Why couldn't we just have an increase in point gains from both welding and healing. The real reason nobody welds is not because the armory does. It is because there is no benefit. You occasionally see a +2 every now and then from welding. When I first started I thought I would get to be something like a medic/engineer with a welder. Then I learned I didn't need it for power nodes and that generally when a extractor is being hit it will inevitably go down. And therefore for a new one placed down and again, no welder is needed.
No one wants to sit at the bottom of the scoreboard cause they wanted to use a welder. Increase point gain. Give people incentive to weld. Positive behavior rewards have a far greater result than taking things away or giving out new things without merit. If you see a something like a 5-2 player after 30 min near the top of the board and think "Thank god that welder kept us alive." People might weld more.
You can't have it both ways. If people are hardly using welders now in the test - as you claim - then it sounds to me like free welders would have no impact at all. Right? Why make the change otherwise? For the hell of it? Com'on now, neither of us is naive here. This is a marine nerf, plain and simple. Let's call a spade a spade. Why try and sugarcoat it? If it's not a nerf, give the marines free welders to compensate.
Provided you take the change only in isolation, then of course it is a nerf to marines in the most basic sense. Even if I weren't to include that rider, the way you're wailing about it makes it sound like an absolutely ridiculous and unplayable nerf. The testing so far shows that this is not true. If you take into consideration more factors than 'welders cost money, more welders need to be bought, marines have less income', then you'll see the situation is a LOT more complex than that. I've gone into detail in previous posts about a few of the less obvious benefits to marines of a higher prevalence of welders; those benefits almost certainly will offset the increased cost to some degree. The degree to which this is the case is unclear, hence: testing.
Also, let's be clear about this, 1 or 2 welders is sufficient. On 8v8 or larger servers (as found in public play), this equates to 1/7 or less of the team spending 5 pres every so often (maybe 5 mins, maybe 10, maybe 3... testing needed to get a good idea of this).
It's not *that* much expenditure, and there is no reason it should delay most marines getting higher tech AT ALL - and only a short delay (at worst) for those who have bought welders. Of course, the comm can drop a welder from t.res, bypassing this completely. In the best case scenario, the marines have done better holding forward locations as a result of welders - by which I mean better than they currently do in this patch - and as such hold onto more res and all get their upgrades/toys SOONER. That's why it's not a simple black and white 'this is a nerf' change.
Edit: One last thought. You've tried it your way, why not suggest to Sewlek to try the opposite? Put welders in slot 4 as stock marine equipment and try it out. Why not? Nothing to lose right? If this is such an innocuous change, why not err on the side of fun and give out welders to see how it plays?
I agree absolutely that the opposite should be tested!
I do have several concerns about having a free welder for all marines on spawn; I would look at these selected ones in particular during testing:
1) reduction of strategic choice (to buy or not to buy)
2) Marines now OP in the field (they can now have 100% armour in the field almost all of the time, makes hit and run aliens weaker than current official build)
3) Doesn't help at all with late game turtle situations (although the small amount of testing I've done so far doesn't suggest that the current change affects this much either, as by this point most people have welders due to weapon recycling).
Ultimately, until you've tested it, I'm sorry but your arguments simply don't hold as much sway. If it's something you care about, then test it out. 'It's not fun' doesn't cut it - you haven't even tried the mod yet to find out whether it's a change that actually negatively impacts on your gaming experience or not.
when i played the balance mod i didn't even have to ask for welding, i whipped out a welder and instantly there were 2-3 other guys welding each other. point being that welding is not an imposition. and guess what, if you don't have the p-res for a welder, have the comm drop one.
Why couldn't we just have an increase in point gains from both welding and healing. The real reason nobody welds is not because the armory does. It is because there is no benefit. You occasionally see a +2 every now and then from welding. When I first started I thought I would get to be something like a medic/engineer with a welder. Then I learned I didn't need it for power nodes and that generally when a extractor is being hit it will inevitably go down. And therefore for a new one placed down and again, no welder is needed.
No one wants to sit at the bottom of the scoreboard cause they wanted to use a welder. Increase point gain. Give people incentive to weld. Positive behavior rewards have a far greater result than taking things away or giving out new things without merit. If you see a something like a 5-2 player after 30 min near the top of the board and think "Thank god that welder kept us alive." People might weld more.
i think you could definitely get more points for welding, but i think you're wrong about everything else.
being a good 'bane of the alien team' player goes hand in hand with welding damaged phase gates/power nodes/teammates/RT's. i have never seen an MVP player who stubbornly refused to weld because he didn't want to 'lose' time he could have spent farming skulks etc.
i find it risible that one of the best ways to farm points is to ironically buy a welder and go around killing cysts with it.
I'd love for more people who post in this thread to start providing constructive feedback on the proposed changes. There are at least 3 servers up and running with Sewlek's balance mod. Go Go Go!
You can't have it both ways. If people are hardly using welders now in the test - as you claim - then it sounds to me like free welders would have no impact at all. Right? Why make the change otherwise? For the hell of it? Com'on now, neither of us is naive here. This is a marine nerf, plain and simple. Let's call a spade a spade. Why try and sugarcoat it? If it's not a nerf, give the marines free welders to compensate.
Provided you take the change only in isolation, then of course it is a nerf to marines in the most basic sense. Even if I weren't to include that rider, the way you're wailing about it makes it sound like an absolutely ridiculous and unplayable nerf.
I'm not wailing. You want wailing? Read the 'good bye' threads after 240 dropped, *that* was wailing.
Seriously though, we can sugarcoat it all we like, but it's a nerf - we both know it. So the first question is...
Why?
Do marines need to be nerfed? I don't think they do. Nerfs aren't fun, no matter what they are.
Second, since this can be approached from 'either side' of the issue, why not approach it from the side of free welders instead of the "you have to choose between a shottie and a welder" choice...?
You talk about testing, let's test out free welders. Fair is fair right? If free welders test out OK then no problem right?
The problem here is that your intent to nerf becomes crystal clear when you try and justify not giving marines free welders.
I do have several concerns about having a free welder for all marines on spawn; I would look at these selected ones in particular during testing:
1) reduction of strategic choice (to buy or not to buy)
2) Marines now OP in the field (they can now have 100% armour in the field almost all of the time, makes hit and run aliens weaker than current official build)
3) Doesn't help at all with late game turtle situations (although the small amount of testing I've done so far doesn't suggest that the current change affects this much either, as by this point most people have welders due to weapon recycling).
This is what bothers me.
When the armor change was presented, NONE of this was mentioned. All we heard was about the 'good old days' of NS1 and no healing at the armory and how it would help encourage teamwork. Now I hear that this is really a nerf in disguise since all of these aspects would 'buff' marines if things were left the way they were now.
Getting armor from the armory wouldn't impact your point #1 and #2 at all. So if we don't change the way armor is repaired at the armory, and we don't give out free welders, then marine buying choices are not changed and marines are no more or less 'OP' as you suggest in the field. Right? Problem solved.
The only thing no healing at the armory would change would be turtles, but even that hardly happens anymore now that we have concede. It's been ages since I've been in a turtle. Furthermore, in a turtle it's more likely someone will have a welder and heal up everyone else since they are all in the same place - and if the welder drops someone is right there to pick it back up. So the turtle argument doesn't hold water since all marines would need is one welder to turtle all they like, and they could recycle it infinitely.
