The Problem, The Cause, And The Solution
Teepo
Join Date: 2002-11-03 Member: 5625Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2002-11-03 Member: 5625Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">One man's opinion on the state of NS</div>Let me first state that as the topic description said, this is a personal opinon, has no suggested balence changes(just playing) and bears no weight in the real world but I decided to type it anyways.
Experience:
I currently have played over 150 games of NS of which most were pubs but some were clan matchs and I have played these matchs as Marine/Commander/Gorge/other Kharra so I do have knowleage of the game from many different view points
The Problem:
Currently there are two ways to win the game:
1. Capture two Hives
or
2. Rush (skulk or spawn)
Now baring the second which is fairly easy to prevent the first is the most common form of winning. So the aliens must secure a second hive while the marines must secure Two hives. So in a non-rush game it starts out
Marine: tech to phase, have marines secure hive one skiping Resource nodes, then doing the same for their second hive and once they have both tech to the max and finsh the game.
Kharra: Entire team minus one for gorge try to stop the marines from leaving their base while the gorge builds 3 resource towers (I've seen four builds but it's not recommended) then build a hive, 3 def chambers then 3 movement and help the fades/lerk get the third hive then attack the marine base or just attack the marine base directly.
I believe that the design was that the deciding battle was the one for the third hive but it seems that the Kharra have the advantege when they have 2 hives. But looking on the the scenerio it makes sense why.
Marines get to an open hive and make a RTs and secure the area total:2
Kharra build <b>3</b> RTs then the hive Total:4
The Cause:
The Kharra are getting twice the resources at this point
That means for the price of two fades and the marines get a marine with HMG/HA and a marine with a weilder
(I'll get to upgrades in a minute)
And with the speed of skulks(coupled with the fact they can walk on walls and go though vents 3x as fast as a marine) , one can roam around the way biting the way though any undefended rts and the marines won't be the wiser (and they couldn't get there in time
But
A marine who trys to roam around the map will be alot slower and when he trys to knife a resource tower (commonly known as "pulling the weed") every skulk on the team will know where the marine is and be able to kill him since he's distracted)
[/B]This does not mean the commander shouldn't build random RTs or that a single marine shouldn't play hunt the gorge[B]
The solution:
In a standard 8v8 game 1 commander 2 guarding base building 1 hunting the gorge/RTs a four man marine team should be trying to capture the hive but the commander should drop a RT for 2 marines to build while the other two guard them and then they move on. A RT only needs a minute before it makes more money than it was built for and with the marine hunting the gorge/rts he's putting a serious hurt on the ecomics of the other team. Dead gorge+dead RT= 35 resources Slower early game which is collected at a slower rate.
Also when a commander hears a skulk biting a RT he should alert his team that it's happening, one marine can easily kill a distracted skulk
This all means that the aliens will have a second hive, carapace and Fades Much Much later while the marines will have HMGs, upgrades and HA Much much sooner.
I would like to thank you for reading this and I'll be back in half an hour to answer questions
When people look at this Action/RTS they try to balence the action when they forget the most important part of the RTS: The Economy
Experience:
I currently have played over 150 games of NS of which most were pubs but some were clan matchs and I have played these matchs as Marine/Commander/Gorge/other Kharra so I do have knowleage of the game from many different view points
The Problem:
Currently there are two ways to win the game:
1. Capture two Hives
or
2. Rush (skulk or spawn)
Now baring the second which is fairly easy to prevent the first is the most common form of winning. So the aliens must secure a second hive while the marines must secure Two hives. So in a non-rush game it starts out
Marine: tech to phase, have marines secure hive one skiping Resource nodes, then doing the same for their second hive and once they have both tech to the max and finsh the game.
Kharra: Entire team minus one for gorge try to stop the marines from leaving their base while the gorge builds 3 resource towers (I've seen four builds but it's not recommended) then build a hive, 3 def chambers then 3 movement and help the fades/lerk get the third hive then attack the marine base or just attack the marine base directly.
