Natural Selection - Is It Really A Strategy Game?
Chopper_Dave1
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2353Members
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 2353Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Meh.</div> I just want you all to know that I love NS, so please hold off on the "if you don't like the game, make one yourself" comments. Kthx.
I've gotten kinda worried about NS as of late. This "First Person Strategy" is starting to lose what makes it special - its strategy.
In most strategy games, commanders have a wide variety of options as to how they can go about winning against a foe. They can use their funds to rush when the game is just starting up, catching the opponent with their pants down. They can use their funds to create a variety of defenses and turtle up in their base, waiting for their opponents to make an offensive and then going for the kill with a counter-offensive. They can beat the enemy by teching up and using stronger units. They can secure all resources on the map, generating a gargantuan cash flow but spreading the commander's forces a little thin. All these options are what make strategy fun.
But NS doesn't really allow such diversification anymore, not so much in clan games as in public games. You have to follow a certain build order on both sides, and if you don't, your team castagates you and usually, you lose.
For example, let's take a look at marines. In every SINGLE game in the past month, the only times I've seen anyone win is when they follow a specific build order: infantry portal, infantry portal, ammo dispenser, radar, phase gate, phase gate, phase gate. Marine victory basically operates on expansion, and nothing but expansion. A commander can't build a turret factory before he builds a phase gate anymore without getting kicked. He can't try to use his early funds to try to grab and control key resource nodes. Hell, he can't even use them to try to get an early technology advantage and win that way. It's ALWAYS hive, resource node, resource node, resource node, tech, siege win. It's mind-numbingly boring.
And the aliens - how repititious they have gotten. Resource node, resource node, resource node, defense tower, defense tower, hive. Sound familiar? That's because EVERY SINGLE DAMNED GAME follows that exact order. Well, unless the marines get an early hold on both hives, which just leads to a boring game. If you are a gorge and you try to build anything but a defense tower in the early game, not only do you get castagated by your entire team but you lose. If you try to build anything but a movement tower upon getting the second hive, not only does the team hate you, but generally, you lose. This is LAAAAAME. Why is the game designed so sensory = death? Why is it that the aliens are pretty much forced to abandon their original hive in order to fortify and secure an empty one as quickly as possible? Why can't there be some VARIATION in the strategy without the aliens losing.
/rant
I can't really say anything more then that. I'm sure at least some of you have thought the same thoughts at some point, though. Comments? Suggestions? I have a few suggestions of my own, but this rant is already too long, so I'll post 'em later.
I've gotten kinda worried about NS as of late. This "First Person Strategy" is starting to lose what makes it special - its strategy.
In most strategy games, commanders have a wide variety of options as to how they can go about winning against a foe. They can use their funds to rush when the game is just starting up, catching the opponent with their pants down. They can use their funds to create a variety of defenses and turtle up in their base, waiting for their opponents to make an offensive and then going for the kill with a counter-offensive. They can beat the enemy by teching up and using stronger units. They can secure all resources on the map, generating a gargantuan cash flow but spreading the commander's forces a little thin. All these options are what make strategy fun.
But NS doesn't really allow such diversification anymore, not so much in clan games as in public games. You have to follow a certain build order on both sides, and if you don't, your team castagates you and usually, you lose.
For example, let's take a look at marines. In every SINGLE game in the past month, the only times I've seen anyone win is when they follow a specific build order: infantry portal, infantry portal, ammo dispenser, radar, phase gate, phase gate, phase gate. Marine victory basically operates on expansion, and nothing but expansion. A commander can't build a turret factory before he builds a phase gate anymore without getting kicked. He can't try to use his early funds to try to grab and control key resource nodes. Hell, he can't even use them to try to get an early technology advantage and win that way. It's ALWAYS hive, resource node, resource node, resource node, tech, siege win. It's mind-numbingly boring.
And the aliens - how repititious they have gotten. Resource node, resource node, resource node, defense tower, defense tower, hive. Sound familiar? That's because EVERY SINGLE DAMNED GAME follows that exact order. Well, unless the marines get an early hold on both hives, which just leads to a boring game. If you are a gorge and you try to build anything but a defense tower in the early game, not only do you get castagated by your entire team but you lose. If you try to build anything but a movement tower upon getting the second hive, not only does the team hate you, but generally, you lose. This is LAAAAAME. Why is the game designed so sensory = death? Why is it that the aliens are pretty much forced to abandon their original hive in order to fortify and secure an empty one as quickly as possible? Why can't there be some VARIATION in the strategy without the aliens losing.
/rant
I can't really say anything more then that. I'm sure at least some of you have thought the same thoughts at some point, though. Comments? Suggestions? I have a few suggestions of my own, but this rant is already too long, so I'll post 'em later.
