The analogy with street fighter just isn't useful though. bushido blade, on the other hand... Doing damage but not winning crippled the other player. Not only were you closer to winning, but they were also further away from winning. That is the slippery slope: getting ahead of your opponent and in doing so making it harder for them to catch up. It can work just fine in games, but the reason many rts games have upkeep is to mitigate some of the problems associated with this.
Football, tennis, street fighter, these do not have positive feedback like ns2 has.
The analogy with street fighter just isn't useful though. bushido blade, on the other hand... Doing damage but not winning crippled the other player. Not only were you closer to winning, but they were also further away from winning. That is the slippery slope: getting ahead of your opponent and in doing so making it harder for them to catch up. It can work just fine in games, but the reason many rts games have upkeep is to mitigate some of the problems associated with this.
Football, tennis, street fighter, these do not have positive feedback like ns2 has.
Hence the post.
ns2 does have upkeep. you can't buy 200 onos or 200 exosuits.
additionally, as i said in my previous post - you must remember that holding more RT's means that they're more difficult to defend. ergo it becomes progressively harder to take more RT's just as it becomes progressively easier to take them through your 1 upgrade per 1.5 minutes.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited April 2013
@tarquinbb thats not what he meant by upkeep, i'm pretty sure.
Sure holding more RTs means they are more difficult to defend, but due to costs and build time its a moot point because they're minimally impactful to replace - hence the suggestion of the cost increase.
@tarquinbb thats not what he meant by upkeep, i'm pretty sure.
Sure holding more RTs means they are more difficult to defend, but due to costs and build time its a moot point because they're minimally impactful to replace - hence the suggestion of the cost increase.
minimally impactful? RT's only recoup their own build cost after 1 minute. if the other team is ahead by 2 RT's, and you can exploit their thinly spread defense to destroy at least 1 of those per minute, then you're unlikely to have any significant resource deficit.
increasing the cost would encourage defensive play, and more importantly would discourage offensive play. i don't want every match to be a boring stalemate which is ultimately decided by a 10 onos versus 10 exo crap shoot.
That's not upkeep! Upkeep would be something like every building costs 0.5 res per tick, or being an onos costs you or your team res per minute.
There is no upkeep in ns2, though finding some way to add it might be worthwhile to see the effects.
I'm not advocating that we have negative feedback - rewarding the team that's behind, or even no feedback (as in most sports), but I'm questioning whether a slight change to the snowballing rate might be a beneficial thing. Please let's not get this thread side-tracked with hyperbole. What happens in the first few minutes of a game is what interests me for this discussion.
If your team has a moderately, but not catastrophically poor first 4 minutes, they will almost certainly lose because coming back from that is very tough. Not impossible, but very tough.
It should still be tough, but are there ways to mitigate the snowballing effects of minor errors in the early game?
1 res lost in minute 1 might equate to 50 res list in minute 10...
That's not upkeep! Upkeep would be something like every building costs 0.5 res per tick, or being an onos costs you or your team res per minute.
There is no upkeep in ns2, though finding some way to add it might be worthwhile to see the effects.
I'm not advocating that we have negative feedback - rewarding the team that's behind, or even no feedback (as in most sports), but I'm questioning whether a slight change to the snowballing rate might be a beneficial thing. Please let's not get this thread side-tracked with hyperbole. What happens in the first few minutes of a game is what interests me for this discussion.
If your team has a moderately, but not catastrophically poor first 4 minutes, they will almost certainly lose because coming back from that is very tough. Not impossible, but very tough.
It should still be tough, but are there ways to mitigate the snowballing effects of minor errors in the early game?
1 res lost in minute 1 might equate to 50 res list in minute 10...
imo warcraft3 upkeep was unintuitive crap, and probably one of the reasons it was so unpopular compared to starcraft etc.
upkeep didn't reduce resource/tech advantage, it forced you to only spend money on essential units and then mass produce yourself into crippling upkeep before a big attack - then your army dies and you're low upkeep, back in the comfort of your giant snowball gearing up for your next big assault.
anyway, "If your team has a moderately, but not catastrophically poor first 4 minutes, they will almost certainly lose because coming back from that is very tough. Not impossible, but very tough." is too vague. what specifically constitutes a 'moderately, but not catastrophically poor' start and which upgrade is making it tough to come back from that?
if the aliens can't get pres lerks out before the marines egglock and destroy the hive, that's my idea of a 'moderately, but not catastrophically poor start'. but if you can get lerks out, you always have a decent chance to win engagements and therefore a decent chance to recover the game. before lerks, it's not marine resource advantage that wins it - it's just that basic marines are inherently superior to skulks.
increasing the cost would encourage defensive play, and more importantly would discourage offensive play.
I have found that any behavioral projections based on gameplay mechanic adjustments are generally horridly off.
Everyone projected that "No Pres While Dead" (Which i dislike, and think does more damage than good) would make people never leave base and be defensive only... and it never happened. Games played out just the same regardless.
This applies to almost every behavioral projection i've seen on these forums. I could give at least 3 more examples..
But the takeaway point is that you can adjust many things which have sweeping effects, that do not notably influence player behavior.
So it shouldn't be used as a basis for an argument - its worse than inaccurate theory crafting, its presuming the most varying thing on this planet: human behavior.
