you're setting up a false choice here.
you have 2 choices when your armor is depleted:
1) have your armor repaired by outside means
2) push on without armor
those same choices are still there in the mod. what you perceive as inconvenience is actually not the case at all. Previously, if you cleared a room and had depleted armor, but no forward armory, you had to run all the way back to your base to heal up.
Logic time:
a. i don't like having un-fun mechanics in my game
b. running around doing nothing in the game is not fun
c. armory healing armor promotes running around doing nothing while going back for healing
d. therefore, armory healing armor should not be in the game.
Instead of continuing to argue with someone who hasn't played the mod and therefore has input of incredible limited value can we discuss what can make this mechanic work better within the bounds that it is being tested. Especially since it seems most people like the change or at least barely notice.
I really think this change is less about how marines play (since no ones seems to notice the difference too much) and much more about alien play where their hit & run playstyle becomes more relevant.
No Savant, you don't count because you haven't tried 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!
I only played the mod for half a round yesterday so I can't really comment too much on it.
I don't think having to buy welders will be the end of marine wins, mainly because I've always bought at a minimum of two welders per game.
I buy welders for the same reason I buy mines in the early game. I like to win. Can you win as marine without buying welders? Sure, of course it happens. Just like you can win in TF2 with no medic. But having them really increase your odds because you stay alive longer.
As a child, I eschewed pickled red cabbage. I refused to try it, saying I'd hate it, because I didn't like the idea of it. I was sat down by one of my brothers and my dad one day and they persuaded me, after much heated discussion, to try some.
As a child, I eschewed pickled red cabbage. I refused to try it, saying I'd hate it, because I didn't like the idea of it. I was sat down by one of my brothers and my dad one day and they persuaded me, after much heated discussion, to try some.
I liked it.
Try the mod.
i agree, you should always try something. except brined olives.
just don't bother with brined olives. they taste so awful you need to drink a gallon of sea water to wash out the taste.
a. i don't like having un-fun mechanics in my game
b. running around doing nothing in the game is not fun
c. armory healing armor promotes running around doing nothing while going back for healing
d. therefore, armory healing armor should not be in the game.
Previously, if you cleared a room and had depleted armor, but no forward armory, you had to run all the way back to your base to heal up.
WTF are you talking about? You already have the ability to weld marine armor. As far as I know you have always had that ability and nobody is talking about removing it.
The debate is whether or not to make welding the only source of repairing marine armor.
I mean you keep talking about logic, but it doesn't seem to be your strong suit.
The disconnect comes from the fact that they are planning to slap an unnecessary pres cost on marines and forcing mechanics just because a certain play style for marines apparently needs to be enforced. Allowing support players a role? They could already do that. Right now I see rarely any of those when needed even with armories healing armor and no one really wants to weld up bases or exos as it is in pubs. Teamwork? Good players already use that this will only weaken the marine pubs.
I see a few people speak about stopping marine getting shotties + jps but no one mention how aliens will have their lifeform explosion balanced. So now aliens also get pres when dead AND have no pres sink like this balance mod suggests for marines?
How about letting Gorge heal alien armor only like a few of us suggest. I mean it's alright because now you get pres when dead, it "encourages" communication and teamwork planning ambushes rather than just letting aliens rambo in alone once healed to full armor. It will not allow aliens to just go to the nearest crag, hive, or rely on regeneration because waiting to heal or walking back to the hive just slows down game play and wastes time from their front line guerrilla warfare tactics. Now Gorges will feel more like supporters and experience more "enjoyable" gameplay as aliens will have to come to them for armor healing instead of walking past them to the nearest healing station.
How do you expect to convince anyone otherwise by forcing welders for 5 pres and try to make it more agreeable by using MACS that are also 5 pres and go down extremely fast. Plus macs+robotics factory are just are another cost on the team res pool of marines early on in addition to increased armor/weapon research cost as well as giving the com a harder time while the kham just lays back as usual. Is the point of all this to stop marine expansion? Limit what marines can buy and make a welder mandatory? Because it will not be helping marine expansion or make the game play more enjoyable for pubs in general.
In addition the balance of the aliens remains to be seen after the skulk fix and you still have not addressed how marines will still hump the armories for health. You think removing armor healing will stop people from humping it? Now when they have less than full hp they will feel vulnerable and run back to base for more health and wait for welders refusing to move froward until full armor is restored especially when they are using gear like jetpack+sg.
Also this is not NS1 it's NS2. No need to try to make everything the same. You cannot expect aliens to be individualistic and expect skulks/fades/lerks to solo an entire decent marine squad. Jeeze in 240 Archaea was a pretty good alien team because they made use of teamwork by sticking together and ambushing/moving properly and not getting ripped apart by marines individually. So why not make Gorge part of this fantastic teamwork dynamic you guys are trying to make mandatory?