I believe that the design was that the deciding battle was the one for the third hive but it seems that the Kharra have the advantege when they have 2 hives. But looking on the the scenerio it makes sense why.
Marines get to an open hive and make a RTs and secure the area total:2
Kharra build <b>3</b> RTs then the hive Total:4
The Cause:
The Kharra are getting twice the resources at this point
That means for the price of two fades and the marines get a marine with HMG/HA and a marine with a weilder
(I'll get to upgrades in a minute)
And with the speed of skulks(coupled with the fact they can walk on walls and go though vents 3x as fast as a marine) , one can roam around the way biting the way though any undefended rts and the marines won't be the wiser (and they couldn't get there in time
But
A marine who trys to roam around the map will be alot slower and when he trys to knife a resource tower (commonly known as "pulling the weed") every skulk on the team will know where the marine is and be able to kill him since he's distracted)
[/B]This does not mean the commander shouldn't build random RTs or that a single marine shouldn't play hunt the gorge[B]
The solution:
In a standard 8v8 game 1 commander 2 guarding base building 1 hunting the gorge/RTs a four man marine team should be trying to capture the hive but the commander should drop a RT for 2 marines to build while the other two guard them and then they move on. A RT only needs a minute before it makes more money than it was built for and with the marine hunting the gorge/rts he's putting a serious hurt on the ecomics of the other team. Dead gorge+dead RT= 35 resources Slower early game which is collected at a slower rate.
Also when a commander hears a skulk biting a RT he should alert his team that it's happening, one marine can easily kill a distracted skulk
This all means that the aliens will have a second hive, carapace and Fades Much Much later while the marines will have HMGs, upgrades and HA Much much sooner.
I would like to thank you for reading this and I'll be back in half an hour to answer questions
When people look at this Action/RTS they try to balence the action when they forget the most important part of the RTS: The Economy
Comments
Currently there are two ways to win the game:
1. Capture two Hives
or
2. Rush (skulk or spawn)<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=17387&st=47' target='_blank'>come to the same conclusion</a>. (Although one little addendum - marines can rush too, sometimes even more effectively than the aliens! Perhaps this is what you meant by "spawn"...)
There is the question of wether or not that's really what the designers intended. I thought it was more a technology thing: Can aliens get 2 hives up before marines get to mid game tech? Can aliens get 3 hives up before marines get to end game tech? As things stand, all it really comes down to is who can successfully hold and keep two hives. This is because Lerks with 3x movement and 3x defencive can pretty much handle anything and everything the marines can throw at them - they are end game tech with 2 hives. Also, there is a difference in how things unfold on different population servers, but that's another game design question.
However, looks like your not talking about balance, your talking Marine strategy.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The solution:
In a standard 8v8 game 1 commander 2 guarding base building 1 hunting the gorge/RTs a four man marine team should be trying to capture the hive but the commander should drop a RT for 2 marines to build while the other two guard them and then they move on. A RT only needs a minute before it makes more money than it was built for and with the marine hunting the gorge/rts he's putting a serious hurt on the ecomics of the other team. Dead gorge+dead RT= 35 resources Slower early game which is collected at a slower rate.
Also when a commander hears a skulk biting a RT he should alert his team that it's happening, one marine can easily kill a distracted skulk<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is what they call a run on sentence, btw.
Not bad, but a somewhat more refined varient of tactic I've see goes like this:
<ul>
<li>After building basic base defences and ammo, commander has marines rush an unoccupied hive.
<li>Provided marines managed to muster enough organization to do this, the commander then builds a phase gate. turret factory, resources, turrets. His entire team should be guarding that location taking down any skulks who try to jump them. Phase gate allows for quick reinforcement. (Note you'll need an observatory for this.)
<li>Then the commander orders a marine or two to guard both base and hive (via phase gate). This is important, because turrets really are not very effective as of 1.03 you need live bodies patrolling, and welding if possible. If any skulk happens along, the marine will compensate for the general pathetic weakness of the turrets. Keeping the phase gate up is his lead concern.
