Let's talk about the energy removal
Omega_K2
Join Date: 2011-12-25 Member: 139013Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2011-12-25 Member: 139013Members, Reinforced - Shadow
So it has been a while since this patch and I wonder whether people like it or not. What do you think about the removal of energy. Was it a good choice? Did it make sense (for every building)?
Is using PRES/TRES instead good?
Personally I felt having most of the marine stuff based on energy was a much better mechanic compared to TRES/PRES. Aliens not so much anyway, since there always was little to do with TRES.
My major concern with switchng over is that abilities just get too dependant on the resources. It doesn't really matter whether it is TRES or PRES since both are tied to RTs. This means abilities that cost TRES will get very little use on low tres and get spammed with high tres. Ultimately this just ends up a slipperly slope, no matter how you adjust the costs; since the team with the extractor advantage can just spam abilities and advance their advantage even further with little chance of the enemy team competing.
Having that extra resource, whether it is called energy or something else that is actually independent from the resource towers really helps on the marine side IMHO. This effect is less visible on the alien side as aliens seem to struggle less with map control and don't rely on the abilities as much as the marines do (the passive "gardner" alien com vs the active supportive marine com").
---
As for Scan/Beacon, having it based on energy was fine. If you needed to get more scans out you could just construct another obs. What is really nice here also as opponent that even killing just one of the obs would cripple the ability to scan/beacon. Effectivly it is cut in half assuming the energy levels were the same.
As for Nano Shield/Construct, it was pretty decent on com station energy. The strong point was that the amount of nano shield/nano construts was rather limited, so you usually wouldn't see them spammed. Building a 2nd com station for extra nano shields & nano construct was also a good thing; it rewarded expanding into other areas and denying hive locations with extra nanoshields. It wasn't mandatory to drop extra com stations, but good never the less. Now you have less of a reason to.
As for MedPacks/Ammo, it think having them on energy was pretty stupid. Just way to spammable; even if adjust the energy, with additional armories it just too good... with TRES you get massivly crippled with few extractory and can't virtually ever support your team where as on a lot of extractors you can drown them in medpacks and ammo.
---
I'd like to see a completly different system for them in place that is a sort of extra marine-only resource. Might be callled TSA-Supplies or w/e. Basically, for each marine on the field you get a set amount of supplies up to a max value. So for example, for each marine (excluding com) you get 1 HP supply and 1 Ammo supply resource every 45 secs up to a max of 5. In a 6v6 situation, you'll have up to 25 packs at your disposal.
Now it is up to the com to distribute them evenly or save them for a rush or support an assault squad with a lot of medpacks.
This fixes a bunch of issues:
- It is a consistent income, regadless of the ressource situation
- The com can support the team thoughout the entire game
- Spamming comes at the cost of waiting for the next supplies for a while
- Scales well with the amount of players
---
As for the alien stuff, it seems to work much better. I especially like having Cysts on TRES; though they can spammed it makes sense to have them on TRES. Energy is just annoying - at the current cost they are affordable enough. (I'd actually rather want per area limit there and more effective cyst chain cutting -> faster cyst decay!)
It also feels better with the building abilities; often they'd just get spammed in some situations and never used other wise.
Though, it still has the issue of being able to spam when you don't need the res; as for alien a lower tres cap (200?) could probably work to balance out things a a bit....
--- EDIT 26/06/2012
Instead of addressing the majority of posts individually, I'll just address the most common points I've seen:
<!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b><u>Energy is intuitive:</u></b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
One very common argument here is that energy is unintuitive. I really wonder how it may be unintuitive; in the UI it was clear whether something costs energy or not. Some say that having multiple buildings with energy was rather complicated, but that is just a matter of implementing the GUI for the game. Though you could also go for a shared energy pool game-design wise.
If you look at traditional RTS games, they usually had a per-unit or per-building energy (/mana/rage/whatever) pool though.
Also, the conecept of energy isn't new at all. I mentioned other RTS games, look at warcraft 3 for example; almost every unit had abilities and many units had their own pool of energy ("mana") and it was one of the most popular & successful games.
<!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b><u>Cooldown is a simplified version of energy:</u></b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
Some people want to add a cooldown, but think that energy is inherently bad. This really surprise me, since it's actually sort-of the same thing. Energy however, is more flexible then a regular cooldown.
If you don't see what I'm getting at:
-> 30 secs cooldown
-> == energy pool of 30 with regeneration of 1 energy per sec
It is the same thing!
Though, what energy allowed is a pool rather then just a simple cooldown. This a much better approach for things like nano shield, so you are actually able to more then one at a time; it adds some more tactical depth then just having a cooldown.
<!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b><u>Arguable: TRes gives more strategical depth:</u></b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
As I've explained in my OP:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My major concern with switching over is that abilities just get too dependant on the resources. It doesn't really matter whether it is TRES or PRES since both are tied to RTs. This means abilities that cost TRES will get very little use on low tres and get spammed with high tres. Ultimately this just ends up a slippery slope, no matter how you adjust the costs; since the team with the extractor advantage can just spam abilities and advance their advantage even further with little chance of the enemy team competing..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
To put it differently:
Low income -> Abilities don't get used
High income -> Abilities get spammed
I can see where you (those, who think TRes -> more strategical depth) are coming from, but ultimately, long-term planning is usually superior to short-term. I see it has some depth to it when you can make the decision to support with medpacks and delay your weapon upgrades/tech in order to achieve a long-term victory (let's say securing an extractor). But as far as I can tell, that is the only situation where it adds some sort of strategical depth.
