Macro vs Micro
maD_maX_
Join Date: 2013-04-07 Member: 184678Members
Join Date: 2013-04-07 Member: 184678Members
Pre-252 the aliens were wining on the order of 70-30 now we will have to see how things play out after the free weekend... The Reinforced update changed a lot of things to attempt to bring balance to the game; AV, rine jump, tech tree, contamination, duel upgrades, hand grenades, vortex... the list goes on, but I have noticed the 2 of these have resulted in the greatest opposition... AV and the marine side hop... I Think we can all agree that the game needed balancing but the question i have is, "do people feel it was alien favored from a macro or micro battle perspective?"
-Micro-
For the sake of this im referring micro to individual engagements. This micro battle would be like 1v1 over a res node or a fight to take a tech point...
From my perspective the game seemed repetitively balanced from a micro perspective, if I as a skulk got the drop on 2 rines i could kill one before his friend could react, and then it was a matter of skill for the second. If 3 fades attacked 3 marines, 3 marines died... in general I consider myself to be an above average player and when i die i rarely think "well thats just not balanced" because to be honest, i dont think i should be able to kill a fade when there are 3 of them jumping around my head.
-Macro-
For the sake of this im referring macro to periods of the game 0-6 minutes 7-15 minutes 15+ or some similar scale... This macro battle would encompace things like fade balls, exo pushes and the like things that once achieved shift the game.
From my perspective the game DOES NOT feel balanced when it comes to macro battles.... fade balls "oh junk run for your life!!", Bile rush "comm beacon faster!!", exo train "where are the gorges!!!" these events sway the game drastically and as they often are game ending maneuvers a single unbalanced macro will end a round.... When im playing and im looking at my mini map only to see 5 red dots run into start, and then everything blink red i know its bilebomb and that the comm has 1-5 seconds to beacon or its GG, so im yelling "COMM BEACON NOW!!!" and when it fails i feel cheated because i couldnt have change any of it.
-conclusion-
the majority of imbalance is in the macro not in the micro... Changing to the micro things like AV and marine jump cause individual engagements to swing in favor of the marines and make playing aliens frustrating (challenging and frustrating are very different)... Many other changes were made to the Macro and may bring balance to the game and we will see.
An unbalanced Micro will sway individual battles and thus the entire game, an imbalanced Macro will make all other game play irrelevant and will end the game. From my experience games tend to feel repetitively balanced up until the point aliens win (this make me feel like its a Macro problem)
People keep saying a high K/D doesn't win games playing as a team wins games. My question is then why are you affecting things Like AV and rine Jump these affect aliens ability to KILL and live not necessarily end the game
-Request-
reduce marine jump in combat, and give the option of the old AV to those who want it (not as a mod that is frowned upon)... We as players enjoy the game moment to moment, currently playing aliens is frustrating and enjoyable, I as a marine should not be able to magicaly hop to saftly when a skulk scares the $#!% out of me, and I as a skulk should be able to see well enough to have the advantage in close combat...
-questions-
If you think the Micro balance was the issue please let me know why, id be interested in your reasoning.
Id also be interested to know if there were mid game stats for these 70/30 games as far as team Kills vs team Deaths (late game would be to much turtling spawn camping) because I feel like in 250/251 kills and deaths were pretty balanced team to team, and in general aliens still won... (I dont think aliens should die more then marines or that marines should have to kill more to win)
-Micro-
For the sake of this im referring micro to individual engagements. This micro battle would be like 1v1 over a res node or a fight to take a tech point...
From my perspective the game seemed repetitively balanced from a micro perspective, if I as a skulk got the drop on 2 rines i could kill one before his friend could react, and then it was a matter of skill for the second. If 3 fades attacked 3 marines, 3 marines died... in general I consider myself to be an above average player and when i die i rarely think "well thats just not balanced" because to be honest, i dont think i should be able to kill a fade when there are 3 of them jumping around my head.