Comments
Ahem.
I already noted that tightly-knit clans allow for more strategies than usual. Problem is:
A) I'm not in a clan.
B) Not being in a clan, I don't play aginst clans.
C) This is mainly a rant about how poorly NS tends to public servers, which most players play on.
D) Even when you play on a public server with a mix of clan members and n00b's and average joe's, you almost always have more n00bs and average joe's then clan members, and so you have to resort to the above tactics.
Besides, moving in different patterns and using different choke points is something that isn't new to NS. In fact, it's used by nearly every clan existing for every game. Clans in Counterstrike move in different patterns and use different choke points. That excuse is honestly boring in the context of how different and unique NS is and tries to be.
The real problem with the DC/MC/SC stagnation is that offense chamber nests/walls simply CANNOT survive without a defense chamber or dedicated gorge nearby. That the OCs cannot heal themselves AT ALL bothers me. A minor regeneration (Say, 2 HP / tick, as opposed to the DC's 10) for offense chambers would allow movement or sensory to go up first.
I love Natural Selection and still thing it's a step up strategy-wise to other games...but I think it's missing a certain diversity that is the RTS norm. It's an awesome game, better than most - but it's still not as good as it could be.
Big suggestion - give all towers the ability to heal structures. Possibly, you could institute a new alien building system, involving the building of either an offensive tower or a new healing tower (suggested- 14 res?). The healing tower could then be upgraded, while retaining it's healing abilities, to one of the three existing towers. Of course, you'd have to give the defensive tower a new ability, but I already have a suggestion below.
<b>Sensory tower</b>-
Make the sensory tower shoot parasites. Because how often do you place a sensory tower in a position where a marine will accidentally run into it and be parasited? If you allow the sensory tower to shoot parasites (albeit very weak, causing little to no damage), then they would be much more useful in tracking marine movements.
Nerf advanced hive sight. Marines couldn't hide themselves or a tripmine in the dark even if they wanted to, making this pretty much useless.
Nerf scent of fear. Honestly, who uses this? If you are a gorge field medic, and you use it to sense injured aliens, you are wasting your time because simply scanning your aiming reticule over a friendly gives you his health. And if you use it to hunt marines, pah. They are barely ever injured, and when they ARE injured, they usually die for some reason a few seconds later. The only real use this has is to hunt down a hiding marine at the end of an alien victory; and even then, it's usually useless.
Add "Keen senses." This would allow any alien that uses it to pick up any nearby marines on hivesight before they enter a room. Basically, any marine within a certain radius of the alien, despite any walls between them, would appear on that alien's hivesight. This would allow the alien to have the jump on any marines, and could lead to some interesting battles when the marines have motion tracking. Each sensory tower would increase the radius of the personal sensory circle.
Add "Uncanny dodge." Using heightened senses, the alien gains the ability to dodge a percentage of the bullets that come its way. For balancing purposes, it wouldn't be nearly as effective as umbra; but it would help reduce the amount of damage taken (basically, like a different kind of carapace). 1 sensory tower = 1 out of 10 bullets dodged. 2 sensory towers = 1 out of 8 bullets dodged. 3 sensory towers = 1 out of 6 bullets dodged. Though I am still a little uneasy about this particular ability, because when paired with carapace and umbra, an alien with this could very well be invincible.
<b>Movement tower</b>-
Interesting suggestion: you could possibly make the movement tower warp aliens to unoccupied hives as well as occupied hives. That way, aliens could perform a hive rush at the sacrifice of their precious carapaces. It would be a nice counter to the early marine phase gate rush; though if marines do manage to get some turrets up in the hive, then a warping skulk would get torn apart regardless.
And allow the silence ability to mute alien attacking barks and other random growls. PLEASE.
<b>Defensive towers</b>
Make these so that they give an armor boost to any aliens in a nearby radius. That way, if marines are attacking an alien structure, any aliens trying to defend it would get a nice little boost from the tower. Hence, defense tower.
These are only suggestions, nothing more. In truth, I don't really expect any of them to be taken seriously, let alone implemented. But it sure is nice to get them off my mind.
As far as general strategy stagnation, I agree to an extent. There are clear strategies that are superior to others at the moment, and all I can say is be patient and give it time. I'll keep tweaking things until all the strategies are equally useful, or at least used often. The changes have to be performed slowly (I learned the hard way) and for a great number of people, to make sure they are friendly to new players. Just give it some time, and realize that NS has only just begun.
I feel that this idea clashes with carapace too much.
How about 'achiles heel'
--- 25% of damage dealt BY MELEE ATTACKS (bite/slash/charge etc) bypasses the target's armour, the remaining 75% gets treated like normal (scales up by e.g. 10%,20%,25%?)