Otherwise I think it's more crippling after all, since as I've pointed out above, you'll be more driven to spam with lots of money and driven to avoid that decision with low income (as the risk gradually increases with lower income).
Now if you look at the way I proposed for medpacks/ammo it is not as much about your current res situation, which can be good or bad, but rather your current stockpile of medpacks/ammo. It is a different decision you need to make - do you want to play safe, and sparingly use medpacks / ammo in case a dire situation arises? Or do you want to drop them more regularly to strengthen your marines on the field, but risk that you lack the required supplies when a situation arises (eg. new hive dropped/extractors under attack/sudden fade you might take down with meds etc).
This decision is clearly different from the res based on, but I think it's much better. Why? Because it is true throughout the entire game as it is independent from the res flow; res flow just too heavily impacts the decision regardless of the overall state - so I think the latter option is actually more tactical.
<!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><u><b>It <strike>will</strike> won't be better as the res flow improves</b></u><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
I partially explained it in the section above (so read it first :P), but again, this isn't quite true. When res flow is improved only the point of where you have to make the decision changes, but the problems won't get fixed.
While this doesn't exactly map to reality, we can look at this to understand it a bit:
fprob(nExtractors) = 1 - CostModifer / nExtractors
Observe: <a href="http://fooplot.com/plot/4cf3tm40ek" target="_blank">http://fooplot.com/plot/4cf3tm40ek</a>
(Note: if (fprop < 0) {fprop = 0;} )
This example is far from perfect, but it can show a few things: the horizontal line represents the "ideal" case, where with 50% probability the com will go for a medpack. With this, we can easily observe that if we increase the cost, this point changes to be further away when we have more extractors. On the opposite, if we reduce the cost, the point comes closer to having 1 extractor.
Basically, no matter how we adjust the res, we just move that point around. If you have enough extractors, you can always spam. If you don't have enough res, you won't be using medpacks (or not as much). Merely the point changes when you can or can not spam or drop medpacks with adjusting the cost and resflow.
While this graph doesn't reflect human behaviour (how it could it anyway, human behaviour is far to complex), it should show the fundamental problem I see here; no matter how you adjust the costs, it just shifts the viability around and won't fix any problems.
Though, of course you could shift it to the extremes. So either that you'll never see medpacks unless you are already winning anyway, but then again, it's that other issue - slippery slope; the team that is already winning just gets another boost. And in addition, we'll have a feature that gets little to no use.
Or we make it viable at any time, but then again, we'll get ######loads of spam without really hurting the team.
If it is somewhere in the middle we'll get a bit of both, uselessness early on and spam later on. Having it on a more constant basis is MUCH better.
On a last note, this is only true in the current resource system. So the other option is to make radical changes, so at ANY given time, with low or high res income you still have to make that decision to drop meds or not.
Is using PRES/TRES instead good?
Personally I felt having most of the marine stuff based on energy was a much better mechanic compared to TRES/PRES. Aliens not so much anyway, since there always was little to do with TRES.
My major concern with switchng over is that abilities just get too dependant on the resources. It doesn't really matter whether it is TRES or PRES since both are tied to RTs. This means abilities that cost TRES will get very little use on low tres and get spammed with high tres. Ultimately this just ends up a slipperly slope, no matter how you adjust the costs; since the team with the extractor advantage can just spam abilities and advance their advantage even further with little chance of the enemy team competing.
Having that extra resource, whether it is called energy or something else that is actually independent from the resource towers really helps on the marine side IMHO. This effect is less visible on the alien side as aliens seem to struggle less with map control and don't rely on the abilities as much as the marines do (the passive "gardner" alien com vs the active supportive marine com").
---
As for Scan/Beacon, having it based on energy was fine. If you needed to get more scans out you could just construct another obs. What is really nice here also as opponent that even killing just one of the obs would cripple the ability to scan/beacon. Effectivly it is cut in half assuming the energy levels were the same.
As for Nano Shield/Construct, it was pretty decent on com station energy. The strong point was that the amount of nano shield/nano construts was rather limited, so you usually wouldn't see them spammed. Building a 2nd com station for extra nano shields & nano construct was also a good thing; it rewarded expanding into other areas and denying hive locations with extra nanoshields. It wasn't mandatory to drop extra com stations, but good never the less. Now you have less of a reason to.
As for MedPacks/Ammo, it think having them on energy was pretty stupid. Just way to spammable; even if adjust the energy, with additional armories it just too good... with TRES you get massivly crippled with few extractory and can't virtually ever support your team where as on a lot of extractors you can drown them in medpacks and ammo.
---
I'd like to see a completly different system for them in place that is a sort of extra marine-only resource. Might be callled TSA-Supplies or w/e. Basically, for each marine on the field you get a set amount of supplies up to a max value. So for example, for each marine (excluding com) you get 1 HP supply and 1 Ammo supply resource every 45 secs up to a max of 5. In a 6v6 situation, you'll have up to 25 packs at your disposal.
Now it is up to the com to distribute them evenly or save them for a rush or support an assault squad with a lot of medpacks.