There is no compelling need to remove armor repair from the armory. In fact, this change (in general) runs contrary to Charile's past remarks on design with respect to armor.
Armor is a VERY important stat. It's what is used to balance PvP battles between various units. Armor is what allows a fade to do a set amount of damage and a skulk to do a different amount of damage - against the same marine. By changing the amount of armor absorbed by a given attack, the developer is able to balance the fade and the skulk against the marine WITHOUT actually changing the amount of health the marine has.
Now we are proposing to have marines running around without armor WAY more often, and that WILL screw up balance. The game is balanced around marines HAVING ARMOR, it is not balanced around marines with just 100 health. That's right from Charlie's design document.
We need to ask ourselves why people want to keep nerfing marines when there is no justification for it. Are aliens losing so many games that we need to make marines easier to kill? Ever since NS2 has been released, never ONCE has balance been in favour of the marines. Not even in build 240, which was 50/50.
I'm objecting so strongly since this comes down to taking p-res out of the hands of marines. This is a bad move at the best of times since marines ALREADY are weak when it comes to economy. Most people hardly get a chance to use much more than a shotgun when playing as marine. We've also had complaints about how little choice marines get in terms of how they play since they usually have to play long periods of time as a stock marine. Now we want to make that time as 'stock' longer?
If a player buys a welder, that is 5 p-res he will NEVER get back. NEVER. It's gone. What's worse is that his purchase does NOTHING for his own character. Not a thing. If welders self-healed then you could make a weak case that the purchaser benefits from it, but it doesn't even do that.
Even mines - which are about a close to welders as you can get from a wasted res standpoint - will give a person a chance to get kills, defend their position, and spare them the need to play whack-a-mole for the time being. The welder provides the user with NO personal benefit at all, and it provides them with no offensive benefit either.
Armor repair at the armory is not a problem right now. People don't carry armories on their back, they are in limited spots on the map, usually in base. It's no different than an alien healing at the hive. There is no compelling NEED to remove armor repair at the armory. I can see why some may WANT to change it, but we don't NEED to change it. Changing it doesn't benefit anyone except the alien team. Based on statistics, aliens don't have a problem getting kills.
In the end, it all comes down to the simple fact that welding is NOT fun. Let's not sugarcoat it. Even right now in the game, I don't know of anyone who enjoys welding stuff. Not only are people suggesting that we FORCE marines to do more welding and not only are we suggesting that we DENY marines the ability to get healed up for free in base, but we are actually telling marines that you will suffer this indignity *AND* you will be forced to make the choice between better toys and a welder.
That just isn't fun.
We can play all the games we like and say "we'll just tweak this or that to compensate", but how about we don't tweak anything and not suck even more fun out of the marine game by making them buy welders? Isn't that the simple solution here?
With all due respect, the reason you're objecting so strongly is because you don't agree with the proposed change. Everything after that is the justification you use to persuade yourself, and it doesn't take into account any of the benefits I've mentioned before. I don't have time to address all of your points, and others almost certainly don't want to read this ridiculous going-around-in-circles thread (but I do recognise the 'if I keep posting massive walls of text, maybe they'll not answer it all and I can claim victory on the point' tactic, by the way). It's not Shotgun OR welder unless you have specifically 20-24 res. Even then it's Shotgun, Welder, or wait a bit and get both. Besides, you're fixating on everyone having a welder, which, as has been stated ad nauseam, is not required.
You talk about testing, let's test out free welders. Fair is fair right? If free welders test out OK then no problem right?
As I said in response to your post, I absolutely agree that this should be tested out. So why are you so reticent to test what's currently in the mod?!
Play it, then we can talk further. There's a chance, just a -teeny- -tiny- -little- chance, that you might actually have fun.
I just want to make a note that I have not really seen brought up:
All of the other things marines can do to heal armor instead of a Basic Armory ->
Macs -> Cost: 5 res + 15 seconds (needs: Robotics factory: 15 Res, 17 seconds) -> Basic Welding Bot -> ~30 seconds 20 team resources:
Downside -> time it takes to get a Mac up, Ease of killing Mac's in skirmishes (even as a skulk late game), Micro-management required at all times
downside -> Time it takes to get made... Investment 30 res and roughly 2 minutes, and it can easily be over-run. (You might argue; Then put it in your main, But you have to remember it takes aliens 1/2 the time it takes for marines to get back to a main base. Marines are slow)
Welders -> Cost: 5 res -> Need Armory + Upgrade: 10 res
Downside -> If you get ambushed and everyone dies away from your spawn, the likely hood of retrieving the welder is like 30%... Weapons disappear off the ground very quickly (Maybe add more time for welders if you remove armor from armories) ... 5 res, might not seem a lot, but that's 5 less every time you buy a welder... that means Aliens could get onos when you still can't afford dual exos.
Overall I think that people are forgetting that the costs involved in a lot of their suggestions could make or break the balance by a large factor. If we remove Armor healing from armories, you probably should remove armor from gorge heals because having a handful of gorges around an onos healing is as bad or even worse than having a forward armory that can heal armor.
Tl;Dr - Remove armor healing from armory is an interesting idea but will probably break marines in a negative way. At the moment marines have a heavy dependence on team-resources compared with that of aliens, skulks are not meant to be able to take out a bunch of heavily equipped and upgraded marines in a fortified positon, (not saying they cant) but that is why you save your personal resources and break out the onos, fade, lerk, and gorges when you need them... not when you reach the required resources.
i think you could definitely get more points for welding, but i think you're wrong about everything else.
being a good 'bane of the alien team' player goes hand in hand with welding damaged phase gates/power nodes/teammates/RT's. i have never seen an MVP player who stubbornly refused to weld because he didn't want to 'lose' time he could have spent farming skulks etc.
i find it risible that one of the best ways to farm points is to ironically buy a welder and go around killing cysts with it.
I didn't mean for it to sound like I was saying there is no purpose for a welder. If I have my weapon preference and the extra res I get a welder and weld anything. I am only referring to the personal benefit (Points or Kills). Yes, it is important for 1-2 marines to have a welder, or at best everyone. That is a "team" benefit. But if you look at it individually you only get 2 points and not very often (sometimes when I weld a marine I get nothing, or if I was the last one to start welding over a certain percent). And you don't need to buy one for new structures or power nodes (other than the fact that it is faster). That's all
BUYING WELDERS IS NOT FUN. Find me someone who thinks buying welders is fun. Please. They probably get a kick out of bouncing a red rubber ball too. At best a person may think buying a welder is necessary, but I defy you to tell me that someone finds spending res on welders more fun than spending it on *any* other marine upgrade.
Several people in this thread including myself have mentioned that we enjoy buying welders and helping the team. Ignoring people making claims you don't like and throwing ad hominem attacks out does not a good argument make. The simple fact is that those of us that like welding like having to make that tough decision of, "is now a good time?" coupled with helping team mates. I buy welders in vanilla about twice as often as shotguns, usually to rescue the game in a clinch and it feels awesome. Your argument is just noise while you scream "no one wants to do that" when it's YOU that doesn't want to and you can't make broad generalization about other people and expect to be anywhere close to accurate.