--- +50% damage for melee attacks vs structures (20%,40%,50%)?
This would counteract the marines armor upgrades (to a small extent) much as weapon upgrades combat carapace. **obscenity** for tat if you will. And I don't think it will flop the balance of midgame too much, as 2 fade swipes take out a non HA marine anyway- and usually you see fades shooting rockets from behind umbra anyway.
I dunno. Just idle thoughts spawned by others good ideas. Eagerly await 1.1 <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Belated happy holidays all! Welcome to 2003.
Oh, and that background music, is that from Missionforce: Cyberstorm?
=EDIT=
t!t is an obscenity? Sorry =P
And hey! How about a magnum? Like 30 damage with a 6 round chamber! Slow fire. Or maybe I'm just dreaming here <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
I feel that this idea clashes with carapace too much.
How about 'achiles heel'
--- 25% of damage dealt BY MELEE ATTACKS (bite/slash/charge etc) bypasses the target's armour, the remaining 75% gets treated like normal (scales up by e.g. 10%,20%,25%?)
--- +50% damage for melee attacks vs structures (20%,40%,50%)?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I tend to go for the achilles heel suggestion, unless, umbra overrides this ability, and doesn't stack.
(1/42 bullets hitting would NOT! be good.)
I hope the ressource model is on your mind as well for marines. Apart from the brutal 2-hive phase gate rush, which doesn't work always on pub servers at least, I find the most stagnating of problems is that a 6-8 man marine team is struggling hard to earn enough ressources to counter 2-hive aliens (fades and umbra lerks) efficiently - they need upgrades or better weapons, and they cannot afford due to the way res is coming in.
Cannot entirely rule out that marines just cant play the res game well due to skill lack, but having tried it many times I do feel there's somewhat of a tippe scale in favour of aliens when it comes to controlling res in medium and small scale games. That is why comms have learned to work hard towards hive lockdowns instead of competing for ressources on the map. Where I play, I see rarely servers above 16, so I have no experience with gargantuan 32 player battles <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
there you go, dissing other strats.
other strats can and will win, given circumstances that vary according to the creativity of the player.
i have played cloaking first, and won. i have played defence first, frustrated marines with redemtion(this thing DOES work, just it aint instant), and won. and as marines i have played the quick siege, and won. played secure-one-hive-and upgrade-like-theres-no-tommorrow and won. theres also others.
theres also others that i lost, but i lost willingly, because each time i won, my mates playing the opposing force learns another strat, and tries to counter it.
its more fun when you are playing with regulars then strangers, who, eletist as they may be, would not know your game play.
other strats can win. the DC first strat you were obivously thinking of public matches, where this strat is well used because, hell, everyone knows it, and this leads to a deadlock.
its rock scissors paper. nothing is the best, or the weakest. it just requires on happenstance.
its very good that you are reducing the shotgun cost , that will make it much easier to kill them fades!
Sensory towers actually shooting paracites sounds promising, but I'm not sure if it would add all that much when we've already got skulks that can do the job for them. I like the idea of having Sensory Towers make structures jammed against detection from siege cannons myself.
Movement should be more appealing if it teleports to untaken hives as well, and the silence really greants full silence. It might even be a good first hive build on the grounds that it not only makes skulks that much more effective at stealth but grants you a quick means to secure the next hive..
Ever since I left Quake TF, way back when, I've been avoiding the clan thing... Too much politics... Don't ask... So, through all of my CSing and NSing, I only play on pubs, and here's what I found...
In 99% of games, the gorges are ORDERED to build defense first, and sometimes kicked if they don't... When I play gorge (Not often), I build defense first, mainly just to shut people up... But when a newbie gorge pops out a trio of sensory chambers right at the beginning, my response is usually "Now we donce <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->"...
But, you might say, sensory chambers are completely inferior to defense chambers in the early game... They can't stop an HMG rush... Well guess what people... I don't care... THEY'RE FUN! I honestly don't care if we win or lose on a pub, as long as I can have a good #%^(@#ing time doing it! As a skulk, I hate defense upgrades... They're boring... When I skulk, there's two upgrades I like to have... Cloaking or Silence. Why not celerity, you say? Well, speed is nice, but the most fun I have as a skulk is with guerilla tactics...
Just a few days ago, on... nancy, I think? Sewer/Ventilation/Generator... A poor gorge popped out a movement first, and with my little silence upgrade, I hung out in that room with the overhead pipe between the marine spawn and the vestibule, and I took out about 20 marines, one or two at a time, before they even realized what was going on... Listen to it, and you hear their footsteps... *clang clang clang clang clang clang CHOMP CHOMP uggggggh*.... When they hop on the chat and type something like "What the hell just happened?", I just laugh my head off and run to another hiding spot <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
--
Now on a second note:
I haven't played NS since the week it came out. I'm not exactly sure why... DoD just took me in for a little while...
