A big problem I see with this right now in competitive at least is.
It felt like the aliens are just way too strong. The fact they can rush to your first natural expansion RT's before you have even finished building is ridiculous. You can put constant pressure on the marines forcing them out of position the entire game while being able to group up for almost all team fights and get back to any RT's you were previously harassing in a matter of seconds.
Another problem is the infinite time that parasite lasts and that the only way of removing it is by using an armoury (as far as I know). It gives the Alien team far too much sight on the map making any kind of sneaky pushes almost impossible.
The marines feel very weak early game, an important part of being a marine is being able to pressure at the right time but its way to difficult when the aliens can virtually be everywhere as a unit to defend any pressure you put on. There needs to be some kind of boost to the marines early game to help them deal with the crazy amount of mobility that the aliens have. I am not sure exactly what but even killing a skulk 1v1 is hard due to the speed that they can close the gap between you and them down now. Positioning is another important part of being a marine but now it feels almost pointless when any distance you put between yourself and a skulk now makes very little difference due to the speed.
Some possible solutions would be either increasing the damage that the LMG does although you have to think how this would affect mid-late game. Perhaps giving something like phase gates as a free upgrade to marines could make a difference so they can combat the mobility of the skulks more efficiently and make them cheaper to drop or increasing the base armour of a marine so he has a bit more survivability early game.
This is all just the problems I see with early-mid game.
As soon as fades are out it is basically GG because its nigh enough impossible to hold enough RT's to get the required upgrades to deal with the fades. It is equally as hard to put enough pressure on their RT's to damage their res flow sufficiently that it slows the time down that Aliens can get fades.
To break it all down.
Marines die far too easily early game.
Skulks can put pressure on your natural expansions before they have even finished building.
Due to parasite lasting forever until someone uses an armoury aliens can see almost everything the marines are doing.
Marine mobility is not enough to deal with the constant pressure aliens can put on the marine RT's due to the speed they have.
Aliens only need parasite and 2 bites to kill a single marine with armour 0, this has now become far easier to achieve due to the speed a skulk can close any gap down.
Now I feel like some or alot of these problems become null and void in public play due to the sheer number of players on a full server. That alone combats the fact that most alien lifeforms can get around the map extremely quickly because there are enough marine players to cover many different areas. Competitive play requires something different to combat the same problem.
I feel like perhaps there should be a competitive mod or mode that has some differences to the balance test that is used on public. Much like how other games change certain server settings for competitive play like round time on CS to ensure that the terrorist team does not spend ages camping and is forced to execute some quick play strategies to win the rounds.
There is more I want to say but I will talk about that after some more time playing competitive matches on the mod.
I feel like perhaps there should be a competitive mod or mode that has some differences to the balance test that is used on public. Much like how other games change certain server settings for competitive play like round time on CS to ensure that the terrorist team does not spend ages camping and is forced to execute some quick play strategies to win the rounds.
No.
Let me quote Grissi's signature, it hits the nail in the head; "There is no competitive balance or casual players balance. The game is either balanced or not balanced. It's the same game after all."
I can't comment on the other stuff in your post because I haven't been able to test the BT mod in a 6v6 enviroment, but skulks are way easier to hit now. The problem I see early game is that skulks are way too silent when going super-hyper-warp-drive-mode. The "exhausting dog" -breathing is meant for the marines to hear(..?) but only causes severe annoyance to the skulk player. My suggestion would be to make the "splat" sound louder (the sound you make when you jump/land) the faster you go.
Other random stuff:
I'd hope to see some improvements to the marine movement, it is kind of hard to dodge even mediocre skulks (maybe the skulk bite cone is abit too wide?)
Fade:
LOVE IT! You actually have to AIM with the fade, no more brainless grinding where every swipe hits. Vortex finally useful. I would hope to see more of a difference when choosing adre or celerity. Cele seems to give little to no difference in fade movement, so picking adrenaline is allways the better choise as of now.
Umbra: *snip * Umbra needs to be a stationary "cloud", not something you put in your pocket and take with you to battle. "When in doubt, check ns1 out."
I had a big list of notes in my head yesterday.. can't seem to remember any of them now.. Funny how dementia works. Koala.
"There is no competitive balance or casual players balance. The game is either balanced or not balanced. It's the same game after all."
No, this is not true. Comp balance is only one that matters but something that is fair and balanced in comp can be highly unbalanced in pub play. The difference between the two is knowing how to react primarily, and some things will be OP if one does not have the basic skills/knowledge to react to it. People need to stop thinking this is one true statement, as it is completely wrong.
balance means different things to different people - for some, its a 50/50 win rate, to others it means that there is no defacto optimal strategy etc. in reality, the concept of 'balance' is an amalgamation of a variety of different concepts. As such it can never truly be absolute.