But do you have another reason why that idea wouldn't work? :-P
the blue graph is pretty much how most RTS games looks like.
victories in the early game are small (unless its a risky cheese tactic) , you have to have many small victories to gain a significant lead
you can make up for being behind by winning a mid game engagement or two
and late game is normally very unforgiving, losing your army to a bad engagement means gg most of the time.
increasing the cost would encourage defensive play, and more importantly would discourage offensive play.
I have found that any behavioral projections based on gameplay mechanic adjustments are generally horridly off.
Everyone projected that "No Pres While Dead" (Which i dislike, and think does more damage than good) would make people never leave base and be defensive only... and it never happened. Games played out just the same regardless.
This applies to almost every behavioral projection i've seen on these forums. I could give at least 3 more examples..
But the takeaway point is that you can adjust many things which have sweeping effects, that do not notably influence player behavior.
So it shouldn't be used as a basis for an argument - its worse than inaccurate theory crafting, its presuming the most varying thing on this planet: human behavior.
But do you have another reason why that idea wouldn't work? :-P
imo it's a mathematical equation. i was merely speculating that given an objectively preferable choice - the non-derpy players would take it.
that said, i'm unaware of the details of this 'increased cost' idea. however, the only reason to increase cost would seem to be to make them more valuable. newbies don't like to leave their base now, never mind when the structures are even more expensive and valuable. 1+1=2.
I'm wondering whether the cost of rts should increase with the number of rts. Those first 3 extractors are crucial to get you into the game, or keep you there. The 6th extractor is usually just icing on the cake: it's cheap (when you already have 5) and it usually denies one of the opposition's natural rt points, so it's currently an increasing advantage for no extra cost.
I think the first couple of extractors should be cheap, because increasing their cost would mean the team losing them (ie the team that's behind) is going to be even more disadvantaged than they are now, no?
however, the only reason to increase cost would seem to be to make them more valuable. newbies don't like to leave their base now, never mind when the structures are even more expensive and valuable.
Newbies wouldn't even know they would more expensive let alone what their cost wo- wait wait.. you just did it again.
Nice try buddy... i await your answer still. :-P
I agree that losing a few early game Resource Towers often sets your team too far back to recover in the mid-game.
Why not implement dynamic Resource Towers? If your team gets knocked back to 2 or 3 RTs, this means your opponent is likely to have 200-300% your team's income. To lessen this effect, introducing Advanced Resource Towers for both sides that gain additional income after some team resource investment may lessen the burden of fighting an uphill resource battle.
For example, alien structures typically mature, and in the case of whips and shifts, can be upgraded once matured. Introducing a mature Harvester upgrade for (educated guess for these values) 10 team res + 30 seconds upgrade time with no income would grant the Harvester +50% income and +13.5% HP (2000 HP from 1750 HP of Mature Harvester). Limiting this upgrade to 2+ hives would prevent early game res explosion and 1 hive stalemates. Again, this is completely hypothetical and I am open to any criticism of these suggestions.
Marine Robotics Factories and Armors both can be advanced to higher tier structures. The marine Advanced Extractor upgrade could be a researched from the Robotics Factory, giving this niche structure a role in economy. The RF upgrade could (educated guess) take 15 team res + 60 seconds upgrade time. The Advanced Extractor upgrade could take 10 team res + 30 seconds upgrade time with no income. This upgrade would grant +50% income and +10% AP (550 armor up from 500). Requiring a RF for the Advanced Extractor upgrade may seem like a fast path for turret farms, but investment into such infrastructure takes time and resources away from other tech paths.
This would allow teams on 3 Advanced RTs to gain income on par with 4.5 RTs. Taking out these structures would also hurt the economy more considering the tres investment (as well as the suggested 5 ticks of no income while upgrading). By upgrading RTs in well-defended locations, a team with less early-game map control could maintain a competitive economy against a quickly-expanding enemy.
RTS derail incoming!
In Starcraft 2, there is a similar situation whereby crippling an early-game economy while defending your own will guarantee a later victory assuming players of equal skill. However, there are ways for each race to quickly grow their economy at the expense of building their armies (Zerg's larva inject for drones, Terran mule drop, Protoss chrono boost).
In Company of Heroes, resources are gathered similarly to NS2, via controlled "Strategic Points". Structures can be built on top of these to protect them against light infantry and grant a significant income boost. There are also much more Strategic Points per map than there are Resource Nodes in NS2.
@Roobubba: This is a very good idea. Increasing costs for more RTs. This is upkeep and "real decision to expand" in one change. Some could argue it isn't intuitive. Changing prizes are never simple to communicate. But I like what it could achieve. Maybe a fixed price (but higher as now, like in BT mod) PLUS diminishing gather rates of additional RTs could achieve the same.
@tarquinbb: Noobs normally don't care about buildings. They care about not dieing. And like IronHorse said, guesses at the impact of social behavior from changes in this game have been wrong nearly every time they were stated. Without trying we won't know.
Also your Street Fighter comparison is not fitting this case. You have to understand what the slippery slope is. Health in Street Fighter is the same like points in tennis, football, ... in EVERY game I can think of. It is a way to measure when one player has won the game. You are simply wrong, when you argue that Street Fighter has a slippery slope because it counts the progress of a player by "health". Counting points until one player has won is the nature of games. It is trivial. It exists in nearly every game.