My mod playing is very transitory, it just so happens its NS's time again this week. And in these past few days of playing, I've realized something:
Natural-Selection, whilst being the best mod available for Half-Life, is incapable of everything.
<!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
But, you might say, sensory chambers are completely inferior to defense chambers in the early game... They can't stop an HMG rush... Well guess what people... I don't care... THEY'RE FUN! I honestly don't care if we win or lose on a pub, as long as I can have a good #%^(@#ing time doing it! As a skulk, I hate defense upgrades... They're boring... When I skulk, there's two upgrades I like to have... Cloaking or Silence. Why not celerity, you say? Well, speed is nice, but the most fun I have as a skulk is with guerilla tactics...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Listen to him, kids. He has a great point!
Fun.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Awww, maaaaaaaan! Why won't it make my coffee? And do the dishes? And tune my pc? I want a BETTER Natural-Selection <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Ok, now I'm motivated to post some more of my strategy-balancing ideas, this time for the 'rines.
-I personally think that the arms lab could be a little cheaper. In a lot of strategy games with the option (Warcraft 3 comes to mind), the buildings in which you can buy upgrades are pretty cheap but the upgrades themselves are expensive. If you are a technology fiend, you can build 2 or even 3 of the said buildings to speed up the rate at which you can buy tech. At this point, it seems that aliens are gaining superior armor (level 3 carapace) and superior weapons (fades) by the time marines are just starting to research better weapons. If the arms lab was, say, 30 RP's, then a commander who wants to get better technology fast could build 2 for the price of 60 and speed things up a bit. If you tried to do that in NS currently, it would cost you 100 RP's, plus the 280 RP's it costs to get full upgrades...meh. The only problem is, of course, that certain clans might abuse the cheaper arms lab price in their already-evil rushes.
-I really, really think that the commander's alerts should be relayed to the marines. The aliens, it seems to me, are really motivated to defend when they hear that blaring "OUR RESOURCE TOWER IS UNDER ATTACK" or "OUR HIVE IS DIEING" message. I think it would do wonders if the marines could simply hear the "OUR BASE IS UNDER ATTACK!" message that the commander hears, as well as the "Turrets firing" and "Turrets taking damage" messages. Unlike the aliens, the marines wouldn't necessarily know what's being attacked - they'd just know that something is being attacked. Hopefully, they would then ask the commander for a waypoint, and if they already have a waypoint, would follow it.
-Resources are too hard to defend as marines. I think the aliens have superiority when it comes to blanketing the map with resources and defending them, since their hivesight informs them all when one particular node is under attack. When you are a marine, and you see an alien resource node, you are often afraid to knife it alone, because you know that every nearby skulk and gorge will be on the way to boot your **obscenity** back to the respawn line. When you are a skulk, you have no fear in noshing on a little marine resource tower, because you know that the marine commander is probably too busy to send a marine to defend it. And even then, the marine will probably not get there soon enough to kill you before you destroy the RT. There's also that little thing called the vent system which allows aliens to get around virtually every choke point the marine has, and quickly at that, making it the tedious responsibility of every commander to turret farm every single RT before guaranteeing its safety. It really would be nice if the marines got automatically directed to a resource tower in distress, at least if they were idle (i.e. had no real orders from the commander).
--edit-- Im glad to see chopper dave bringing good ideas from actual RTS'. Although i have played RTS' i havent played for long, and some times its difficult to bring new ideas in when everybody is from CS and think that the emphasis should be based on player power. Ex. A marine should be able to kill a fade when completely unupgraded easily.
I think that input from the strategy community will really help Natural Selection grow into a great first person strategy game.
I always thought it would be nice if stealth made you invisible to MT or made turrets unable to track you, or just made it harder for them to track you. I can see how this could totally upset the balance for turrets though, in absence of some other thing which would counter this.
At least NS the possibilites of strategy... I guess some people just don't like exploring them.
--
Now on a second note:
I haven't played NS since the week it came out. I'm not exactly sure why... DoD just took me in for a little while...
My mod playing is very transitory, it just so happens its NS's time again this week. And in these past few days of playing, I've realized something:
Natural-Selection, whilst being the best mod available for Half-Life, is incapable of everything.
<!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
*raises hand*
I too havent played NS for a while, I've been doing the WC3, Mech Commadner 2, And Mechwarrior thing now, and I'm afraid I'll be doing the Splinter Cell and C&C Generals soon, so I wont play for quite a while.