Well, yeah you could do that quite easily I think, a fade currently is a bit of a glass cannon, you could either make it even more glass, or less cannony. So cut its HP down a lot, or remove a bit of its damage so it needs to perform at high levels for longer in order to get kills.
You still have the very intense, movement-oriented combat style of the fade, you still have to dodge and disorient and maneuver past marines and attack from intelligent directions and have damn good control to be able to avoid fire, but rifle marines are not longer free kills just because you have too much HP and do too much damage for them to realistically be able to kill you before you kill them.
You'll die more, yes, but as you weren't paying for your class, that doesn't matter so much, all that matters is that you do better than the enemy with your chosen class, you play better than them in order to win, which is the point of the game, isn't it? The only thing that's changing is everyone can use fades if they want to use fades, personally I prefer lerks sometimes, or gorges. Especially if fades, say, remain kinda bad against structures, or perhaps if skulks got some sort of special ability that fades don't, maybe leap could be retooled to launch the skulk off a wall and do damage on impact with marines or something, making them better at long range ambush than the fade. Or perhaps skulks get better anti-structure abilities as the game goes on while the fade doesn't, evolving the starting class into a better generalist than the specialist anti-infantry class. Or maybe skulks just work better against armored marines, meaning fades would work better with gorge bile support while skulks would work better on their own or against exosuits. You could give fades the ability to sense how much health/armor a marine has and let them target the unarmored ones, which hey, maybe that would feed positively into the welder/armory thing, if you can't fix your armor, you're easy prey for fades, but the better melee attacks with the axe might be useful against skulks.
I dunno, I think skulks would have to be brought up a little to compete with other alien classes, but you could definitely preserve the playstyles of the alien classes without needing to keep them costing money.
In NS1 such an approach would have trivialized the marine commander's job. That obviously isn't an issue any more.
Well you could easily keep the structures costing money, and maybe even paid upgrades, though I think you could also remove res cost for upgrades and just make them cost time instead. The only thing you would need to do to keep a sense of progression is slowly introduce better anti-structure options in the later game, because those are what let you take enemy territory more easily. The game starts out more stable as your bases are harder to attack, and steadily becomes unstable as bases are much easier to take down. Having a resource lead would help, because it lets you replace your structures more easily and gives you more land, which gives you better mobility and so on, but a lot of the victory should be decided by who plays better, which team consistently uses all their tools to stop enemy expansion or take bases early on through excellent play. It cuts out a lot of the slippery slope and even if the game remains a bit one sided, at least there's more chance of being able to play your favorite class/weapon at some point, for more than two minutes before you get shot as your last hive/cc dies.
Well, yeah you could do that quite easily I think, a fade currently is a bit of a glass cannon, you could either make it even more glass, or less cannony. So cut its HP down a lot, or remove a bit of its damage so it needs to perform at high levels for longer in order to get kills.
You still have the very intense, movement-oriented combat style of the fade, you still have to dodge and disorient and maneuver past marines and attack from intelligent directions and have damn good control to be able to avoid fire, but rifle marines are not longer free kills just because you have too much HP and do too much damage for them to realistically be able to kill you before you kill them.
You'll die more, yes, but as you weren't paying for your class, that doesn't matter so much, all that matters is that you do better than the enemy with your chosen class, you play better than them in order to win, which is the point of the game, isn't it? The only thing that's changing is everyone can use fades if they want to use fades, personally I prefer lerks sometimes, or gorges. Especially if fades, say, remain kinda bad against structures, or perhaps if skulks got some sort of special ability that fades don't, maybe leap could be retooled to launch the skulk off a wall and do damage on impact with marines or something, making them better at long range ambush than the fade. Or perhaps skulks get better anti-structure abilities as the game goes on while the fade doesn't, evolving the starting class into a better generalist than the specialist anti-infantry class. Or maybe skulks just work better against armored marines, meaning fades would work better with gorge bile support while skulks would work better on their own or against exosuits. You could give fades the ability to sense how much health/armor a marine has and let them target the unarmored ones, which hey, maybe that would feed positively into the welder/armory thing, if you can't fix your armor, you're easy prey for fades, but the better melee attacks with the axe might be useful against skulks.