What is not trivial is to reward the winning side ADDITIONALLY to the points or to punish the losing side ADDITIONALLY to the fact that they get behind in the "win-measure-system".
I think this link that ScardyBob postet in the thread about forgiveness is really important to understand what a slippery slope is. You should read it.
€dit: Oh and please don't repeat that this is not what you were talking about. This thread IS about the slipper slope. Maybe more counter "units" could have impact on this. But as has been said, that could lead to stale FPS play.
@tarquinbb: Noobs normally don't care about buildings. They care about not dieing. And like IronHorse said, guesses at the impact of social behavior from changes in this game have been wrong nearly every time they were stated. Without trying we won't know.
I would like to see more detailed 'RT Dots' in the bottom right hand corner. Animating them would alert players' HUDs directly when your economy is threatened and make them more conspicuous. I'm not even sure most players know they exist. Having them pulse red when RTs are under attack or blink out when RTs die would improve situational awareness immensely, especially for new players who can barely read the in-game map.
Incidentally, @tarquinbb - I think it's absolutely fine to argue that the game as it stands is fine and doesn't need changing. While I don't agree with that argument, I will keep my mind open to reasons I haven't yet considered why it might be true. While I personally think there are some tweaks that should be done to try to make the early game slippery slope shallower, this is only my opinion and I'm not trying to dictate that I'm right, hence the thread to discuss this!
increasing the cost would encourage defensive play, and more importantly would discourage offensive play.
Sounds good to me to be honest.
I think that, combining the need to defend RTs with the marine teams inherent need for more RTs than the aliens would result in a scenario where both teams need to defend their outposts and RTs, but marines much more so, which is exactly how things should be.
Currently you have a similar situation, except that instead of defending RTs, marines just need to hold as many RTs as possible. They just run manically around the map capping RTs and losing them, and as long as they are fast enough, they get a net increase. There is never a situation where the marine don't want to cap a node. If capping a node while losing another created a drastic net loss, this strategy would turn around sharply, which I think is needed.
I posted this before but in NS1, one way NS1 dealt with Snowballing is ninja phase gates and ninja hive drops (since in NS1, you can teleport to a hive being built if it took damage or if an alien used it with "e").
If Aliens were on 3 hives (the max in NS1) and controlled most of the area, the marines could try to sneak a marine, equip everyone with as much as possible (heavies, JPs, etc), then try to get a phase gate up near an important area (usually the middle hive or something that allows them to sort of divide the aliens into two areas to defend instead of one).
The same works for aliens (though to a lesser extent). Aliens could sneak a gorge in to a hive the marine had locked down (which is very common), and try to drop a hive for all aliens (onos, fade, etc) to teleport in to try to secure.
The defense against alien hive drops is to build 2 PGs, lots of siege cannons (so it wasn't like you couldn't defend that but you needed to invest lots of resources into keeping that hive locked down).
The defense against ninja phase gates is to make sure no marine sneaks by (which isn't too hard either).
In any case though, those two things in NS1 made the game more "back and forth" and less "snowball" prone than in NS2 IMO.
This allows more back and forth action potential throughout the entire game.
I don't see how increasing cost would make people on both teams more defensive because it gives more incentive to be offensive and get some RT kills.
The same reason noob players in RTS tend to build 100 turrets and sit in their base.
Defense is typically easier and less technical. It may not be optimal, but since when do players play optimally.
Incidentally, @tarquinbb - I think it's absolutely fine to argue that the game as it stands is fine and doesn't need changing. While I don't agree with that argument, I will keep my mind open to reasons I haven't yet considered why it might be true. While I personally think there are some tweaks that should be done to try to make the early game slippery slope shallower, this is only my opinion and I'm not trying to dictate that I'm right, hence the thread to discuss this!
i haven't said the game is 'fine' at all.
i just believe in methods which have been tried and tested (starcraft), and not methods which are convoluted and unprecedented.
i mean, we still haven't had any case scenarios or examples of how any of the cost fiddling changes would effect a game. sure, we can't predict human behaviour, but if you put them in a bathtub with a great white shark - i'm pretty convinced that they'll try to escape.
there's still been no explanation for what SPECIFICALLY you find such a 'slippery slope' in the early game. if you don't specify this, how on earth is anyone meant to discuss tweaks to fix it? not just "losing a few RT's" either, i mean specifically what upgrades/upgrade discrepancy cause that insurmountable slope.
@tarquinbb: Noobs normally don't care about buildings. They care about not dieing. And like IronHorse said, guesses at the impact of social behavior from changes in this game have been wrong nearly every time they were stated. Without trying we won't know.
Also your Street Fighter comparison is not fitting this case. You have to understand what the slippery slope is. Health in Street Fighter is the same like points in tennis, football, ... in EVERY game I can think of. It is a way to measure when one player has won the game. You are simply wrong, when you argue that Street Fighter has a slippery slope because it counts the progress of a player by "health". Counting points until one player has won is the nature of games. It is trivial. It exists in nearly every game.
What is not trivial is to reward the winning side ADDITIONALLY to the points or to punish the losing side ADDITIONALLY to the fact that they get behind in the "win-measure-system".