<li>If you did a good job of this, you're still early in the game at this point. The aliens have maybe 2 or 3 resource nozzles max and are still relatively far from being able to afford the second hive - they may still be at a stage where they can't even afford to build a good Wall Of Arse defence barrier yet.
<li>Most commanders stop here, and that's the big mistake: you need two hive to prevent the aliens from winning, not one. So the commander immediately orders the marines to proceed to the next unoccupied hive.
<li>Commander then fortifies this hive in an identical manner. Phase gate first, then turret factories, resources, turrets, ect.
<li>Once two hives are held, it's game over. Finish off the aliens at your leisure. Keep Marines patrolling your existing fortifications to prevent any skulks rushes from taking over.
</ul>
That's the plan, and it works rather well. The already taken hive really doesn't matter. So long as the aliens are prevented from getting a second hive up (which is the lead goal of the strategy), they really can't deal with turret defences. It should be noted that another potentially unintendended balance aspect of Natural Selection is that the marines can do just dandy if they hold a total of 3 resource nozzles. By securing two hives, you will have achieved this.
This tactic differs from traditional command strategies in that marines do not attempt to build any nearby resources. Their goal is to fortify two hives (and take THOSE resources) as quickly as possible, and with phase gates this can be done surprisingly quickly.
I've added my own little twist to the mix, and it works fairly well: <b>For the second hive, do not build any fortifications inside of the hive itself</b> - that is, at least not at the start. Instead, locate a position (preferably with a resource nozzle) that's just outside of the hive but still in siege cannon range. Build your phase gate, defences, resource nozzle there, and make sure there's a siege cannon deployed within range of the untaken hive position. Why do this only for the second hive is because you can't spare the time waiting for turret factory to upgrade.
The advantage of building outside of the hive is that the Aliens likely would not expect it, and often it's actually easier to defend than the hive room itself. Also, you have alot more flexibility about where your going to build this at. In some cases you'll even find a position between two differennt hives that is within siege cannon range and be able to tie down both hives from one fortified position!
LOS code in 1.04 prevents this from working as effectively, but you can still ping with observatory or even send a marine in (since the hive would not have been established yet.)
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I wonder how a map with 4 hive rooms would play?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The reason why holding and keeping 2 hives determines victory is because the lvl 2 upgrades the aliens get are just that potent, and they're rather easy fodder for a HMG and heavy armor/jetpack with only 1 hive. A map with 4 hive rooms means they have to fortify 3 hives before the aliens build 2, or they lose.
Marines get to an open hive and make a RTs and secure the area total:2
Kharra build <b>3</b> RTs then the hive Total:4
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yea. But the TIME needed to build res towers are completly different. The commander gets 100% of the income. In an 8v8 game, he can afford to build a resource tower each minute from just the starting income. Gorges, OTOH, can't afford to build a res tower until about the 3-4 minute time, as 75% of the income is spread out among the skulks and not avilable for building.
Thus, marines can expand much faster than the Kharaa, as is evident by their ability to lockdown two hives before the gorges have even built two resource towers.
I've come to the same conclusion. (Although one little addendum - marines can rush too, sometimes even more effectively than the aliens! Perhaps this is what you meant by "spawn"...)
This exactly what I meant by spawn
However, looks like your not talking about balance, your talking Marine strategy.
Which is what I stated in my first statement. When I started writing this I was going to make the solution balence changes but I decided to make them playing adjustments. I have a few balence changes which include:
---Raising Lerk spike damage from 16 to 18
--Reduce lerk price to 25
--Half nrg used for lerk flying
--make umbra only block 66% bullets (from something like 90%)
--Double the amount healed via healing spray
--Webbing takes 10 seconds before becomeing active (if a marine walks though it then it disappears harmlessly)
--Sensory Chambers also spawn skulks the same way infantry portals do
--Double the cost of Defense, Movement and Sensory
--Make alien upgrades free but still take time
--Make the price of each Marine upgrade 25 except motion tracking(Armor 1-3, Weapon 1-3)
--Make Marine Dmg upgrades 15/30/45% (from 10%/20%/30%)
But everyone else had made a list so I didn't want to be lame <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I just don't want the game to become the first to hold a hive for 3 minutes wins
Comments? Flames? Death Threats?
