One of the best endings I've casted
RedDog
Las Vegas Join Date: 2013-02-22 Member: 183267Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, WC 2013 - Shadow
Las Vegas Join Date: 2013-02-22 Member: 183267Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, WC 2013 - Shadow
Comments
Ungrown hive win is the alternative... Call it a draw? I think it's fine like it is. Besides, it's not like the winning team hadn't actually dominated most of the game, it was just a particularly close rush end scenario resulting from some nice teamwork from both sides
Also a big difference between running an alien or a drifter through a blueprint and shooting down a freshly built hive. And in this case:
I'm British, I'm ALL for the underdog, but given all the other asymmetry, I just don't think the 15/40 res argument is the whole picture.
This...
game has never been like for like.
Not to mention that with 30 tres (Veil) or 45 tres (most other maps), you can instantly lock out the alien's 40 tres counter base rush protection. Please tell me you don't see a problem with this. 15 to 40 may not be the whole picture (excuse me for simplifying out things that don't really matter), but it's a godahm huge part of it.
Yea, the game has never been 'like for like', but who really cares about the other 'differences' when it comes down to a base race situation. 2nd hive could cost 100 tres and thus be invincible while building for all i care (or some other benefit that 'balances' the difference between 15 and 100). The fundamental res/timing imbalance in the context of base racing is still there.
And then there is the other problem with this which is not even about disparity between teams. You should not easily be able to instantly put something down out of thin air, in a place where you have no map presence that saves you from losing, no matter if it has effective hp of 1. Just look at starcraft. Map presence (divergence of on-field power that can actually be denied via map zoning/scouting) is required to create buildings that save you from base races.
It's bad design if you can commit everything to a base rush and then also magically protect yourself from a counter base rush with this "guess where" game. 1 marine out of the 5 should be at another techpoint ready to build that cc if you want to use this protection. Only then might it actually add something of interest to the game.
Anyway, I don't want to turn reddog's post into yet another balance thread. Nice casted game and such.
It feels somehow cheap when blueprint CCs protect marines from losing.
Anyway. Nice cast.
Oh really? If the aliens won would you say Unbuilt hive win should be fixed? Because a blueprint CC and an ungrown hive are the same thing.
Umm... Did we watch the same cast? The aliens dropped not 1 but 2 hives both easily and instantly with no aliens near by, BUT both hives had alot more the 1 HP...
Bingo! Hindsight is always 20/20, but I think in the moment they just made a snap call.
I honestly don't know either!!
There was a moment when I asked someone to build the CC in cargo which would have made it a lot more straight forward, it all got a bit muddling towards the end and I didn't expect they have ghosted both hives, poor play that we got away with perhaps!
Will always be the best comm in the eu, Fana hath spoken
You don't get your res back when your hive is killed. When blueprint is cleared, you can put another one right away in another place. And do it until your last real CC is destroyed.
You are more likely to have 15 res in emergency situation, than have 40 res.
You don't hear this loud NEW HIVE HERE GUISE sounds from the other edge of the map when CC is dropped.
Aliens don't have scans which might tell them where exactly that blueprint is.
Now, let's take real games as examples. I've had at least 3 games where at some point marines had no built CC, but blueprint. Two of them ended just like in the video - both bases going down, marine base destroyed first, blueprint grants victory for marines. I was on alien side in both of these game, it seemed to me like most unfair games in history. In that other game on Veil Control was rushed early game and I happened to be near Cargo at that time, I've actually rebuilt CC after our main was down. Needless to say, even if you can rebuild your base, you are in situation worse than at 0:00 - all you have is a CC and some res for RT if you are lucky, and aliens have all the map. So, the only time ghost CC is actually helpful is to get unfair advantage when both teams are at enemy bases.
It's just the nature of marine structures that bothers me. Blueprint is blueprint. It's nothing. Just a waypoints for marines. It can't be used to win the game. I'm totally fine if blueprint was touched by marine (or a MAC) for at least a second, then it would be fair. Marines have to build structures. Marines can drop blueprints here and there and don't be afraid to lose res (unless blueprint is destroyed by ranged weapon, which is another thing that I don't like at all). Aliens, on the other hand, drop real structures and they are on very low health when dropped, so it's a huge risk to do this in unexplored location.
I feel like this situation is an offshoot of many other mechanics that make the game work and make the game asymmetrical. Cost of hive v. CC time to build a hive, how ghosted structures work, etc. I don't think having special rules for the CC or for win conditions makes sense.
Does it make Base Races unbalanced? Of course, but the game is asymmetrical and marines have to do a lot more work when they find the growing hive. One unbalanced strategy, with one rare scenario does not justify changing the mechanics that work so well for the rest of the game.
Awesome game and Great Casting though. This whole set was awesome to watch.
I think you can still often destroy all oppositing forces without having a commander at all, so I don't think there's a strict necessity to tie the whole victory condition to CCs and hives.
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I haven't gone through this thoroughly, but my first thought is that the CC/Hive win condition is a bit of an overkill. There's not much variation or elegance in base trading if it's only tied to sniping specific buildings at a very specific spots. Would the game be much different if we talked about completed buildings or some other less restrictive rule?
Good base trades are chaos and quick decisions based on limited information. Too obvious game winning targets kind of cuts the base trade short and removes the wonderful chaotic panic of trying to figure out what's still left on each side and how to make your resoucres outlast the opponent's.
Brood War example:
Edit: Hmm, the timestamp doesn't seem to be working at the moment. Anyway, the basetrading starts somewhere around 10 minutes to the video.
2. I cannot for the life of me figure out why Ben was not GLUED to the Pipeline techpoint - there is no way he'd have made it to the other tech points in time.
Even if aliens had Pipe, they were killing Rt's on the West side of map (Skylights, Overlook, Sub-sector), while defending Nano. Nano is the perfect example of "how this map is wrong". We clearly see after losing Nano harvesters and Fades, that the bilebomber could not do anything except distract marines on that poorly placed PG (sorry, but walls are better than corners in here).
Alien did have at most 4 or 5 harvesters but mostly 2. 15 minutes like that is what i call pain, plain and simple. Especially when you have more than 140 res to spend...
There is definitely a need for a res flow system that just don't ruin it. It's like you have one try and that's it. Here we see : The 4 fades try, then the Onos try. Kind of a scenario that repeats itself over and over in clanplay. Same for "Exo+2 welders train". Thought we don't see it much on clanplay, it's a deadly mix.
I did that on a large pub game. 1 Onos and a Gorge. Even if we won; say "by one onos", i felt something is really wrong with that. It's never gonna do it on large game (yes pub needs attention too) but ultimately never gonna do it on clan play. Definitely something is wrong about it. It looks like a Role Playing card game, in which randomness makes you win. Opposite to strategy concepts.
I would prefer bigger maps to let both teams breath a little and then be able to fight for RTs domination in order to build up a real strategy and then bring the big guns. Even if res flow have to be slowed down, you have something to fight for. Here it's always the "last resort" thing that enter the stage. That poker style is far away from real strategic concerns.
PS NS2 isn't SC in first person
Was an interesting game at least.
well in defense: Big difference in blueprint with 0 hp that can go down in 0 seconds and a hive you actually have to spend time killing after its dropped would be unfair if it costed 15, or cc 40.