I dunno, I think skulks would have to be brought up a little to compete with other alien classes, but you could definitely preserve the playstyles of the alien classes without needing to keep them costing money.
While I see where you are coming from and while I agree, that weapons / lifeforms should be side-grades and therefor cheaper. You can't make them free. That would kill a huge part of the RTS aspect of the game. What you describe is mostly a TF2 with aliens vs marines.
We got enough games where you simply chose your class for free. Having to pay for upgrades and stuff is part of a RTS game. Removing it would devalue a good part of the uniqueness from NS2.
It would? I mean, TF2 doesn't have any strategic metagame, and TF2 also doesn't have as much class variety as NS2, and TF2 certainly isn't very much for skill based gameplay, you win or lose in TF2 mostly based on what class you picked and what class you're fighting.
Honestly I find the resource lockouts are what makes NS2 less unique, because all the unique stuff is off-limits half the time. Most of the time you're a crappy skulk or slightly less crappy rifle dude. 1 class/gun per side. Sooooo unique... There's so much interesting variety in the game that you just can't use most of the time.
Like I said, you keep the strategic game because you have the fighting to control territory anyway, and your commander can choose to fortify territory as he likes, just as you do now. Buildings help you progress and are things you need to kill to beat the enemy, just as now.
I don't really see what you lose other than maybe some sense of tension from 'oh god I don't want to lose my really expensive upgrade' but that leads to more problems than anything else. People won't take risks, won't support the team, won't like doing anything that loses them their precious loot. The whole point of the thread is a symptom of that, people run back to the armory to heal because they don't want to lose even their 5 res welder. People are much more aggressive when they don't have any equipment to pay for, remove paid equipment and you'll solve the problem, and probably find the game is much more fun all round.
I hear you Chris, i do. But you sound like you are describing combat mode, which i detest. I would rather go the other way with things. Make lifeforms worth the res =D shotguns and exos are already. (Lifeforms are also but only when they are early, scaling sucks)
It would? I mean, TF2 doesn't have any strategic metagame, and TF2 also doesn't have as much class variety as NS2, and TF2 certainly isn't very much for skill based gameplay, you win or lose in TF2 mostly based on what class you picked and what class you're fighting.
Honestly I find the resource lockouts are what makes NS2 less unique, because all the unique stuff is off-limits half the time. Most of the time you're a crappy skulk or slightly less crappy rifle dude. 1 class/gun per side. Sooooo unique... There's so much interesting variety in the game that you just can't use most of the time.
Like I said, you keep the strategic game because you have the fighting to control territory anyway, and your commander can choose to fortify territory as he likes, just as you do now. Buildings help you progress and are things you need to kill to beat the enemy, just as now.
I don't really see what you lose other than maybe some sense of tension from 'oh god I don't want to lose my really expensive upgrade' but that leads to more problems than anything else. People won't take risks, won't support the team, won't like doing anything that loses them their precious loot. The whole point of the thread is a symptom of that, people run back to the armory to heal because they don't want to lose even their 5 res welder. People are much more aggressive when they don't have any equipment to pay for, remove paid equipment and you'll solve the problem, and probably find the game is much more fun all round.
what?
right now marines know that killing lerk/fade/onos is their ticket to success. therefore marines are forced to use focus fire, strategy and guile (ambush weak retreating lifeforms). otherwise the alien hit and run will go on forever - that is boring.
those high risk lifeforms are far more exciting than anything else in the game. imagine a game of starcraft where every time a unit died, it just respawned again for free.
that said, i agree about the armory... what inexperienced players fail to realise is that running back to an armory to heal insignificant armor damage is a terrible idea. any marine standing around in base is just inviting more aliens to harrass the RT's, and in case you don't already know - if you lose too many RT's then you automatically lose the game. try playing high level starcraft where you choose to defend a single base versus a guy with the freedom to expand multiple times.