-Macro-
For the sake of this im referring macro to periods of the game 0-6 minutes 7-15 minutes 15+ or some similar scale... This macro battle would encompace things like fade balls, exo pushes and the like things that once achieved shift the game.
From my perspective the game DOES NOT feel balanced when it comes to macro battles.... fade balls "oh junk run for your life!!", Bile rush "comm beacon faster!!", exo train "where are the gorges!!!" these events sway the game drastically and as they often are game ending maneuvers a single unbalanced macro will end a round.... When im playing and im looking at my mini map only to see 5 red dots run into start, and then everything blink red i know its bilebomb and that the comm has 1-5 seconds to beacon or its GG, so im yelling "COMM BEACON NOW!!!" and when it fails i feel cheated because i couldnt have change any of it.
-conclusion-
the majority of imbalance is in the macro not in the micro... Changing to the micro things like AV and marine jump cause individual engagements to swing in favor of the marines and make playing aliens frustrating (challenging and frustrating are very different)... Many other changes were made to the Macro and may bring balance to the game and we will see.
An unbalanced Micro will sway individual battles and thus the entire game, an imbalanced Macro will make all other game play irrelevant and will end the game. From my experience games tend to feel repetitively balanced up until the point aliens win (this make me feel like its a Macro problem)
People keep saying a high K/D doesn't win games playing as a team wins games. My question is then why are you affecting things Like AV and rine Jump these affect aliens ability to KILL and live not necessarily end the game
-Request-
reduce marine jump in combat, and give the option of the old AV to those who want it (not as a mod that is frowned upon)... We as players enjoy the game moment to moment, currently playing aliens is frustrating and enjoyable, I as a marine should not be able to magicaly hop to saftly when a skulk scares the $#!% out of me, and I as a skulk should be able to see well enough to have the advantage in close combat...
-questions-
If you think the Micro balance was the issue please let me know why, id be interested in your reasoning.
Id also be interested to know if there were mid game stats for these 70/30 games as far as team Kills vs team Deaths (late game would be to much turtling spawn camping) because I feel like in 250/251 kills and deaths were pretty balanced team to team, and in general aliens still won... (I dont think aliens should die more then marines or that marines should have to kill more to win)
Comments
I think you're trying to say... You think that PvP/SkillVSSkill engagements have to much impact on the game over strategy (game elements). It will stay like this, NS2 is an old school type of shooter, which means individual skill > teamwork/strategy.
AV
This does not affect balance at all, it is a cosmetic change. There might be 1% of engagements where skulks fight marines when power is offline, outside of this both marines and aliens can see each other appropriately. The complaint about AV is simply people were used to playing the entire alien round in AV mode, now they can't do that so ... whinge fest.
Marine Jump
Meh.. against a good skulk i'm finding it doesn't really make much difference. There is just 1000x the noobs at the moment due to free weekend. People are complaining because they are bad, marines are jumping off their screen and they don't have the skill to follow it.
Balance
Far too early to tell, give it a few months and I'll have an answer. People need to figure out how to exploit things in the most efficient manner which takes 1-2 months (competitive), after this occurs it takes another 1-3 months before these strats start occuring in pub.
edit:
ps: Also I'm assuming your a new player? Without trying to sound elitist, do you think its a fair comment to say that you don't have the best understanding of the game? Does someone with a limited understanding of the game think they can make correct statements about game balance?
I would not be complaining if it we're just a cosmetic change. you'd be more justified in calling it a crutch, but there's a reason that in competitive q3 people had forced skins on, and usually to the biggest brightest lime green you could imagine. when winning engagements comes down to a matter of milliseconds, taking an extra 50 to recognize an enemy is an enemy at all is important.
The jetpacks.... who flies around in a jetpack in a building? Options to turn that off would be nice. I also would like to see some options for unlimitted ammo. Basically the point is to give players more options to customize the game experience.
I come from Q3 and completely agree with you. I would run lego land (is what i call it) in NS2 if I could. However I've never felt the need for it on aliens, marines are always very easily seen and slow so tracking has never been an issue.