In the end I get the feeling Sewlek wants to try this armory change on a massive scale one way or another as it is how he envisions marines players SHOULD be playing not by choice but by necessity. Besides if marines are losing more games now due to 241, then it will simply wait to be brought up later on...so yea go ahead and try it. I am interested to see in the NS2's playerbase response outside of this forum. You know the 1-2k people who consistently play this game. If it works out then I cannot really say much to that.
assuming you've been following this thread since the beginning, i think you've missed some key points.
1. the extra pres cost for marines could be compensated somewhat by the reworked alien upgrade structure.
2. the extra pres cost for marines is being over-stated. you don't need to spend 5pres every life, you can quite easily share a single welder - one guy repairs all then gives it to another guy who repairs him back.
3. if welding isn't working efficiently; the commander can use mac's as a contingency (instead of the armory).
i was against the change before, mainly because it didn't seem right to only have a single method to repair armour. especially when that method could interfere with your playing style.
everyone must appreciate the detriment of forward armory sieges, and with the change at least you'd need either mac's or welder(s) to complete an 'armory contain'.
on top of that, mac's are awesome and what better way to make them a staple unit? right now they're almost exclusively a superfluous tres sink for fat cat commanders.
1. Reworked alien upgrade structure? Sure the way the Kham spends his tres is different but what does this have to do with the life form explosion due to pres when dead and no pres sink for aliens? An Onos is still an Onos and a Fade starts with blink either way. Lerks have also been improved for late game with spikes dealing heavy damage and spores reduced damage but are nowprojectiles. Celerity is also working in combat with this mod so it is not like lifeforms are any weaker when gained with pres. How exactly is pres being wasted for aliens again other on their idea of the life form they want to choose?
2. You could say it is overstated and I could say it is understated. Handing welders back and forth is just inviting aliens to munch on you especially with the way the pickup function is now along with weapon switching.
3. Macs. So you got squads everywhere and you are going to order macs to follow and assist these squads while building them, using tres and time getting them there as well as doing everything else a com should be doing. Seems like a lot of heavy work for the com vs the kham. So what happens if the aliens wipe the marines out? Macs lost. What happens if the Macs do not get there in time and then get demolished by aliens? Macs lost. Macs are simply not reliable because they will get destroyed fast in addition to wasting more valuable tres on early upgrades which are also more expensive. So again back to the 5 pres welder sink to stay alive.
Pick your poison. If forward armories are an issue, crags shouldn't heal armor either.
^- This. Forward crag stations are just as OP as armories. Plus marines don't have any whips that repel bile bomb.
Well it is good then that the changes are not made in vacuum and that crag stations are being heavily nerfed, in the very same patch that introduces no armor healing from armories, right? Seriously, I posted basically the same thing on the previous page.
Really people,PLAY THE MOD before forming your opinion about the balance and how no armor from armories will change it. Or, at the very very least READ THE CHANGE-LOG.
Pick your poison. If forward armories are an issue, crags shouldn't heal armor either.
^- This. Forward crag stations are just as OP as armories. Plus marines don't have any whips that repel bile bomb.
Forward crag stations are necessary for the reason I stated before; Aliens are forced to be at full hp for every single engagement because marines constantly full heal.
Besides, Crags don't heal incredibly efficiently like the armory does.
Lastly, healing stations are generally when aliens have a firm grip on the game, or at the very least, extra resources, which usually tends to end in a firm grip on the game (see: lifeform explosion)
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.
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.
Again, a flaw in logic. You assume "someone else will buy one" - and if they don't? Never assume anything about the gameplay of other players.
However, the point *STILL* remains that you lose choice since you lose control. Does someone else have a welder? Where are they? Where are you? Do you waste time trying to hook up with that person? What if they die before you get there? What if YOU die before you get there? In the end most people will play without armor or suicide. Both options are significant weaknesses that are NOT present now.
Furthermore, your 10-20% number *STILL* means sucking 100 p-res out of the marine p-res pool. Those are weapons lost and choices denied. That res won't be buying shotties. That res won't be buying EXOs.
You think build 240 was bad with respect to outrage? You wait until people go into a game only to find out armories don't heal armor. Heh... I'll be planning my holidays for that week.
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.
No, that's not it at all. I can work fine with my team now without needing to purchase welders to repair other people's armor. I have that CHOICE. If you want to take away that choice, if you want to spit in my face and call it frosting, don't expect me to sit back and be quiet about it.
Anyway, perhaps it is better if we agree to disagree and call it a day. I don't think either of us will be budging an inch on this issue, am I right? (I'll let you have the last word on this, I won't reply unless you ask me to.)