I hear you Chris, i do. But you sound like you are describing combat mode, which i detest. I would rather go the other way with things. Make lifeforms worth the res =D shotguns and exos are already. (Lifeforms are also but only when they are early, scaling sucks)
They are worth the resources, that's the problem with them, that's why people avoid spending resources to save for the expensive ones, and won't risk them if they can possibly avoid doing so.
It's why the only way to kill an expensive lifeform/exo is to throw half the team at it. There's no skill involved, just numbers. Throw enough numbers at the enemy and you win. Throw enough resources at the enemy and you win. Control enough territory and you win.
By making things cost money you put the game into a pay to win scenario, and I don't like that. I don't like slaughtering aliens because I have upgrades and they don't, and crushing waves of rifle marines as an onos is... well it's somewhat entertaining I suppose but it is not what I'd call exciting, more just funny, in a kinda sad way.
It makes the game dull dull dull, and I don't like combat mode either, or at least I never really liked the NS1 version of it. I don't at all want that because frankly that has half the problems classic does, you kill an alien, it gives you points to buy better alien killing stuff, and eventually you're winning because you have upgrades and the enemy doesn't. It's NS minus any strategic element.
I'm not at all suggesting that, I want a fun NS with strategy and where any player can fight any other player and win by skill and finesse, not by resource advantages or other cheap, arbitrary bonuses.
Skill in NS2 is the first... three minutes of the game, when you're out in the wild fighting basic skulks with basic marines, and you take or lose the extractor based on how good you are at shooting the skulks/to a lesser extent how good you are at biting marines (I still think marine vs skulk relies far more on marine ability or lack thereof than anything else). But that works, that's fun, that gives a feeling of 'I have achieved something' when that goes well.
The minute aliens get carapace or marines get armor/weapons, that slips, and by ten minutes into the game it's gone. You're never going to fight fair for the rest of the game, you're always going to either be looking for some way to be overpowered at that stage of the game by rushing some upgrade or other, or waiting to unleash a wave of exos or something later on, or saving for onos, or whatever. You're always either weak or strong, never evenly matched, and it sucks.
]I want a fun NS with strategy and where any player can fight any other player and win by skill and finesse, not by resource advantages or other cheap, arbitrary bonuses.
I'm sorry, but you sound exactly like you only want to play NS for the shooting and not the strategical elements. If you think resource advantage is a "cheap, arbitrary bonus", then you're really missing the gist of NS.
Slow down the armor healing rate from armories - Makes welders more attractive for their speed, doesn't remove choices for marine players or force you to rely on pub randoms to heal you AND the longer marines are sat in base humping armories, the better it is for the aliens.
]I want a fun NS with strategy and where any player can fight any other player and win by skill and finesse, not by resource advantages or other cheap, arbitrary bonuses.
I'm sorry, but you sound exactly like you only want to play NS for the shooting and not the strategical elements. If you think resource advantage is a "cheap, arbitrary bonus", then you're really missing the gist of NS.
The strength of NS's strategic element is that it gives meaning to the shooty bits. Shooting people achieves something other than incrementing the point counter that's tallied at the end of the match. Shooting people lets you take bases, the bases influence how the shooting in that area works further down the line. It's like fps/rpg games, you shoot people to get points to put into your skills which then affect how you shoot in the future, it just adds more depth to the basic shooter mechanics. FPS/RTS does the same sort of thing in a different way.
But, an FPS/RPG would be really shit if the first ten enemies you killed let you unlock the super god mode skill which makes the rest of the game trivial, or if you died too many times the rest of the game you couldn't earn any XP and had to try to beat all the bosses with starting gear. Similarly I think the weakest point of FPS/RTS is the bit that just messes up the balance between sides and players. The game is not balanced just because it's 50/50 who ends up overpowered, if one side is overpowered against the other 90% of the time, the game is unbalanced 90% of the time, and is unenjoyably so 90% of the time, and only 10% of the time are you playing an actual balanced, well designed game. The RTS portion of the game should not invalidate the FPS portion very quickly after the game starts. It is supposed to be a smooth and enjoyable blend of the two where the strengths of each improve the other. At the moment it's nothing of the sort.
