:date=Jan 31 2012, 12:33 PM:name=Raza.)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Raza. @ Jan 31 2012, 12:33 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1898434"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Oh I very much doubt that. The reason we got the power grid was that the devs wanted to add supply lines or advanced territorial gameplay. However the current implementation is just a shadow of the original idea and adds neither.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What exactly are you doubting, that the devs created it, saw a need for it, or that it exists? 0.o
You are just restating my comment. You say the devs wanted to add supply lines - a.k.a. a point of weakness other than the primary structures themselves (extractors, comm chairs, etc).
How is the original idea (advanced territorial gameplay) so much better than the current implementation? The original idea as you stated it is just a vague concept, how can the current implementation be a shadow of that?
I'm confused as to what it is you are trying to say exactly.
how hard is it to master "knowing where the power nodes are on the map"?