<!--quoteo(post=1929256:date=Apr 24 2012, 02:32 PM:name=twiliteblue)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (twiliteblue @ Apr 24 2012, 02:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1929256"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think the MAC is one cause of turtling Marine stalemates that is often overlooked.
MACS did not exist in NS1, and Marine players had to spend time welding damaged structures. Now, MACs provide much faster repairs for the same T-Res cost, but cheaper player-time cost.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Also true but it's hard to justify their removal with how ridiculously maneuverable and effective lerk bile-bomb is at the moment.
<!--quoteo(post=1928891:date=Apr 23 2012, 01:31 PM:name=Raza.)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Raza. @ Apr 23 2012, 01:31 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1928891"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Neither P-res nor T-res income scales with team size.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, the total amount of p-res scales, but the p-res of the commander does indeed not scale with team size.
I'm not in favour of introducing another resource type, but as a gedanken experiment what kind of resource type would be ideal for support items? Lets call this resource "support res"; it is pooled and only spendable by the commander, and only spendable on support items. The commander generates P-res, and so he needs a P-res sink; now that we have the hypothetical "support res" it removes the P-res sink, so remove the source and stop giving the comm P-res while he is in the chair. It needs to scale by the number of players that need support(N-1), and it needs to scale by how well the team is doing in some manner(e.g. number of RTs held, RFK, tech points...).
What's the closest thing we have to "support-res"? Well, I think that's probably energy. The best structure for this is probably the command chair; because that gives marines a reason to capture more tech points and it's not a structure you can spam like you can with infantry portals or armories or something. The more tech nodes you hold, the more comm chair energy, only spendable on support, you generate. Then you got to sort of fudge it and make comm chair energy recharge faster with larger teams(its not perfect, the amount of comm chair energy you can stock-pile does not increase with player count, which might be confusing for the comm).
<!--quoteo(post=1928978:date=Apr 23 2012, 04:45 PM:name=Tweadle)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tweadle @ Apr 23 2012, 04:45 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1928978"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->One way of addressing the scaling issue and keeping commanders streamlined is by denying them the flow of p.res, placing everything like meds/ammo under under t.res and awarding the commander t.res4kill from his marines. The more marines you have on a team killing things, the more resources you have at your disposal and the more resources you will <i>need</i> at your disposal for meds and ammo.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's a good idea, if it doesn't screw up the early game. Send in some marines to harass, distract and gather T-res from aliens(they're quite expendable with LA LMG), now the other players who guard or build stuff you keep alive with meds. Is the opportunity cost of sending marines to annoy aliens and gather t-res high enough to prevent this kind of cheesyness?
<!--quoteo(post=1931013:date=Apr 28 2012, 10:30 AM:name=Soylent_green)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Soylent_green @ Apr 28 2012, 10:30 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1931013"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's a good idea, if it doesn't screw up the early game. Send in some marines to harass, distract and gather T-res from aliens(they're quite expendable with LA LMG), now the other players who guard or build stuff you keep alive with meds. Is the opportunity cost of sending marines to annoy aliens and gather t-res high enough to prevent this kind of cheesyness?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This would come down to a balancing issue really. If the rfk was too high then your scenario isn't unlikely. There's a sweet spot somewhere, or at least a <i>sweetest</i> spot.
I don't see how energy allows you to scale with players, since energy is tied to structures you build with t.res, in a game with 6 marines or 12, you'd not be able to buy for example more armories to give you more medpacks/ammo. (Since that would put a big strain on your economy) RFK for the commander makes sense, either that or energy itself should scale with amount of players. (Though that would only make sense for armory energy, obs energy abilities for example don't need to scale with players)
The whole medpack/ammo on armory energy is a big mistake imo, you need a scaling resource, and energy on armories really isn't it. Neither is p.res or t.res for that matter.
<!--quoteo(post=1931013:date=Apr 28 2012, 10:30 AM:name=Soylent_green)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Soylent_green @ Apr 28 2012, 10:30 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1931013"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's a good idea, if it doesn't screw up the early game. Send in some marines to harass, distract and gather T-res from aliens(they're quite expendable with LA LMG), now the other players who guard or build stuff you keep alive with meds. Is the opportunity cost of sending marines to annoy aliens and gather t-res high enough to prevent this kind of cheesyness?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Also, an alternative way to avoid this would be to have a deficit mirror of the rfk model where dying/spawning costs 1 T.res (or P.res). I'm not sure how happy I would be with this though. Iirc, NS1 had this at some point (or maybe still has it!?). The fact that I don't know is probably one of the reasons it's not totally ideal.