I think this link that ScardyBob postet in the thread about forgiveness is really important to understand what a slippery slope is. You should read it.
€dit: Oh and please don't repeat that this is not what you were talking about. This thread IS about the slipper slope. Maybe more counter "units" could have impact on this. But as has been said, that could lead to stale FPS play.
i really don't want to talk about the street fighter analogy, because it served a simple purpose and i wasn't expecting a PERFECT analogy - only one to show in incredibly simple terms how you lose a chunk of health, then statistically you have a lower chance to win.
however, since i feel obligated to defend it just as everyone has felt obligated to paraphrase from sirlin, what about the tier list? certain characters in street fighter are weak/strong against certain other characters. if you lose 50% health against an objectively stronger character, is that not a slippery slope? the impetus is on you, and you do NOT have an equal chance to recover.
furthermore, this works both ways and you could counter-pick your character to have an edge over your opponent.... a shallower slippery slope? ohhhh hello tarquin, that rather sounds like your idea!
Being ahead in any game can force the opponent to attack when they don't want to, but that's not a slippery slope...
Look, we need to get away from this failure of an analogy, it's not getting us anywhere. Let me summarise why I think there is a problem, as you asked me that directly.
Too many games end with roflstomps/concedes. The underlying reasons for this are many-fold. For example, team stacking on public servers is probably the biggest of these issues, and with any luck the introduction of Sabot will give us the ability, or at least the tools to mod the ability, to deal with this somewhat. Another reason for teams getting ahead, then pushing further and further ahead is the slippery slope. Losing your first two engagements as aliens often leads to getting pushed right back on the map, losing cyst chains and the ability to expand your early economy, and the initial edge that this can give the marines is one of a broad map control with lots of early res coming in. The timing of such a loss here is important: The same loss in the mid-game, when map control is more established and stable, is less difficult to come back from. Switch teams and the same is true, I'm just saying this as an example. The first 50 res you have MUST be well spent. Look at what happens if aliens buy 2 whips at the start. But mid game, sure you can waste res on 2 whips, but it doesn't matter so much. I guess what I'm saying is that the inherent value of resources decreases over time.
In and of itself, this isn't a problem. I'm not suggesting drastic changes to the game as it stands. Just a slight decrease in the value of the early resources compared to the mid-game and late-game, as this would be less punishing for small mistakes, or small victories for the opponent, over the course of the rest of the game.
Does that help to explain why I started this thread?
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Like a decent number of the people posting in this thread I think NS2 needs a shallow slope in the early game that leads into a steep slope in the late-game - the stakes should raise as the game continues. At the moment, NS2 is so condensed and 'streamlined' that the only real option in the early game is to expand as aggressively as you can and prevent the other team's expansion as aggressively as you can. There's little scope for a team to play conservatively.
Before we suggest specific fixes, I think we need to figure out what we want to happen in each stage of the game.
My thoughts: Early-game
Each side is merely "setting their pieces" and not making many strong offensive pushes - mistakes have little impact
- Focus on securing only enough resources & territory to support the mid-game (with little need/ability to secure more than that)
- Both teams should be better at defense than offense
Mid-game
The teams are established and ready to strike at each other - mistakes have an impact, but depending on how well the team set up in the early-game, it's still possible to recover
- Focus on attacking resources & territory
- Strike units & abilities appear (Fades, Jetpacks, Shotguns)
Late-game
The teams get their super-weapons out - mistakes have a catastrophic impact
- Assault units & abilities appear (Onos, EXOs, GLs)
On something of a side note: NS2 rewards high individual skill-levels. But most of the time, this only refers to the skill and reflexes of individual players on the ground. Because of the need for unending aggression, tactical & strategic skill is rarely rewarded to the same degree. It'd be nice if it was occasionally.
Being ahead in any game can force the opponent to attack when they don't want to, but that's not a slippery slope...
Look, we need to get away from this failure of an analogy, it's not getting us anywhere. Let me summarise why I think there is a problem, as you asked me that directly.
Too many games end with roflstomps/concedes. The underlying reasons for this are many-fold. For example, team stacking on public servers is probably the biggest of these issues, and with any luck the introduction of Sabot will give us the ability, or at least the tools to mod the ability, to deal with this somewhat. Another reason for teams getting ahead, then pushing further and further ahead is the slippery slope. Losing your first two engagements as aliens often leads to getting pushed right back on the map, losing cyst chains and the ability to expand your early economy, and the initial edge that this can give the marines is one of a broad map control with lots of early res coming in. The timing of such a loss here is important: The same loss in the mid-game, when map control is more established and stable, is less difficult to come back from. Switch teams and the same is true, I'm just saying this as an example. The first 50 res you have MUST be well spent. Look at what happens if aliens buy 2 whips at the start. But mid game, sure you can waste res on 2 whips, but it doesn't matter so much. I guess what I'm saying is that the inherent value of resources decreases over time.
In and of itself, this isn't a problem. I'm not suggesting drastic changes to the game as it stands. Just a slight decrease in the value of the early resources compared to the mid-game and late-game, as this would be less punishing for small mistakes, or small victories for the opponent, over the course of the rest of the game.