@savant what about mines? if you don't buy mines, then marines are at a disadvantage...
Yes and no. First off, it's not a marine choice to buy mines since the commander has that decision to make to research them. Secondly, there is no such thing as a mandatory initial strat, and Charlie has said as such. If mines even become a mandatory game start item, then expect to see them nerfed by Charlie, since he has explicitly said that he will not have that in the game. All paths should be viable.
Putting that aside, in the case where mines are researched first, whether or not you actually buy them doesn't put your team at an inherent disadvantage. In this case it's a tactical choice and a tradeoff. If you choose mines, then that is a minute or more of personal resources that you are giving up. That means an extra wait before you can get something else like a shottie or an EXO. On the flipside, that EXO won't help you if your second tech point gets rolled since you won't be able to research it. This is when it comes down to gameplay.
I would think in competitive games that mines are high on the list. In pubs, not so much. First you have the fact that pub games are rarely if ever 6v6. Larger games mean more marines to cover their assets. Secondly, it also depends on the tactics of your opponents. Thirdly, there are some people who I would NEVER want to buy mines since they kick ass with a shotgun. They would do far more damage that way.
So there are a lot of variables with mines, I wouldn't go as far to say that the lack of mines is an inherent disadvantage. It really depends on the individual game.
Anyway, perhaps it is better if we agree to disagree and call it a day. I don't think either of us will be budging an inch on this issue, am I right?
Yes let's. At least until you've played the game mode you're commenting on and having something to add that's based in experience rather than theory crafting.
Fact, people low on armor don't suicide if you make armories not heal armor. That's fact. It's being done RIGHT NOW in a PLAYABLE SERVER.
When you also would like to talk about things based in fact perhaps we can pickup where we left off. Until then you can keep your misinformed opinions and made up "information."
Yes let's. At least until you've played the game mode you're commenting on and having something to add that's based in experience rather than theory crafting. ... When you also would like to talk about things based in fact perhaps we can pickup where we left off. Until then you can keep your misinformed opinions
Here I thought I would provide a graceful way to stop going around in circles, then you don't even show common courtesy in return. OK...
I've posted nothing but unmitigated FACTS, and you just can't handle it. Taking armor repair off the armory - and making marines pay for welders out of their own pockets - takes away choice and takes away fun. It is impossible for you to spin this any other way. You can try until you are blue in the face but this is a NERF that takes away the marines CHOICE to get a free heal at the armory. Now people have to buy welders to get a repair that they used to get for free, and that money spent on welders is not spent on things that are actually FUN, like improved weapons. Furthermore, people are now walking around the map with no armor, making kills even easier for aliens. THAT IS NOT FUN. You can play all the semantic games you want, but it will not change that outcome.
Fact, people low on armor don't suicide if you make armories not heal armor. That's fact. It's being done RIGHT NOW in a PLAYABLE SERVER.
Your test is indicitive of the experience of a select group of people who are FRIENDLY to the concept. Regular pub players are not playing on this, nor is anyone who doesn't like it. Any observations you get, while meaningful for feedback, are very much biased.
Furthermore, your 10-20% number *STILL* means sucking 100 p-res out of the marine p-res pool.
Where? Ask yourself, just how many welders will people be buying. You say 10-20%, and in an average game 8v8 marines die 100 times. Take 20% of that and multiply times 5 res a welder. That's where that number is from.
Did you forget marines can pickup dropped items again? You expect even a bad team to go through a welder a minute in a 20 minute game?
I wish the devs would post stats on how many weapons are recovered, since in most cases I've seen the percentage is pretty low. If you died to an alien attack, in most cases the person with you died too. The usual times that people recover weapons is at tech points when they are attacked. In any case, you seem to be under the mistaken belief that as long as ONE welder exists anywhere on the map that "it's all good" and anyone can heal themselves up with nary a complaint.
Do you really expect people to travel around to find someone with a welder? No? In that case people will need to have more welders out there. That's more money, and more annoyance for someone who just wants to play a game where they shoot aliens.
Have people forgotten what this game is about? Honestly. This isn't 'welder warz' we are playing. People buy this game (and play marines) to FIGHT ALIENS, not because they want to sit around welding stuff. People want to be killing stuff, not worrying about where their next heal will come from.
People are making this game far too complicated when it is ALREADY complex enough. In case you haven't noticed, the steep learning curve isn't exactly a major selling point. As someone who works in this industry, you only shoot yourself in the foot if you make changes like this. There is a reason why marines like to be at full health, and it is because it's not fun sitting in the spawn queue. People need to stop supporting changes that will alienate gamers. It's not doing the game any favours if changes like this actually make it into the game.