Another problem with T-res RFK is that if you don't dial in the right amount of res per kill it will either undercompensate or overcompensate for the amount of meds being dropped. In either of these cases you still have a scaling problem, it's just that it's a smaller problem.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
<!--quoteo(post=1931037:date=Apr 28 2012, 03:01 AM:name=Xarius)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Xarius @ Apr 28 2012, 03:01 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1931037"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I don't see how energy allows you to scale with players, since energy is tied to structures you build with t.res,<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sure it is. Just base armory energy income amount off of the amount of players in game. Ta da! :) You're gonna buy an armory anyways, and more than likely forward armories as well, so its not like this energy will be costing you extra Tres or anything?
I posted this before but my idea is to change personal resource to "privilege to use resource" or "Privilege Points" (PP) (for both teams).
Basically that means only team resource remains (commanders get it), personal resource is "cut" (it's replaced by "PP").
The "PP system":
<b><u>1.</u></b> The commander can set a percentage team resource pools for players to use.
Lets say the commander has 100 resources. The com can pool/set 50% of the res (for example) reserve for player use.
When this happens, the com can't use resource that is reserved but players can. (Of course com can take resource from the reserve pool if he changes his mind later.)
<b><u>2.</u> For players to be able to spend that resources, they need to gain "privilege to use resource points" or "PP".
To gain that, they need to do things like build structures, kill enemies, weld stuff, or go to way points.
Since you need to do efficient stuff to gain "privilege points", the players on the team are encouraged to do things to earn those points.
<strike>Anyway, for every 1 "privilege point" equals 1 resource they can use from the reserved pool of team resource.</strike>
Actually I think a better idea is that having a certain amount of "PP" (like 10 for example) allows you to buy anything regardless of its cost. The command could set the amount of "PP" needed to buy stuff. So say the com sets the "PP cost" to 10, that means you need 10 "PP" to buy anything. Once you buy something, it deducts the points the com has set.</b>
Basically, if the commander has a huge pool of resources (like say 300 for example) the com could set "PP cost" to 5, and pool 250 resources into "reserved resources" for players to use. This effectively allows anyone to buy anything.
<b>So this gives the commander a similar role to NS1 (being able to control the res) but still allows the players to "buy" stuff as long as they accumulate "Privilege points" (which again, is simply earned by doing things like build stuff, killing stuff, welding stuff, going to way points, etc).
<u>3.</u> Additionally, the commander could also possibly set amount of "PP gained" for doing such tasks. For example if a com is having a team who isn't following waypoints for some reason, the com could try to encourage the team to go to waypoints by setting the "PP gain" from going to way point to +3 or something.</b>
(Basically think Sim City Commander for NS.)
Now of course, one problem with this is the fact that in bigger games, weapons + lifeforms will be less seen among all the marines or aliens.
<b>However, is that a major problem? Of course, in larger games each player will probably take a longer time to get their weapon of choice but if they work hard (aka do stuff that earns you "PP"), the player will eventually get it.
It does mean that the gameplay will be different in a 32 player server compared to a 12 player server but unlike NS1, it will be balanced for both teams.
Again the "Privilege Points", "Resource Pooling", etc system applies for both the Marine Commander and Alien Commander.</b>
Finally I think this sort of system can add extra depth in strategy and planning for the team as a whole.
Should the commander pool 80% of resources for players to obtain life forms or weapons faster or save it and tech up?
As for the players, this offers some strategy too.
Lets say the Team Resource is low but a player has some PP points. They could buy 1 weapon but not a jetpack or mines to go along with it (for example). Should they buy it now? Or should they save up their PP points and buy all 3 later (when they have more PP points and when Team Resource pooled/reserved is higher)?