This fixes a bunch of issues:
- It is a consistent income, regadless of the ressource situation
- The com can support the team thoughout the entire game
- Spamming comes at the cost of waiting for the next supplies for a while
- Scales well with the amount of players
---
As for the alien stuff, it seems to work much better. I especially like having Cysts on TRES; though they can spammed it makes sense to have them on TRES. Energy is just annoying - at the current cost they are affordable enough. (I'd actually rather want per area limit there and more effective cyst chain cutting -> faster cyst decay!)
It also feels better with the building abilities; often they'd just get spammed in some situations and never used other wise.
Though, it still has the issue of being able to spam when you don't need the res; as for alien a lower tres cap (200?) could probably work to balance out things a a bit....
--- EDIT 26/06/2012
Instead of addressing the majority of posts individually, I'll just address the most common points I've seen:
<!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b><u>Energy is intuitive:</u></b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
One very common argument here is that energy is unintuitive. I really wonder how it may be unintuitive; in the UI it was clear whether something costs energy or not. Some say that having multiple buildings with energy was rather complicated, but that is just a matter of implementing the GUI for the game. Though you could also go for a shared energy pool game-design wise.
If you look at traditional RTS games, they usually had a per-unit or per-building energy (/mana/rage/whatever) pool though.
Also, the conecept of energy isn't new at all. I mentioned other RTS games, look at warcraft 3 for example; almost every unit had abilities and many units had their own pool of energy ("mana") and it was one of the most popular & successful games.
<!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b><u>Cooldown is a simplified version of energy:</u></b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
Some people want to add a cooldown, but think that energy is inherently bad. This really surprise me, since it's actually sort-of the same thing. Energy however, is more flexible then a regular cooldown.
If you don't see what I'm getting at:
-> 30 secs cooldown
-> == energy pool of 30 with regeneration of 1 energy per sec
It is the same thing!
Though, what energy allowed is a pool rather then just a simple cooldown. This a much better approach for things like nano shield, so you are actually able to more then one at a time; it adds some more tactical depth then just having a cooldown.
<!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b><u>Arguable: TRes gives more strategical depth:</u></b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
As I've explained in my OP:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My major concern with switching over is that abilities just get too dependant on the resources. It doesn't really matter whether it is TRES or PRES since both are tied to RTs. This means abilities that cost TRES will get very little use on low tres and get spammed with high tres. Ultimately this just ends up a slippery slope, no matter how you adjust the costs; since the team with the extractor advantage can just spam abilities and advance their advantage even further with little chance of the enemy team competing..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
To put it differently:
Low income -> Abilities don't get used
High income -> Abilities get spammed
I can see where you (those, who think TRes -> more strategical depth) are coming from, but ultimately, long-term planning is usually superior to short-term. I see it has some depth to it when you can make the decision to support with medpacks and delay your weapon upgrades/tech in order to achieve a long-term victory (let's say securing an extractor). But as far as I can tell, that is the only situation where it adds some sort of strategical depth.
Otherwise I think it's more crippling after all, since as I've pointed out above, you'll be more driven to spam with lots of money and driven to avoid that decision with low income (as the risk gradually increases with lower income).
Now if you look at the way I proposed for medpacks/ammo it is not as much about your current res situation, which can be good or bad, but rather your current stockpile of medpacks/ammo. It is a different decision you need to make - do you want to play safe, and sparingly use medpacks / ammo in case a dire situation arises? Or do you want to drop them more regularly to strengthen your marines on the field, but risk that you lack the required supplies when a situation arises (eg. new hive dropped/extractors under attack/sudden fade you might take down with meds etc).
This decision is clearly different from the res based on, but I think it's much better. Why? Because it is true throughout the entire game as it is independent from the res flow; res flow just too heavily impacts the decision regardless of the overall state - so I think the latter option is actually more tactical.
<!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><u><b>It <strike>will</strike> won't be better as the res flow improves</b></u><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
I partially explained it in the section above (so read it first :P), but again, this isn't quite true. When res flow is improved only the point of where you have to make the decision changes, but the problems won't get fixed.
While this doesn't exactly map to reality, we can look at this to understand it a bit:
fprob(nExtractors) = 1 - CostModifer / nExtractors
Observe: <a href="http://fooplot.com/plot/4cf3tm40ek" target="_blank">http://fooplot.com/plot/4cf3tm40ek</a>
(Note: if (fprop < 0) {fprop = 0;} )
This example is far from perfect, but it can show a few things: the horizontal line represents the "ideal" case, where with 50% probability the com will go for a medpack. With this, we can easily observe that if we increase the cost, this point changes to be further away when we have more extractors. On the opposite, if we reduce the cost, the point comes closer to having 1 extractor.
Basically, no matter how we adjust the res, we just move that point around. If you have enough extractors, you can always spam. If you don't have enough res, you won't be using medpacks (or not as much). Merely the point changes when you can or can not spam or drop medpacks with adjusting the cost and resflow.
While this graph doesn't reflect human behaviour (how it could it anyway, human behaviour is far to complex), it should show the fundamental problem I see here; no matter how you adjust the costs, it just shifts the viability around and won't fix any problems.
Though, of course you could shift it to the extremes. So either that you'll never see medpacks unless you are already winning anyway, but then again, it's that other issue - slippery slope; the team that is already winning just gets another boost. And in addition, we'll have a feature that gets little to no use.