Does that help to explain why I started this thread?
you keep saying the recource deficit causes an insurmountable position in the early game... that's irrelevant, if aliens spend 30 res on whips at the start it doesn't make a spot of difference unless marines can turn their 30 res advantage into a PHYSICAL surplus. e.g. armor upgrade.
is armor upgrade too strong, does it cause a snowballing effect which makes it insurmountable for aliens? i don't think so, ergo i'm struggling to translate your resource deficit to the point where the physical surplus becomes insurmountable.
if those early alien engagements are lost not because of physical surplus, but for the sheer fact that marines are stronger.... then with any luck the introduction of Sagat will give us the ability to deal with this somewhat.
Maybe because of how easy to is to defend is a reason for this problem. I am only speaking of pubs and not pro play (Armor 1 vs PG and Shift vs Crag). Once a PG is placed in a room its increasingly hard to take the room. Similar having a gorge with clots and a shift in a room is also hard to assault. The commander only has to make eggs. Maybe if it was easier to assault rooms earlier on then you could claim back areas in the early game. I suppose changing the way PG/Shift work or having price adjustments across the board. I believe maybe mobility is the major problem here. Maybe being IP/Egg blocked should not really be a thing but being able to spawn in shifts or PG to a room that's being assault is the real cause of the problem. Which is not being able to claim rooms back in the early game.
Maybe because of how easy to is to defend is a reason for this problem. I am only speaking of pubs and not pro play (Armor 1 vs PG and Shift vs Crag). Once a PG is placed in a room its increasingly hard to take the room. Similar having a gorge with clots and a shift in a room is also hard to assault. The commander only has to make eggs. Maybe if it was easier to assault rooms earlier on then you could claim back areas in the early game. I suppose changing the way PG/Shift work or having price adjustments across the board. I believe maybe mobility is the major problem here. Maybe being IP/Egg blocked should not really be a thing but being able to spawn in shifts or PG to a room that's being assault is the real cause of the problem. Which is not being able to claim rooms back in the early game.
This is why I think we need less powerful turtling for Aliens in particular. Hand grenades for cheap bust AoE damage on structures, weaken cysts so it should never take more than one LMG magazine to kill one and increase infestation recede rate.
you keep saying the recource deficit causes an insurmountable position in the early game... that's irrelevant, if aliens spend 30 res on whips at the start it doesn't make a spot of difference unless marines can turn their 30 res advantage into a PHYSICAL surplus. e.g. armor upgrade.
is armor upgrade too strong, does it cause a snowballing effect which makes it insurmountable for aliens? i don't think so, ergo i'm struggling to translate your resource deficit to the point where the physical surplus becomes insurmountable.
30 of your initial team res not put into res towers means you will be significantly poorer in the rest of the game, especially as aliens, as your RTs take extra res to reach with cysts. Poor early-game res management can definitely lead to a snow balling effect if you have 3 more RTs to gain surplus res.
Something else I was thinking about which I think compounds this slippery slope phenomenon, is what I call "disposable investments". These are essentially "upgrades" which don't function in a typical way and have no applicability past their initial use. They exist to varying degrees in many mechanics, but the most substantial one is shift eggs.
When too many aliens die, you potentially run out of eggs, and then need to supplement the normal rate of egg creation with eggs from a shift. Lets look at that quickly. Too many aliens are dying, that's negative. I suppose you may be inclined to argue that maybe you are trying an all in base rush of some sort, but at the very least if the marines are attempting to counter it, you are breaking even, so overall I would say its negative.
Now you need to spend resources in order to return to the baseline, to return to normality. The new eggs don't mean more powerful aliens, they don't mean more alien players, they don't even mean faster spawning aliens. It simply means that you now reinforce at a normal rate, instead of a decreased rate. On top of that, once used, the eggs cost is completely lost. No lasting benefit.
So at this point, you are in a negative situation, and you begin expending resources in order to return to normal operating efficiency, while your enemy, presumably (but not necessarily) in a positive position, expends resources on more typical upgrades which have a lasting benefit to the team.
In such a situation, assuming that both teams are equally skilled, I'm sure you will agree that purely from an economics perspective, the aliens cannot win. There is simply no way. What this essentially means is that a mechanic like egg spawns does absolutely nothing but prolong an already lost game.
Well at 5 res for 2 eggs, it's almost certainly part of why shift first strategies in comp games essentially don't exist - the benefits of cara over celerity aside.
If those eggs mean you are more likely to force the marine comm to spam medpacks and ammo, there may be an economic benefit to them, but I don't *think* the presence of a forward shift has much impact on the number of medpacks/ammopacks used - I would be very surprised it it was as much as the cost of the eggs.
Carapace, of course, DOES impact medpacks and ammo, those res which are 'wasted' and do not contribute directly to the future economy (although of course they do indirectly through map control/res control, let's not go there just now). Harder to kill aliens get more bites on marines, use more ammo up in the process, and therefore impact directly on meds and ammo, in addition to the map control.
Ultimately, I'd like to see early game costs less impactful on the later game, this would mitigate some of the problems that early game errors can have unrecoverable consequences. In addition, a boost of the shift usefuless (reduction in egg cost, celerity working in combat) would be a benefit to the game, I feel.
Comments
Football, tennis, street fighter, these do not have positive feedback like ns2 has.