(Of course the latter is basically similar to what we have now "BUT" the major difference is the player now interacts with the commander economically, which can give a better sense of connection between the two roles, which may or may not add fun to the game.) _______________________________ Edit - To address 1 more potential problem with the team. Lets say team resource pooled for players is low (like 7), so that means only 1 person can buy a shotgun (for example) in the next 30 seconds or so (once resource pooled accumulates high enough for a shotgun to be purchased). Player 1 decides "hmm, maybe I should wait here and do nothing to buy it before the other players get a chance to buy it".
It's true that Player 1 can do that but the problem for Player 1 is that he won't be accumulating PP doing nothing. The other teammates will likely have more PP than him. So while Player 1 can buy a shotgun first (before anyone else uses their PP) now, he won't be able to buy much stuff later compared to his teammates due to not doing anything.
<!--quoteo(post=1931312:date=Apr 28 2012, 06:07 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ Apr 28 2012, 06:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1931312"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Sure it is. Just base armory energy income amount off of the amount of players in game. Ta da! :) You're gonna buy an armory anyways, and more than likely forward armories as well, so its not like this energy will be costing you extra Tres or anything?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
no please. that kind of unintuitive mechanic is bad for the game. Let's say you're relying on a certain timing for this energy to accrue, but suddenly one of your players drops (or someone joins the team), and the energy income drops because of it. That screws up your plan and your timing attack fails. There's no intuitive way to show the commander how this resource scales with time and players except for like an explicit tooltip. BAD. i feel that Tres4kill is the way to go. If it's unbalanced, that just means you need to introduce the right amount of resource sink.
Also, the concern about 1-2 min oni: to get 1-2 minute oni you need to gain about 50 res from r4k. on average that's 25 kills. Assuming you play skulk perfectly, the size of a game in which you can accrue 25 kills in the first 2 minutes without it being GG for the marines means that 1-2 minute oni would be immediately shot to death by a 16 marine death squad.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
<!--quoteo(post=1931375:date=Apr 28 2012, 05:34 PM:name=Wheeee)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wheeee @ Apr 28 2012, 05:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1931375"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->no please. that kind of unintuitive mechanic is bad for the game. Let's say you're relying on a certain timing for this energy to accrue, but suddenly one of your players drops (or someone joins the team), and the energy income drops because of it. That screws up your plan and your timing attack fails. There's no intuitive way to show the commander how this resource scales with time and players except for like an explicit tooltip. BAD. i feel that Tres4kill is the way to go. If it's unbalanced, that just means you need to introduce the right amount of resource sink.
Also, the concern about 1-2 min oni: to get 1-2 minute oni you need to gain about 50 res from r4k. on average that's 25 kills. Assuming you play skulk perfectly, the size of a game in which you can accrue 25 kills in the first 2 minutes without it being GG for the marines means that 1-2 minute oni would be immediately shot to death by a 16 marine death squad.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ehh... i disagree. Feedback is easy to implement with any form of counter on the screen for the comm. There is <u>plenty</u> in this game that is not immediately obvious and will have to be worked on in regards to feedback, just add this to the list? Its not unsolvable. Plus, if medpacks and ammo are the only things using this energy.... i really dont see this "plan and your timing attack fails" scenario as it doesnt happen currently while using pres, and while pres is counted you have no idea at what rate! Basically you can just create a third icon for armory energy with a number, same as pres, and you would use it in the same manner without ever noticing the difference. <i>I can think of NO ONE who <b>currently </b>does the math in their head, on the fly, of the income rate of pres to account for their medpack spamming <b>planning</b>!</i> They just click.
Even if armour energy scales with player-count you'll be able to drop multiple armouries to break the natural scaling model rendering it pretty useless. If you balance around one armoury pool of energy and the comm simply drops three, where are you now? If you <b>can't</b> use multiple armoury energy, then I don't see a reason for changing this from P.res unless you want armouries to be prerequisites for meds and ammo (remember when this happened and got resolved because it sucked?).
Scaling resource flows is generally unintuitive because rules change from game to game. It's certainly one tool we could use but only one I would use as a last resort. You actually give an argument for this yourself: you can think of nobody who does the maths in their head. This is probably true but I can think of countless people who have done the maths outside the game and apply it in-game for general rules of thumb. People learn and become accustomed to timings, numbers and all that, irrespective of whether they're maths geniuses, and employ that knowledge through experience and gut feelings. Experience and gut feelings get thrown out of whack by scaling resource models. That's not to say that it's impossible but that you have to invest a huge amount of time and energy learning the nuances of 6v6 vs 8v7 vs 12v12 etc.
