What would be great (but probably hard to do right) is if the balance adjusted itself with the team's ratio and altered the way the game is played.
More Marines than Aliens would mean an increased res flow for Aliens and thus more/faster Hives/structures/tech/higher lifeforms and a kind of Predator style of gameplay; each individual Alien means a lot more and there will be very few Skulks (unless the Aliens are about to lose).
If there are fewer Marines, the Aliens res flow is decreased and you'll see a lot more Skulks on the field throughout the game. This could be combined with an accelerated spawn rate for the Aliens, because Aliens will die more often. This gives a Zerg-like gameplay.
Then you are essentially playing against a handicap system, rather than playing against your opponent and testing each other's skill.
What would be great (but probably hard to do right) is if the balance adjusted itself with the team's ratio and altered the way the game is played.
More Marines than Aliens would mean an increased res flow for Aliens and thus more/faster Hives/structures/tech/higher lifeforms and a kind of Predator style of gameplay; each individual Alien means a lot more and there will be very few Skulks (unless the Aliens are about to lose).
If there are fewer Marines, the Aliens res flow is decreased and you'll see a lot more Skulks on the field throughout the game. This could be combined with an accelerated spawn rate for the Aliens, because Aliens will die more often. This gives a Zerg-like gameplay.
Then you are essentially playing against a handicap system, rather than playing against your opponent and testing each other's skill.
I don't really agree. The thing that changes is the prevalence of lifeforms/tech/stuff on the Alien side (and the spawn rate), not health or damage. The difference between "opponents" (individual players, not teams) stays the same as in the original. Sure, it's easier to kill a Marine as a Fade than as a Skulk, but if there's 12 Marines and only 6 Aliens, it probably requires more skill to play as a Fade than it usually does even if you can go Fade much quicker. As Marines, you'll need to stick together/teamplay more than usual, because your strength lies in your numbers and firepower. For the Zerg-like gameplay mode (more Aliens than Marines), it's the Aliens that needs to overwhelm their opponents while each individual Marine becomes stronger (earlier Jetpacks and Exos for instance).
Anyway, it was just a thought. It would be balance hell to totally alter the gameplay like that.
Then you are essentially playing against a handicap system, rather than playing against your opponent and testing each other's skill.
Nothing wrong with that.
While I might quibble over the details of any specific proposal, having a handicap system available as an option would be a great thing as it would lead to more evenly-matched games. Balancing teams by skill would be better, but that's not always a viable option.
Competitive leagues would of course play without handicaps.
I stack marines now since the skulk nerf, it's not that I can't play skulk, it's that it's very not enjoyable moving slower, i feel like i have a lot less control if with my movement too, if anything I wanted a more advanced faster movement system not slower, so i just stack marines and be happy
His implication was that the problem cannot be solved with things like force random scripts, the problem being that aliens is potentially not as fun as marines, and its manifestation being the stacking of the marine team.
The idea that players purposefully choosing to join one team over the other cannot be circumvented by disallowing players to choose which team they join is obviously absurd.
And jorgamuns implication is that those people are idiots, and try to stack marines despite the fact that they would enjoy a well balanced game on aliens as much as on marines.
The stacking is definitely due to skulks not being fun to play any more. Skulks used to be my favorite life form and now I would rather comm aliens or go marines than play a skulk. Balance is important but I feel like it should have been achieved through buffing marines or nerfing something that isn't the basic life form that people use much of the game. Also, as others have said, there is no point in joining a game 20 minutes in as an alien because you're going to be using a skulk or gorge against rines with 3/3 and if skulk isn't fun at 1 minute it surely doesn't improve at 20.
I mostly only go to a certain few servers and have come to know the other people that frequent there. It shames me to admit, I do sometimes deliberately stack teams to play with the people I know to be good. Getting stomped or be forced to carry your team uphill to an eventual, inevitable loss is, most of the time, not fun.
I'll stack teams if I see a bunch of people that I know play terribly all join the same team. I'm not waiting in the ready room for a slot to open up so I can balance a stack (and maybe be frustrated much of the game).