I think its obvious that if you enter different parameters, the results you get will be different. Either UWE/sewlek have to determine arbitrarily what the optimum parameters are, and design around that, or have modulating gameplay elements according to different parameters, the former being much easier than the latter i would imagine. the most obvious example of this in NS2 is the fact that UWE decided to design the game around an optimum game size of 8v8. is it any surprise therefore that 6v6 or 12v12 games demonstrate fairly obvious 'balance' issues.
a Custom ruleset or scaling ( i know these are implemented in BT to a certain extent already) mechanics are a worthwhile suggestion - the question is what and how, or else we simply have to accept that if we play outside the optimal parameters the game experience will be less than 'perfect'.
No, this is not true. Comp balance is only one that matters but something that is fair and balanced in comp can be highly unbalanced in pub play.
First of all, this hasn't been the case at all. Vanilla ns2 has been well balanced in competetive side aswell as in public. Nothing in the game has been "OP" in pubs compared to competetive games. And I wouldn't go as far as saying that the competetive balance is the only thing that matters, its not.
The difference between the two is knowing how to react primarily, and some things will be OP if one does not have the basic skills/knowledge to react to it.
This isn't balance, its gamesense and personal skill/knowledge of the game, nothing to do with balance of the game.
People need to stop thinking this is one true statement, as it is completely wrong.
Eh.. this gave me cancer. No one said its "the one true statement", or, "WORSHIP ALLAH OR DIE IN HELLFIRE" -kinda thing. I for one don't want to play 2 different versions of NS2. I enjoy competetive games, but I also enjoy public gaming, so the game has to be balanced for both. I understand the difficulty of doing so in a game where no hard counters exist and having 2 extremely different sides, but it is possible.
vanilla competitive gameplay is just about as clear an example of 'unbalanced' as you can get... the win rates are not anywhere near even, and there is very much a defacto optimum strategy, particularly on aliens but also on marines...
Go ban this mod.
This will split the community...
And die harder the game.... (that my opinion)
we can take one or two good idea but not change all game mechanic Don't want play ns3...
We need to improve the unnecessary searches (flamethrower,grenadelauncher ,whipe,echo,shift,celerity,exo,tech tree marine,split upgrade alien...(shell 1,shell2,shell 3,) ...)
After 3-4 min we can know who can won... and after 7-10 min the match end...
This is not pretty funny to make all time shorty game... because the team can take a big advantages at begin... (we need to break this!!!)
For example ,in moba you have tower turret, to limit the progression and to not finish the game in 5 min...
Maybe Ressource tower and haverster need to be more resistant at begin and after with some tech tree lower at end...
or we can make harverster and extractor cheaper and more weaker to conservate a game very aggresif...
(If you kill 2-3 extractor or haverster in the first 2-3 min the game will be end because team take a big advantages we need to break this...
BT Fade continues to confound me... I get that you move by blinking to gain speed and then bhopping and I can do that just fine... but how on earth are you supposed to get kills without shadowstep?
As an aside, what is so terrible about vanilla Fade movement to necessitate this change?
However, the skulk movement is excellent and I feel severely gimped whenever I go back to play skulk in vanilla. The skulk may be too fast in the BT though.
BT Fade continues to confound me... I get that you move by blinking to gain speed and then bhopping and I can do that just fine... but how on earth are you supposed to get kills without shadowstep?
As an aside, what is so terrible about vanilla Fade movement to necessitate this change?
However, the skulk movement is excellent and I feel severely gimped whenever I go back to play skulk in vanilla. The skulk may be too fast in the BT though.
You use blink the same way that you would use shadowstep - blink and swipe as you go by, blink again without losing momentum.
Vanilla Fade movement was severely overpowered. The instant acceleration combined with the visual obstruction made it too difficult to hit fades, hence the power of fade balls.
I like where the skulk is now. Celerity skulk probably needs to be toned down a little bit, we're currently able to hit 16-17 speed. It should probably be reduced to 14.5-15.
Umbra: *snip *] Umbra needs to be a stationary "cloud", not something you put in your pocket and take with you to battle. "When in doubt, check ns1 out."
Besides my objection with your use of language... this is funny.
Umbra in the BT works pretty much exactly how NS1 worked. In NS1 if you hit an umbra cloud you would get the umbra effect for a certain amount of time. There weren't very good fx to indicate this like in NS2, but the mechanics are the same. Otherwise umbra just wouldn't work very well. Changing the length of time the umbra sticks on an alien might be good, or toning down the effect a bit, but yeah...
"When in doubt, check ns1 out."
BT Fade continues to confound me... I get that you move by blinking to gain speed and then bhopping and I can do that just fine... but how on earth are you supposed to get kills without shadowstep?
As an aside, what is so terrible about vanilla Fade movement to necessitate this change?
However, the skulk movement is excellent and I feel severely gimped whenever I go back to play skulk in vanilla. The skulk may be too fast in the BT though.
Basically, you just ignore Shadowstep completely. It is just a gimped version of Blink at the moment.
Read the list on Steam. Though I haven't played it, it does sound a lot better.
Some things you have changed I have ranted about before, such as whips auto rooting/unrooting. Makes them so much more viable/interesting and was such as obvious move. Should have been done yages ago.
Also, Whips exploding grenades on contact. I suggested this one a while ago, good to see that in there.