Either way, I'm not sure armoury energy is the way to go.
Well the <i>goal</i> of resources scaling is to have more consistent games across player numbers. For example if resources used for medpack don't scale with player counts dropping a field armory might be much more advantageous in bigger games, and that's something you need to learn from experience.
Scaling of p-res also allow to have consistent timings across games, for example gl rush.
I'm a bit septic about scaling working in general because a lot of stuff don't scale linearly in the first place, for example damage over area, or melee vs. ranged units. Probably big games will be different that smaller ones anyway. There is a lot of finite size effects also, for example having too many onii is not really useful because they block each other and can't even move anymore (while marine can gl all of them).
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->no please. that kind of unintuitive mechanic is bad for the game. Let's say you're relying on a certain timing for this energy to accrue, but suddenly one of your players drops (or someone joins the team), and the energy income drops because of it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The scaling don't need to be too trivial, for example you can have a basal rate of income, let's say 5 res per minutes, that is independent of player count and a variable income of one res per minute per player. Dropping one player would be most likely unnoticeable, or at least the loss of a player would have a much bigger effect on your strategy than just the res income increase he was bringing.
<!--quoteo(post=1931444:date=Apr 29 2012, 06:24 AM:name=Tweadle)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tweadle @ Apr 29 2012, 06:24 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1931444"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Even if armour energy scales with player-count you'll be able to drop multiple armouries to break the natural scaling model rendering it pretty useless.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's why you don't base it off of spammable buildings, you base it off of _tech nodes_ or _RTs_. (Where tech nodes make more sense, since we need to give marines more incentive to build on tech nodes anyway)
<!--quoteo(post=1931375:date=Apr 28 2012, 08:34 PM:name=Wheeee)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wheeee @ Apr 28 2012, 08:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1931375"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Let's say you're relying on a certain timing for this energy to accrue, but suddenly one of your players drops (or someone joins the team), and the energy income drops because of it. That screws up your plan and your timing attack fails.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
One less player means one less player to feed meds and ammo, timing is more or less unchanged, assuming you don't do anything stupid and introduce additional uses for this energy other than support.
Comments
MACS did not exist in NS1, and Marine players had to spend time welding damaged structures. Now, MACs provide much faster repairs for the same T-Res cost, but cheaper player-time cost.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Also true but it's hard to justify their removal with how ridiculously maneuverable and effective lerk bile-bomb is at the moment.
Well, the total amount of p-res scales, but the p-res of the commander does indeed not scale with team size.
I'm not in favour of introducing another resource type, but as a gedanken experiment what kind of resource type would be ideal for support items? Lets call this resource "support res"; it is pooled and only spendable by the commander, and only spendable on support items. The commander generates P-res, and so he needs a P-res sink; now that we have the hypothetical "support res" it removes the P-res sink, so remove the source and stop giving the comm P-res while he is in the chair. It needs to scale by the number of players that need support(N-1), and it needs to scale by how well the team is doing in some manner(e.g. number of RTs held, RFK, tech points...).
What's the closest thing we have to "support-res"? Well, I think that's probably energy. The best structure for this is probably the command chair; because that gives marines a reason to capture more tech points and it's not a structure you can spam like you can with infantry portals or armories or something. The more tech nodes you hold, the more comm chair energy, only spendable on support, you generate. Then you got to sort of fudge it and make comm chair energy recharge faster with larger teams(its not perfect, the amount of comm chair energy you can stock-pile does not increase with player count, which might be confusing for the comm).
Could that work?
It's a good idea, if it doesn't screw up the early game. Send in some marines to harass, distract and gather T-res from aliens(they're quite expendable with LA LMG), now the other players who guard or build stuff you keep alive with meds. Is the opportunity cost of sending marines to annoy aliens and gather t-res high enough to prevent this kind of cheesyness?
This would come down to a balancing issue really. If the rfk was too high then your scenario isn't unlikely. There's a sweet spot somewhere, or at least a <i>sweetest</i> spot.