Or we make it viable at any time, but then again, we'll get ######loads of spam without really hurting the team.
If it is somewhere in the middle we'll get a bit of both, uselessness early on and spam later on. Having it on a more constant basis is MUCH better.
On a last note, this is only true in the current resource system. So the other option is to make radical changes, so at ANY given time, with low or high res income you still have to make that decision to drop meds or not.
Comments
It consolidates options and makes every action a heavily strategical one - rather than just having each option reliant on a free resource. Before I would just spam umbra and medpacks. Now its not such an easy choice. Spamming those medpacks may cost me weapons 1, and the entire game could swing to aliens. I need to consider what the marine is doing, if his actions make him worth investing in.
I think once they reduce res gain it will improve the situation, so lets see that happen first.
What exactly is systemically wrong with the team with more resources having an advantage? This is the RTS aspect showing itself.
It seems entirely the correct outcome to me. Working as intended.
That sounds like a game where resources matter.
A game where competeting over resources makes sense.
With energy, resources didn't matter, you could sit in base and still make lots of use of the (sometimes really powerful) "free" abilities.
Removing energy was the best change that ever happened in NS2.
Changing the resflow dramaticly without touching the costs much was pretty bad though.
Let's fix the economy first before coming to conclusions about the removal of energy tbh
Now you really have to decide if you tech or build economy or if you buff your troops in a fight. It's a much clearer design and finally introduces tactical decisions.
Energy was never such a good idea. It was difficult to look at. (You had to find and click every building to know how much energy it had left.) and as I said, it introduced a third res-pool that breaks down the options you have and the decisions you have to make.
Often there was the argument, that the energy was a way to implement a cooldown for abilities. But really, even C&C1 has a better and more intuitive cool-down system with just a gray scaled clock running on the button of the ability when the cooldown is active. This is much more intuitive than looking at numbers on different buildings that you all have to select one by one. If you want the possibility of more than one use before the cooldown kicks in, you can simply display a number on the ability button for the uses left.
The next argument was, that you could increase the number of uses from abilities by building more of the responsible buildings. But this is not contradicted by a normal cool-down. For example you could display a passive ability "button" on the obs that says in the tooltip "+3 max. available scans". Such unclickable "buttons" for passive abilities are already in on the alien side. On top of that you could even introduce upgrades, that increase the max. uses for single abilities. Make this upgrades indefinite and you have a late game res sink. Or how about an upgrade that reduce the duration of the cooldown slightly?
I simply can't see what a third res-pool adds to the game.
Cyst and medpack / nano spam is still an issue though. I would add some cooldown to the medpack / ammo drop, increase the cost of nano shield, remove nano-build entirely, and add a minimum distance that cysts can be near each other.
For the marines it's definitely simpler to explain the system as a whole to a newbie but harder to judge whether getting off an early scan or medpack is economically worthwhile. Previously I just had to decide where was the priority target for scanning. Now I have to factor it in to everything else I'm trying to achieve, so the obs doesn't feel anything like the kind of investment that it used to be. In that way I find the change wanting. But again, it's the first iteration of a major change so I hope it will get some "polish".
On the whole, this build makes me miss the slower paced action of NS1. NS1 was more of a thinking man's FPS, so to speak. I used to coach marines to leapfrog and move from point to point covering each other. That's never been practical in NS2 and it has become even less so (as compared to say build 185. I couldn't put my finger on the exact cause but vaguely I think it all comes down to speed.
Edit: Also, as a skulk, taking down an obs is really a bland victory. It's now just a blob of res just like an armoury.
Use where appropriate, using energy for certain buildings/units (Orbital, Nexus, Queen etc.) is just so much cleaner and better.
How anyone can think that TRes scans are better game design is just unfathomable to me, I can't understand how you could ever draw that conclusion.
<i>"With energy, resources didn't matter, you could sit in base and still make lots of use of the (sometimes really powerful) "free" abilities."</i>
This is simply not true, energy did not devalue TRes at all - TRes has been devalued by removing energy. How does sitting in your base using Scan or Beacon win you a game, how does sitting in your base dropping Medpacks/Ammo when there is an armory right next to you win you the game.
How would it ever be better to sit in your base using Energy abilities instead of capturing the map, getting more resources getting more Command Stations and Orbitals and then using those abilities even more?
----------------------------
In regards to the OP suggestion of a specialized team based resource, it already exists - It's called personal resources. You want there to be a scalable model by which each player has a reasonable access to Ammo/Health just let requests automatically drop Health/Ammo at the cost of PRes.
The Commander spamming Ammo/Health is just bad for the game to begin with, who wants to lose to another player because he was being spam healed by a comm?
Healthpack should be about recovering <b>after</b> a fight, not <b>during</b> it. If it cost PRes a Marine can decide whether or not he wants the health or if he wants to risk it or if he wants to run back and save himself the money.
I want energy back, game feels bad without it - Observatories that cost money to use, lolol.
What's next? Deploy - 1 TRes.