If I see a bunch of people I know are good stacking a team I'll join the other side to prevent a stack and encourage a couple of the potential stacker in the RR to join my team (I generally score well enough to get noticed even if I'm not a KDR machine) since they know SOMEONE on the team will get their back.
I stack aliens a lot nowdays, because if i go marines it's almost sure win with no trouble whatsoever. Also all my sympathy atm goes to aliens for some reason, maybe because they are the underdogs. Even when i play on marines i sort of secretly wish the aliens would win and i feel bad about shooting gorges
It gives also some sort of satisfaction to lead aliens to victory as unstoppable killing spree fade. It's also fun to see their battle morale rise. Half the alien team are often giving up on marine stack server before fades/lerks are out and i try to tell them that u just need to hang on till we get lifeforms, then we have a fighting chance. Some ppl already going afk, conceding etc. When u finally get the lerk/fade and go on killing spree on those evil marines, aliens battle morale rises trough the roof and we have a great game ahead of us. Im so happy to see that
It's simply because servers this weekend have been overwhelmed with rookies who for the most part rather play marines than alien, because they suck more as a skulk than they do as a vanilla marine.
Seriously, that's a bunch of bullshit and I can't believe four months later it's still being stated.
People like fun, and their 'familiarity' with a system has little bearing on that. Aliens - especially skulks - aren't fun. There's no dynamics that keep things interesting. Marines have all kinds of fun things they can do all throughout the game. You can never feel useless as a marine. Even if you're a total nub and blow all your pres you can still do decent damage and help the fight. You get parasite as a skulk, except, parasite is stupid, nerfed, and useless. You're not very fast, you don't feel agile, and as the game progresses, you rapidly lose all effectiveness. You get leap, but leap is just a slightly enhanced feature of something you already have - the ability to jump.
I don't know how to make it more clear. When you're a marine, you're presented the game in typical FPS game format - you start weak and with shitty weapons, and as the game progresses, you get more and more powerful. You get a shotgun, and you feel like a badass. You get a jetpack and you turn into fucking Ironman. Your teammates are being directed appropriately and when something needs doing, you can go with a team and feel awesome. Even with the questionable usefulness of an Exo, it's simply badass, especially when compared to the awfulness that is the Onos.
None of that exists as a skulk. You hardly feel stealthy, you're outmaneuvered by MARINES, you don't get any cool tricks and special abilities. For fuck's sake, even a 'first strike' backstab bonus would've done something towards making aliens feel like they had anything interesting going on, or for shit's sake, even a damage bonus when doing that 'fast drop' jump from a ceiling. Playing marine makes you feel like a marine. Playing alien makes you feel like you're playing a video game.
It's simply because servers this weekend have been overwhelmed with rookies who for the most part rather play marines than alien, because they suck more as a skulk than they do as a vanilla marine.
Seriously, that's a bunch of bullshit and I can't believe four months later it's still being stated.
People like fun, and their 'familiarity' with a system has little bearing on that. Aliens - especially skulks - aren't fun. There's no dynamics that keep things interesting. Marines have all kinds of fun things they can do all throughout the game. You can never feel useless as a marine. Even if you're a total nub and blow all your pres you can still do decent damage and help the fight. You get parasite as a skulk, except, parasite is stupid, nerfed, and useless. You're not very fast, you don't feel agile, and as the game progresses, you rapidly lose all effectiveness. You get leap, but leap is just a slightly enhanced feature of something you already have - the ability to jump.
I don't know how to make it more clear. When you're a marine, you're presented the game in typical FPS game format - you start weak and with shitty weapons, and as the game progresses, you get more and more powerful. You get a shotgun, and you feel like a badass. You get a jetpack and you turn into fucking Ironman. Your teammates are being directed appropriately and when something needs doing, you can go with a team and feel awesome. Even with the questionable usefulness of an Exo, it's simply badass, especially when compared to the awfulness that is the Onos.
None of that exists as a skulk. You hardly feel stealthy, you're outmaneuvered by MARINES, you don't get any cool tricks and special abilities. For fuck's sake, even a 'first strike' backstab bonus would've done something towards making aliens feel like they had anything interesting going on, or for shit's sake, even a damage bonus when doing that 'fast drop' jump from a ceiling. Playing marine makes you feel like a marine. Playing alien makes you feel like you're playing a video game.