The whole medpack/ammo on armory energy is a big mistake imo, you need a scaling resource, and energy on armories really isn't it. Neither is p.res or t.res for that matter.
Also, an alternative way to avoid this would be to have a deficit mirror of the rfk model where dying/spawning costs 1 T.res (or P.res). I'm not sure how happy I would be with this though. Iirc, NS1 had this at some point (or maybe still has it!?). The fact that I don't know is probably one of the reasons it's not totally ideal.
Sure it is. Just base armory energy income amount off of the amount of players in game. Ta da! :)
You're gonna buy an armory anyways, and more than likely forward armories as well, so its not like this energy will be costing you extra Tres or anything?
is it about the 0-15minute tech rush to see who out techs the other?
is it about the 15+ minute game where tech is completed for both sides and we're now doing the slow map seiging process?
Basically that means only team resource remains (commanders get it), personal resource is "cut" (it's replaced by "PP").
The "PP system":
<b><u>1.</u></b> The commander can set a percentage team resource pools for players to use.
Lets say the commander has 100 resources. The com can pool/set 50% of the res (for example) reserve for player use.
When this happens, the com can't use resource that is reserved but players can. (Of course com can take resource from the reserve pool if he changes his mind later.)
<b><u>2.</u> For players to be able to spend that resources, they need to gain "privilege to use resource points" or "PP".
To gain that, they need to do things like build structures, kill enemies, weld stuff, or go to way points.
Since you need to do efficient stuff to gain "privilege points", the players on the team are encouraged to do things to earn those points.
<strike>Anyway, for every 1 "privilege point" equals 1 resource they can use from the reserved pool of team resource.</strike>
Actually I think a better idea is that having a certain amount of "PP" (like 10 for example) allows you to buy anything regardless of its cost. The command could set the amount of "PP" needed to buy stuff. So say the com sets the "PP cost" to 10, that means you need 10 "PP" to buy anything. Once you buy something, it deducts the points the com has set.</b>
Basically, if the commander has a huge pool of resources (like say 300 for example) the com could set "PP cost" to 5, and pool 250 resources into "reserved resources" for players to use. This effectively allows anyone to buy anything.
<b>So this gives the commander a similar role to NS1 (being able to control the res) but still allows the players to "buy" stuff as long as they accumulate "Privilege points" (which again, is simply earned by doing things like build stuff, killing stuff, welding stuff, going to way points, etc).
<u>3.</u> Additionally, the commander could also possibly set amount of "PP gained" for doing such tasks. For example if a com is having a team who isn't following waypoints for some reason, the com could try to encourage the team to go to waypoints by setting the "PP gain" from going to way point to +3 or something.</b>
(Basically think Sim City Commander for NS.)
Now of course, one problem with this is the fact that in bigger games, weapons + lifeforms will be less seen among all the marines or aliens.
<b>However, is that a major problem? Of course, in larger games each player will probably take a longer time to get their weapon of choice but if they work hard (aka do stuff that earns you "PP"), the player will eventually get it.
It does mean that the gameplay will be different in a 32 player server compared to a 12 player server but unlike NS1, it will be balanced for both teams.
Again the "Privilege Points", "Resource Pooling", etc system applies for both the Marine Commander and Alien Commander.</b>
Finally I think this sort of system can add extra depth in strategy and planning for the team as a whole.
Should the commander pool 80% of resources for players to obtain life forms or weapons faster or save it and tech up?
As for the players, this offers some strategy too.
Lets say the Team Resource is low but a player has some PP points. They could buy 1 weapon but not a jetpack or mines to go along with it (for example). Should they buy it now? Or should they save up their PP points and buy all 3 later (when they have more PP points and when Team Resource pooled/reserved is higher)?
(Of course the latter is basically similar to what we have now "BUT" the major difference is the player now interacts with the commander economically, which can give a better sense of connection between the two roles, which may or may not add fun to the game.)
_______________________________
Edit - To address 1 more potential problem with the team. Lets say team resource pooled for players is low (like 7), so that means only 1 person can buy a shotgun (for example) in the next 30 seconds or so (once resource pooled accumulates high enough for a shotgun to be purchased). Player 1 decides "hmm, maybe I should wait here and do nothing to buy it before the other players get a chance to buy it".