While my use of MICRO/MACRO May not be "proper" within the context of the gaming community, I feel no need to apologize for this misuse as NS is the only game i have more then 15 hours invested in so im probably not as savy as you. However my dictionary says macro is defined by "Large in scope or extent" and micro is "extremely small" while we could argue over what defines small or large, i believe for my argument I did that...
AS far as your attempt to understand my post, NO. Im arguing that PvP/SkillVSSkill have to LITTLE impact, and that game elements have to MUCH. As such Im arguing that adjusting things like AV/marine jump which affect PVP only serves to frustrate players and not give balance. Where as things like fade ball/bile rush are the game elements that are swing the game statistics in favor of the aliens (thus these game elements need adjusting not the PVP).
EXAMPLE,
when aliens are about to lose what do they do before they concede? They all go gorge run through a tunnel and bilebomb everything. chances of successs maybe 1/10
When marines are about to lose what do the do before they concede? They build armory walls and turrets and wait for the end. Chances of success 0/10
Result if 100 games were played and 100 games had balanced PVP skill vs skill such that it should end in a 50/50 split... But since 1/10 bile rushes works now aliens win 5 more rounds 55/45.
This is one example.... and while we all love the comeback individual skill<teamwork
As to AV, LOL If AV were purly cosmetic and did not affect balance, why would having it be an issue? (oh right because Biodome is pretty and thats more important)
Marine jump, sure Ill still kill the marine but It will take me a second longer then it should opening me up to his friend... so yes it makes a difference.
PS. you do sound elitist. And yes i feel i have an undertanding of the game.
PPS. I would further argue that aliens win more because of teamwork. In NS1 aliens had no comm, now they do this means that marines have lost any comm coordinated advantage. In addition the nature of alien rolls lends to team work, gorge, lerk, skulk, fade, onos... they all have a part to play such that team work becomes natural. Where as Marines have no such role, everyone has a welder (should?) but no one welds, everyone has an exo and again no one welds...
1. I'm sorry, but unless you played for a div 1/2 team for 10 years its ultimately worthless. 10 years of public play / low tier pub clan mean ultimately nothing.
2. You are using a dictionary to define terms macro/micro in a gaming environment. I'm sure I don't need to explain why that is incorrect. Macro/Micro in gaming are typically used in RTS and have NEVER been applied to describing what happens in FPS games.
3. I disagree, 99% of the time player skill trumps strategy. If you win 100% engagements, you will win regardless of the strategy used.
4. AV was a cosmetic issue, 99% of people were playing aliens in three colours (red, green and orange). It is NOT a balance issue, please tell me why an illuminated marine is easier to kill then a standard textured marine.
5. We have differing opinions on marine jump. It is most likely the increase in marine strafe acceleration that is contributing to people having difficulting killing dodging marines, the jump ultimately makes you more predictable as the skulk can trace the path in the air.
again, please don't call it cosmetic. it is an outright nerf. logically speaking. there would be little reason to port over the outlining effect into the current regular vision, if UWE didn't think it would do something to mitigate the nerf. i dislike the new AV, and i dislike the new normal vision as well, not because they're necessarily ugly, but because old AV provided me more utility.
it made navigating easier, less clutter moving at high speeds. i'm convinced it actually made my game perform better, less rendering of cosmetic details, and it made marines easier to track from a combination of pop and other things. It was not purely cosmetic, their attempts at fixing it though... purely cosmetic.
As to the thread, speaking of pubs only, I argee with most people here. Generally if you win all of the engagements, then your team is sure to win. However, one need not be in a engagement to win the game at all lol. We have seen it time and again where marines have a major pain train going and wreak aliens left and right, then aliens base rush and kill the obs before the beacon goes off.
This technically means that yes, teamwork can outdo a less teamwork oriented team even if said team is better. Skill, however, cannot be forgotten as having a team full of marines that can't hit the broad side of an onos or teams of skulks that zerg swarm on the ground at marines, will pretty much always lose regardless of how much teamwork they have.