I don't see why that has to, or should, be the case. I don't think it benefits the gameplay at all.
I don't post often, but I just want to say this has to be one of the most disappointing changes I've seen. It's bad enough how petty people have gotten on BOTH sides. (Savant raises a valid point, but he's no better than anyone else in here, you're all acting without manners.)
No one can claim the high ground here - especially not when they gloat about how the add of a spawn timer will screw over other players who don't like the change. That's a good thing? You're happy because a game change will piss players off? Wow. Real mature.
There is an easy way for people to get around this change, it's called /quit. You think there aren't other games out there to play? Go ahead. Tell me you don't need players like me who don't agree with your vision of the game. Go ahead and tell me if I don't like it to quit or uninstall. Tell that to all the others too. That's really going to grow the player base now isn't it? The game is dying already and you are rushing to put it in the coffin. Well done.
I may have only started playing NS when 3.0 came out, but I was really hoping NS2 would be different. Now all I see are the same kind of people who pushed for all kinds of stupid changes back then, are doing the same now. Enjoy your welders, because they'll come with a big price. (and I'm not referring to resource cost either.)
Honestly, I'm just so disappointed. I really expected better from this game. It's a real shame.
I may have only started playing NS when 3.0 came out, but I was really hoping NS2 would be different. Now all I see are the same kind of people who pushed for all kinds of stupid changes back then, are doing the same now.
Ummm. How long did NS1 last? K, thnx. Don't let the Uninstall take you too long. Got to make room on your hard drive for Battlefield 4!!!11!11
No one can claim the high ground here - especially not when they gloat about how the add of a spawn timer will screw over other players who don't like the change. That's a good thing? You're happy because a game change will piss players off? Wow. Real mature.
I'm pretty sure they are celebrating the plugging of a perceived exploit
There is an easy way for people to get around this change, it's called /quit. You think there aren't other games out there to play? Go ahead. Tell me you don't need players like me who don't agree with your vision of the game. Go ahead and tell me if I don't like it to quit or uninstall. Tell that to all the others too. That's really going to grow the player base now isn't it? The game is dying already and you are rushing to put it in the coffin. Well done.
In every game forum ever there has been the people saying "Make this change and everyone will quit." They are almost always wrong.
for all kinds of stupid changes back then, are doing the same now.
People agreed and disagreed about changes then too, and yet through those changes everyone didn't "/quit" and the game lasted how many years before tapering off? Six or Seven?
This argument is really Hyperbole vs Rationality. "OMG EVERYONE WILL QUIT" vs. "This might be good, let's check it out" Extreme Extrapolation vs Referenced Interpolation. I'm still amazed at one sides ability to rationalize "I disagree" into "The game will collapse, everyone will quit and the world will burn!"
Gorges have the same sort of function with their heal spray as marines do with welders. The only difference is that it's a Gorge's job to keep a life form's health and armor up, and it's a marine's job to keep other teammates' armor up, while the commander has the job of keeping the marines' health in check with comm-support.
A good Gorge/Onos push with back up into a sector easily dominates held marine bases as much as a solid marine/exo push into heavily cysted area. The only difference is that Marines barely keep Welders on their person because they feel them to be a useless waste of 5 res that if you die, you're out halfway to a JP that could improve your chances of keeping that exo train alive.
I suppose the balance here is considering the Alien Team has little comparison to an ARC Train; you could use a Bile Whip Train, but it would cost considerably more to build each and every whip, then upgrade each and every whip after they have matured, therefore creating a tedious and useless Khammander function that takes his focus away from his team, as opposed to a Marine Commander chugging out ARCs inbetween every so often and upgrading the Robotics Factory once.
an armory with a mac next to it. ergo it's slightly more expensive, and requires a little more planning. otherwise it's identical to the present armory design. the change is inarguably insignificant in context with the massive overhaul of alien upgrade cost/structure.
it's absolutely stunning that we've almost reached 700 posts fuelled by hilariously exaggerated/theorycrafted conjecture.