Overall I think that people are forgetting that the costs involved in a lot of their suggestions could make or break the balance by a large factor. If we remove Armor healing from armories, you probably should remove armor from gorge heals because having a handful of gorges around an onos healing is as bad or even worse than having a forward armory that can heal armor.
Tl;Dr - Remove armor healing from armory is an interesting idea but will probably break marines in a negative way. At the moment marines have a heavy dependence on team-resources compared with that of aliens, skulks are not meant to be able to take out a bunch of heavily equipped and upgraded marines in a fortified positon, (not saying they cant) but that is why you save your personal resources and break out the onos, fade, lerk, and gorges when you need them... not when you reach the required resources.
While I understand and totally agree with divorcing the Armour and Armor discussion from the general mod balance one, it has an unfortunate consequence of making it look like the change to Armory healing armor is made in vacuum which is definitely not true. Particularly in this case, pretty much all of your balance concerns are already addressed in the mod, and would be probably introduced in the same patch as no Armory healing:
- The new biomass system for Hives and need to stack upgrades greatly increases dependency of t-res for aliens to stay competitive.
-A portion of alien ability of healing is heavily nerfed: namely the crag, which had heal stacking from multiple crags removed, and can heal only three targets at once.
With all due respect, the reason you're objecting so strongly is because you don't agree with the proposed change.
Heh, would I object if I liked the proposed change? Of course I object because I disagree, and you object to free welders since you disagree.
it doesn't take into account any of the benefits I've mentioned before.
...and you haven't acknowledged any of the negatives either. Like how it's NOT fun to have to spend what little p-res you have welders OR be welding even more things.
It's not Shotgun OR welder unless you have specifically 20-24 res. Even then it's Shotgun, Welder, or wait a bit and get both.
And you're fixating on the total amount of resources and not what the resources are SPENT on. It doesn't matter if a person has to buy 2 welders or 10. Are they buying MORE welders than they did before?
Yes or no. No BS. No "buts". Yes or no - are marines spending more on welders with this change?
If the answer is yes then I object to the change. No wall of text. It's that simple.
Give me a change that does NOT make a marine spend a single additional res point on welders and I'm quite willing to accept the 'no armor repair at armory' mechanic. So long as marines are getting screwed by being forced to buy a freaking welder for the 'privilege' of getting healed in a game where damage is the number one element, then yes, I'll be objecting on principle.
BUYING WELDERS IS NOT FUN. Find me someone who thinks buying welders is fun. Please.
Several people in this thread including myself have mentioned that we enjoy buying welders and helping the team.
You're trying to mix two different elements here. I don't doubt that you are happy to help the team, and if buying a welder does that then you're willing to do it. That doesn't mean you're saying "Whoopee! I get to buy a welder!!" when you click on the buy button in the armory. If you won't be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself.
If you could help the team without buying a welder, would you prefer that to buying a welder? Yes or no? Of course you would. Is there some 'fun' mechanic in welders I'm missing here? Let's not confuse teamwork with fun. Not all fun is teamwork and not all teamwork is fun.
I'm not opposed to teamwork here. I play medic in TF2 all the time and it's a thankless choice. However it is *MY* choice to make. Just as it is *YOUR* choice to spend your res on welders. The issue here is that this change removes that choice. That is something we should NOT be doing. This game needs MORE choice, not less. We shouldn't be narrowing the choices a person can make just because this was how it was done in a game first published a decade ago.
We never used to get health from an armory either, shall we remove that too for sake of the 'good old days'?
The bottom line is that this change makes playing marines less fun, and it gives marines less choice.
Overall I think that people are forgetting that the costs involved in a lot of their suggestions could make or break the balance by a large factor. If we remove Armor healing from armories, you probably should remove armor from gorge heals because having a handful of gorges around an onos healing is as bad or even worse than having a forward armory that can heal armor.
Tl;Dr - Remove armor healing from armory is an interesting idea but will probably break marines in a negative way. At the moment marines have a heavy dependence on team-resources compared with that of aliens, skulks are not meant to be able to take out a bunch of heavily equipped and upgraded marines in a fortified positon, (not saying they cant) but that is why you save your personal resources and break out the onos, fade, lerk, and gorges when you need them... not when you reach the required resources.
While I understand and totally agree with divorcing the Armour and Armor discussion from the general mod balance one, it has an unfortunate consequence of making it look like the change to Armory healing armor is made in vacuum which is definitely not true. Particularly in this case, pretty much all of your balance concerns are already addressed in the mod, and would be probably introduced in the same patch as no Armory healing:
- The new biomass system for Hives and need to stack upgrades greatly increases dependency of t-res for aliens to stay competitive.
-A portion of alien ability of healing is heavily nerfed: namely the crag, which had heal stacking from multiple crags removed, and can heal only three targets at once.
As Roobubba keeps pointing out, there is a mod out there. Sort by game type, it's called 'ns2 bt' in the server browser, there are several servers running it.
general
- movement code rewritten (experimental and unfinished)
- removed "no res while dead" rule
marine
- arms lab upgrade cost changed to 20/30/40 (was 15/25/35)
- IP spawn time increased to 10 seconds (was 7)
- amories no longer heal armor
- welders no longer require a research
- fixed ARC not being properly affected by ink clouds
- changed MAC EMP: requires no longer a research, removed cooldown. EMP blast cant reduce alien energy below 10 (so there will be enough left for blink for example)
- increased EMP cost to 5 (up from 3)
- MACs have now a "FollowAndWeld" order (right click on friendly units)
- marines can now weld while sprinting
alien
- reduced hive type upgrade cost to 10 (was 15)
- each alien has individual spawn timer (12 seconds)
- an egg is generated every 10 seconds ( 5 seconds for 12 player)
- hives can have max of 4 eggs (8 for 12 players)
- hives have now the hatch ability (2 eggs for 5 t.res like shift)
- added bio mass, upgrade at hive. aliens can have a max of biomass level 9 which unlocks all abilities. you can have a maximum of 3 bio mass per hive
- scaleable upgrades (for example build a maximum of 3 shells to get maximum efficiency for carapace, regeneration)
- celerity works now in combat and increases max speed by 1 m/s
- crags no longer stack their healing with each other and can heal a maximum of 3 targets at once
- shift energize no longer stacks
- drifters unlock passive abilities depending on hive type (shade: camouflage, shift: celerity, crag: regeneration)
- drifters unlock triggered abilities depending on hive type (shade: hallucinate, shift: enzyme cloud, crag: rupture)
- rupture: works like now like the other drifter abilities. Marines can prevent the effect by looking in another direction (like spit)
- shift echo ability no longer requires maturity
- moved hallucinations from shade to drifters
- drifter hallucinate: use the same way as enzyme cloud. every alien in effect range generates a hallucination, controllable by the alien commander
- fade: swapped blink and shadow step (shadow step is now the upgrade)
- blink: fades are a bit easier to see and blink is affected by celerity (-> travelling)
- shadowstep: does not add any momentum anymore instead moves you at high speed 6 meters in the desired direction (-> dodging), works also vertical
- fade vortex ability is now created as a seperate object in the world and block all attacks
known issues:
silence does not scale at the moment, instead it mutes some sounds (probability depents on level). this is just a work around and will change
@savant you speak of mines like they are not the first thing researched in near every match. (Non pub tomfoolery)
Secondly concluding the game being less fun by nerfing armories is Highly subjective. Especially when you focus on the welder aspect. You speak of choice as if lose that with the armory nerf. You don't, you have the exact same choice as you do now. Welder or no welder. In fact one could argue that removing armor healing makes your welder purchase even more worthwhile than before, especially when teammates covet it like they do shotguns, as it has become a more valuable asset to have.