Take it from a pubber as you will *shrugs* As male_fatalities pointed out though, I'm not one to comment on balance on anything but a public level and even then, its more or less my opinion based upon what I've seen and garnered for myself.
Addressing the micro vs marco part. Using your terminology, I'd have to say that the micro vs macro part really depends on the server limit. Its been generally argeed upon that the more players there are, the less impact one player can make. Thus it stands to reason that as the server pop decreases, micro becomes more important than macro, and as pop increases, macro becomes more important. This is of course me using your terminology as I best understand it.
No offense, but seeing as you're probably very new to the community and have never played ns1 or much of ns2, please know that this game is not AVP or based at all on any movie surrounding the Aliens' universe. Jet packs will not be removed nor will exos or onos for that matter as those are defining things that make Natural Selection what it is.
Also since you are new it should be noted that marines may look like they're bunny hoping, but in fact there is a delay in their jumps. If a marine jumps non-stop like a bunny he looses all of his momentum and gains a nerf to each jump following the other. Marines move more like a matador trying to evade the skulk flying at him trying to chew his face off.
In summary, please play some more and gain more experience with ns2 before trying to assert changes based off your experiences with a totally different game/movie franchise.
as a medium term player, im excited about uwes balancing strategy, Nerf everything that you can, and see where that takes you, then slowly roll back as you find you've overnerfed. or Nerf the other side to compensate-overcorrect.
sewleks at least half a year of tested balance tweaks, and I was less than thrilled at first, I withheld judgment but ended ith grudging acceptance and approval. were the current changes also tested as rigorously?
Solution: give AV to both sides. Or maybe some nerfed, always on version similar to that unofficial AV mod everyone seems to love.
I think what I said above might not be easy to read. To summarize it, comp play is built around coordination where winning engagements means everything. Pub play does not have that coordination, and losing an engagement can be shrugged off as nothing all to often.
marines should win 1:1 fights against skulk, because if marine wins the 1v1 then the game carries on as usual where if skulk wins then it sets back marines by 5 minutes. that's just how the game seems to work.
um, no, marines are supposed to lose or at most be 50 50 vs aliens early game, because they straight up have the advantage with higher counts. 2 v 2 should end up with 2 dead aliens and a couple of damaged marines. the advantage of having a ranged attack.
Because than the question is simple:
To what extend should the outcome of an engagement (1skulk vs 1marine) set in stone by the kind of engagement?
When the skulk ambushes (=getting to melee range instantly) should he win 100% of the time? Or should the marine have a chance to defend himself with skill?
When the marine sees the skulk coming on long range should the marine win 100% of the time? Or should it be possible for the skulk by good evading, using cover, leeching ammo to get the kill while the marine is reloading for example?
We don't need to discuss that the skulk is on advantage in close range and the marine on long range. But I got the feeling that some people propagate this advantages should set the outcome in stone, letting no space for skill deciding the engagement.
If the strafe jump is over the top (=obliterate the skulk-advantage in close range)
or if we just need to learn to handle it (and than it will be an interesting mechanic that rewards skill)
I can't tell yet, because of many greens and bad performance since the patch.
If the performance is back to the state of pre-reinforcement and I can fight against marines that use this to a great extend, than I will have an opinion.
Ns is about personal skill and commander decisions.
Begginners often mistaken personal skill with purely combat skill, as i agree that quake is the finest example of all around fps skill i like to use their terminology.
A fps player is made of 3 basic skillsets in order of importance to me: brain, movement, aim.
From playing competitive games (started with UT duelling years ago) i can say you that the 2 last skillsets (aim being the only one purely combat) are NOT what differenciate pubbers and div3 players from div1/top players.
Brain: positioning, gamesense, map awareness is what makes a top player.
Thats why pubstars get stomped in pcws.
And why pubbing is most often not a good show of a game's balance.
MF is right but overstates it imo, even when losing most engagements a superior gamesense can make you win the game:
Godar vs arc on summit, season 2 semi final (i think).