Hence the post.
ns2 does have upkeep. you can't buy 200 onos or 200 exosuits.
additionally, as i said in my previous post - you must remember that holding more RT's means that they're more difficult to defend. ergo it becomes progressively harder to take more RT's just as it becomes progressively easier to take them through your 1 upgrade per 1.5 minutes.
Sure holding more RTs means they are more difficult to defend, but due to costs and build time its a moot point because they're minimally impactful to replace - hence the suggestion of the cost increase.
minimally impactful? RT's only recoup their own build cost after 1 minute. if the other team is ahead by 2 RT's, and you can exploit their thinly spread defense to destroy at least 1 of those per minute, then you're unlikely to have any significant resource deficit.
increasing the cost would encourage defensive play, and more importantly would discourage offensive play. i don't want every match to be a boring stalemate which is ultimately decided by a 10 onos versus 10 exo crap shoot.
There is no upkeep in ns2, though finding some way to add it might be worthwhile to see the effects.
I'm not advocating that we have negative feedback - rewarding the team that's behind, or even no feedback (as in most sports), but I'm questioning whether a slight change to the snowballing rate might be a beneficial thing. Please let's not get this thread side-tracked with hyperbole. What happens in the first few minutes of a game is what interests me for this discussion.
If your team has a moderately, but not catastrophically poor first 4 minutes, they will almost certainly lose because coming back from that is very tough. Not impossible, but very tough.
It should still be tough, but are there ways to mitigate the snowballing effects of minor errors in the early game?
1 res lost in minute 1 might equate to 50 res list in minute 10...
imo warcraft3 upkeep was unintuitive crap, and probably one of the reasons it was so unpopular compared to starcraft etc.
upkeep didn't reduce resource/tech advantage, it forced you to only spend money on essential units and then mass produce yourself into crippling upkeep before a big attack - then your army dies and you're low upkeep, back in the comfort of your giant snowball gearing up for your next big assault.
anyway, "If your team has a moderately, but not catastrophically poor first 4 minutes, they will almost certainly lose because coming back from that is very tough. Not impossible, but very tough." is too vague. what specifically constitutes a 'moderately, but not catastrophically poor' start and which upgrade is making it tough to come back from that?
if the aliens can't get pres lerks out before the marines egglock and destroy the hive, that's my idea of a 'moderately, but not catastrophically poor start'. but if you can get lerks out, you always have a decent chance to win engagements and therefore a decent chance to recover the game. before lerks, it's not marine resource advantage that wins it - it's just that basic marines are inherently superior to skulks.
Everyone projected that "No Pres While Dead" (Which i dislike, and think does more damage than good) would make people never leave base and be defensive only... and it never happened. Games played out just the same regardless.
This applies to almost every behavioral projection i've seen on these forums. I could give at least 3 more examples..
But the takeaway point is that you can adjust many things which have sweeping effects, that do not notably influence player behavior.
So it shouldn't be used as a basis for an argument - its worse than inaccurate theory crafting, its presuming the most varying thing on this planet: human behavior.
But do you have another reason why that idea wouldn't work? :-P
the blue graph is pretty much how most RTS games looks like.
victories in the early game are small (unless its a risky cheese tactic) , you have to have many small victories to gain a significant lead
you can make up for being behind by winning a mid game engagement or two
and late game is normally very unforgiving, losing your army to a bad engagement means gg most of the time.
imo it's a mathematical equation. i was merely speculating that given an objectively preferable choice - the non-derpy players would take it.
that said, i'm unaware of the details of this 'increased cost' idea. however, the only reason to increase cost would seem to be to make them more valuable. newbies don't like to leave their base now, never mind when the structures are even more expensive and valuable. 1+1=2.
I think the first couple of extractors should be cheap, because increasing their cost would mean the team losing them (ie the team that's behind) is going to be even more disadvantaged than they are now, no?
Nice try buddy... i await your answer still. :-P
Longer early game, more room for errors, much greater potential for comebacks, more gradual progression towards the lategame.
/fanboy
Why not implement dynamic Resource Towers? If your team gets knocked back to 2 or 3 RTs, this means your opponent is likely to have 200-300% your team's income. To lessen this effect, introducing Advanced Resource Towers for both sides that gain additional income after some team resource investment may lessen the burden of fighting an uphill resource battle.
For example, alien structures typically mature, and in the case of whips and shifts, can be upgraded once matured. Introducing a mature Harvester upgrade for (educated guess for these values) 10 team res + 30 seconds upgrade time with no income would grant the Harvester +50% income and +13.5% HP (2000 HP from 1750 HP of Mature Harvester). Limiting this upgrade to 2+ hives would prevent early game res explosion and 1 hive stalemates. Again, this is completely hypothetical and I am open to any criticism of these suggestions.
Marine Robotics Factories and Armors both can be advanced to higher tier structures. The marine Advanced Extractor upgrade could be a researched from the Robotics Factory, giving this niche structure a role in economy. The RF upgrade could (educated guess) take 15 team res + 60 seconds upgrade time. The Advanced Extractor upgrade could take 10 team res + 30 seconds upgrade time with no income. This upgrade would grant +50% income and +10% AP (550 armor up from 500). Requiring a RF for the Advanced Extractor upgrade may seem like a fast path for turret farms, but investment into such infrastructure takes time and resources away from other tech paths.