Personally I dislike Hallucination, and would instead love to see some sort of 'decoy'. Maybe using the drifter to 'fake attack' buildings, by showing up as a different class on the minimap. Or generating false signatures when deployed near a group of marines. Could be really interesting to do so before an attack, or just to delay marines somehow so that they have to search an area out first. Perhaps it could generate sounds.
I'd also like to see camouflage effect the minimap for marines, rather than making them invisible. Maybe they only show up on the marine that sees its minimap, or perhaps not at all. Maybe aliens should be invisible if out of a certain range and start to fade in as they get closer? That would solve a lot of the issues of annoyance!
Alright, time to add my two cents. I've been trying out the mod for some time, although I can't say it has grown on me. The main reason for this is the new alien movement system. It just feels WRONG in every possible way. I can rack up kills with it just as in vanilla... that's not the point. It's just not *enjoyable* at all.
I'll try to explain what's wrong about it.
When I took my first steps as a Kharaa player, I remember that my first reaction to the lifeform's movement was "wow, this is cool". They all felt (and still feel) very believable and... *organic*. Playing a Lerk actually feels like *flying*. Playing Fade just feels like I expected it to be from the game trailers.
Cue to the balance mod's lifeform movement. The best way I can describe it is "traveling on rails". It feels like an arcade shooter, and not organic at all. For example, the Lerk seems to have a vastly simplified flight model now, but not in a good way. It feels dumbed down, and completely uninteresting. Skulk movement may give you an initial "wheee that's fast" impression, but that feels like a cheap trick to me. You could boost the vanilla Skulk's movement speed and acceleration and get a similar rush. The skulk's combat movement seems very constrained as well. I'm a canine-style lifeform, but I'd better not jump at my target to bite it? How silly is that? As for the Fade, my main point is that I don't see why it needs to change at all. (Actually, this applies to the Lerk as well.)
Regarding the addition of "weave movement" (aka "it's not bhop")... I hate this idea with a passion. Regarding the stated goal of "raising the skill ceiling", this is a really silly and artificial way to achieve that. I don't want to weave my mouse like an idiot while moving from A to B. As an analogy, you could also "raise the skill ceiling" by having to balance small objects on your head while playing. That doesn't mean it makes any *sense* within the game or is enjoyable in any way. As a counter-example, wall-jumping makes perfect sense within the game world, and is fun to use. Maybe its implementation needs to be tweaked, and its effect boosted... that's fine. "Weave movement", on the other hand, is simply a horrible kludge.
Given that I play Kharaa about 80% of the time, I *dread* the idea that these movement changes could possibly be incorporated into standard NS2. Please... just don't. Tweak the one problematic lifeform, the Skulk, in small increments, and leave the other lifeforms alone. Their movement is fine as it is.
Let me reiterate, as this straw man is brought up over and over: My complaint is NOT about having to learn something new. I'm more than willing to do that if it's a change for the better. What I AM saying is that the BT movement is a step in the wrong direction. And I don't want to invest time into mastering something that's worse than what we have now.
No, this is not true. Comp balance is only one that matters but something that is fair and balanced in comp can be highly unbalanced in pub play.
First of all, this hasn't been the case at all. Vanilla ns2 has been well balanced in competetive side aswell as in public. Nothing in the game has been "OP" in pubs compared to competetive games. And I wouldn't go as far as saying that the competetive balance is the only thing that matters, its not.
The difference between the two is knowing how to react primarily, and some things will be OP if one does not have the basic skills/knowledge to react to it.
This isn't balance, its gamesense and personal skill/knowledge of the game, nothing to do with balance of the game.
People need to stop thinking this is one true statement, as it is completely wrong.
Eh.. this gave me cancer. No one said its "the one true statement", or, "WORSHIP ALLAH OR DIE IN HELLFIRE" -kinda thing. I for one don't want to play 2 different versions of NS2. I enjoy competetive games, but I also enjoy public gaming, so the game has to be balanced for both. I understand the difficulty of doing so in a game where no hard counters exist and having 2 extremely different sides, but it is possible.
I'm done derailing.
Apparently Camo was OP'd in pub play but not in comp (as it was not used due to comms/players having enough smarts to change strats)...yet we ended up with the current (useless) vanilla camo due to it apparently being OP'd.
Sadly a lot of ppl do have the view that comp play is where balance should be judged and this is often brought up as a reason for/against a change.
Balance is more crucial to get right for pub play more than comp play as withouth a solid pub/casual player base you wont have comp scene for long.
For comp play if one side has an advantage it matter not, a lot of games have 1 side with an advantage.
But what they have is both sides being fun to play, whilst not worrying about always having a 50-50 win rate.
Most comp games have 2 rounds (occasionally 3 with defender choosing which side to play twice) so you get a chance to play both sides and as such any inbalance is fair.
I will no doubt get shot down for such a statement but its more important to balance for pub play than comp.
hakenspit you know very little about comp play in this game so I suggest just not commenting on it.
/notsarcasm
Whilst I may not be a comp player...its was highlighted in the forums at the time that the issues with camo were not seen in comp play.