Arc had us locked jp sg vs 1 fade, we bile rushed their arms lab and killed their phasing marines in their base.
Saunamen vs godar on summit, european open semi final.
Godar had a good early locking sauna in sub and flight but they lacked the gamesense to win the game, spamming turrets and upgrading exos after killing most fades instead of getting w3 (lol how to throw away a potentiel 450E).
As for OP i kind of agree with the point you are trying to make.
So using your terms micro:
Marine movement, it was not fast enough, the faster strafes are good, the main problem is that atm it doesn't scale with skill: a bad marine not checking corners and getting ambushed will overcome the alien brain game with his own movement game and dodge the next bites.
Solution proposed: have a mini stunt on the jump when recieving a bite, this way a good marine can still jump+dodge the first bites but can't spam it after recieving 3 bites.
Not bitten marine= 100% jump, Bitten marine= 70% jump for 0.5s
AV, i like the new basic vision with marines directly outlined in yellow (maybe a lil bit brighter would be good) it's newbie friendly (no need to constantly turn AV up) and less OP.
The problem is the AV itself, atm it's basicly useless, since as a skulk you always have something better to do than biting a power node and it doesn't really give an advantage, ie: you never play in the dark.
A solution proposed in the BT thread: give killing power nodes a real usefulness, darker emergency lightning, starting hive with power down etc...
As for macro you say it's not balanced and then proceed to say every hard counters... Lol?
Gorge bile bomb, you can beacon, leave a marine near base, position your observatory well, get a hidden 2nd arms lab (tested and approved by RioS in one of our pcws
Fade ball, get w2 sgs before 8 minutes, get nanoshield, do double pressure, beacon your marines as soon as one as no armor etc...
Exo, lol. Do i really need to give you counters for that?
---
To me it has always seemed that the whole idea of macro patterns is missing with NS2. There doesn't seem to be properly designed dance partners that lead to an interactive and dynamic round.
If we take a look at your basic Blizzard RTS, it has three very clear core elements: Army, tech and economy. The three constantly dance around with each other. All these are controlled by a very limited resoucre system that forces you to decide between multiple ways of investment. Investing in one means that you're missing out in something else. Investing into tech units might allow you to punch a hole in the enemy economy, but leaves you open for the brute force attack of the enemy army and so on. It's kind of a rock-paper-scissory thing, but with a lot more complex system for deciding the winning moves. Combine this with things like map control, scouting and such and you've got a good mix of things that interact with each other and through these interactions the game balance can be approached in a vast amount of ways.
With NS2 the army strenght comes mostly from pres, tech and economy mostly from tres. Suddenly you've got just tech and econ dancing together and both are far more simplified than in most full blooded RTS games. The army strenght comes from individual player pools that are somewhat related to economy, but doesn't for example force tradeoffs between the two.
Part of the reason why NS2 is so hard to balance properly is because all the res pools are so specialized. There aren't many tradeoffs because every res pool contributes to some specific thing and not much else. All this cuts away from the interactions between elements inside the game, which then again makes the game both hard to play in an adaptive way and to change balance wise. A lot of the things progress on rails and all the devs can do is to try to set up the rail schedule so that nothing collides.
To make matters even worse, the individual pools of res make the army strength a very volatile thing. First you've got nothing and then you've got 5 fades. Such dramatic increase makes it hard in both ends of the power spectrum: How is anyone expected to survive the fade explosion? Then again, if 5 fades don't cut it, how is anyone going to ramp up strength from there?
So yeah, I do agree about the lacking macro balance. The res model and tech trees have gone through so many changes that I'd be amazed if the game was balanced at this point. However, what I'm kind of disappointed is that we are still far away from having a decisive structure in macro scale gameplay.
If that's really the case, then no one should have a problem with the old AV being brought back as an option for those that like the cosmetics that way.
I still don't see what was so wrong with Vanilla skulk vs Vanilla marine in B251 that required marines being buffed?
This is precisely the point. You win because you team up the right way. I don't have any problem with a gorge rush.