(Although I somehow doubt that Charlie would allow a change like this anyway given what he has said and done in the past - there was a reason why this never made the leap from NS1 to NS2.)
Considering I rescue 4 welders and 2 shotguns on AVERAGE in a 20-30 minutes game I can confidently say that a certain percentage of players are not drooling retards and like free stuff. I frequently run from the PG to where I died and re-rescue a minor percentage of anything I drop. You're assuming 0% of players are able to retrieve weapons which is not only obviously NOT factual but probably...and I can say this with confidence without numbers to back me up...completely wrong.
And I never said this change provides more choice. I said it provides more meaningful choices. I'm not of the opinion that having 50 choices with only 1 being worthwhile is much of a choice at all, or even 3 choices with only 1 that carries impact. That's the only place we disagree.
1. Build a 10 res armory that does everything super cheap.
2. Buy welders and have to communicate
3. Buy macs and spend extra res to achieve a lesser effect than option 1
There are very few instances where 2 or 3 are a better choice than one.
You're essentially reducing the number of fun choices for support player like myself. I would like to buy welders to heal my allies but I don't because they are only a good choice for buildings. Yet, I still find cause to buy them because it's fun for me to feel like I'm contributing to the team I'm on. Right now buying welders to heal allies is like handing a 3 year old an unplugged console controller, they get to make choices but those choices have no bearing on the direction of the game.
Have you tried it yet? Did you find suicide more effective than talking to your team or commander?
Alright, that's kind of BS. Saying that it reduces fun is incredibly subjective. And saying that it reduces choice is valid, though in doing so it reinforces two other, much more interesting choices. There are a couple reasons why, when I tried it, it lead to me, personally, having fun. It reduces the marine connection to the base, so there's less reason to run back after every fight. Running back and forth is boring, right? I like being back to 100% where I stand, rather than back to base. It makes alien hit and run more viable, and introduces an interesting dynamic of having a small group of welder marines against a fade. It makes the marines more self-sufficient, so that means more marines out on the field. Since the fade is all but useless sieging a base, this translates to more use for the fade, and for the harassing lerk. It also gives a concrete reason to use MACs. It's not really a balance change, more of a change to core gameplay. And it's one that I very much like. You're entitled to your opinion, but at least play the mod. This is getting kind of ridiculous .
I frequently run from the PG to where I died and re-rescue a minor percentage of anything I drop. You're assuming 0% of players are able to retrieve weapons
Oh Lord no. Com'on now, even I would never go that far. Heck, I recover weapons too - sometimes. I was only saying that weapon recovery is far from certain, especially the further away from a phase gate and/or command chair.
And I never said this change provides more choice. I said it provides more meaningful choices.
That's the thing though, it only becomes a 'meaningful' choice *after* you removed a different choice. I'll bet it would become an even more meaningful choice if you removed commander dropped medpacks. That doesn't make doing so a good choice.
I would like to buy welders to heal my allies but I don't because they are only a good choice for buildings.
That's not true though. You can weld people just fine, and they are also handy for repairing power nodes faster. In narrow circumstances, welders can be very useful.
Have you tried it yet? Did you find suicide more effective than talking to your team or commander?
Oh I tried it extensively. We called it NS1, and this was something that was an Achilles heel. Did people suicide often? Damn right they did. How bad was it? It was so bad that server operators actually had to create a mod that disabled /kill in console, as well as disabled F4. (since you could F4 to ready room and rejoin and accomplish the same thing.) I kid you not. Ask any old server OP if you don't believe me. (Check with Voogru, I think he may have even written the mod.)
That's how bad it was. Without armor you were gimped. Suiciding was a quick way to come back with full armor. No marine team ever bought welders to weld armor since we couldn't afford it. Usually there was only one welder that came out when vents needed to be welded. (the other exception was when heavy armor came out, which is the same as with EXOs now, people get welders at that point.) Otherwise it was wasted res to drop welders when they would only be lost when marines died. So killing yourself was a common tactic, unless on a modded server that prevented it.
It's not that I haven't played it, it's that I played it far too much and hated it. Being unable to heal health an armor easily was something that was a major nuisance. I was thrilled when Charlie yanked it out in NS2.
I like how you say you post nothing but "unmitigated facts" when literally all of your posts in this thread consist of nothing but your opinion or your interpretations of what might happen based on theory. You're also completely disregarding all the positive points that have been brought up and refuse to believe anything but what you say can actually happen if this change went live. There's no point in even replying to any of your arguments specifically because you have already made up your mind before you ever posted the first word in this thread and will just disagree with anything positive being said or ignore it.