I am similarly cautious about the balance of the game when more time is spent with less armor. As I said before though aliens' advertised hit-and-run style of play is entirely negated by a forward armory.
As aliens we spend a great deal of time running to a hive, similar to an armory, because in order to engage full effective up marines we must also be full effective hp. Imagine if we spent more time fighting and less time idle healing.
Personally, I don't find that this change removes any fun from the marines. Quite the opposite, really. The reason I support it is because it means that whenever I move out of base with a partner, I am able to get back to 100% in the field. You can do this with armory healing armor, but here it is unsolicited. I just like the way that it preserves momentum in a way that I find fun. However, I would like to ask, Savant, why you think that it would remove choice? I'm not sure I understand where you're coming from.
BUYING WELDERS IS NOT FUN. Find me someone who thinks buying welders is fun. Please.
Several people in this thread including myself have mentioned that we enjoy buying welders and helping the team.
You're trying to mix two different elements here. I don't doubt that you are happy to help the team, and if buying a welder does that then you're willing to do it. That doesn't mean you're saying "Whoopee! I get to buy a welder!!" when you click on the buy button in the armory. If you won't be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself.
If you could help the team without buying a welder, would you prefer that to buying a welder? Yes or no? Of course you would. Is there some 'fun' mechanic in welders I'm missing here? Let's not confuse teamwork with fun. Not all fun is teamwork and not all teamwork is fun.
I'm not opposed to teamwork here. I play medic in TF2 all the time and it's a thankless choice. However it is *MY* choice to make. Just as it is *YOUR* choice to spend your res on welders. The issue here is that this change removes that choice. That is something we should NOT be doing. This game needs MORE choice, not less. We shouldn't be narrowing the choices a person can make just because this was how it was done in a game first published a decade ago.
We never used to get health from an armory either, shall we remove that too for sake of the 'good old days'?
The bottom line is that this change makes playing marines less fun, and it gives marines less choice.
That is what I object to.
forward armory's are a load of crap and you know it... it turns the game into whack a mole; marine pops out and takes 200 hit points of damage, then runs back to the armory which gives them everything they need. that's the hive defenders advantage gone in a 10 tres crutch building.
is that 'fun'?
if the same siege strategy was available with a combination of armory and MAC's, then the situation would at least be a little more interesting. the marines would have to decide where/when their MAC's are coming from, as well as giving aliens more options rather than having to assemble the entire team to break a siege of just 2-3 marines.
Are they buying MORE welders than they did before?
Yes or no. No BS. No "buts". Yes or no - are marines spending more on welders with this change?
If the answer is yes then I object to the change. No wall of text. It's that simple.
I did not spend any more p.res on welders than I normally so when I played this patch. I didn't notice any more welders than I normally see in the field.
@savant you speak of mines like they are not the first thing researched in near every match. (Non pub tomfoolery)
Ahh I see, pub games don't count despite pub games making up 99.999% of all games played in NS2. Check.
Secondly concluding the game being less fun by nerfing armories is Highly subjective. Especially when you focus on the welder aspect. You speak of choice as if lose that with the armory nerf. You don't, you have the exact same choice as you do now. Welder or no welder. In fact one could argue that removing armor healing makes your welder purchase even more worthwhile than before, especially when teammates covet it like they do shotguns, as it has become a more valuable asset to have.
I keep repeating this, but it still bears repeating, I don't object to the *mechanic* of removing armor repair from an armory. It's downloading the added welder costs that I object to. The marine economy is poor to begin with, making marines pay MORE resources for the 'gift' of getting to 100% health/armor is frankly an insult.
forward armory's are a load of crap and you know it... it turns the game into whack a mole; marine pops out and takes 200 hit points of damage, then runs back to the armory which gives them everything they need. that's the hive defenders advantage gone in a 10 tres crutch building.
Oh? And aliens never drop a few crags outside a marine base and do EXACTLY the same thing? I have lost count of how many games on Mineshaft where aliens will have a nice little crag base in The Gap as they assault operations. Is that any less a 'whack-a-mole'?
is that 'fun'?
Good question. Is it fun to have an Onos storm your spawn, kill a few people and/or structures, be damaged to near death, then retreat down the hall only to heal back to max? I'm thinking no, but I'll await your reply in any case.
Pick your poison. If forward armories are an issue, crags shouldn't heal armor either.
If forward armories are a bother, then how is this for a compromise...
Armories and crags that are NOT within the 'sphere of influence' of a hive/CC do not provide armor repair. So if a player wants armor repairs, they have to return to hive or CC tech point in order to do it. Gorges and welders will be able to circumvent this, but they won't be required so long as a team has one hive or CC. (which a team has to have to stay in the game)
Forward armory problem solved, balance maintained, and use of welders encouraged.
Yet why do I get the feeling that I'm about to be buried in reasons why only the marines need nerfs? My spidey sense is tingling!
savant why don't you just play the beta. all of your questions will be answered.
I think you're missing the point here. Are you suggesting that if it is '50/50' that it means all is well? Sorry, but that's not the case. Just because something 'balances out' doesn't make it fun - and fun comes BEFORE balance, not after. Let me quote one of the developers, perhaps this will help...
"50/50 may well indicate balance, but it does not mean it's a good/fun game" ... I think we can all agree that sacrificing fun gameplay for balance is not a good idea.
Making people pay for welders and spend more time welding is not "fun". Maybe this build on the test server plays perfectly with respect to which side wins. That's not what I'm talking about. This particular change is *fundemental* to gameplay balance. In short, making people PAY resources so they can heal up is NOT a fun mechanic. If it gave us perfect 50/50 balance I would feel no different.
Never sacrifice fun for balance. This is game design 101 here.
That's why we had people saying their goodbyes in the forum after build 240 dropped. Despite *perfect* balance, to many people it wasn't fun. In that case it really doesn't matter how it plays.
If you could help the team without buying a welder, would you prefer that to buying a welder? Yes or no? Of course you would. Is there some 'fun' mechanic in welders I'm missing here? Let's not confuse teamwork with fun. Not all fun is teamwork and not all teamwork is fun.
I want to do both. By needing my pres to purchase the welder my CHOICE has been made more meaningful through my purchase. I'm now less effective at antistructure but make my allies much more effective.
I'm not opposed to teamwork here. I play medic in TF2 all the time and it's a thankless choice. However it is *MY* choice to make. Just as it is *YOUR* choice to spend your res on welders. The issue here is that this change removes that choice. That is something we should NOT be doing. This game needs MORE choice, not less. We shouldn't be narrowing the choices a person can make just because this was how it was done in a game first published a decade ago.
We don't need more choice if that choice isn't impactful.