They :
-Team up (3 units) with more defensive than aggressive life form.
-They are all at the same position which is a weakness at other position (risk management).
-They find their way to the base without being noticed (Stealth).
-The commander don't beacon (dumb/slow).
Fine, they deserve it. It proves again that a Pistolero means less in NS than teamwork. And i'm all for it. It is a better pedagogy line than any other game. Teamwork is everything.
Same for Exo train and such. You pay the price for mistakes or wrong behavior on the map. Biting RTs to slow them down instead of running towards any marine you see and probably get killed. Same goes for marines. RTs first not fight.
Each of these thing happens to let a chance to the other team to come with something. Like fades are coming sooner than exos but shotguns can come before fades or at same time... All is a matter of choices.
As a regular commander i really don't care if a guy is a super Pistolero or not, as long as the resources flow is positive, so as long as we have map control. Map control can take several forms. Not only to have RTs but to make sure, at least, the other team don't have it.
I've played many games in which all those things happened in a single game (fade ball, exos train, bile rush, etc). Until the last rush that was won more because the other team used all their res, so they couldn't counter/defend than because of a collection pure "legendary skilled master shaolin kung fu warrior" rushing a base. Simply because these players were somehow already top of line players on both team. And you know what ? Nobody complains about that when you have these "line ups". They all know what's going on. We played, we fought, we won or loose. These kind of player are far beyond personal matters.
There are two types of public games IMO. And you are putting "this" on NS2 balance while i do think it's more coordination and teamwork that should be your target. I'm not saying there no problem on NS2. But you can't make it the eternal culprit, it's too easy and a lazy behavior. Don't worry, all our brains always take shortcuts by reflex. Just stop a second; breath and find a server with great players. You'll see the difference.
I was trying to see where people stood on how they viewed the unbalanced state of the game.
Many people seem to think in 1v1 marine should have advantage, where as I think in 1v1 it should be balanced. Based on the changes in 252+ it seems that aliens were to powerful in individual engagements for UWE. However From my experience pre 252+ I felt that individual engagements were pretty balanced and thus did not need a lot of tweaking...
Was I alone in that?
So I don't think it was balanced.
Even if I jump all over I always get my face chewed off by any half decent skulk. The only time I have found any advantage is when there are 2 or more marines, but even then I usually get my face chewed off.
I even had a single skulk destroy my Exo Suit with full health in a room full of marines last night. As far a Macro goes, if Marines fail to push hard enough, almost every game I play ends in a massive Onos and Fade rush. I have sunk what seems like 3 or 4 clips into an Onos and it still keeps going.
Weapon reload time for marines is what gets me killed almost every time.
yeah, knowing when not to fire is as important as anything else, and knowing when to reload.
This is a common problem I see players having in public games as they try to evade skulks. Try not to jump constantly like you're on a pogo stick and imagine more that you're a matador. Jumping over and over will reduce your movement and result in shorter jumps. If you time it as they're coming at you, you can evade quite a few bites by strafe jumping. This will also put you in a position for better subsequent dodges as they reorient to come at you again. Best of luck and feel free to message me if you have any questions.
Another advise. Aiming in this game is different. The vertical movement of skulks is a thing you are not used to. Given that this is a thing you can learn over time. But to get an immediate increase of your skill, think about your positioning. It is easier to aim at a skulk that is not directly at your feet but in some distance. You also increase the time to shoot at him before it reaches you and can do damage.
In the future simply try to use long hallways. Standing close to a corner is bad. Try to position yourself in spots with good sight and long range. Cover your marine buddies (and keep line of sight to them). It's easier to shoot a skulk that is dancing around his feet, than when he is at yours.
Sure, you will need to move around tight corners or move through another bad position from time to time. In this cases, always hear for the movement sound of skulks. If you hear them walking, you better get in a good position.
As others have said, ambushing gives the skulk a really big advantage. And ambushing isn't only hiding at a ceiling until a marine passes by. Ambushing can also be to engage marines when they are in bad positions, even if they are aware of you.