Agree. I dont think using energy tastefully for specific abilities is unecessarily complex if the energy limitations provide interesting and meaningful gameplay choices and timings. One example is shift energy where previously you could only teleport 4 whips/buildings per shift and you had to pre-meditate when and how many shift batteries to build as a result. This also allowed for signposting of certain outcomes to good marine teams who scouted. Compared to the much more random appearance of 10 whips teleported in, which doesn't add as much to alien/marine dynamics and spectator entertainment.
Maybe we're all still used to the energy system and need to give the 1-res system some time to see how certain strategies and plays develop i dont know. I do know the decision to use <b>some abilities</b> (such as scan) has a tradeoff that is also a conflict of interest and unintuitive to ground marines. Good use of commander abilities should differentiate good commanders from bad ones by incentivising more close player/commander interaction beyond 'leadership' and 'barking orders' (this is kinda superficial in terms of gameplay and gets old as players get better). I feel right now it punishes good commanders too often and rewards bad aloof commander behaviour too much. And then there is less depth from strategies such as 2 obs vs 1 obs play and energy management in that regard.
Generally, while abilities having more tradeoff considerations from a one res system is a good thing, it also has cons. I for one won't bother watching competitive ns2 games if spectators only have res income and floating res to go on when trying to understand what each team is doing. Build orders and strategies have to be clearly signposted to some degree (e.g. when you take gas in SC2) and energy as a 'special resource' does this much in the same way as gas does in SC2.
Use where appropriate, using energy for certain buildings/units (Orbital, Nexus, Queen etc.) is just so much cleaner and better.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I understand where you are coming from, however, albeit that Starcraft 2 and Natural Selection 2 are RTS', their method of play (IE: the primary strategy) are completely different, by which I mean, Starcraft 2 is a game of Macro, where your goal is to base build and spend money on creating many many units. Energy makes sense, because you have to spend so much money on your production line, that giving key units and structures energy is logical - and even then, their energy method is incredibly streamlined - it's only your Capital Structure (CC/Nexus/Hive) that has energy, and only spellcasters have energy.
Natural Selection 2's primary strategy is in the decision making, and not in the macro side. So I've built as much as I can, now all that's left is to encroach on enemy territory and attempt to take more of the map in order to push towards that win - meanwhile I still have my income, what do I do with it if my units are free? That is essentially why abilities from buildings in NS2 should cost the TRes in my honest opinion. Energy takes away from the potential Team Res sink, so giving it to NanoShield, medpacks, ammopacks and so on is good - where I think the frustration lies is the frequency in which this stuff changes from patch to patch, no one is really being given any time to understand how to combat this new economy system.
So usually, I don't post on these forums nor give my opinion on most things about the game, because it is always met with ego from varying cliques, none of which I am a part of, so I am almost always wrong, but genuinely, I haven't had more fun as a marine commander than this patch because this res system lets me interact in the marine's combat way more than it ever has done, so a marine skirmish win feels like a win to me, because I had a direct influence in that outcome.
But it potentially comes at a cost too - I can't research new stuff for a while, I can't secure forward rooms and bases for longer etc because I just spent that all on helping my marines survive - which is good. The primary strategy is in the decision making in NS2.
I will stress, and I honestly hate hearing people throw this rhetoric around, especially the self-important self-elected UWE spokespeople, this is a beta. The resflow and the cost of buildings and abilities are incorrect, and need to be tweaked until it is right. I spend a lot of games where that tradeoff doesn't exist simply because I have a lot of free res going (and so early on too), but I have had one or two games where I have had to tell my marines that I am not going to try and save their lives for the umpteenth time until I get more things researching, and that we simply need to be holding our forward positions rather than trying to encroach on enemy territory until I am happy to be saving lives again. I think it's at that point where that kind of thing happens regularly in games that the res-flow and building costs are at the right place, but again, that is my personal opinion.
Another thing I will say is that the res system has changed very rapidly - it's not ideal, we get given weeks to attempt to solve how to play "correctly" (I use that term loosely) when really it takes months for the more advanced players to get to grips with it properly.
Just to theorycraft, as an alien, think of it this way - Marines who are incessantly attacking require their Commander to spend res on saving his marines, so against that kind of team, you want to be making sure that you are forcefully engaging them to keep their res down - bad commander doesn't save his marines, leaves you open to take down a base. Marines who are conservative are building res, and thusly, so can you, or you can backdoor a base to force them to spend the res on buildings.
To date, I haven't seen anyone put this method of thinking properly into effect, the idea of forcefully keeping marine res down, but again, you are more likely to see the benefits of this when res flow and structure values are tweaked. Hopefully the devs will stick to this res system for a while so everyone has a chance to figure it out.
I hope that's given you an insight into the other side of the debate!
Natural Selection 2's primary strategy is in the decision making, and not in the macro side. So I've built as much as I can, now all that's left is to encroach on enemy territory and attempt to take more of the map in order to push towards that win - meanwhile I still have my income, what do I do with it if my units are free? That is essentially why abilities from buildings in NS2 should cost the TRes in my honest opinion. Energy takes away from the potential Team Res sink, so giving it to NanoShield, medpacks, ammopacks and so on is good - where I think the frustration lies is the frequency in which this stuff changes from patch to patch, no one is really being given any time to understand how to combat this new economy system.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
CC Nexus Hive
Commander Center, Observatory, Hive
Not really seeing the big difference in streamlining, obviously Protoss don't exist and Observatory is an external Orbital Command upgrade.