I have the choice of spending res so my allies or more effective or not spending res and still having them be effective. - That's not a real choice
I spend my res to make my allies more effective or I don't and they are less effective - A real choice because it has consequences.
We never used to get health from an armory either, shall we remove that too for sake of the 'good old days'?
Can you tell me when armories didn't heal? was it Beta 1.0 of NS1 because I remember going to armories for health on occasion despite it being slow in NS1.
Good question. Is it fun to have an Onos storm your spawn, kill a few people and/or structures, be damaged to near death, then retreat down the hall only to heal back to max? I'm thinking no, but I'll await your reply in any case.
Yes it is because an Onos is a 75 res tank character that is very rewarding when it does go down because you made the choice to chase it. In addition it's healing take MUCH longer meaning if you catch it starting it's heal you can reasonable finish it off.
Your hyperbole and misinformation is getting kind of ridiculous. You say you don't object to the change as long as some condition is met and when people say that condition is seen met in game you go "Nu huh!"
@savant you speak of mines like they are not the first thing researched in near every match. (Non pub tomfoolery)
Ahh I see, pub games don't count despite pub games making up 99.999% of all games played in NS2. Check.
Secondly concluding the game being less fun by nerfing armories is Highly subjective. Especially when you focus on the welder aspect. You speak of choice as if lose that with the armory nerf. You don't, you have the exact same choice as you do now. Welder or no welder. In fact one could argue that removing armor healing makes your welder purchase even more worthwhile than before, especially when teammates covet it like they do shotguns, as it has become a more valuable asset to have.
I keep repeating this, but it still bears repeating, I don't object to the *mechanic* of removing armor repair from an armory. It's downloading the added welder costs that I object to. The marine economy is poor to begin with, making marines pay MORE resources for the 'gift' of getting to 100% health/armor is frankly an insult.
forward armory's are a load of crap and you know it... it turns the game into whack a mole; marine pops out and takes 200 hit points of damage, then runs back to the armory which gives them everything they need. that's the hive defenders advantage gone in a 10 tres crutch building.
Oh? And aliens never drop a few crags outside a marine base and do EXACTLY the same thing? I have lost count of how many games on Mineshaft where aliens will have a nice little crag base in The Gap as they assault operations. Is that any less a 'whack-a-mole'?
is that 'fun'?
Good question. Is it fun to have an Onos storm your spawn, kill a few people and/or structures, be damaged to near death, then retreat down the hall only to heal back to max? I'm thinking no, but I'll await your reply in any case.
Pick your poison. If forward armories are an issue, crags shouldn't heal armor either.
If forward armories are a bother, then how is this for a compromise...
Armories and crags that are NOT within the 'sphere of influence' of a hive/CC do not provide armor repair. So if a player wants armor repairs, they have to return to hive or CC tech point in order to do it. Gorges and welders will be able to circumvent this, but they won't be required so long as a team has one hive or CC. (which a team has to have to stay in the game)
Forward armory problem solved, balance maintained, and use of welders encouraged.
Yet why do I get the feeling that I'm about to be buried in reasons why only the marines need nerfs? My spidey sense is tingling!
no it's definitely not fun to have an onos rush your base, then run around the corner to heal up (even just with gorge healing). but it's a necessary evil because the alternative is that onos is a 75pres piñata.
if our goal is to nerf both aliens and marines in key areas where they're too strong - the marine ability to turtle assisted by the universal crutch armory is an obvious one.
the game absolutely sucks when it comes down to alien hit n run (gorge, hive, crag) versus marine hit n run (armory). MAC and welders are obviously less convenient than armory, and could be exploited by aliens, but they're still sufficient enough so you don't have frustrated marines running around for several minutes trying to get armor repair.
remember that marines have ARC to break crag nests. alien don't have any option aside from brute force to break an armory nest (including the assault on marine main). it drags on waaaaaaaaaay too long.
i know, i know... it's an asymmetrical game - marines decimate an alien base from outside the room and alien can barely even get into the room without severe lead or shrapnel poisoning.
By needing my pres to purchase the welder my CHOICE has been made more meaningful through my purchase. I'm now less effective at antistructure but make my allies much more effective.
Marines don't have a choice. If they don't buy welders their team is at a disadvantage. If by NOT doing something your team is placed at a disadvantage, then it is NOT a choice.
For example, technically, the commander doesn't *HAVE* to drop any extractors. However, if he does not do so, his chances of winning are slim to none. This means he has no choice, he MUST drop extractors in order for his team to remain competitive. The same applies to welders.
We don't need more choice if that choice isn't impactful.
Of course we do, it's called FUN. We play to have fun, and the game is fun because CHOICES WE MAKE influence the outcome of the game. Otherwise it's just a scripted event that is not much more than a movie. No player (on either team) should be forced to spend personal resources on basic gameplay elements in NS2. No player should HAVE to buy a welder in order to replenish their health. That is not fun.
Can you tell me when armories didn't heal? was it Beta 1.0 of NS1 because I remember going to armories for health on occasion despite it being slow in NS1.
It was after release of NS1, I'm sure of it. I know this since *after* the game released it was a mod by Voogru that added healing to armories, and then that mod was rolled into the game later after it became popular. You would have to ask the developers for an exact date, but NS1 shipped with marines needing medpack drops by the commander to get healed at any point in time. I remember it well.
The bottom line is that this change makes playing marines less fun, and it gives marines less choice.
That is what I object to.
It doesn't give less choice, it makes the choice that's already there mean more.
We disagree, so I don't see the point in going back and forth much further. This is less choice. You can't play semantic games and say it is.
Current game:
Marine can heal armor by visiting amory for free
Marine can heal armor by being welded
Proposed game:
Marine can heal armor by being welded
That is *LESS* choice. Furthermore, since welders need to be purchased you have now taken something that used to be FREE and put a cost on it. That is also less choice since armor is effective health, and playing with less effective health is a bad CHOICE.
You like welders? Great. In the game now it is your CHOICE to buy them. If I don't want to spend my resources that way, if I don't think buying a welder is *FUN*, then I don't have to buy it. I can still heal to full health at an armory. Now you propose taking that CHOICE away from me, and not only that you propose to make me PAY to get healed up, and you have the gall to say that this is 'fun'?
We disagree. We can go back and forth some more if you like, but perhaps it's better if we just agree to disagree on this point.
Marines don't have a choice. If they don't buy welders their team is at a disadvantage. If by NOT doing something your team is placed at a disadvantage, then it is NOT a choice.
For example, technically, the commander doesn't *HAVE* to drop any extractors. However, if he does not do so, his chances of winning are slim to none. This means he has no choice, he MUST drop extractors in order for his team to remain competitive. The same applies to welders.
You say that as if EVERY marine needs to buy a welder when maybe 10%-20% doing so is enough for the whole team. Those people made the choice to help the team.
That nonsense commander/res node example play out in game and is FUN. Of course it's not like you described it because that's ridiculous nonsense wrapped in BS. But he does have to make the choice for which extractors to try and keep and which ones aren't worth the teams effort due to pressure.
No player (on either team) should be forced to spend personal resources on basic gameplay elements in NS2. No player should HAVE to buy a welder in order to replenish their health. That is not fun.
No one would be forced to. You keep saying that but it is factually and in practice not true.
