Balanced
mikeditka
Join Date: 2012-03-31 Member: 149764Members, NS2 Map Tester
Join Date: 2012-03-31 Member: 149764Members, NS2 Map Tester
<div class="IPBDescription">Read this</div>For those of you who don't think the game is getting more balanced and everything is ###### UP!!! I haven't been playing the game very long but I understand RTS pretty well. The way to achieve victory in a RTS is based on, how much of your economy you can spend, your income, you ability to delay/hurt your enemies economy. The way to tell the balance of NS2 would be then to compare it a RTS. Which means the same rules will apply in order to win. These are the things that they must balance before I believe the game will be balanced. Shockingly they have been working on these things!!! I will prove it.
The balance that I am going to be talking about is how much of you economy you must spend. In this post I will address what they have done to help balance the game. I had posted in a topic the numbers of TOTAL RES to unlock all endgame lifeforms (marines and alien players) in 208. This would be Marine = 305, Alien = 135. To me this is a huge inbalance to only spend a total of 135 RES to get endgame lifeforms for Aliens, and Marines have to spend 305. That was a big issue that some have pointed out and made the game very Alien favored. To make the game more balance you would think the Total RES counts for endgame lifeforms would have to be more equal. In a balanced RTS the numbers have to be similar.
Those of you who play competitively, think this before you read the rest of this post. Have Marine's had an easier time to win, and have they been winning more? The fact is that these numbers were an eye opener to me and I would like to share them with the rest of you.
<u><!--sizeo:5--><span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>TOTAL RES TO UNLOCK ALL ENDGAME LIFEFORMS in 209</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></u>
<b>
<!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--> Aliens <!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
<b>10</b> Craig hive upgrade
<b>20</b> Carapace
<b>20</b> Regen
<b>40</b> Second hive
<b>10</b> Shift Hive upgrade
<b>20</b> Celerity
<b>20</b> Hypermutatioin
<b>20</b> Upgrades such as stomp/blie bomb/blink (remember more of these are coming into the game and Marines have all 3 tiers of their upgrades at this time)
This is where it gets tricky for Aliens
<b>75</b> Onos
<b>=225</b> if you go skull to Onos (i.e. Onos rush)
<b>225+50=275</b> Lerk with upgrades to Onos
<b>30+225=255</b> Gorge with upgrades to Onos
<b>70+225=295</b> Fade with upgrades to Onos
<b><!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Marine<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
<b>10</b> Amory
<b>20</b> Advanced
<b>20</b> Arms Lab
<b>180</b> Weapons and Armor
<b>30</b> Proto Lab
<b>25</b> JP upgrade
<b>10</b> JP purchase
<b>=265</b> This is were the Marine part became tricky. There are no weapons in this yet.
<b>20+265=285</b> Wielders upgrade and purchase
<b>25+265=290</b> Mines upgrades and purchase
<b>35+265=300</b> Shotgun upgrades and purchases
<b>40+265=305</b> GL upgrades and purchase
<b>60+265=325</b> Flamethrower upgrades and purchase
Remember this is full endgame lifeforms. How you achieve the endgame is your own strategy and will allow you to beat your opponent in a RTS/NS2. If I learned anything from doing this is they are getting closer and closer to adding more Marine Tech. Which means the developers are moving in the right direction.
The balance that I am going to be talking about is how much of you economy you must spend. In this post I will address what they have done to help balance the game. I had posted in a topic the numbers of TOTAL RES to unlock all endgame lifeforms (marines and alien players) in 208. This would be Marine = 305, Alien = 135. To me this is a huge inbalance to only spend a total of 135 RES to get endgame lifeforms for Aliens, and Marines have to spend 305. That was a big issue that some have pointed out and made the game very Alien favored. To make the game more balance you would think the Total RES counts for endgame lifeforms would have to be more equal. In a balanced RTS the numbers have to be similar.
Those of you who play competitively, think this before you read the rest of this post. Have Marine's had an easier time to win, and have they been winning more? The fact is that these numbers were an eye opener to me and I would like to share them with the rest of you.
<u><!--sizeo:5--><span style="font-size:18pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>TOTAL RES TO UNLOCK ALL ENDGAME LIFEFORMS in 209</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></u>
<b>
<!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--> Aliens <!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
<b>10</b> Craig hive upgrade
<b>20</b> Carapace
<b>20</b> Regen
<b>40</b> Second hive
<b>10</b> Shift Hive upgrade
<b>20</b> Celerity
<b>20</b> Hypermutatioin
<b>20</b> Upgrades such as stomp/blie bomb/blink (remember more of these are coming into the game and Marines have all 3 tiers of their upgrades at this time)
This is where it gets tricky for Aliens
<b>75</b> Onos
<b>=225</b> if you go skull to Onos (i.e. Onos rush)
<b>225+50=275</b> Lerk with upgrades to Onos
<b>30+225=255</b> Gorge with upgrades to Onos
<b>70+225=295</b> Fade with upgrades to Onos
<b><!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->Marine<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
<b>10</b> Amory
<b>20</b> Advanced
<b>20</b> Arms Lab
<b>180</b> Weapons and Armor
<b>30</b> Proto Lab
<b>25</b> JP upgrade
<b>10</b> JP purchase
<b>=265</b> This is were the Marine part became tricky. There are no weapons in this yet.