The alien commander also has the ability to keep his team's armor up by using a Crag Drifter with it's Mucous Membrane ability in the Balance mod. Just that there is rarely need for that since aliens heal armor pretty quickly or have Gorge/Crags/Hives nearby. Still, the ability can still give a little edge in combat that you might have needed as alien, similar to how the marine commander can medpack spam.
Why? Let aliens hit'n'run on marines that have dug in? Oh no marines are turtling on one base while we take every RT? Oh no people in public games aren't buying welders and not participating in love and joy teamwork?
You're saying armories stop aliens hit and running. I always thought aliens are hit and running RT's and marine bases, not whatever you're talking about. Marines already have it hard enough losing everything behind their dig-ins on phase gates. Meanwhile hive/crags with a vigilant commander heal-waving basically instant-full-heals a 20 hp fade. Two fades or a lerk could endlesssly keep 2-3 marines on an armory welding and healing. Alien comms will be able to assign even less players to pinning a point down with a marine setup next to it.
The point isn't to kill the marines camping an armory as the OP seems to think. Pull them off it by attacking somewhere else. And who cares if marines are turtling in their main base while you take everything else on the map.
You're creating an annoyance change with mid-late game marine game where they have it the worse with fade explosion and alien commanders having no Tres sinks, instead of thinking about how to balance the the marine/alien early game and/or balance shift when 3-4 fades pop out. It's bad enough that alien commanders either bank res so fade kills don't matter or they cyst the entire map so you have to assign marines (which is a huge deal) to clearing RTs and infestation on said RTs.
This change would be an annoyance. In fact you'll be making marines stronger because you'll have to make welders cheaper for anyone in pubs to buy them, and pub marines weaker because there'll be res spent on macs.
Great, introduce an annoying mechanic, and then introduce an even more annoying thing to stop people getting around your annoying mechanic.
A kill command can't be implemented without a timer, it would be just stupid, with or without the armories.
If people are saying 'this sucks, I want to die' often enough that you need to introduce artificial penalties on doing so, you're doing something incredibly wrong and need to look at your game again.
I mean my god, you've actually got people killing themselves because they don't want to play like that any more, when people don't want to play the game any more, your game is failing at being a game.
Great, introduce an annoying mechanic, and then introduce an even more annoying thing to stop people getting around your annoying mechanic.
A kill command can't be implemented without a timer, it would be just stupid, with or without the armories.
If people are saying 'this sucks, I want to die' often enough that you need to introduce artificial penalties on doing so, you're doing something incredibly wrong and need to look at your game again.
I mean my god, you've actually got people killing themselves because they don't want to play like that any more, when people don't want to play the game any more, your game is failing at being a game.
rofl you had me going for a moment.
give samaritans a call, it's never as bad as it seems.
Great, introduce an annoying mechanic, and then introduce an even more annoying thing to stop people getting around your annoying mechanic.
A kill command can't be implemented without a timer, it would be just stupid, with or without the armories.
If people are saying 'this sucks, I want to die' often enough that you need to introduce artificial penalties on doing so, you're doing something incredibly wrong and need to look at your game again.
I mean my god, you've actually got people killing themselves because they don't want to play like that any more, when people don't want to play the game any more, your game is failing at being a game.
So you are saying that the kill command should be removed?
Most common public tactic... Fast pg:s with multiple forward armories (pretty much no medpacks or ammo for you) and upgrades may come after 10minutes... Old NS1 EDI commander bot is even better :P I cant imagine how much crying friendly fire gives.. Maybe there should be server variable like sv_CODarmor
Comments
Well, yeah you could do that quite easily I think, a fade currently is a bit of a glass cannon, you could either make it even more glass, or less cannony. So cut its HP down a lot, or remove a bit of its damage so it needs to perform at high levels for longer in order to get kills.
You still have the very intense, movement-oriented combat style of the fade, you still have to dodge and disorient and maneuver past marines and attack from intelligent directions and have damn good control to be able to avoid fire, but rifle marines are not longer free kills just because you have too much HP and do too much damage for them to realistically be able to kill you before you kill them.