Well said enjoying the game play is vital. I also thought the same thing about leap and how it feels odd as an upgrade compared to the default jumping like a heavy potato. Sort of it being a delayed privilege to jump properly. Skulk did not feel right even pre 240. Wall jumping does not even look/feel like you are jumping walls and right now having less acceleration than a human as an alien is just plain odd. As for stacking it is pretty obvious. Loads of people like inflating their ego and scores when they drop countless skulks and other aliens as marine. Thy are having fun with their K/D ratio that even when I have seen them lose they need to point out their kills at the end. I remember reading how aliens were buffed throughout development because the devs found they were not fun enough to play around with but since then they have been stripped slowly for the sake of balance. I am still curious as to the current balance by player count but I doubt we will get those any time soon.
It's simply because servers this weekend have been overwhelmed with rookies who for the most part rather play marines than alien, because they suck more as a skulk than they do as a vanilla marine.
Seriously, that's a bunch of bullshit and I can't believe four months later it's still being stated.
People like fun, and their 'familiarity' with a system has little bearing on that. Aliens - especially skulks - aren't fun. There's no dynamics that keep things interesting. Marines have all kinds of fun things they can do all throughout the game. You can never feel useless as a marine. Even if you're a total nub and blow all your pres you can still do decent damage and help the fight. You get parasite as a skulk, except, parasite is stupid, nerfed, and useless. You're not very fast, you don't feel agile, and as the game progresses, you rapidly lose all effectiveness. You get leap, but leap is just a slightly enhanced feature of something you already have - the ability to jump.
I don't know how to make it more clear. When you're a marine, you're presented the game in typical FPS game format - you start weak and with shitty weapons, and as the game progresses, you get more and more powerful. You get a shotgun, and you feel like a badass. You get a jetpack and you turn into fucking Ironman. Your teammates are being directed appropriately and when something needs doing, you can go with a team and feel awesome. Even with the questionable usefulness of an Exo, it's simply badass, especially when compared to the awfulness that is the Onos.
None of that exists as a skulk. You hardly feel stealthy, you're outmaneuvered by MARINES, you don't get any cool tricks and special abilities. For fuck's sake, even a 'first strike' backstab bonus would've done something towards making aliens feel like they had anything interesting going on, or for shit's sake, even a damage bonus when doing that 'fast drop' jump from a ceiling. Playing marine makes you feel like a marine. Playing alien makes you feel like you're playing a video game.
Four months later there was a sudden big influx of rookie players who in general preferred to take their first steps into the NS world as the more familiar and lower skill floor marine, which is why I made said "bullshit" statement again. Not saying skulk movement doesn't need some looking at, but at the time this thread was made, marine stacking was for a big part due to the free weekend, since I'm not seeing that insane amount of marine gate humping now, nor did I see it in the days before the free weekend.
And I actually still enjoy playing aliens, weird huh?
Well, I just read half of this thread and I am quite new to this game so please don't blame me.
If I got it right, that there is a way to extract some data about the players from Steam right?
Can't we focus on that solution again. Having a variable in steam for each player called "Skill Factor" (SF) you can quickly request from steam would be fine. The SF is simply calculated by point per minute.
Then your random routine can generate even teams with a similar average SF. You could also allow people to join a team only if his skill factor would bring the average SF of this team closer to the over team. Something like that.
This is used for Savage 2 since a while and works fine. Most of the time the games are balanced and challenging. I miss this feature in every other game.
Comments
Then you are essentially playing against a handicap system, rather than playing against your opponent and testing each other's skill.
Anyway, it was just a thought. It would be balance hell to totally alter the gameplay like that.
Where is your god now?
I also always go random and support forced random, it makes things interesting.
Nothing wrong with that.
While I might quibble over the details of any specific proposal, having a handicap system available as an option would be a great thing as it would lead to more evenly-matched games. Balancing teams by skill would be better, but that's not always a viable option.
Competitive leagues would of course play without handicaps.
And jorgamuns implication is that those people are idiots, and try to stack marines despite the fact that they would enjoy a well balanced game on aliens as much as on marines.