To sum up:
Yes, the change is a nerf to marines. Nobody has said the contrary. It's a nerf that brings along a mixture of advantages and disadvantages to gameplay, and will, no matter how any individual person perceives the balance between these advantages and disadvantages to be, add depth and strategical choices to the game. I don't see how you could ever think it actually takes away choices. You DO get a choice not to do anything you don't consider to be fun, but you and your team might or might not suffer from your and other individual's choices, which in turn adds depth to gameplay, which in turn means gameplay will be more of a challenge. Everyone can and will decide for themselves if the amount of challenge it adds is reasonable or not, which in turn means some will see the change as justified, some won't. And some people will love doing the tasks you and others don't consider to be fun, which is exactly what adds a balance of variety, choice, depth, strategy, challenge and FUN to the game, conceived in different amounts by different people.
saying it's a fallacy doesn't make it one. What's fallacious in this argument is that you're theorizing about all this stuff without actually testing the hypothesis via repeatable, empirical evidence.
It could. But the opinion of someone who has experienced something is still more valuable than that of those who are running on thought experiments, bias or no. And the mod isn't just for this change, the people who play aren't (necessarily) specifically trying that one change out, so the selection bias would be towards people who care so strongly about the game that they want to play multiple version and provide feedback to improve the game (or at least the mod).
I value those type of peoples opinions even when I disagree.
literally all of your posts in this thread consist of nothing but your opinion or your interpretations of what might happen based on theory.
I snipped the rest since it flowed from a flawed premise. Read my post above yours. Yes I have "tried this" - it was part of NS1. It was in the game from the very beginning - the game I beta tested over 10 years ago. So yeah, I am intimately familiar with the mechanic, and I am not nostalgic for it at all. Read my post above for more on how people dealt with the change.
...etc...
I don't see how you could ever think it actually takes away choices.
Focusing only on the topic at hand (ie: armories not repairing armor, and not the entire balance mod as a whole).
1) Marines don't need a nerf. Even with the skulk movement bug in build 240 official stats over 25,000 games had aliens and marines win percentages within 1% . That bug was fixed in build 241.
2) It takes away the choice to heal armor at armories. This adds nothing that wasn't there already. You already have the ability to weld in the field. That ability is more optional now, but this change makes it mandatory everywhere and as someone else said better, forces you to play a certain way. I don't see how you gain depth by removing options.
3) If this is good for Marines why isn't something like it also good for Aliens? I haven't seen a proper response to this yet. Simply playing the asymmetrical card doesn't cut it.
literally all of your posts in this thread consist of nothing but your opinion or your interpretations of what might happen based on theory.
I snipped the rest since it flowed from a flawed premise. Read my post above yours. Yes I have "tried this" - it was part of NS1. It was in the game from the very beginning - the game I beta tested over 10 years ago. So yeah, I am intimately familiar with the mechanic, and I am not nostalgic for it at all. Read my post above for more on how people dealt with the change.
How is anything I said based on a false premise? My whole point is YOU hate the change, but others might love it and every advantage and disadvantage that comes along with it. In fact, some will see an advantage in what you see as disadvantage and vice versa. You completely disregard this fact and instead keep stating your opinion as fact.
Also, I have personally never EVER witnessed the behaviour you described, but that's probably because I played NS1 on a well moderated server with fair and intelligent players and you are either exaggerating massively or seem to have played NS1 with a pack of wild cavemen.
2) It takes away the choice to heal armor at armories. This adds nothing that wasn't there already. You already have the ability to weld in the field. That ability is more optional now, but this change makes it mandatory everywhere and as someone else said better, forces you to play a certain way. I don't see how you gain depth by removing options.
Here's how removing this particular option adds depth: marines need to work as a team more, communicate more, coordinate more, assign roles more, plan more, think more, notice more, see more and react to ongoing gameplay more to achieve the same goal as before the 'nerf'. And it won't make marines harder to play due to all of this happening intuitively BECAUSE it's forced upon them. This is, by the way, the most important pro point of this change that has been completely neglected or ignored by all of the people against it. Of course Marines don't need a nerf in theory, but if this nerf leads to a bunch of good things and enhances intuitive gameplay, it's a logical and welcome change.
3) If this is good for Marines why isn't something like it also good for Aliens? I haven't seen a proper response to this yet. Simply playing the asymmetrical card doesn't cut it.
Because aliens have sufficiently intuitive and logical gameplay in relation already.
Comments
you have 2 choices when your armor is depleted:
1) have your armor repaired by outside means
2) push on without armor
those same choices are still there in the mod. what you perceive as inconvenience is actually not the case at all. Previously, if you cleared a room and had depleted armor, but no forward armory, you had to run all the way back to your base to heal up.
