Early Game Too Short and End Game Too Long?
Soul_Rider
Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
It seems to me that most people get the enjoyment out of the early game battles and the race for the higher level tech, however once the high level tech comes in, the fun level drops off as you often find yourself heavily outgunned in battles.
While the new changes brought in with build 206 have increased the game length overall, it feels to me as though it has grown in the wrong proportions.
We have a very short early game now, with 2nd hive abilities up at 6mins, from that point on the End Game begins with the big weapons. Currently games on pubs are lasting up to 2 hours, and even gathers are getting longer in the end game than is entirely comfortable.
While I can't offer any hard solutions, I feel the game needs to reverse it's current trend by lengthening the fun, tightly contested early game, and make the end game that much shorter, so the feeling of helplessness doesn't go on for an hour after you realise you have lost.
We all love the early battles, so let's make them the real meat of the game, rather than a small, almost unimportant, period of the game.
These are just my feelings currently. I can't offer any really helpful solutions, but hopefully some others in the thread can :)
While the new changes brought in with build 206 have increased the game length overall, it feels to me as though it has grown in the wrong proportions.
We have a very short early game now, with 2nd hive abilities up at 6mins, from that point on the End Game begins with the big weapons. Currently games on pubs are lasting up to 2 hours, and even gathers are getting longer in the end game than is entirely comfortable.
While I can't offer any hard solutions, I feel the game needs to reverse it's current trend by lengthening the fun, tightly contested early game, and make the end game that much shorter, so the feeling of helplessness doesn't go on for an hour after you realise you have lost.
We all love the early battles, so let's make them the real meat of the game, rather than a small, almost unimportant, period of the game.
These are just my feelings currently. I can't offer any really helpful solutions, but hopefully some others in the thread can :)
Comments
I do think alien changes help set up a proper mid game now. Taking longer to build rt's, requiring a gorge or two etc.
Glancing at the tracker - we could reintroduce the importance of a second hive to stagger alien strength.
1st hive Augmentations for Skulk/Lerk,
2nd hive Augmentation Fade/Onos.
Additionally you could make Aliens "mature" into their augmentations like structures. So fades would have to play it safe for a few minutes until they got blink, and a dead lifeform would be more of a power shift in the short term.
What's that?
You'd grow stronger the longer you're alive? Sounds cool - and you'd get a thrill if you killed one of the best players as a fully matured alien.
Basically yes, you'd grow stronger the longer you were alive to your max health. I don't think it would be applicable to gorges or skulks.
Ideally, a game could be ended quickly by a rush or some other fast aggression build at the cost of map control. If a team chooses a more slow opening, ideally, they would have the opportunity for more map control which would set them up for a strong mid/late game.
Personally, I'm all for resource nodes heavily influencing who is in control. It should be obvious when a team has, and in able to hold on to, 2 or 3 more nodes as they should be out researching or pounding the enemy team with weapons/lifeforms. With the infestation/DI mechanic in place the possibility for hits against specific areas to cut resources and attempt a comeback are still possible.
remember marine start in ns_eclipse?
Basically end game wins are based on this equation.
How fast you can keep spawning and return to the front line + amount of spam/damage you can lay down = win.
This in my opinion is all to do with how close the late game weapons are. Flamer, gl.. Spam weapons in crowded rooms. Gets boring. ARC should clear rooms, so should flamer.
I think gl should be anti life form. Fast travelling and firing and require skill. Lower damage.
What I propose is aliens losing all PRes on death, perhaps being converted into TRes. PRes will not carry over to the next life. The alien player will now need to stay alive in order to evolve (hence the alien evolution).
The cost of lifeforms would need to be lowered to accommodate for this. I am imagining a late alien game, with majority map control should allow the player evolutions in a matter of minutes.
In the long run, I think this should result in a far more cautious and slow early game for aliens, while they would still have a strong endgame. Player would now need to decide who will go grunts and who will play cautiously to focus on evolving.
xenocide
1) Lowering Pres to allow early game
2) Make it so losing map control makes you lose some form of tech so turtling is ineffective / a quick affair.