There, I've said it. I stack teams.
If I see a bunch of people I know are good stacking a team I'll join the other side to prevent a stack and encourage a couple of the potential stacker in the RR to join my team (I generally score well enough to get noticed even if I'm not a KDR machine) since they know SOMEONE on the team will get their back.
You're doing it wrong
:-h
It gives also some sort of satisfaction to lead aliens to victory as unstoppable killing spree fade. It's also fun to see their battle morale rise. Half the alien team are often giving up on marine stack server before fades/lerks are out and i try to tell them that u just need to hang on till we get lifeforms, then we have a fighting chance. Some ppl already going afk, conceding etc. When u finally get the lerk/fade and go on killing spree on those evil marines, aliens battle morale rises trough the roof and we have a great game ahead of us. Im so happy to see that
remember it has to work against marines who have at least a triple digit IQ
But that's so rare...
This. Heavy stacking all the time.
Seriously, that's a bunch of bullshit and I can't believe four months later it's still being stated.
People like fun, and their 'familiarity' with a system has little bearing on that. Aliens - especially skulks - aren't fun. There's no dynamics that keep things interesting. Marines have all kinds of fun things they can do all throughout the game. You can never feel useless as a marine. Even if you're a total nub and blow all your pres you can still do decent damage and help the fight. You get parasite as a skulk, except, parasite is stupid, nerfed, and useless. You're not very fast, you don't feel agile, and as the game progresses, you rapidly lose all effectiveness. You get leap, but leap is just a slightly enhanced feature of something you already have - the ability to jump.
I don't know how to make it more clear. When you're a marine, you're presented the game in typical FPS game format - you start weak and with shitty weapons, and as the game progresses, you get more and more powerful. You get a shotgun, and you feel like a badass. You get a jetpack and you turn into fucking Ironman. Your teammates are being directed appropriately and when something needs doing, you can go with a team and feel awesome. Even with the questionable usefulness of an Exo, it's simply badass, especially when compared to the awfulness that is the Onos.
None of that exists as a skulk. You hardly feel stealthy, you're outmaneuvered by MARINES, you don't get any cool tricks and special abilities. For fuck's sake, even a 'first strike' backstab bonus would've done something towards making aliens feel like they had anything interesting going on, or for shit's sake, even a damage bonus when doing that 'fast drop' jump from a ceiling. Playing marine makes you feel like a marine. Playing alien makes you feel like you're playing a video game.
Well said enjoying the game play is vital. I also thought the same thing about leap and how it feels odd as an upgrade compared to the default jumping like a heavy potato. Sort of it being a delayed privilege to jump properly. Skulk did not feel right even pre 240. Wall jumping does not even look/feel like you are jumping walls and right now having less acceleration than a human as an alien is just plain odd. As for stacking it is pretty obvious. Loads of people like inflating their ego and scores when they drop countless skulks and other aliens as marine. Thy are having fun with their K/D ratio that even when I have seen them lose they need to point out their kills at the end. I remember reading how aliens were buffed throughout development because the devs found they were not fun enough to play around with but since then they have been stripped slowly for the sake of balance. I am still curious as to the current balance by player count but I doubt we will get those any time soon.
Four months later there was a sudden big influx of rookie players who in general preferred to take their first steps into the NS world as the more familiar and lower skill floor marine, which is why I made said "bullshit" statement again. Not saying skulk movement doesn't need some looking at, but at the time this thread was made, marine stacking was for a big part due to the free weekend, since I'm not seeing that insane amount of marine gate humping now, nor did I see it in the days before the free weekend.
And I actually still enjoy playing aliens, weird huh?
If I got it right, that there is a way to extract some data about the players from Steam right?
Can't we focus on that solution again. Having a variable in steam for each player called "Skill Factor" (SF) you can quickly request from steam would be fine. The SF is simply calculated by point per minute.
Then your random routine can generate even teams with a similar average SF. You could also allow people to join a team only if his skill factor would bring the average SF of this team closer to the over team. Something like that.
This is used for Savage 2 since a while and works fine. Most of the time the games are balanced and challenging. I miss this feature in every other game.