Are you saying that this is incorrect and that camo was an issue in comp play?
I have watched my share of comp games and dont recall seeing the camo first path take very often (if at all...though have not watched every stream).
I shall let the attempted personal attack/baiting go through to the keeper and not stoop to your level other than to make one point.
You still need to realise that its not comments that can be taken at face value that need clarification.
But rather statements you are making sarcasticly that need clarification (especially when they are all that your post comprises of).
Whilst I may not be a comp player...its was highlighted in the forums at the time that the issues with camo were not seen in comp play.
Are you saying that this is incorrect and that camo was an issue in comp play?
I have watched my share of comp games and dont recall seeing the camo first path take very often (if at all...though have not watched every stream).
I shall let the attempted personal attack/baiting go through to the keeper and not stoop to your level other than to make one point.
You still need to realise that its not comments that can be taken at face value that need clarification.
But rather statements you are making sarcasticly that need clarification (especially when they are all that your post comprises of).
Read what you write for heavens sake. You stated:
Balance is more crucial to get right for pub play more than comp play as withouth a solid pub/casual player base you wont have comp scene for long.
For comp play if one side has an advantage it matter not, a lot of games have 1 side with an advantage.
But what they have is both sides being fun to play, whilst not worrying about always having a 50-50 win rate.
Most comp games have 2 rounds (occasionally 3 with defender choosing which side to play twice) so you get a chance to play both sides and as such any inbalance is fair.
I will no doubt get shot down for such a statement but its more important to balance for pub play than comp.
In other words, you are commenting on comp play despite having very little clue about it. Every comp player here is both a comp player and a pub player and knows significantly more about how each is organised and the relationship between the two than you do by virtue of you not being a comp player.
Then of course you have to add your victim clause at the bottom where dare criticising your view is deemed a "shoot down" thus giving you a feeling of a moral high ground.
Also, that wasn't a personal attack despite your magnanimous feelings. A personal attack would be to say you have autistic tendencies with your inability to see things other than at face value. Now I am certainly not suggest that is the case, because that would be rude. See the difference?
p.s. Why do you hate comp players and people with different opinions? You are so intolerant and closed minded.
Whilst I may not be a comp player...its was highlighted in the forums at the time that the issues with camo were not seen in comp play.
Are you saying that this is incorrect and that camo was an issue in comp play?
I have watched my share of comp games and dont recall seeing the camo first path take very often (if at all...though have not watched every stream).
I shall let the attempted personal attack/baiting go through to the keeper and not stoop to your level other than to make one point.
You still need to realise that its not comments that can be taken at face value that need clarification.
But rather statements you are making sarcasticly that need clarification (especially when they are all that your post comprises of).
Read what you write for heavens sake. You stated:
Balance is more crucial to get right for pub play more than comp play as withouth a solid pub/casual player base you wont have comp scene for long.
For comp play if one side has an advantage it matter not, a lot of games have 1 side with an advantage.
But what they have is both sides being fun to play, whilst not worrying about always having a 50-50 win rate.
Most comp games have 2 rounds (occasionally 3 with defender choosing which side to play twice) so you get a chance to play both sides and as such any inbalance is fair.
I will no doubt get shot down for such a statement but its more important to balance for pub play than comp.
In other words, you are commenting on comp play despite having very little clue about it. Every comp player here is both a comp player and a pub player and knows significantly more about how each is organised and the relationship between the two than you do by virtue of you not being a comp player.
Then of course you have to add your victim clause at the bottom where dare criticising your view is deemed a "shoot down" thus giving you a feeling of a moral high ground.
Also, that wasn't a personal attack despite your magnanimous feelings. A personal attack would be to say you have autistic tendencies with your inability to see things other than at face value. Now I am certainly not suggest that is the case, because that would be rude. See the difference?
p.s. Why do you hate comp players and people with different opinions? You are so intolerant and closed minded.
I read what you wrote...suggest you extend the same courtesy.
Was my comments about camo wrong (I assume not as you're not saying so)?
Or was my comment that things being imbalanced in comp play means they will be in pub (or vice versa)?
It was my understanding that from comp play side of things shade was not 1st hive and as such the camo issue was not there.
Just because I dont play comp NS2 does not mean I have never played at a comp level, I suggest you dont simply dismiss someone as you have not met them/dont know them.
I can certainly speak about difference in comp play and something being unbalanced for 1 team, I have played many games where a map might offer 1 side an adv advantage...and as such you can see 3 map changes for a match so any such issues are addressed.
The impact of most issues (other than exploits) are more felt by the general public and not comp players.
Your "/notsarcasm" was clearly antagonistic and a swipe (trying to look funny to your mates) based on previous posts in relation to the fact you made a post that I and others misinterpreted and you didn't like the fact I indicated you were being juvenile and arrogant in giving no indication in your post that you had sarcastic intent.
I dont hate comp players, I just dont like ones that believe the entire worlds revolves around them and their opinion is somehow worth more than anyone else.
Without a good casual player base you wont have a comp scene...so it take many more ppl who are casual gamers than comp gamers...as such the views of comp players should be secondary to those of the casual players.