In a standard 8v8 a gorge gets 3/10 of his team's income which can be bumped up to 7/10 but mostly is 1/2 if the skulks are activly getting themselves killed.Although I argee with your statement I don't think it's as bad that the gorge can't have 3 resource towers by the time the Marines have one hive secure.
Starts with 10:3 Resource Towers+ gorge= 79 resources x2(give or take depending on skulks)minus 10 to start = around 146 resources total
Starts with 90:2 Infantry portals + Armory+observatory+phase gate+turret factory plus 3 turrets plus RT minus 90 from start= Somewhere around 133
This is not exact but general and does not take into account the added income from the resources towers as they are built.
So I argee with you but it's not that bad
Reducing the cost of lerk and weakening umbra sounds good to me, but doubling the cost of chamber?! I can't find that reasonable.
Along with that making marine upgrades cost less?! So a heavy armor has 290 armor pretty easily. Plus, make marines do MORE damage for a cheaper price, that'll own all too easily, goodbye skulks and lerks, and without umbra, goodbye fades.
I'm seeing a series of biased marine suggestions.
Whereas the Marines need to keep them from GETTING that one Hive and that requires them to have BOTH the other ones...OR (this is what I've never really seen happen) they need to NOT take the Hives immediately...wait until Mr. Gorge wanders into what he THINKS is a free Hive and starts it...then kill him AND his Hive. Now you've simultaneously set the Aliens back both a Hive AND captured yourself one.
But in the mad rush to "hold" both other Hives before the Aliens can...this idea never seems to have been considered. Though it would be much harder now in 1.04 since Hives spawn with full health.
Now would that really make sense logically? Sensory chambers need to be more practical for them to be used more but that just doesn't make sense.
That and almost all of your suggestions are bias for the marines.
Making lots of changes in one go leads to more balance issues as the balance is fixed, then broken by something else that was changed.
Currently there are two ways to win the game:
1. Capture two Hives
or
2. Rush (skulk or spawn)<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The problem? Huh? Did I miss something? If you've missed the manual AND not read the FAQ, you'd probably miss this:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
<b>What are the objectives?</b>
The aliens must kill all the marines and their infantry portals. The marines must kill all the aliens and their hives. That's the only goal. Aliens start with one hive and can build up to two more.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This means, in other words: attack and kill the other team, until they cannot fight anymore, destroy their spawns (IP's or hive) that is.
How you do this, is either you take the enemy by suprise (rush), or you go for more advanced weaponry, so you can kill them easier. This is most effectively done by capturing resource nodes. That way you get more resources. With the resources you can buy all sorts of advanced gadgets and upgrades. BUT, since this is a game featuring opponents potencially as smart (or possibly even smarter!), called "Humans". They've probably figured out all this also, so they will try to take resource nodes so they get more resources and can upgrade also.
This is where it starts getting complicated.
When you come upon a node, you might find a member of the other team, waiting to build there. What now?, you ask. Well, a simple coin tossing would solve this quick and somewhat civil, but the loser would probably be mad at you for getting the resource node, so he'd maybe attack you! No matter who wins that battle, dosens of other battles like that will rage the ship. Someone's got to go. The aliens need "hives" for their upgrades, so teh evil commander of the marines will give orders to capture the hives that doesn't belong to the aliens. This will eventually result in either team getting one more hive than the other (Natural Selection maps features only 3 hives) and the other team being **obscenity** off.
What do **obscenity** off people do? Spontainously die, of course! So, voilá, the game has ended.