You'll die more, yes, but as you weren't paying for your class, that doesn't matter so much, all that matters is that you do better than the enemy with your chosen class, you play better than them in order to win, which is the point of the game, isn't it? The only thing that's changing is everyone can use fades if they want to use fades, personally I prefer lerks sometimes, or gorges. Especially if fades, say, remain kinda bad against structures, or perhaps if skulks got some sort of special ability that fades don't, maybe leap could be retooled to launch the skulk off a wall and do damage on impact with marines or something, making them better at long range ambush than the fade. Or perhaps skulks get better anti-structure abilities as the game goes on while the fade doesn't, evolving the starting class into a better generalist than the specialist anti-infantry class. Or maybe skulks just work better against armored marines, meaning fades would work better with gorge bile support while skulks would work better on their own or against exosuits. You could give fades the ability to sense how much health/armor a marine has and let them target the unarmored ones, which hey, maybe that would feed positively into the welder/armory thing, if you can't fix your armor, you're easy prey for fades, but the better melee attacks with the axe might be useful against skulks.
I dunno, I think skulks would have to be brought up a little to compete with other alien classes, but you could definitely preserve the playstyles of the alien classes without needing to keep them costing money.
In NS1 such an approach would have trivialized the marine commander's job. That obviously isn't an issue any more.
Well you could easily keep the structures costing money, and maybe even paid upgrades, though I think you could also remove res cost for upgrades and just make them cost time instead. The only thing you would need to do to keep a sense of progression is slowly introduce better anti-structure options in the later game, because those are what let you take enemy territory more easily. The game starts out more stable as your bases are harder to attack, and steadily becomes unstable as bases are much easier to take down. Having a resource lead would help, because it lets you replace your structures more easily and gives you more land, which gives you better mobility and so on, but a lot of the victory should be decided by who plays better, which team consistently uses all their tools to stop enemy expansion or take bases early on through excellent play. It cuts out a lot of the slippery slope and even if the game remains a bit one sided, at least there's more chance of being able to play your favorite class/weapon at some point, for more than two minutes before you get shot as your last hive/cc dies.
While I see where you are coming from and while I agree, that weapons / lifeforms should be side-grades and therefor cheaper. You can't make them free. That would kill a huge part of the RTS aspect of the game. What you describe is mostly a TF2 with aliens vs marines.
We got enough games where you simply chose your class for free. Having to pay for upgrades and stuff is part of a RTS game. Removing it would devalue a good part of the uniqueness from NS2.
Honestly I find the resource lockouts are what makes NS2 less unique, because all the unique stuff is off-limits half the time. Most of the time you're a crappy skulk or slightly less crappy rifle dude. 1 class/gun per side. Sooooo unique... There's so much interesting variety in the game that you just can't use most of the time.
Like I said, you keep the strategic game because you have the fighting to control territory anyway, and your commander can choose to fortify territory as he likes, just as you do now. Buildings help you progress and are things you need to kill to beat the enemy, just as now.
I don't really see what you lose other than maybe some sense of tension from 'oh god I don't want to lose my really expensive upgrade' but that leads to more problems than anything else. People won't take risks, won't support the team, won't like doing anything that loses them their precious loot. The whole point of the thread is a symptom of that, people run back to the armory to heal because they don't want to lose even their 5 res welder. People are much more aggressive when they don't have any equipment to pay for, remove paid equipment and you'll solve the problem, and probably find the game is much more fun all round.
what?
right now marines know that killing lerk/fade/onos is their ticket to success. therefore marines are forced to use focus fire, strategy and guile (ambush weak retreating lifeforms). otherwise the alien hit and run will go on forever - that is boring.
those high risk lifeforms are far more exciting than anything else in the game. imagine a game of starcraft where every time a unit died, it just respawned again for free.
that said, i agree about the armory... what inexperienced players fail to realise is that running back to an armory to heal insignificant armor damage is a terrible idea. any marine standing around in base is just inviting more aliens to harrass the RT's, and in case you don't already know - if you lose too many RT's then you automatically lose the game. try playing high level starcraft where you choose to defend a single base versus a guy with the freedom to expand multiple times.