Also
Current game:
Marine can heal armor by visiting amory for free
Marine can heal armor by being welded but who cares cause an armory is right there. Mac
Proposed game:
Marine can heal armor by being welded & the choice is valuable and meaningful for his allies
Mac
Yes That IS less choice but the choices that are being made have weight and value. Yes playing with less armor is bad choice and that is why it would becomes valuable to have support players on the field. You probably love those RPG's that give you 500 "different swords" that all do the same dmg with the same animation but look kinda almost different because CHOICE!
You like welders? Great. In the game now it is your CHOICE to buy them. If I don't want to spend my resources that way, if I don't think buying a welder is *FUN*, then I don't have to buy it. I can still heal to full health at an armory. Now you propose taking that CHOICE away from me, and not only that you propose to make me PAY to get healed up, and you have the gall to say that this is 'fun'?
You would still have the choice to not by them but you would no longer have the choice to not work with your team which is what NS is all about.
I think we are done here.
if you don't buy mines, then marines are at a disadvantage... but you can't deny that every marine has a choice. everyone can decide for themselves if they believe more mines are needed, just as they can decide if more welders are needed...
i was very much against the change until i tried the balance test mod. not so much due to my observations and experience in the mod, but just as i was pondering the new features while in game and it struck me that it's not that big of a deal.
plus i was experimenting with the mac and realised how awesome it looks and fits into the game, i want mac to be a viable feature of every marine base instead of being a superfluous exo/arc fluffer.
Comments
No one wants to sit at the bottom of the scoreboard cause they wanted to use a welder. Increase point gain. Give people incentive to weld. Positive behavior rewards have a far greater result than taking things away or giving out new things without merit. If you see a something like a 5-2 player after 30 min near the top of the board and think "Thank god that welder kept us alive." People might weld more.
Provided you take the change only in isolation, then of course it is a nerf to marines in the most basic sense. Even if I weren't to include that rider, the way you're wailing about it makes it sound like an absolutely ridiculous and unplayable nerf. The testing so far shows that this is not true. If you take into consideration more factors than 'welders cost money, more welders need to be bought, marines have less income', then you'll see the situation is a LOT more complex than that. I've gone into detail in previous posts about a few of the less obvious benefits to marines of a higher prevalence of welders; those benefits almost certainly will offset the increased cost to some degree. The degree to which this is the case is unclear, hence: testing.
Also, let's be clear about this, 1 or 2 welders is sufficient. On 8v8 or larger servers (as found in public play), this equates to 1/7 or less of the team spending 5 pres every so often (maybe 5 mins, maybe 10, maybe 3... testing needed to get a good idea of this).
It's not *that* much expenditure, and there is no reason it should delay most marines getting higher tech AT ALL - and only a short delay (at worst) for those who have bought welders. Of course, the comm can drop a welder from t.res, bypassing this completely. In the best case scenario, the marines have done better holding forward locations as a result of welders - by which I mean better than they currently do in this patch - and as such hold onto more res and all get their upgrades/toys SOONER. That's why it's not a simple black and white 'this is a nerf' change.
I agree absolutely that the opposite should be tested!
I do have several concerns about having a free welder for all marines on spawn; I would look at these selected ones in particular during testing:
1) reduction of strategic choice (to buy or not to buy)
2) Marines now OP in the field (they can now have 100% armour in the field almost all of the time, makes hit and run aliens weaker than current official build)
3) Doesn't help at all with late game turtle situations (although the small amount of testing I've done so far doesn't suggest that the current change affects this much either, as by this point most people have welders due to weapon recycling).
Ultimately, until you've tested it, I'm sorry but your arguments simply don't hold as much sway. If it's something you care about, then test it out. 'It's not fun' doesn't cut it - you haven't even tried the mod yet to find out whether it's a change that actually negatively impacts on your gaming experience or not.
i think you could definitely get more points for welding, but i think you're wrong about everything else.
being a good 'bane of the alien team' player goes hand in hand with welding damaged phase gates/power nodes/teammates/RT's. i have never seen an MVP player who stubbornly refused to weld because he didn't want to 'lose' time he could have spent farming skulks etc.
i find it risible that one of the best ways to farm points is to ironically buy a welder and go around killing cysts with it.
What's wrong with forward armory sieges?
Seriously though, we can sugarcoat it all we like, but it's a nerf - we both know it. So the first question is...
Why?
Do marines need to be nerfed? I don't think they do. Nerfs aren't fun, no matter what they are.
Second, since this can be approached from 'either side' of the issue, why not approach it from the side of free welders instead of the "you have to choose between a shottie and a welder" choice...?
You talk about testing, let's test out free welders. Fair is fair right? If free welders test out OK then no problem right?
The problem here is that your intent to nerf becomes crystal clear when you try and justify not giving marines free welders. This is what bothers me.
When the armor change was presented, NONE of this was mentioned. All we heard was about the 'good old days' of NS1 and no healing at the armory and how it would help encourage teamwork. Now I hear that this is really a nerf in disguise since all of these aspects would 'buff' marines if things were left the way they were now.
Getting armor from the armory wouldn't impact your point #1 and #2 at all. So if we don't change the way armor is repaired at the armory, and we don't give out free welders, then marine buying choices are not changed and marines are no more or less 'OP' as you suggest in the field. Right? Problem solved.
The only thing no healing at the armory would change would be turtles, but even that hardly happens anymore now that we have concede. It's been ages since I've been in a turtle. Furthermore, in a turtle it's more likely someone will have a welder and heal up everyone else since they are all in the same place - and if the welder drops someone is right there to pick it back up. So the turtle argument doesn't hold water since all marines would need is one welder to turtle all they like, and they could recycle it infinitely.
There is no compelling need to remove armor repair from the armory. In fact, this change (in general) runs contrary to Charile's past remarks on design with respect to armor.
Armor is a VERY important stat. It's what is used to balance PvP battles between various units. Armor is what allows a fade to do a set amount of damage and a skulk to do a different amount of damage - against the same marine. By changing the amount of armor absorbed by a given attack, the developer is able to balance the fade and the skulk against the marine WITHOUT actually changing the amount of health the marine has.
Now we are proposing to have marines running around without armor WAY more often, and that WILL screw up balance. The game is balanced around marines HAVING ARMOR, it is not balanced around marines with just 100 health. That's right from Charlie's design document.
We need to ask ourselves why people want to keep nerfing marines when there is no justification for it. Are aliens losing so many games that we need to make marines easier to kill? Ever since NS2 has been released, never ONCE has balance been in favour of the marines. Not even in build 240, which was 50/50.
I'm objecting so strongly since this comes down to taking p-res out of the hands of marines. This is a bad move at the best of times since marines ALREADY are weak when it comes to economy. Most people hardly get a chance to use much more than a shotgun when playing as marine. We've also had complaints about how little choice marines get in terms of how they play since they usually have to play long periods of time as a stock marine. Now we want to make that time as 'stock' longer?
If a player buys a welder, that is 5 p-res he will NEVER get back. NEVER. It's gone. What's worse is that his purchase does NOTHING for his own character. Not a thing. If welders self-healed then you could make a weak case that the purchaser benefits from it, but it doesn't even do that.