This, as you can see, was the point of the game. Either rush the enemy and kill them within 5 minutes or claiming more hives than the other team, so that they'll get **obscenity** off and die.
Edit: Couldn't figure out how to use those damn quotes <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
Let's have a quick look at upgrades shall we?
Marines currently cost around 50 for arms lab then somewhere around 35,45,55 (reall numbers would help greatly)
Aliens cost 42 for the Def chambers and then 2 per upgrade afterwards
But while the arms lab is useless for anything else the Chambers give
AOE regeneration and One way to hive
And aliens complained that phases were more powerful yet aliens already had one that gives upgrades, is cheaper and don't need two of.
And doubling the cost of chambers means they get free upgrades but it means less defense chambers for easy healing but the gorge heals x2 as much so it just means that no one fade and 2 def chambers siegeing a base
Also after some number crunching I decided to retract my statement of 15/30/45 weapons upgrades if they were made cheaper only one or the other would work
Umbra is still very powerful but not overpowered
Did I get everything?
In response to AcKz:
Although a very long post I find ten pages to be a gross miscalulation but I am fully aware of the power of a 5 skulk with carapace strike team able to take out a phase gate and turret factory before the marines can respond. But when the strike force dies it would take about a minute and a half for they all to respawn.
Alot can happen in a minute and a half
But. if you wanted to build a sensory tower first (20 rp and free lv 1 cloaking,hivesight or SOF) you could spawn twice as fast but the trade off would be losing Def chambers early and later movement
It's a trade off
Catgirl, the game right now is to hold two hives for both teams
In response to Mart:
I'm sure someone could give a logical explaination for it.
In pub games the Kharra usally win
In clan games the marines are the victors
I'm trying to think of ways to make pub Kharra weaker while making them stronger for clan battles.
In doing so I have a new found respect for Flayra
In the words of the Human Torch "Flame on"
In clan games the marines are the victors
I'm trying to think of ways to make pub Kharra weaker while making Clan marines stronger.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't understand this <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
You must mean, getting clan marines weaker. <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
I also think you underestimated the power of an organized skulk attack. Usually commanders won't put more than 3 turret in the first hive they just took. It takes seconds for 3-4 skulk to take out a turret and then they can go on biting the turret factory. Since marines need two hives, a good time for a organize hive attack would be right after they just left the first hive. You then take down which ever marine thats guarding it, kill a turret to create blind spot and clear the hive in less than a minute. Most marines will be walking to the next hive so there won't be much trouble coming from phase gate if you designate a skulk to listen for swosh sound and attack. Note What I'm writing is a strategy. Taking two hives as a marine is a strategy. Like most strategies, there are counter strategies. You shouldn't blame or try to change the game if you can't counter common strategies. However I won't argue with you, I do believe marines are slightly advantaged during the pre-two hives period <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->.
*edit* uh I think you put your post seconds before I did, I'll be quiet and sit at a corner then <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->.*edit*
My reasoning? Forget grabbing a hive, since you're hosed as soon as they get a second one, you blowing time and resources on having the third won't stop the Fades from knocking on your door. Grab resources first, hives second; the time involved in capturing a few nodes isn't enough to hamper claiming a hive. Motion tracking from the start kept their Skulks from ambushing the marines and caushing any heavy losses, so I didn't need to bother with turret farms. As long as a marine knows where the Skulk is coming from, the Skulk's in trouble, and they don't expect the marines to have motion tracking early in the game.
The Kharaa never claimed a second hive, with all the upgrades I was piling on, the LMG marines were plenty good for taking care of the base aliens, and the poor Gorge never managed to reach a hive site without someone going by and shooting him up. I built gates and a few turrets in the two empty hives for insurance, and that was pretty much it. I could've just piled down a dozen suits of armor and weapons, hopped out of the chair, and run to be in the fight myself if I'd felt like it, the commander's job was pretty much done at that point. I stuck around in the chair to the bitter end, just in case, but they never managed a comeback.