They are worth the resources, that's the problem with them, that's why people avoid spending resources to save for the expensive ones, and won't risk them if they can possibly avoid doing so.
It's why the only way to kill an expensive lifeform/exo is to throw half the team at it. There's no skill involved, just numbers. Throw enough numbers at the enemy and you win. Throw enough resources at the enemy and you win. Control enough territory and you win.
By making things cost money you put the game into a pay to win scenario, and I don't like that. I don't like slaughtering aliens because I have upgrades and they don't, and crushing waves of rifle marines as an onos is... well it's somewhat entertaining I suppose but it is not what I'd call exciting, more just funny, in a kinda sad way.
It makes the game dull dull dull, and I don't like combat mode either, or at least I never really liked the NS1 version of it. I don't at all want that because frankly that has half the problems classic does, you kill an alien, it gives you points to buy better alien killing stuff, and eventually you're winning because you have upgrades and the enemy doesn't. It's NS minus any strategic element.
I'm not at all suggesting that, I want a fun NS with strategy and where any player can fight any other player and win by skill and finesse, not by resource advantages or other cheap, arbitrary bonuses.
Skill in NS2 is the first... three minutes of the game, when you're out in the wild fighting basic skulks with basic marines, and you take or lose the extractor based on how good you are at shooting the skulks/to a lesser extent how good you are at biting marines (I still think marine vs skulk relies far more on marine ability or lack thereof than anything else). But that works, that's fun, that gives a feeling of 'I have achieved something' when that goes well.
The minute aliens get carapace or marines get armor/weapons, that slips, and by ten minutes into the game it's gone. You're never going to fight fair for the rest of the game, you're always going to either be looking for some way to be overpowered at that stage of the game by rushing some upgrade or other, or waiting to unleash a wave of exos or something later on, or saving for onos, or whatever. You're always either weak or strong, never evenly matched, and it sucks.
I'm sorry, but you sound exactly like you only want to play NS for the shooting and not the strategical elements. If you think resource advantage is a "cheap, arbitrary bonus", then you're really missing the gist of NS.
The strength of NS's strategic element is that it gives meaning to the shooty bits. Shooting people achieves something other than incrementing the point counter that's tallied at the end of the match. Shooting people lets you take bases, the bases influence how the shooting in that area works further down the line. It's like fps/rpg games, you shoot people to get points to put into your skills which then affect how you shoot in the future, it just adds more depth to the basic shooter mechanics. FPS/RTS does the same sort of thing in a different way.
But, an FPS/RPG would be really shit if the first ten enemies you killed let you unlock the super god mode skill which makes the rest of the game trivial, or if you died too many times the rest of the game you couldn't earn any XP and had to try to beat all the bosses with starting gear. Similarly I think the weakest point of FPS/RTS is the bit that just messes up the balance between sides and players. The game is not balanced just because it's 50/50 who ends up overpowered, if one side is overpowered against the other 90% of the time, the game is unbalanced 90% of the time, and is unenjoyably so 90% of the time, and only 10% of the time are you playing an actual balanced, well designed game. The RTS portion of the game should not invalidate the FPS portion very quickly after the game starts. It is supposed to be a smooth and enjoyable blend of the two where the strengths of each improve the other. At the moment it's nothing of the sort.
I don't see why that has to, or should, be the case. I don't think it benefits the gameplay at all.
Have fun trying to get your free armor repair through suiciding.
I'm really not sure you understand many of the basic premises behind this game
No one can claim the high ground here - especially not when they gloat about how the add of a spawn timer will screw over other players who don't like the change. That's a good thing? You're happy because a game change will piss players off? Wow. Real mature.
There is an easy way for people to get around this change, it's called /quit. You think there aren't other games out there to play? Go ahead. Tell me you don't need players like me who don't agree with your vision of the game. Go ahead and tell me if I don't like it to quit or uninstall. Tell that to all the others too. That's really going to grow the player base now isn't it? The game is dying already and you are rushing to put it in the coffin. Well done.