<b>20+265=285</b> Wielders upgrade and purchase
<b>25+265=290</b> Mines upgrades and purchase
<b>35+265=300</b> Shotgun upgrades and purchases
<b>40+265=305</b> GL upgrades and purchase
<b>60+265=325</b> Flamethrower upgrades and purchase
Remember this is full endgame lifeforms. How you achieve the endgame is your own strategy and will allow you to beat your opponent in a RTS/NS2. If I learned anything from doing this is they are getting closer and closer to adding more Marine Tech. Which means the developers are moving in the right direction.
Comments
-I see you've mixed both team-res and personal-res..
-You do realize marines can pick up any weapon dropped from another marine (exluding JPs), right? Making the "cost" <b>heavily</b> reduced.
I don't think the balance is that far off to be honest.. Also marines have always been about controlling the RTs (and "turtle"), to get their economy rolling.
Protoss : 3225
Zerg : 2300
OMG, zerg is imba !
Research times to reach T3 tech (Brood Lords, Ultras for Zerg. Collosi etc. for Protoss e.g.) is like 3x longer for Zerg than for P and T. I don't have the exact numbers, but the research time for T3 for Zerg are sooooo long compared to the other two races.
It doesn't mean the game isn't balanced:) There are different factors than purely cost/time of tech/economy that contribute to balance :)
Really balance will come down to win/lose ratios and how the game 'feels and plays'.
Really balance will come down to win/lose ratios and how the game 'feels and plays'.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This would not be a true fact. I could stack the teams in pub play under a smurf name with friends and we would roll the other team 10 games in a row. The devs will get those stats. Does that make the game balanced?
All this to say that one simply can not compare faction balance like this.
Protoss : 3225
Zerg : 2300
OMG, zerg is imba !<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Here is what I consider endgame units for SC2. Now remember there are no units involved and no more than 1 structure for each. No unit purchases are in this estimation. I am not going to do that one for yall but here is an example..
<a href="http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/3123242693?page=1" target="_blank">SC2 old rescourse guide</a>
Remember that Terran has one thing that the others do not have and that is mules. Mules have the ability to mine faster, so to balance the game they made the Terran upgrades/endgame more money. But if you look at Protoss and Zerg they are similar because at the rate of which they are able to mine is slower than the Terran. In NS2 all resource gathering is the same, thus the resources need to reach endgame tech should be similar for better balance.
For example: It adds vehicle and infantry upgrades together for terran when terrans really don't use both in most of their games. At most, you'll see infantry + vehicle weapons, ignoring vehicle armor. Typically for bio you'll see only infantry. For mech you'll see only vehicle weapons.
And that guide highlights the problems with simply adding together costs and then concluding without further analysis. For example: adding up all the crag, shade, and shift upgrades doesn't give an accurate picture of how much res an alien team will use to reach full tech. In a real game, the aliens will only really need to research carapace, regen, and celerity to reach end game. Researching cloaking, silence, lerk spikes, etc really doesn't increase the alien team's power at all. They're upgrades that the aliens get after they've already gotten everything else.
I believe the more we see this the more the game will be balanced.
You could if you wanted to I suppose dot dot dot
people already do that...
That's my point. That;s why i wish the dev's would not balance the game of a chart of data from pub servers.
So you don't approve of them gathering stats from pub servers.
How would they gather stats? from the QA department provided by their publisher? ... oh wait we are their publisher ...
Is the point to provide a better suggestion? or just to emit disapproval?
<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6636384/Funny/tumblr_kpomcqr4Ae1qz8ovio1_500.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Balance numbers should be based of competitive play. Its where players play coordinated and use every skill to it's full advantage. It makes it easier to spot where the problem lies.
If something is broken there it will be broken for everyone, its the same game after all.
However when a possible solution has been found its important to check how it affects the rest of the players.
In some cases this can happen the other way around. Competitive play might be playing fine but something might be completely broken on the public side. Then a solution needs to be found and then check how it affects the competitive community.
During a beta like this one I think its much better to focus on having very fun and solid mechanics. You can always balance a game in time but it will be harder to change the mechanics later.
It should be the same for ns2, both broad statistics, subjective reports and controlled environment games should be used.
It should be the same for ns2, both broad statistics, subjective reports and controlled environment games should be used.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
isnt this what theyre doing? pub stats, forum feedback, and competitive games?
at this moment it feels that marines need to spend a lot of more ress to compete with aliens at slower rate.
current build you see onos with nessery upgrades before marines even got tech 1 upgrade on weapons and we all know you cant kill onos with tech 0 or 1.
at moment Dev to busy with aliens and leave marines to die, how can you balance something if you dont spend time every build on both side but focus more on 1 side.
alien side need slower pace in game, when was beter then was skulsk and lerk with 1 hive, fade with 2 hives onos with 3 hives is beter then way it currently goes, this way you wont see onos early games,