The two games are different yes, but I don't see how it makes energy any less logical. There are some abilities that should be available, which are necessary for balance, but should only be available at regular intervals and also be useable regardless of your current resources beyond the original investment.
Having Energy abilities tied to TRes makes them worse in the early game and abusable in the late game, I personally don't see that as a good thing.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So usually, I don't post on these forums nor give my opinion on most things about the game, because it is always met with ego from varying cliques, none of which I am a part of, so I am almost always wrong, but genuinely, I haven't had more fun as a marine commander than this patch because this res system lets me interact in the marine's combat way more than it ever has done, so a marine skirmish win feels like a win to me, because I had a direct influence in that outcome.
But it potentially comes at a cost too - I can't research new stuff for a while, I can't secure forward rooms and bases for longer etc because I just spent that all on helping my marines survive - which is good. The primary strategy is in the decision making in NS2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How, is it more than it ever has done before - You have the exact same Medpack/Ammo capabilities. The only thing you can do now that you didn't do before is spam Nano-Shields. And if you think that's a win for you..
Observatories already cost resources and the resources model will be changed to allow you to use Medpacks/Ammo/Nano sparingly, unfortunately when you are no longer short on Resources you can use them carelessly leading to potentially rageful situations for aliens.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I will stress, and I honestly hate hearing people throw this rhetoric around, especially the self-important self-elected UWE spokespeople, this is a beta. The resflow and the cost of buildings and abilities are incorrect, and need to be tweaked until it is right. I spend a lot of games where that tradeoff doesn't exist simply because I have a lot of free res going (and so early on too), but I have had one or two games where I have had to tell my marines that I am not going to try and save their lives for the umpteenth time until I get more things researching, and that we simply need to be holding our forward positions rather than trying to encroach on enemy territory until I am happy to be saving lives again. I think it's at that point where that kind of thing happens regularly in games that the res-flow and building costs are at the right place, but again, that is my personal opinion.
Another thing I will say is that the res system has changed very rapidly - it's not ideal, we get given weeks to attempt to solve how to play "correctly" (I use that term loosely) when really it takes months for the more advanced players to get to grips with it properly.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's funny, 'cause I'm tired of hearing that these :
- Ain't the correct Values
- Ain't how it will be on release
- Ain't the finalized model
But, I heard that for the Gorge and the Hydras are still as bad as they have ever been. Putting blind faith into the notion that this <b>could</b> work and that it will be <b>fixed</b> does not make a design decision justified.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->To date, I haven't seen anyone put this method of thinking properly into effect, the idea of forcefully keeping marine res down, but again, you are more likely to see the benefits of this when res flow and structure values are tweaked. Hopefully the devs will stick to this res system for a while so everyone has a chance to figure it out.
I hope that's given you an insight into the other side of the debate!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Change for the sake of change, I'll never accept such a poorly designed RTS model.
I re-read the last part a few times but I'm not sure I follow. I think what you're saying is that sometimes aliens should keep the pressure on in the hopes that eventually marine commander's attention will be drawn elsewhere, at which point you gain a tactical advantage (loss of comm support). You also said something about adopting a strategy in response to how the marines are playing, but isn't that standard practice? Sometimes on pub games the aliens do seem a bit organic (heh) in that they'll choose an avenue of attack which has the least resistance. Some people really care about KDR much more than tactical victories for the team or strategic victories. Not getting res while you're dead probably has made this worse really. Is that part of your thinking?
I often do things as an alien that are designed to create a burden on the marine commander. Parasiting marines to make them request medpacks is a personal favourite. Evading or soaking up marine fire to deplete them of ammo...
Basically I'm glad the old energy-model is gone. I do agree however that the NS1 approach for the observatory might work better. So having a energy-pool just for that building to use scan and/or beacon with it. It's fair because you invested t-res to build the obs and had to research the scan-ability.
I didn't like getting an ability like nanoshield for "free" so to say. First because you didn't have to choose a techtree and spend res towards it and second because you don't make much sacrifices using it.
You already said that having meds/ammo on energy was bad, so I wont comment on that.
The comm should choose if they want to leave enough energy for an emergency beacon, or use it for something else. Likewise, do we need to construct another obs so we have enough energy handy, or save it for another purchase?
Nanoshield is another one that should be energy based, tied to a building. It is TOO POWERFUL to spam on 5-6 marines + X number of buildings all at once. I think having it tied per CC is great.
On the other hand, these would make fewer res sinks, but it's not like we don't have hundreds and hundreds of spare endgame res anyway.
No matter your opinion on energy vs res, the res income NEEDS to be straightened out, or this game will be broken as hell.
I wouldn't say that it punishes good commanders (Good commander = using more support abilities?) and rewards bad ones. I think it doesn't give already good commanders a unnecessary advantage but is more forgiving to bad / new commanders.
Also, it doesn't vanish the usefulness of building more than one obs. Losing your only obs can be crucial, because you lost the ability to beacon.
Most critic points are a non-issue as soon as the res income is balanced. Other points are made without enough time to understand new mechanics and develop new tactics. And other points again are just opinions that differ from person to person.