Now comp players choose to invest large amounts of their lives into playing a game (or games), something that casual gamers dont want to or cant do.
But whilst comp players may play a game more...does not mean they have any more of a clue than a casual gamer.
In fact the casual gamer is going to have insights the comp player doesn't (as the casual gamer see the game from the other end of the skill range).
Comp players are great at showing what a game offers...and what ppl who dedicate scary numbers of hours can do. They dont represent the experience that most ppl have....this is never more the case than with NS2 which has a very high skill floor (on aliens) and this is something the comp scene has trouble seeing.
Now it seems that some comp players dont like the fact that the casual gamer is as important (if not more so) than they are in the longevity of a game.
I saw it with TFC...it was not a lack of old clanners still looking for a game that was the issue...it was the lack of fresh faces.
i find that the crag/shift/shade now work more like tech structures, and as such i am much more hesitant to place them on the field as they represent a more significant (and vulnerable) investment.
I think it would simply be better to have a chamber per lifeform.
Or.. you can have one in base, to be the one for the upgrade, and all the rest out there without any upgrades attached... But also yes i do find it weird that upgrades are from structures.
New khara movement in bt mod is for me terrible. I really hate it. Other stuff seems fine, especially no glancig bites . I would be very happy that in Vanilla would remove it, and add some tweaks from bt mod (almost everything i like, but movement is f*cked, die and burn in hell bunnyhoping and arcade style movement)
Umbra: *snip *] Umbra needs to be a stationary "cloud", not something you put in your pocket and take with you to battle. "When in doubt, check ns1 out."
Besides my objection with your use of language... this is funny.
Umbra in the BT works pretty much exactly how NS1 worked. In NS1 if you hit an umbra cloud you would get the umbra effect for a certain amount of time. There weren't very good fx to indicate this like in NS2, but the mechanics are the same. Otherwise umbra just wouldn't work very well. Changing the length of time the umbra sticks on an alien might be good, or toning down the effect a bit, but yeah...
FrozenNew York, NYJoin Date: 2010-07-02Member: 72228Members, Constellation
I just finally spent a couple hours working with the movement. Skulk-wise, I love it. My only issue is that since bhopping is back, can you make it so that holding default ctrl doesn't slow you down?
Since default shift slows you anyway, there's no need for that, but there is a huge need to hold that down while bhopping without the fear of it slowing you down. I'm not 100% sure if this effects speed the way it is, but I don't like that it is there.
Skulks are way too fast, we played some competitive games in BT with friends and it feels like marines can't win because of skulk speed. In early engagements, aliens can attack a marines position and the go back to defence in a really short time. This causes more aggression on marines resources early games and less pressure on alien harvesters -> quick fades against little to no upgrades marines -> game end.
One other thing : the reworked movements code for marines make it impossible to climb in skylight vent in veil. (you can but you need 3 marines climbing on each other). This is sad because in pub you always see some alien camping in this vent, it would be worse. 2 extractors requiring marine presence is not good (and it's not fun to wait 10 min looking at a vent)
Other points i'm figuring out that are real problems...
Umbra shouldn't apply a buff that stays on aliens. It should affect them only if they are in the cloud. Otherwise, it's just skill less : spam umbra anywhere and you win the fight ! Since the range of umbra is quite good, it should work this way.
A big big problem, as i'm commanding during matches. As marine, i always see my marines die before i can even med them. Worst of all, i can get to them as soon as there's an alert and insta drop a perfect med. But, you know what ? There's a CD. On early fights, without armor 1, you have time to give 1 med to the marine before he dies. On a marine without armor, it's aweful. 1bite = marine at 25hps. You give him a perfect med (marine = 75hp), rage while waiting during the CD, and another bite comes. Since there's no glancing bites anymore, you can be sure he marine dies before you can drop your second med.
So well, what to do ? either give marines 101hp, either make meds give 51hps. OR SOMETHING. I don't really know what right now, but it's a situation that comes every single fight. I'm already giving meds before the marine get bitten, but no way you can be precise, and it gives more place for luck.
Please, get the Assault Rifle spread out of this game ! This is not CS. It's more a quake like game. I really don't like it at all. More place for luck.
Comments
It felt like the aliens are just way too strong. The fact they can rush to your first natural expansion RT's before you have even finished building is ridiculous. You can put constant pressure on the marines forcing them out of position the entire game while being able to group up for almost all team fights and get back to any RT's you were previously harassing in a matter of seconds.
Another problem is the infinite time that parasite lasts and that the only way of removing it is by using an armoury (as far as I know). It gives the Alien team far too much sight on the map making any kind of sneaky pushes almost impossible.
The marines feel very weak early game, an important part of being a marine is being able to pressure at the right time but its way to difficult when the aliens can virtually be everywhere as a unit to defend any pressure you put on. There needs to be some kind of boost to the marines early game to help them deal with the crazy amount of mobility that the aliens have. I am not sure exactly what but even killing a skulk 1v1 is hard due to the speed that they can close the gap between you and them down now. Positioning is another important part of being a marine but now it feels almost pointless when any distance you put between yourself and a skulk now makes very little difference due to the speed.