Logic time:
a. i don't like having un-fun mechanics in my game
b. running around doing nothing in the game is not fun
c. armory healing armor promotes running around doing nothing while going back for healing
d. therefore, armory healing armor should not be in the game.
GG
I really think this change is less about how marines play (since no ones seems to notice the difference too much) and much more about alien play where their hit & run playstyle becomes more relevant.
No Savant, you don't count because you haven't tried it.
I only played the mod for half a round yesterday so I can't really comment too much on it.
I don't think having to buy welders will be the end of marine wins, mainly because I've always bought at a minimum of two welders per game.
I buy welders for the same reason I buy mines in the early game. I like to win. Can you win as marine without buying welders? Sure, of course it happens. Just like you can win in TF2 with no medic. But having them really increase your odds because you stay alive longer.
I liked it.
Try the mod.
i agree, you should always try something. except brined olives.
just don't bother with brined olives. they taste so awful you need to drink a gallon of sea water to wash out the taste.
Logic ? Syllogism belong to the dark ages.
WTF are you talking about? You already have the ability to weld marine armor. As far as I know you have always had that ability and nobody is talking about removing it.
The debate is whether or not to make welding the only source of repairing marine armor.
I mean you keep talking about logic, but it doesn't seem to be your strong suit.
1. Reworked alien upgrade structure? Sure the way the Kham spends his tres is different but what does this have to do with the life form explosion due to pres when dead and no pres sink for aliens? An Onos is still an Onos and a Fade starts with blink either way. Lerks have also been improved for late game with spikes dealing heavy damage and spores reduced damage but are nowprojectiles. Celerity is also working in combat with this mod so it is not like lifeforms are any weaker when gained with pres. How exactly is pres being wasted for aliens again other on their idea of the life form they want to choose?
2. You could say it is overstated and I could say it is understated. Handing welders back and forth is just inviting aliens to munch on you especially with the way the pickup function is now along with weapon switching.
3. Macs. So you got squads everywhere and you are going to order macs to follow and assist these squads while building them, using tres and time getting them there as well as doing everything else a com should be doing. Seems like a lot of heavy work for the com vs the kham. So what happens if the aliens wipe the marines out? Macs lost. What happens if the Macs do not get there in time and then get demolished by aliens? Macs lost. Macs are simply not reliable because they will get destroyed fast in addition to wasting more valuable tres on early upgrades which are also more expensive. So again back to the 5 pres welder sink to stay alive.
Well it is good then that the changes are not made in vacuum and that crag stations are being heavily nerfed, in the very same patch that introduces no armor healing from armories, right? Seriously, I posted basically the same thing on the previous page.
Really people,PLAY THE MOD before forming your opinion about the balance and how no armor from armories will change it. Or, at the very very least READ THE CHANGE-LOG.
carry on.
Forward crag stations are necessary for the reason I stated before; Aliens are forced to be at full hp for every single engagement because marines constantly full heal.
Besides, Crags don't heal incredibly efficiently like the armory does.
Lastly, healing stations are generally when aliens have a firm grip on the game, or at the very least, extra resources, which usually tends to end in a firm grip on the game (see: lifeform explosion)
Again, a flaw in logic. You assume "someone else will buy one" - and if they don't? Never assume anything about the gameplay of other players.
However, the point *STILL* remains that you lose choice since you lose control. Does someone else have a welder? Where are they? Where are you? Do you waste time trying to hook up with that person? What if they die before you get there? What if YOU die before you get there? In the end most people will play without armor or suicide. Both options are significant weaknesses that are NOT present now.
Furthermore, your 10-20% number *STILL* means sucking 100 p-res out of the marine p-res pool. Those are weapons lost and choices denied. That res won't be buying shotties. That res won't be buying EXOs.
You think build 240 was bad with respect to outrage? You wait until people go into a game only to find out armories don't heal armor. Heh... I'll be planning my holidays for that week. No, that's not it at all. I can work fine with my team now without needing to purchase welders to repair other people's armor. I have that CHOICE. If you want to take away that choice, if you want to spit in my face and call it frosting, don't expect me to sit back and be quiet about it.
Anyway, perhaps it is better if we agree to disagree and call it a day. I don't think either of us will be budging an inch on this issue, am I right? (I'll let you have the last word on this, I won't reply unless you ask me to.)
Putting that aside, in the case where mines are researched first, whether or not you actually buy them doesn't put your team at an inherent disadvantage. In this case it's a tactical choice and a tradeoff. If you choose mines, then that is a minute or more of personal resources that you are giving up. That means an extra wait before you can get something else like a shottie or an EXO. On the flipside, that EXO won't help you if your second tech point gets rolled since you won't be able to research it. This is when it comes down to gameplay.