This would allow teams on 3 Advanced RTs to gain income on par with 4.5 RTs. Taking out these structures would also hurt the economy more considering the tres investment (as well as the suggested 5 ticks of no income while upgrading). By upgrading RTs in well-defended locations, a team with less early-game map control could maintain a competitive economy against a quickly-expanding enemy.
RTS derail incoming!
In Starcraft 2, there is a similar situation whereby crippling an early-game economy while defending your own will guarantee a later victory assuming players of equal skill. However, there are ways for each race to quickly grow their economy at the expense of building their armies (Zerg's larva inject for drones, Terran mule drop, Protoss chrono boost).
In Company of Heroes, resources are gathered similarly to NS2, via controlled "Strategic Points". Structures can be built on top of these to protect them against light infantry and grant a significant income boost. There are also much more Strategic Points per map than there are Resource Nodes in NS2.
@tarquinbb: Noobs normally don't care about buildings. They care about not dieing. And like IronHorse said, guesses at the impact of social behavior from changes in this game have been wrong nearly every time they were stated. Without trying we won't know.
Also your Street Fighter comparison is not fitting this case. You have to understand what the slippery slope is. Health in Street Fighter is the same like points in tennis, football, ... in EVERY game I can think of. It is a way to measure when one player has won the game. You are simply wrong, when you argue that Street Fighter has a slippery slope because it counts the progress of a player by "health". Counting points until one player has won is the nature of games. It is trivial. It exists in nearly every game.
What is not trivial is to reward the winning side ADDITIONALLY to the points or to punish the losing side ADDITIONALLY to the fact that they get behind in the "win-measure-system".
I think this link that ScardyBob postet in the thread about forgiveness is really important to understand what a slippery slope is.
You should read it.
€dit: Oh and please don't repeat that this is not what you were talking about. This thread IS about the slipper slope. Maybe more counter "units" could have impact on this. But as has been said, that could lead to stale FPS play.
I would like to see more detailed 'RT Dots' in the bottom right hand corner. Animating them would alert players' HUDs directly when your economy is threatened and make them more conspicuous. I'm not even sure most players know they exist. Having them pulse red when RTs are under attack or blink out when RTs die would improve situational awareness immensely, especially for new players who can barely read the in-game map.
Sounds good to me to be honest.
I think that, combining the need to defend RTs with the marine teams inherent need for more RTs than the aliens would result in a scenario where both teams need to defend their outposts and RTs, but marines much more so, which is exactly how things should be.
Currently you have a similar situation, except that instead of defending RTs, marines just need to hold as many RTs as possible. They just run manically around the map capping RTs and losing them, and as long as they are fast enough, they get a net increase. There is never a situation where the marine don't want to cap a node. If capping a node while losing another created a drastic net loss, this strategy would turn around sharply, which I think is needed.
If Aliens were on 3 hives (the max in NS1) and controlled most of the area, the marines could try to sneak a marine, equip everyone with as much as possible (heavies, JPs, etc), then try to get a phase gate up near an important area (usually the middle hive or something that allows them to sort of divide the aliens into two areas to defend instead of one).
The same works for aliens (though to a lesser extent). Aliens could sneak a gorge in to a hive the marine had locked down (which is very common), and try to drop a hive for all aliens (onos, fade, etc) to teleport in to try to secure.
The defense against alien hive drops is to build 2 PGs, lots of siege cannons (so it wasn't like you couldn't defend that but you needed to invest lots of resources into keeping that hive locked down).
The defense against ninja phase gates is to make sure no marine sneaks by (which isn't too hard either).
In any case though, those two things in NS1 made the game more "back and forth" and less "snowball" prone than in NS2 IMO.
This allows more back and forth action potential throughout the entire game.
The same reason noob players in RTS tend to build 100 turrets and sit in their base.
Defense is typically easier and less technical. It may not be optimal, but since when do players play optimally.
i haven't said the game is 'fine' at all.
i just believe in methods which have been tried and tested (starcraft), and not methods which are convoluted and unprecedented.
i mean, we still haven't had any case scenarios or examples of how any of the cost fiddling changes would effect a game. sure, we can't predict human behaviour, but if you put them in a bathtub with a great white shark - i'm pretty convinced that they'll try to escape.
there's still been no explanation for what SPECIFICALLY you find such a 'slippery slope' in the early game. if you don't specify this, how on earth is anyone meant to discuss tweaks to fix it? not just "losing a few RT's" either, i mean specifically what upgrades/upgrade discrepancy cause that insurmountable slope.
i really don't want to talk about the street fighter analogy, because it served a simple purpose and i wasn't expecting a PERFECT analogy - only one to show in incredibly simple terms how you lose a chunk of health, then statistically you have a lower chance to win.
however, since i feel obligated to defend it just as everyone has felt obligated to paraphrase from sirlin, what about the tier list? certain characters in street fighter are weak/strong against certain other characters. if you lose 50% health against an objectively stronger character, is that not a slippery slope? the impetus is on you, and you do NOT have an equal chance to recover.
furthermore, this works both ways and you could counter-pick your character to have an edge over your opponent.... a shallower slippery slope? ohhhh hello tarquin, that rather sounds like your idea!
Look, we need to get away from this failure of an analogy, it's not getting us anywhere. Let me summarise why I think there is a problem, as you asked me that directly.