It's true that Player 1 can do that but the problem for Player 1 is that he won't be accumulating PP doing nothing. The other teammates will likely have more PP than him. So while Player 1 can buy a shotgun first (before anyone else uses their PP) now, he won't be able to buy much stuff later compared to his teammates due to not doing anything.
You're gonna buy an armory anyways, and more than likely forward armories as well, so its not like this energy will be costing you extra Tres or anything?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
no please. that kind of unintuitive mechanic is bad for the game. Let's say you're relying on a certain timing for this energy to accrue, but suddenly one of your players drops (or someone joins the team), and the energy income drops because of it. That screws up your plan and your timing attack fails. There's no intuitive way to show the commander how this resource scales with time and players except for like an explicit tooltip. BAD. i feel that Tres4kill is the way to go. If it's unbalanced, that just means you need to introduce the right amount of resource sink.
Also, the concern about 1-2 min oni: to get 1-2 minute oni you need to gain about 50 res from r4k. on average that's 25 kills. Assuming you play skulk perfectly, the size of a game in which you can accrue 25 kills in the first 2 minutes without it being GG for the marines means that 1-2 minute oni would be immediately shot to death by a 16 marine death squad.
Also, the concern about 1-2 min oni: to get 1-2 minute oni you need to gain about 50 res from r4k. on average that's 25 kills. Assuming you play skulk perfectly, the size of a game in which you can accrue 25 kills in the first 2 minutes without it being GG for the marines means that 1-2 minute oni would be immediately shot to death by a 16 marine death squad.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ehh... i disagree. Feedback is easy to implement with any form of counter on the screen for the comm. There is <u>plenty</u> in this game that is not immediately obvious and will have to be worked on in regards to feedback, just add this to the list? Its not unsolvable.
Plus, if medpacks and ammo are the only things using this energy.... i really dont see this "plan and your timing attack fails" scenario as it doesnt happen currently while using pres, and while pres is counted you have no idea at what rate! Basically you can just create a third icon for armory energy with a number, same as pres, and you would use it in the same manner without ever noticing the difference.
<i>I can think of NO ONE who <b>currently </b>does the math in their head, on the fly, of the income rate of pres to account for their medpack spamming <b>planning</b>!</i> They just click.
Scaling resource flows is generally unintuitive because rules change from game to game. It's certainly one tool we could use but only one I would use as a last resort. You actually give an argument for this yourself: you can think of nobody who does the maths in their head. This is probably true but I can think of countless people who have done the maths outside the game and apply it in-game for general rules of thumb. People learn and become accustomed to timings, numbers and all that, irrespective of whether they're maths geniuses, and employ that knowledge through experience and gut feelings. Experience and gut feelings get thrown out of whack by scaling resource models. That's not to say that it's impossible but that you have to invest a huge amount of time and energy learning the nuances of 6v6 vs 8v7 vs 12v12 etc.
Either way, I'm not sure armoury energy is the way to go.
Scaling of p-res also allow to have consistent timings across games, for example gl rush.
I'm a bit septic about scaling working in general because a lot of stuff don't scale linearly in the first place, for example damage over area, or melee vs. ranged units. Probably big games will be different that smaller ones anyway. There is a lot of finite size effects also, for example having too many onii is not really useful because they block each other and can't even move anymore (while marine can gl all of them).
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->no please. that kind of unintuitive mechanic is bad for the game. Let's say you're relying on a certain timing for this energy to accrue, but suddenly one of your players drops (or someone joins the team), and the energy income drops because of it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The scaling don't need to be too trivial, for example you can have a basal rate of income, let's say 5 res per minutes, that is independent of player count and a variable income of one res per minute per player. Dropping one player would be most likely unnoticeable, or at least the loss of a player would have a much bigger effect on your strategy than just the res income increase he was bringing.
That's why you don't base it off of spammable buildings, you base it off of _tech nodes_ or _RTs_. (Where tech nodes make more sense, since we need to give marines more incentive to build on tech nodes anyway)
One less player means one less player to feed meds and ammo, timing is more or less unchanged, assuming you don't do anything stupid and introduce additional uses for this energy other than support.