For example the statement:
<!--quoteo(post=1946357:date=Jun 24 2012, 10:41 PM:name=Jayaris)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Jayaris @ Jun 24 2012, 10:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1946357"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Having Energy abilities tied to TRes makes them worse in the early game and abusable in the late game, I personally don't see that as a good thing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't feel that they are worse in the early game and beside that I'm concerned that they may be too spammy in late game (we will see with balanced economy.) they sure antagonize the problem, that already decided games are drawn out too long. If you have already won the resource game, you should have the advantage of many support abilities. Just to end the already decided game faster, instead of sitting on 999 tRes and being unable to finish the game for another 10 minutes.
If there really is a problem after the income is fixed, than there are enough solutions to account this without bringing back energy.
Simple cooldowns like you have in C&C and every other RTS can be a solution. You could even create more late-game-tRes-sinks with upgrades for additional uses of abilities before the cooldown kicks in.
In any case, it is much more intuitive and clearer game design now instead of constantly watching specific buildings to know how much energy they have.
I wouldn't mind energy for the obs, I don't think it's unintuitive or complicated, and if so it can probably be solved by smart UI design (gray out scan icon when not enough energy, nice and clear energy bar ...).
We can also have things cost both energy and tres, for example you could have scan costing only energy and beacon costing both energy and tres.
Cooldown is a special case of energy where the total amount of energy is equal to the ability cost. It's not the most interesting case either.
Anyway, let's wait for the general economy to be fixed to see how it plays.
Also, no one ever built 2 obs just to get extra energy, people generally built a second obs for beaconing to a forward base and/or forward base motion-tracking/ARC guidance. You're seeing supposed 'depth' where there wasn't any pre210.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Observatories already cost resources and the resources model will be changed to allow you to use Medpacks/Ammo/Nano sparingly, unfortunately when you are no longer short on Resources you can use them carelessly leading to potentially rageful situations for aliens.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Ideally you should never be floating on resources, not even lategame. This is the case in any RTS as well, if you're floating on res you are doing something wrong. This does imply however that there need to be enough res sinks well into lategame, and that is the area where NS 2 is lacking currently. (Prolonging the early game significantly will probably fix this to a big extent)
i AGREE TOTALLY
ns2 is sooo action not getting any less.
Its not so much about res costs, res income, res balancing but about the underlying cons that bringing everything into a one res system has. Take two commander's pre 10-minutes. One who pro-actively scans and one who doesn't because he's too busy staring at his base totally aloof of everything else. The guy who isn't interacting with his players and making himself aware of the situation benefits by having stronger timings.
If you decrease the opportunity cost of scan, you simply end up with the problem of 'free' spammable abilities that have no meaningful limits and associated choices. If you slow res income, you simply increase the timing gap between active and aloof commanders. What you end up with is a cookiecutter system that doesn't encourage improvement and active use of all commander abilities from aloof commanders because they adopt a 'why fix whats broken' attitude.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Also, no one ever built 2 obs just to get extra energy, people generally built a second obs for beaconing to a forward base and/or forward base motion-tracking/ARC guidance. You're seeing supposed 'depth' where there wasn't any pre210.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is a bad arguement that assumes no depth simply because you didn't see players doing it in a game where player understanding of the game isn't very developed. Its just like me saying SC2 has less depth because i never saw players do openings like CC first for more mules. Or the state of SC1, SC2 before the koreans showed us how to play. (not that 2 obs play for more energy is such an advanced way of looking at the game anyway. Its more obvious than advanced).
Lets examine the reasons for having two obs.
<b>pre210</b>
- increases energy regen for more scans/beacons.
- local mt
- forward CC beacon if you choose to build 2nd CC.
<b>b210</b>
- more local mt
-Why spend 30 res on a forward beacon when having more than one CC has no real benefit? (I am actually for med/ammo costing res here).
Very simply put, which one has more depth? The system that had meaningful energy management + local mt? Or the one which only has local mt?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Ideally you should never be floating on resources, not even lategame. This is the case in any RTS as well, if you're floating on res you are doing something wrong. This does imply however that there need to be enough res sinks well into lategame, and that is the area where NS 2 is lacking currently. (Prolonging the early game significantly will probably fix this to a big extent)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
NS2 is different from RTS's in the regard of floating res. Why? Build orders are not generally air-tight as there is a lack of predictability about how well battles between the actual players will go. In sc2, i know that two marines beat two zerglings and that i can expect and control this situation when making decisions about my res outlays. In NS2, one 'zergling' may very well beat 2 marines, or one marine may beat 5 zerglings. As such, it is sometimes beneficial to keep your options open with res floats.
What will you do if you've just spent all your remaining res on an armslab only to have skulks then kill your marines and most of your RT's with good timing? Your armslab is now deadweight and you don't have the res to quickly recap without a recycle. What will you do if that one epic marine manages to kill 5 skulks creating a good PG opportunity, only you have to make him wait 20 seconds for the res which is enough time for a 2nd skulk wave?
Yes, with the current 10 min equals lategame economy, it essentially doesn't matter what you do as a commander, and you are better off NOT supporting your troops because it's going to mean you will get jetpacks and upgrades <b>even faster</b> As the way the game is currently 'balanced', getting lategame tech that fast into the game essentially means marines will win regardless. But balance the economy, and sustained map control is again going to become MUCH more important, at which point you will see med/ammo/nano field support pay off more
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->pre210
- increases energy regen for more scans/beacons.