I would think in competitive games that mines are high on the list. In pubs, not so much. First you have the fact that pub games are rarely if ever 6v6. Larger games mean more marines to cover their assets. Secondly, it also depends on the tactics of your opponents. Thirdly, there are some people who I would NEVER want to buy mines since they kick ass with a shotgun. They would do far more damage that way.
So there are a lot of variables with mines, I wouldn't go as far to say that the lack of mines is an inherent disadvantage. It really depends on the individual game.
Yes let's. At least until you've played the game mode you're commenting on and having something to add that's based in experience rather than theory crafting.
Fact, people low on armor don't suicide if you make armories not heal armor. That's fact. It's being done RIGHT NOW in a PLAYABLE SERVER.
When you also would like to talk about things based in fact perhaps we can pickup where we left off. Until then you can keep your misinformed opinions and made up "information."
PS where did you get this gem from
Did you forget marines can pickup dropped items again? You expect even a bad team to go through a welder a minute in a 20 minute game?
I've posted nothing but unmitigated FACTS, and you just can't handle it. Taking armor repair off the armory - and making marines pay for welders out of their own pockets - takes away choice and takes away fun. It is impossible for you to spin this any other way. You can try until you are blue in the face but this is a NERF that takes away the marines CHOICE to get a free heal at the armory. Now people have to buy welders to get a repair that they used to get for free, and that money spent on welders is not spent on things that are actually FUN, like improved weapons. Furthermore, people are now walking around the map with no armor, making kills even easier for aliens. THAT IS NOT FUN. You can play all the semantic games you want, but it will not change that outcome.
Your test is indicitive of the experience of a select group of people who are FRIENDLY to the concept. Regular pub players are not playing on this, nor is anyone who doesn't like it. Any observations you get, while meaningful for feedback, are very much biased.
Where? Ask yourself, just how many welders will people be buying. You say 10-20%, and in an average game 8v8 marines die 100 times. Take 20% of that and multiply times 5 res a welder. That's where that number is from.
I wish the devs would post stats on how many weapons are recovered, since in most cases I've seen the percentage is pretty low. If you died to an alien attack, in most cases the person with you died too. The usual times that people recover weapons is at tech points when they are attacked. In any case, you seem to be under the mistaken belief that as long as ONE welder exists anywhere on the map that "it's all good" and anyone can heal themselves up with nary a complaint.
Do you really expect people to travel around to find someone with a welder? No? In that case people will need to have more welders out there. That's more money, and more annoyance for someone who just wants to play a game where they shoot aliens.
Have people forgotten what this game is about? Honestly. This isn't 'welder warz' we are playing. People buy this game (and play marines) to FIGHT ALIENS, not because they want to sit around welding stuff. People want to be killing stuff, not worrying about where their next heal will come from.
People are making this game far too complicated when it is ALREADY complex enough. In case you haven't noticed, the steep learning curve isn't exactly a major selling point. As someone who works in this industry, you only shoot yourself in the foot if you make changes like this. There is a reason why marines like to be at full health, and it is because it's not fun sitting in the spawn queue. People need to stop supporting changes that will alienate gamers. It's not doing the game any favours if changes like this actually make it into the game.
(Although I somehow doubt that Charlie would allow a change like this anyway given what he has said and done in the past - there was a reason why this never made the leap from NS1 to NS2.)
And I never said this change provides more choice. I said it provides more meaningful choices. I'm not of the opinion that having 50 choices with only 1 being worthwhile is much of a choice at all, or even 3 choices with only 1 that carries impact. That's the only place we disagree.
1. Build a 10 res armory that does everything super cheap.
2. Buy welders and have to communicate
3. Buy macs and spend extra res to achieve a lesser effect than option 1
There are very few instances where 2 or 3 are a better choice than one.
You're essentially reducing the number of fun choices for support player like myself. I would like to buy welders to heal my allies but I don't because they are only a good choice for buildings. Yet, I still find cause to buy them because it's fun for me to feel like I'm contributing to the team I'm on. Right now buying welders to heal allies is like handing a 3 year old an unplugged console controller, they get to make choices but those choices have no bearing on the direction of the game.
Have you tried it yet? Did you find suicide more effective than talking to your team or commander?
Alright, that's kind of BS. Saying that it reduces fun is incredibly subjective. And saying that it reduces choice is valid, though in doing so it reinforces two other, much more interesting choices. There are a couple reasons why, when I tried it, it lead to me, personally, having fun. It reduces the marine connection to the base, so there's less reason to run back after every fight. Running back and forth is boring, right? I like being back to 100% where I stand, rather than back to base. It makes alien hit and run more viable, and introduces an interesting dynamic of having a small group of welder marines against a fade. It makes the marines more self-sufficient, so that means more marines out on the field. Since the fade is all but useless sieging a base, this translates to more use for the fade, and for the harassing lerk. It also gives a concrete reason to use MACs. It's not really a balance change, more of a change to core gameplay. And it's one that I very much like. You're entitled to your opinion, but at least play the mod. This is getting kind of ridiculous
You know....People who've actually tried it.