Too many games end with roflstomps/concedes. The underlying reasons for this are many-fold. For example, team stacking on public servers is probably the biggest of these issues, and with any luck the introduction of Sabot will give us the ability, or at least the tools to mod the ability, to deal with this somewhat. Another reason for teams getting ahead, then pushing further and further ahead is the slippery slope. Losing your first two engagements as aliens often leads to getting pushed right back on the map, losing cyst chains and the ability to expand your early economy, and the initial edge that this can give the marines is one of a broad map control with lots of early res coming in. The timing of such a loss here is important: The same loss in the mid-game, when map control is more established and stable, is less difficult to come back from. Switch teams and the same is true, I'm just saying this as an example. The first 50 res you have MUST be well spent. Look at what happens if aliens buy 2 whips at the start. But mid game, sure you can waste res on 2 whips, but it doesn't matter so much. I guess what I'm saying is that the inherent value of resources decreases over time.
In and of itself, this isn't a problem. I'm not suggesting drastic changes to the game as it stands. Just a slight decrease in the value of the early resources compared to the mid-game and late-game, as this would be less punishing for small mistakes, or small victories for the opponent, over the course of the rest of the game.
Does that help to explain why I started this thread?
Before we suggest specific fixes, I think we need to figure out what we want to happen in each stage of the game.
My thoughts:
Early-game
Each side is merely "setting their pieces" and not making many strong offensive pushes - mistakes have little impact
- Focus on securing only enough resources & territory to support the mid-game (with little need/ability to secure more than that)
- Both teams should be better at defense than offense
Mid-game
The teams are established and ready to strike at each other - mistakes have an impact, but depending on how well the team set up in the early-game, it's still possible to recover
- Focus on attacking resources & territory
- Strike units & abilities appear (Fades, Jetpacks, Shotguns)
Late-game
The teams get their super-weapons out - mistakes have a catastrophic impact
- Assault units & abilities appear (Onos, EXOs, GLs)
On something of a side note: NS2 rewards high individual skill-levels. But most of the time, this only refers to the skill and reflexes of individual players on the ground. Because of the need for unending aggression, tactical & strategic skill is rarely rewarded to the same degree. It'd be nice if it was occasionally.
you keep saying the recource deficit causes an insurmountable position in the early game... that's irrelevant, if aliens spend 30 res on whips at the start it doesn't make a spot of difference unless marines can turn their 30 res advantage into a PHYSICAL surplus. e.g. armor upgrade.
is armor upgrade too strong, does it cause a snowballing effect which makes it insurmountable for aliens? i don't think so, ergo i'm struggling to translate your resource deficit to the point where the physical surplus becomes insurmountable.
if those early alien engagements are lost not because of physical surplus, but for the sheer fact that marines are stronger.... then with any luck the introduction of Sagat will give us the ability to deal with this somewhat.
This is why I think we need less powerful turtling for Aliens in particular. Hand grenades for cheap bust AoE damage on structures, weaken cysts so it should never take more than one LMG magazine to kill one and increase infestation recede rate.
30 of your initial team res not put into res towers means you will be significantly poorer in the rest of the game, especially as aliens, as your RTs take extra res to reach with cysts. Poor early-game res management can definitely lead to a snow balling effect if you have 3 more RTs to gain surplus res.
When too many aliens die, you potentially run out of eggs, and then need to supplement the normal rate of egg creation with eggs from a shift. Lets look at that quickly. Too many aliens are dying, that's negative. I suppose you may be inclined to argue that maybe you are trying an all in base rush of some sort, but at the very least if the marines are attempting to counter it, you are breaking even, so overall I would say its negative.
Now you need to spend resources in order to return to the baseline, to return to normality. The new eggs don't mean more powerful aliens, they don't mean more alien players, they don't even mean faster spawning aliens. It simply means that you now reinforce at a normal rate, instead of a decreased rate. On top of that, once used, the eggs cost is completely lost. No lasting benefit.
So at this point, you are in a negative situation, and you begin expending resources in order to return to normal operating efficiency, while your enemy, presumably (but not necessarily) in a positive position, expends resources on more typical upgrades which have a lasting benefit to the team.
In such a situation, assuming that both teams are equally skilled, I'm sure you will agree that purely from an economics perspective, the aliens cannot win. There is simply no way. What this essentially means is that a mechanic like egg spawns does absolutely nothing but prolong an already lost game.
If those eggs mean you are more likely to force the marine comm to spam medpacks and ammo, there may be an economic benefit to them, but I don't *think* the presence of a forward shift has much impact on the number of medpacks/ammopacks used - I would be very surprised it it was as much as the cost of the eggs.
Carapace, of course, DOES impact medpacks and ammo, those res which are 'wasted' and do not contribute directly to the future economy (although of course they do indirectly through map control/res control, let's not go there just now). Harder to kill aliens get more bites on marines, use more ammo up in the process, and therefore impact directly on meds and ammo, in addition to the map control.
Ultimately, I'd like to see early game costs less impactful on the later game, this would mitigate some of the problems that early game errors can have unrecoverable consequences. In addition, a boost of the shift usefuless (reduction in egg cost, celerity working in combat) would be a benefit to the game, I feel.