Even mines - which are about a close to welders as you can get from a wasted res standpoint - will give a person a chance to get kills, defend their position, and spare them the need to play whack-a-mole for the time being. The welder provides the user with NO personal benefit at all, and it provides them with no offensive benefit either.
Armor repair at the armory is not a problem right now. People don't carry armories on their back, they are in limited spots on the map, usually in base. It's no different than an alien healing at the hive. There is no compelling NEED to remove armor repair at the armory. I can see why some may WANT to change it, but we don't NEED to change it. Changing it doesn't benefit anyone except the alien team. Based on statistics, aliens don't have a problem getting kills.
In the end, it all comes down to the simple fact that welding is NOT fun. Let's not sugarcoat it. Even right now in the game, I don't know of anyone who enjoys welding stuff. Not only are people suggesting that we FORCE marines to do more welding and not only are we suggesting that we DENY marines the ability to get healed up for free in base, but we are actually telling marines that you will suffer this indignity *AND* you will be forced to make the choice between better toys and a welder.
That just isn't fun.
We can play all the games we like and say "we'll just tweak this or that to compensate", but how about we don't tweak anything and not suck even more fun out of the marine game by making them buy welders? Isn't that the simple solution here?
As I said in response to your post, I absolutely agree that this should be tested out. So why are you so reticent to test what's currently in the mod?!
Play it, then we can talk further. There's a chance, just a -teeny- -tiny- -little- chance, that you might actually have fun.
All of the other things marines can do to heal armor instead of a Basic Armory ->
Macs -> Cost: 5 res + 15 seconds (needs: Robotics factory: 15 Res, 17 seconds) -> Basic Welding Bot -> ~30 seconds 20 team resources:
Downside -> time it takes to get a Mac up, Ease of killing Mac's in skirmishes (even as a skulk late game), Micro-management required at all times
Adv. Armory -> Costs: 20 res, 90 seconds -> Needs Armory: Costs: 10 res, Time~ 20 seconds?
downside -> Time it takes to get made... Investment 30 res and roughly 2 minutes, and it can easily be over-run. (You might argue; Then put it in your main, But you have to remember it takes aliens 1/2 the time it takes for marines to get back to a main base. Marines are slow)
Welders -> Cost: 5 res -> Need Armory + Upgrade: 10 res
Downside -> If you get ambushed and everyone dies away from your spawn, the likely hood of retrieving the welder is like 30%... Weapons disappear off the ground very quickly (Maybe add more time for welders if you remove armor from armories) ... 5 res, might not seem a lot, but that's 5 less every time you buy a welder... that means Aliens could get onos when you still can't afford dual exos.
Overall I think that people are forgetting that the costs involved in a lot of their suggestions could make or break the balance by a large factor. If we remove Armor healing from armories, you probably should remove armor from gorge heals because having a handful of gorges around an onos healing is as bad or even worse than having a forward armory that can heal armor.
Tl;Dr - Remove armor healing from armory is an interesting idea but will probably break marines in a negative way. At the moment marines have a heavy dependence on team-resources compared with that of aliens, skulks are not meant to be able to take out a bunch of heavily equipped and upgraded marines in a fortified positon, (not saying they cant) but that is why you save your personal resources and break out the onos, fade, lerk, and gorges when you need them... not when you reach the required resources.
I didn't mean for it to sound like I was saying there is no purpose for a welder. If I have my weapon preference and the extra res I get a welder and weld anything. I am only referring to the personal benefit (Points or Kills). Yes, it is important for 1-2 marines to have a welder, or at best everyone. That is a "team" benefit. But if you look at it individually you only get 2 points and not very often (sometimes when I weld a marine I get nothing, or if I was the last one to start welding over a certain percent). And you don't need to buy one for new structures or power nodes (other than the fact that it is faster). That's all
Several people in this thread including myself have mentioned that we enjoy buying welders and helping the team. Ignoring people making claims you don't like and throwing ad hominem attacks out does not a good argument make. The simple fact is that those of us that like welding like having to make that tough decision of, "is now a good time?" coupled with helping team mates. I buy welders in vanilla about twice as often as shotguns, usually to rescue the game in a clinch and it feels awesome. Your argument is just noise while you scream "no one wants to do that" when it's YOU that doesn't want to and you can't make broad generalization about other people and expect to be anywhere close to accurate.
While I understand and totally agree with divorcing the Armour and Armor discussion from the general mod balance one, it has an unfortunate consequence of making it look like the change to Armory healing armor is made in vacuum which is definitely not true. Particularly in this case, pretty much all of your balance concerns are already addressed in the mod, and would be probably introduced in the same patch as no Armory healing:
- The new biomass system for Hives and need to stack upgrades greatly increases dependency of t-res for aliens to stay competitive.
-A portion of alien ability of healing is heavily nerfed: namely the crag, which had heal stacking from multiple crags removed, and can heal only three targets at once.
Yes or no. No BS. No "buts". Yes or no - are marines spending more on welders with this change?
If the answer is yes then I object to the change. No wall of text. It's that simple.
Give me a change that does NOT make a marine spend a single additional res point on welders and I'm quite willing to accept the 'no armor repair at armory' mechanic. So long as marines are getting screwed by being forced to buy a freaking welder for the 'privilege' of getting healed in a game where damage is the number one element, then yes, I'll be objecting on principle.
If you could help the team without buying a welder, would you prefer that to buying a welder? Yes or no? Of course you would. Is there some 'fun' mechanic in welders I'm missing here? Let's not confuse teamwork with fun. Not all fun is teamwork and not all teamwork is fun.
I'm not opposed to teamwork here. I play medic in TF2 all the time and it's a thankless choice. However it is *MY* choice to make. Just as it is *YOUR* choice to spend your res on welders. The issue here is that this change removes that choice. That is something we should NOT be doing. This game needs MORE choice, not less. We shouldn't be narrowing the choices a person can make just because this was how it was done in a game first published a decade ago.
We never used to get health from an armory either, shall we remove that too for sake of the 'good old days'?
The bottom line is that this change makes playing marines less fun, and it gives marines less choice.
That is what I object to.
As Roobubba keeps pointing out, there is a mod out there. Sort by game type, it's called 'ns2 bt' in the server browser, there are several servers running it.
Secondly concluding the game being less fun by nerfing armories is Highly subjective. Especially when you focus on the welder aspect. You speak of choice as if lose that with the armory nerf. You don't, you have the exact same choice as you do now. Welder or no welder. In fact one could argue that removing armor healing makes your welder purchase even more worthwhile than before, especially when teammates covet it like they do shotguns, as it has become a more valuable asset to have.
I am similarly cautious about the balance of the game when more time is spent with less armor. As I said before though aliens' advertised hit-and-run style of play is entirely negated by a forward armory.
As aliens we spend a great deal of time running to a hive, similar to an armory, because in order to engage full effective up marines we must also be full effective hp. Imagine if we spent more time fighting and less time idle healing.
Also your gorge arguments are ridiculous.
forward armory's are a load of crap and you know it... it turns the game into whack a mole; marine pops out and takes 200 hit points of damage, then runs back to the armory which gives them everything they need. that's the hive defenders advantage gone in a 10 tres crutch building.
is that 'fun'?
if the same siege strategy was available with a combination of armory and MAC's, then the situation would at least be a little more interesting. the marines would have to decide where/when their MAC's are coming from, as well as giving aliens more options rather than having to assemble the entire team to break a siege of just 2-3 marines.