Some possible solutions would be either increasing the damage that the LMG does although you have to think how this would affect mid-late game. Perhaps giving something like phase gates as a free upgrade to marines could make a difference so they can combat the mobility of the skulks more efficiently and make them cheaper to drop or increasing the base armour of a marine so he has a bit more survivability early game.
This is all just the problems I see with early-mid game.
As soon as fades are out it is basically GG because its nigh enough impossible to hold enough RT's to get the required upgrades to deal with the fades. It is equally as hard to put enough pressure on their RT's to damage their res flow sufficiently that it slows the time down that Aliens can get fades.
To break it all down.
Marines die far too easily early game.
Skulks can put pressure on your natural expansions before they have even finished building.
Due to parasite lasting forever until someone uses an armoury aliens can see almost everything the marines are doing.
Marine mobility is not enough to deal with the constant pressure aliens can put on the marine RT's due to the speed they have.
Aliens only need parasite and 2 bites to kill a single marine with armour 0, this has now become far easier to achieve due to the speed a skulk can close any gap down.
Now I feel like some or alot of these problems become null and void in public play due to the sheer number of players on a full server. That alone combats the fact that most alien lifeforms can get around the map extremely quickly because there are enough marine players to cover many different areas. Competitive play requires something different to combat the same problem.
I feel like perhaps there should be a competitive mod or mode that has some differences to the balance test that is used on public. Much like how other games change certain server settings for competitive play like round time on CS to ensure that the terrorist team does not spend ages camping and is forced to execute some quick play strategies to win the rounds.
There is more I want to say but I will talk about that after some more time playing competitive matches on the mod.
Let me quote Grissi's signature, it hits the nail in the head; "There is no competitive balance or casual players balance. The game is either balanced or not balanced. It's the same game after all."
I can't comment on the other stuff in your post because I haven't been able to test the BT mod in a 6v6 enviroment, but skulks are way easier to hit now. The problem I see early game is that skulks are way too silent when going super-hyper-warp-drive-mode. The "exhausting dog" -breathing is meant for the marines to hear(..?) but only causes severe annoyance to the skulk player. My suggestion would be to make the "splat" sound louder (the sound you make when you jump/land) the faster you go.
Other random stuff:
I'd hope to see some improvements to the marine movement, it is kind of hard to dodge even mediocre skulks (maybe the skulk bite cone is abit too wide?)
Fade:
LOVE IT! You actually have to AIM with the fade, no more brainless grinding where every swipe hits. Vortex finally useful. I would hope to see more of a difference when choosing adre or celerity. Cele seems to give little to no difference in fade movement, so picking adrenaline is allways the better choise as of now.
Umbra:
*snip * Umbra needs to be a stationary "cloud", not something you put in your pocket and take with you to battle. "When in doubt, check ns1 out."
I had a big list of notes in my head yesterday.. can't seem to remember any of them now.. Funny how dementia works. Koala.
No, this is not true. Comp balance is only one that matters but something that is fair and balanced in comp can be highly unbalanced in pub play. The difference between the two is knowing how to react primarily, and some things will be OP if one does not have the basic skills/knowledge to react to it. People need to stop thinking this is one true statement, as it is completely wrong.
I think its obvious that if you enter different parameters, the results you get will be different. Either UWE/sewlek have to determine arbitrarily what the optimum parameters are, and design around that, or have modulating gameplay elements according to different parameters, the former being much easier than the latter i would imagine. the most obvious example of this in NS2 is the fact that UWE decided to design the game around an optimum game size of 8v8. is it any surprise therefore that 6v6 or 12v12 games demonstrate fairly obvious 'balance' issues.
a Custom ruleset or scaling ( i know these are implemented in BT to a certain extent already) mechanics are a worthwhile suggestion - the question is what and how, or else we simply have to accept that if we play outside the optimal parameters the game experience will be less than 'perfect'.
This isn't balance, its gamesense and personal skill/knowledge of the game, nothing to do with balance of the game.
Eh.. this gave me cancer. No one said its "the one true statement", or, "WORSHIP ALLAH OR DIE IN HELLFIRE" -kinda thing. I for one don't want to play 2 different versions of NS2. I enjoy competetive games, but I also enjoy public gaming, so the game has to be balanced for both. I understand the difficulty of doing so in a game where no hard counters exist and having 2 extremely different sides, but it is possible.
I'm done derailing.
This will split the community...
And die harder the game.... (that my opinion)
we can take one or two good idea but not change all game mechanic
We need to improve the unnecessary searches (flamethrower,grenadelauncher ,whipe,echo,shift,celerity,exo,tech tree marine,split upgrade alien...(shell 1,shell2,shell 3,) ...)
After 3-4 min we can know who can won... and after 7-10 min the match end...
This is not pretty funny to make all time shorty game... because the team can take a big advantages at begin... (we need to break this!!!)
For example ,in moba you have tower turret, to limit the progression and to not finish the game in 5 min...