Just some food for thought.
I'll try it if I ever see a server running it.
That's the thing though, it only becomes a 'meaningful' choice *after* you removed a different choice. I'll bet it would become an even more meaningful choice if you removed commander dropped medpacks. That doesn't make doing so a good choice.
That's not true though. You can weld people just fine, and they are also handy for repairing power nodes faster. In narrow circumstances, welders can be very useful.
Oh I tried it extensively. We called it NS1, and this was something that was an Achilles heel. Did people suicide often? Damn right they did. How bad was it? It was so bad that server operators actually had to create a mod that disabled /kill in console, as well as disabled F4. (since you could F4 to ready room and rejoin and accomplish the same thing.) I kid you not. Ask any old server OP if you don't believe me. (Check with Voogru, I think he may have even written the mod.)
That's how bad it was. Without armor you were gimped. Suiciding was a quick way to come back with full armor. No marine team ever bought welders to weld armor since we couldn't afford it. Usually there was only one welder that came out when vents needed to be welded. (the other exception was when heavy armor came out, which is the same as with EXOs now, people get welders at that point.) Otherwise it was wasted res to drop welders when they would only be lost when marines died. So killing yourself was a common tactic, unless on a modded server that prevented it.
It's not that I haven't played it, it's that I played it far too much and hated it. Being unable to heal health an armor easily was something that was a major nuisance. I was thrilled when Charlie yanked it out in NS2.
I like how you say you post nothing but "unmitigated facts" when literally all of your posts in this thread consist of nothing but your opinion or your interpretations of what might happen based on theory. You're also completely disregarding all the positive points that have been brought up and refuse to believe anything but what you say can actually happen if this change went live. There's no point in even replying to any of your arguments specifically because you have already made up your mind before you ever posted the first word in this thread and will just disagree with anything positive being said or ignore it.
To sum up:
Yes, the change is a nerf to marines. Nobody has said the contrary. It's a nerf that brings along a mixture of advantages and disadvantages to gameplay, and will, no matter how any individual person perceives the balance between these advantages and disadvantages to be, add depth and strategical choices to the game. I don't see how you could ever think it actually takes away choices. You DO get a choice not to do anything you don't consider to be fun, but you and your team might or might not suffer from your and other individual's choices, which in turn adds depth to gameplay, which in turn means gameplay will be more of a challenge. Everyone can and will decide for themselves if the amount of challenge it adds is reasonable or not, which in turn means some will see the change as justified, some won't. And some people will love doing the tasks you and others don't consider to be fun, which is exactly what adds a balance of variety, choice, depth, strategy, challenge and FUN to the game, conceived in different amounts by different people.
And THOSE are ACTUAL facts.
saying it's a fallacy doesn't make it one. What's fallacious in this argument is that you're theorizing about all this stuff without actually testing the hypothesis via repeatable, empirical evidence.
play the mod.
I value those type of peoples opinions even when I disagree.
You cannot directly carry over the comparisons.
Focusing only on the topic at hand (ie: armories not repairing armor, and not the entire balance mod as a whole).
1) Marines don't need a nerf. Even with the skulk movement bug in build 240 official stats over 25,000 games had aliens and marines win percentages within 1% . That bug was fixed in build 241.
2) It takes away the choice to heal armor at armories. This adds nothing that wasn't there already. You already have the ability to weld in the field. That ability is more optional now, but this change makes it mandatory everywhere and as someone else said better, forces you to play a certain way. I don't see how you gain depth by removing options.
3) If this is good for Marines why isn't something like it also good for Aliens? I haven't seen a proper response to this yet. Simply playing the asymmetrical card doesn't cut it.
And since the mods yelled at me...
That may be. If they are >200ms to me I won't see them.
Let's just agree to disagree. It's quite likely this change will never make it into the game anyway.
How is anything I said based on a false premise? My whole point is YOU hate the change, but others might love it and every advantage and disadvantage that comes along with it. In fact, some will see an advantage in what you see as disadvantage and vice versa. You completely disregard this fact and instead keep stating your opinion as fact.
Also, I have personally never EVER witnessed the behaviour you described, but that's probably because I played NS1 on a well moderated server with fair and intelligent players and you are either exaggerating massively or seem to have played NS1 with a pack of wild cavemen.
Because aliens have sufficiently intuitive and logical gameplay in relation already.