- local mt
- forward CC beacon if you choose to build 2nd CC.
b210
- more local mt
-Why spend 30 res on a forward beacon when having more than one CC has no real benefit? (I am actually for med/ammo costing res here).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm a little baffled at your comparison, how does forward CC beaconing go from being useful to useless 209 - 210? That's entirely irrelevant of the energy/res system at play.
I imagine you spend most of your life baffled considering you've completely misrepresented what he's said.
And his argument is entirely relevant to the energy/res system.
Before, forward beaconing required a CC and an Obs.
The CC gave you the additional benefit of more support abilities.
Now that it doesn't the cost of forward beaconing is too high because you have to pay for a structure that is now dead weight.
I have also built a second Obs for more energy numerous times and seen other people do it.
Yes, with the current 10 min equals lategame economy, it essentially doesn't matter what you do as a commander, and you are better off NOT supporting your troops because it's going to mean you will get jetpacks and upgrades <b>even faster</b> As the way the game is currently 'balanced', getting lategame tech that fast into the game essentially means marines will win regardless. But balance the economy, and sustained map control is again going to become MUCH more important, at which point you will see med/ammo/nano field support pay off more<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't care what exact 'timing' is better and balanced, whether its 10 minutes or greater than 10 minutes or even 10 seconds. This essentially doesn't matter in a 'better balanced economy' because both teams reach the same point at the same time. That is a <b>pacing</b> and accessibility issue. Basically, i have been assuming balanced timings between both teams the whole time (whether 10 minutes, 10 seconds, 10 hours is largely irrelevant). I'm talking about the fundamental system and the bad incentives it creates. I think you have me backwards.
Let us take a point in time called x1 which marks the beginning of lategame where the team that does not use any supporting abilities obtains all its useful lategame tech researched. For whatever value of x1, the commander who keeps his troops ALIVE with things like scans, nanos and medpacks will reach full lategame tech at x1 + t = x2.
x2 - x1 is the <b>cost</b> of using supporting abilities. You can also interprete this as x2 - x1 being the <b>reward</b> given to aloof commanders.
The question is, how big of a cost is t? i = res interval. S = cost of supporting abilities used
t = S * i
x2 = x1 + (S * i)
Holding x1 constant, as t becomes larger, commander behaviour shifts from supporting troops to base minding. Similarly, as t becomes smaller commander behaviour shifts from base minding to supporting troops.
I think we all agree that tech is being reached too fast and the res interval needs to increase. What is the affect of this on commander behaviour however? Increasing i increases t, which shifts commander behaviour to aloof base minding. *edit* You can offset this effect by lowering S, such as shifting obs abilities partly or fully back to an energy base.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm a little baffled at your comparison, how does forward CC beaconing go from being useful to useless 209 - 210? That's entirely irrelevant of the energy/res system at play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I added CC beaconing for completeness sake. Pre210, a 2nd CC benefited you with additional energy for nano/med/ammo. b210 does not, hence 2nd CC play for the purposes of forward beaconing is entirely moot. If you want to do a direct comparison between pre 210 and b210, you could say that building a 2nd obs had 3 useful purposes pre210 and only 1 useful purpose b210.
I agree that med/ammo should cost res, not energy hence i made the comparison of 2 (not 3) useful purposes pre210 vs 1 in b210.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->... system that had meaningful energy management + local mt? Or the one which only has local mt?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is simply not true, energy did not devalue TRes at all - TRes has been devalued by removing energy. How does sitting in your base using Scan or Beacon win you a game, how does sitting in your base dropping Medpacks/Ammo when there is an armory right next to you win you the game.
How would it ever be better to sit in your base using Energy abilities instead of capturing the map, getting more resources getting more Command Stations and Orbitals and then using those abilities even more?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think you misunderstood me.
Energy powered abilities didn't make teams sit back in the base.
It gave them the ability to keep fighting, when they had already lost, ie. pushed back into the base.
Things such as beacon, meds and nano are really powerful abilities, that should NOT be "free"(regenerate automaticly over time).
Energy was a bad mechanic, since using the abilities that used it, didn't take away from teching up, or map control.
Putting it all on TRes was a good idea, as that creates TRes sinks in lategame, which both sides need.
The costs/resflow needs to be adjusted, but that's not breaking news.
The point is, the res model is on the right way. Energy just doesn't fit into NS2.
Energy powered abilities didn't make teams sit back in the base.
It gave them the ability to keep fighting, when they had already lost, ie. pushed back into the base.
Things such as beacon, meds and nano are really powerful abilities, that should NOT be "free"(regenerate automaticly over time).
Energy was a bad mechanic, since using the abilities that used it, didn't take away from teching up, or map control.
Putting it all on TRes was a good idea, as that creates TRes sinks in lategame, which both sides need.
The costs/resflow needs to be adjusted, but that's not breaking news.
The point is, the res model is on the right way. Energy just doesn't fit into NS2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I understood you well enough, I just think you're wrong.
You might feel that the res model is on the right track and that energy doesn't fit - I personally think that Energy fits perfectly well into the game and that this is a horrendous mistake which is why I've stopped playing.
Unfortunately, for all my complaints the developers won't realize the mistake so I'll come back and check if the game is any better on release.
So Jayaris, if you keep complaining and convince people that energy needs to come back, it might.
I like the current system, all it needs is finetuning.