Maybe Ressource tower and haverster need to be more resistant at begin and after with some tech tree lower at end...
or we can make harverster and extractor cheaper and more weaker to conservate a game very aggresif...
(If you kill 2-3 extractor or haverster in the first 2-3 min the game will be end because team take a big advantages we need to break this...
Soz for my english
As an aside, what is so terrible about vanilla Fade movement to necessitate this change?
However, the skulk movement is excellent and I feel severely gimped whenever I go back to play skulk in vanilla. The skulk may be too fast in the BT though.
You use blink the same way that you would use shadowstep - blink and swipe as you go by, blink again without losing momentum.
Vanilla Fade movement was severely overpowered. The instant acceleration combined with the visual obstruction made it too difficult to hit fades, hence the power of fade balls.
I like where the skulk is now. Celerity skulk probably needs to be toned down a little bit, we're currently able to hit 16-17 speed. It should probably be reduced to 14.5-15.
Umbra in the BT works pretty much exactly how NS1 worked. In NS1 if you hit an umbra cloud you would get the umbra effect for a certain amount of time. There weren't very good fx to indicate this like in NS2, but the mechanics are the same. Otherwise umbra just wouldn't work very well. Changing the length of time the umbra sticks on an alien might be good, or toning down the effect a bit, but yeah...
"When in doubt, check ns1 out."
Basically, you just ignore Shadowstep completely. It is just a gimped version of Blink at the moment.
Some things you have changed I have ranted about before, such as whips auto rooting/unrooting. Makes them so much more viable/interesting and was such as obvious move. Should have been done yages ago.
Also, Whips exploding grenades on contact. I suggested this one a while ago, good to see that in there.
Personally I dislike Hallucination, and would instead love to see some sort of 'decoy'. Maybe using the drifter to 'fake attack' buildings, by showing up as a different class on the minimap. Or generating false signatures when deployed near a group of marines. Could be really interesting to do so before an attack, or just to delay marines somehow so that they have to search an area out first. Perhaps it could generate sounds.
I'd also like to see camouflage effect the minimap for marines, rather than making them invisible. Maybe they only show up on the marine that sees its minimap, or perhaps not at all. Maybe aliens should be invisible if out of a certain range and start to fade in as they get closer? That would solve a lot of the issues of annoyance!
I'll try to explain what's wrong about it.
When I took my first steps as a Kharaa player, I remember that my first reaction to the lifeform's movement was "wow, this is cool". They all felt (and still feel) very believable and... *organic*. Playing a Lerk actually feels like *flying*. Playing Fade just feels like I expected it to be from the game trailers.
Cue to the balance mod's lifeform movement. The best way I can describe it is "traveling on rails". It feels like an arcade shooter, and not organic at all. For example, the Lerk seems to have a vastly simplified flight model now, but not in a good way. It feels dumbed down, and completely uninteresting. Skulk movement may give you an initial "wheee that's fast" impression, but that feels like a cheap trick to me. You could boost the vanilla Skulk's movement speed and acceleration and get a similar rush. The skulk's combat movement seems very constrained as well. I'm a canine-style lifeform, but I'd better not jump at my target to bite it? How silly is that? As for the Fade, my main point is that I don't see why it needs to change at all. (Actually, this applies to the Lerk as well.)
Regarding the addition of "weave movement" (aka "it's not bhop")... I hate this idea with a passion. Regarding the stated goal of "raising the skill ceiling", this is a really silly and artificial way to achieve that. I don't want to weave my mouse like an idiot while moving from A to B. As an analogy, you could also "raise the skill ceiling" by having to balance small objects on your head while playing. That doesn't mean it makes any *sense* within the game or is enjoyable in any way. As a counter-example, wall-jumping makes perfect sense within the game world, and is fun to use. Maybe its implementation needs to be tweaked, and its effect boosted... that's fine. "Weave movement", on the other hand, is simply a horrible kludge.
Given that I play Kharaa about 80% of the time, I *dread* the idea that these movement changes could possibly be incorporated into standard NS2. Please... just don't. Tweak the one problematic lifeform, the Skulk, in small increments, and leave the other lifeforms alone. Their movement is fine as it is.
Let me reiterate, as this straw man is brought up over and over: My complaint is NOT about having to learn something new. I'm more than willing to do that if it's a change for the better. What I AM saying is that the BT movement is a step in the wrong direction. And I don't want to invest time into mastering something that's worse than what we have now.
Apparently Camo was OP'd in pub play but not in comp (as it was not used due to comms/players having enough smarts to change strats)...yet we ended up with the current (useless) vanilla camo due to it apparently being OP'd.
Sadly a lot of ppl do have the view that comp play is where balance should be judged and this is often brought up as a reason for/against a change.
Balance is more crucial to get right for pub play more than comp play as withouth a solid pub/casual player base you wont have comp scene for long.
For comp play if one side has an advantage it matter not, a lot of games have 1 side with an advantage.
But what they have is both sides being fun to play, whilst not worrying about always having a 50-50 win rate.