I did not spend any more p.res on welders than I normally so when I played this patch. I didn't notice any more welders than I normally see in the field.
I keep repeating this, but it still bears repeating, I don't object to the *mechanic* of removing armor repair from an armory. It's downloading the added welder costs that I object to. The marine economy is poor to begin with, making marines pay MORE resources for the 'gift' of getting to 100% health/armor is frankly an insult.
Oh? And aliens never drop a few crags outside a marine base and do EXACTLY the same thing? I have lost count of how many games on Mineshaft where aliens will have a nice little crag base in The Gap as they assault operations. Is that any less a 'whack-a-mole'?
Good question. Is it fun to have an Onos storm your spawn, kill a few people and/or structures, be damaged to near death, then retreat down the hall only to heal back to max? I'm thinking no, but I'll await your reply in any case.
Pick your poison. If forward armories are an issue, crags shouldn't heal armor either.
If forward armories are a bother, then how is this for a compromise...
Armories and crags that are NOT within the 'sphere of influence' of a hive/CC do not provide armor repair. So if a player wants armor repairs, they have to return to hive or CC tech point in order to do it. Gorges and welders will be able to circumvent this, but they won't be required so long as a team has one hive or CC. (which a team has to have to stay in the game)
Forward armory problem solved, balance maintained, and use of welders encouraged.
Yet why do I get the feeling that I'm about to be buried in reasons why only the marines need nerfs? My spidey sense is tingling!
Making people pay for welders and spend more time welding is not "fun". Maybe this build on the test server plays perfectly with respect to which side wins. That's not what I'm talking about. This particular change is *fundemental* to gameplay balance. In short, making people PAY resources so they can heal up is NOT a fun mechanic. If it gave us perfect 50/50 balance I would feel no different.
Never sacrifice fun for balance. This is game design 101 here.
That's why we had people saying their goodbyes in the forum after build 240 dropped. Despite *perfect* balance, to many people it wasn't fun. In that case it really doesn't matter how it plays.
I want to do both. By needing my pres to purchase the welder my CHOICE has been made more meaningful through my purchase. I'm now less effective at antistructure but make my allies much more effective.
We don't need more choice if that choice isn't impactful.
I have the choice of spending res so my allies or more effective or not spending res and still having them be effective. - That's not a real choice
I spend my res to make my allies more effective or I don't and they are less effective - A real choice because it has consequences.
Can you tell me when armories didn't heal? was it Beta 1.0 of NS1 because I remember going to armories for health on occasion despite it being slow in NS1.
It doesn't give less choice, it makes the choice that's already there mean more.
Yes it is because an Onos is a 75 res tank character that is very rewarding when it does go down because you made the choice to chase it. In addition it's healing take MUCH longer meaning if you catch it starting it's heal you can reasonable finish it off.
Your hyperbole and misinformation is getting kind of ridiculous. You say you don't object to the change as long as some condition is met and when people say that condition is seen met in game you go "Nu huh!"
Have you played the variation at least?
no it's definitely not fun to have an onos rush your base, then run around the corner to heal up (even just with gorge healing). but it's a necessary evil because the alternative is that onos is a 75pres piñata.
if our goal is to nerf both aliens and marines in key areas where they're too strong - the marine ability to turtle assisted by the universal crutch armory is an obvious one.
the game absolutely sucks when it comes down to alien hit n run (gorge, hive, crag) versus marine hit n run (armory). MAC and welders are obviously less convenient than armory, and could be exploited by aliens, but they're still sufficient enough so you don't have frustrated marines running around for several minutes trying to get armor repair.
remember that marines have ARC to break crag nests. alien don't have any option aside from brute force to break an armory nest (including the assault on marine main). it drags on waaaaaaaaaay too long.
i know, i know... it's an asymmetrical game - marines decimate an alien base from outside the room and alien can barely even get into the room without severe lead or shrapnel poisoning.
For example, technically, the commander doesn't *HAVE* to drop any extractors. However, if he does not do so, his chances of winning are slim to none. This means he has no choice, he MUST drop extractors in order for his team to remain competitive. The same applies to welders.
Of course we do, it's called FUN. We play to have fun, and the game is fun because CHOICES WE MAKE influence the outcome of the game. Otherwise it's just a scripted event that is not much more than a movie. No player (on either team) should be forced to spend personal resources on basic gameplay elements in NS2. No player should HAVE to buy a welder in order to replenish their health. That is not fun.
It was after release of NS1, I'm sure of it. I know this since *after* the game released it was a mod by Voogru that added healing to armories, and then that mod was rolled into the game later after it became popular. You would have to ask the developers for an exact date, but NS1 shipped with marines needing medpack drops by the commander to get healed at any point in time. I remember it well.
We disagree, so I don't see the point in going back and forth much further. This is less choice. You can't play semantic games and say it is.
Current game:
Marine can heal armor by visiting amory for free
Marine can heal armor by being welded
Proposed game:
Marine can heal armor by being welded
That is *LESS* choice. Furthermore, since welders need to be purchased you have now taken something that used to be FREE and put a cost on it. That is also less choice since armor is effective health, and playing with less effective health is a bad CHOICE.
You like welders? Great. In the game now it is your CHOICE to buy them. If I don't want to spend my resources that way, if I don't think buying a welder is *FUN*, then I don't have to buy it. I can still heal to full health at an armory. Now you propose taking that CHOICE away from me, and not only that you propose to make me PAY to get healed up, and you have the gall to say that this is 'fun'?
We disagree. We can go back and forth some more if you like, but perhaps it's better if we just agree to disagree on this point.
You say that as if EVERY marine needs to buy a welder when maybe 10%-20% doing so is enough for the whole team. Those people made the choice to help the team.
That nonsense commander/res node example play out in game and is FUN. Of course it's not like you described it because that's ridiculous nonsense wrapped in BS. But he does have to make the choice for which extractors to try and keep and which ones aren't worth the teams effort due to pressure.
No one would be forced to. You keep saying that but it is factually and in practice not true.
Also
Current game:
Marine can heal armor by visiting amory for free
Marine can heal armor by being welded but who cares cause an armory is right there.
Mac
Proposed game:
Marine can heal armor by being welded & the choice is valuable and meaningful for his allies
Mac
Yes That IS less choice but the choices that are being made have weight and value. Yes playing with less armor is bad choice and that is why it would becomes valuable to have support players on the field. You probably love those RPG's that give you 500 "different swords" that all do the same dmg with the same animation but look kinda almost different because CHOICE!
You would still have the choice to not by them but you would no longer have the choice to not work with your team which is what NS is all about.
I think we are done here.
if you don't buy mines, then marines are at a disadvantage... but you can't deny that every marine has a choice. everyone can decide for themselves if they believe more mines are needed, just as they can decide if more welders are needed...
i was very much against the change until i tried the balance test mod. not so much due to my observations and experience in the mod, but just as i was pondering the new features while in game and it struck me that it's not that big of a deal.
plus i was experimenting with the mac and realised how awesome it looks and fits into the game, i want mac to be a viable feature of every marine base instead of being a superfluous exo/arc fluffer.