I may have only started playing NS when 3.0 came out, but I was really hoping NS2 would be different. Now all I see are the same kind of people who pushed for all kinds of stupid changes back then, are doing the same now. Enjoy your welders, because they'll come with a big price. (and I'm not referring to resource cost either.)
Honestly, I'm just so disappointed. I really expected better from this game. It's a real shame.
nice high ground you have there, insinuating that a certain 'kind of people' are causing the game to die by enjoying 'stupid changes'.
Ummm. How long did NS1 last? K, thnx. Don't let the Uninstall take you too long. Got to make room on your hard drive for Battlefield 4!!!11!11
A kill command can't be implemented without a timer, it would be just stupid, with or without the armories.
I'm pretty sure they are celebrating the plugging of a perceived exploit
In every game forum ever there has been the people saying "Make this change and everyone will quit." They are almost always wrong.
People agreed and disagreed about changes then too, and yet through those changes everyone didn't "/quit" and the game lasted how many years before tapering off? Six or Seven?
This argument is really Hyperbole vs Rationality. "OMG EVERYONE WILL QUIT" vs. "This might be good, let's check it out" Extreme Extrapolation vs Referenced Interpolation. I'm still amazed at one sides ability to rationalize "I disagree" into "The game will collapse, everyone will quit and the world will burn!"
A good Gorge/Onos push with back up into a sector easily dominates held marine bases as much as a solid marine/exo push into heavily cysted area. The only difference is that Marines barely keep Welders on their person because they feel them to be a useless waste of 5 res that if you die, you're out halfway to a JP that could improve your chances of keeping that exo train alive.
I suppose the balance here is considering the Alien Team has little comparison to an ARC Train; you could use a Bile Whip Train, but it would cost considerably more to build each and every whip, then upgrade each and every whip after they have matured, therefore creating a tedious and useless Khammander function that takes his focus away from his team, as opposed to a Marine Commander chugging out ARCs inbetween every so often and upgrading the Robotics Factory once.
an armory with a mac next to it. ergo it's slightly more expensive, and requires a little more planning. otherwise it's identical to the present armory design. the change is inarguably insignificant in context with the massive overhaul of alien upgrade cost/structure.
it's absolutely stunning that we've almost reached 700 posts fuelled by hilariously exaggerated/theorycrafted conjecture.
You're saying armories stop aliens hit and running. I always thought aliens are hit and running RT's and marine bases, not whatever you're talking about. Marines already have it hard enough losing everything behind their dig-ins on phase gates. Meanwhile hive/crags with a vigilant commander heal-waving basically instant-full-heals a 20 hp fade. Two fades or a lerk could endlesssly keep 2-3 marines on an armory welding and healing. Alien comms will be able to assign even less players to pinning a point down with a marine setup next to it.
The point isn't to kill the marines camping an armory as the OP seems to think. Pull them off it by attacking somewhere else. And who cares if marines are turtling in their main base while you take everything else on the map.
You're creating an annoyance change with mid-late game marine game where they have it the worse with fade explosion and alien commanders having no Tres sinks, instead of thinking about how to balance the the marine/alien early game and/or balance shift when 3-4 fades pop out. It's bad enough that alien commanders either bank res so fade kills don't matter or they cyst the entire map so you have to assign marines (which is a huge deal) to clearing RTs and infestation on said RTs.
This change would be an annoyance. In fact you'll be making marines stronger because you'll have to make welders cheaper for anyone in pubs to buy them, and pub marines weaker because there'll be res spent on macs.
If people are saying 'this sucks, I want to die' often enough that you need to introduce artificial penalties on doing so, you're doing something incredibly wrong and need to look at your game again.
I mean my god, you've actually got people killing themselves because they don't want to play like that any more, when people don't want to play the game any more, your game is failing at being a game.
rofl you had me going for a moment.
give samaritans a call, it's never as bad as it seems.
So you are saying that the kill command should be removed?
Hum. No, sir.