Most comp games have 2 rounds (occasionally 3 with defender choosing which side to play twice) so you get a chance to play both sides and as such any inbalance is fair.
I will no doubt get shot down for such a statement but its more important to balance for pub play than comp.
/notsarcasm
Are you saying that this is incorrect and that camo was an issue in comp play?
I have watched my share of comp games and dont recall seeing the camo first path take very often (if at all...though have not watched every stream).
I shall let the attempted personal attack/baiting go through to the keeper and not stoop to your level other than to make one point.
You still need to realise that its not comments that can be taken at face value that need clarification.
But rather statements you are making sarcasticly that need clarification (especially when they are all that your post comprises of).
Read what you write for heavens sake. You stated:
In other words, you are commenting on comp play despite having very little clue about it. Every comp player here is both a comp player and a pub player and knows significantly more about how each is organised and the relationship between the two than you do by virtue of you not being a comp player.
Then of course you have to add your victim clause at the bottom where dare criticising your view is deemed a "shoot down" thus giving you a feeling of a moral high ground.
Also, that wasn't a personal attack despite your magnanimous feelings. A personal attack would be to say you have autistic tendencies with your inability to see things other than at face value. Now I am certainly not suggest that is the case, because that would be rude. See the difference?
p.s. Why do you hate comp players and people with different opinions? You are so intolerant and closed minded.
I read what you wrote...suggest you extend the same courtesy.
Was my comments about camo wrong (I assume not as you're not saying so)?
Or was my comment that things being imbalanced in comp play means they will be in pub (or vice versa)?
It was my understanding that from comp play side of things shade was not 1st hive and as such the camo issue was not there.
Just because I dont play comp NS2 does not mean I have never played at a comp level, I suggest you dont simply dismiss someone as you have not met them/dont know them.
I can certainly speak about difference in comp play and something being unbalanced for 1 team, I have played many games where a map might offer 1 side an adv advantage...and as such you can see 3 map changes for a match so any such issues are addressed.
The impact of most issues (other than exploits) are more felt by the general public and not comp players.
Your "/notsarcasm" was clearly antagonistic and a swipe (trying to look funny to your mates) based on previous posts in relation to the fact you made a post that I and others misinterpreted and you didn't like the fact I indicated you were being juvenile and arrogant in giving no indication in your post that you had sarcastic intent.
I dont hate comp players, I just dont like ones that believe the entire worlds revolves around them and their opinion is somehow worth more than anyone else.
Without a good casual player base you wont have a comp scene...so it take many more ppl who are casual gamers than comp gamers...as such the views of comp players should be secondary to those of the casual players.
Now comp players choose to invest large amounts of their lives into playing a game (or games), something that casual gamers dont want to or cant do.
But whilst comp players may play a game more...does not mean they have any more of a clue than a casual gamer.
In fact the casual gamer is going to have insights the comp player doesn't (as the casual gamer see the game from the other end of the skill range).
Comp players are great at showing what a game offers...and what ppl who dedicate scary numbers of hours can do. They dont represent the experience that most ppl have....this is never more the case than with NS2 which has a very high skill floor (on aliens) and this is something the comp scene has trouble seeing.
Now it seems that some comp players dont like the fact that the casual gamer is as important (if not more so) than they are in the longevity of a game.
I saw it with TFC...it was not a lack of old clanners still looking for a game that was the issue...it was the lack of fresh faces.
I think it would simply be better to have a chamber per lifeform.
There is no question mark before this change. Does this mean that drifter workers are there to stay?..
Since default shift slows you anyway, there's no need for that, but there is a huge need to hold that down while bhopping without the fear of it slowing you down. I'm not 100% sure if this effects speed the way it is, but I don't like that it is there.
One other thing : the reworked movements code for marines make it impossible to climb in skylight vent in veil. (you can but you need 3 marines climbing on each other). This is sad because in pub you always see some alien camping in this vent, it would be worse. 2 extractors requiring marine presence is not good (and it's not fun to wait 10 min looking at a vent)
Umbra shouldn't apply a buff that stays on aliens. It should affect them only if they are in the cloud. Otherwise, it's just skill less : spam umbra anywhere and you win the fight ! Since the range of umbra is quite good, it should work this way.
A big big problem, as i'm commanding during matches. As marine, i always see my marines die before i can even med them. Worst of all, i can get to them as soon as there's an alert and insta drop a perfect med. But, you know what ? There's a CD. On early fights, without armor 1, you have time to give 1 med to the marine before he dies. On a marine without armor, it's aweful. 1bite = marine at 25hps. You give him a perfect med (marine = 75hp), rage while waiting during the CD, and another bite comes. Since there's no glancing bites anymore, you can be sure he marine dies before you can drop your second med.
So well, what to do ? either give marines 101hp, either make meds give 51hps. OR SOMETHING. I don't really know what right now, but it's a situation that comes every single fight. I'm already giving meds before the marine get bitten, but no way you can be precise, and it gives more place for luck.
Please, get the Assault Rifle spread out of this game ! This is not CS. It's more a quake like game. I really don't like it at all. More place for luck.