Competitive and public balance - impossible to achieve both within one build?
tallhotblonde
Join Date: 2012-12-11 Member: 174770Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-12-11 Member: 174770Members, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Shadow
Im not overly familiar with the state of balance in public games at the moment (seems pretty even to me?), but in all mid-level competitive games its damn hard to win as marines.
Its always going to be different because the alien team play element in public games is nil compared to competitive. It seems like we have never had a good level of balance across both public and competitive at the same time.
Is it even possible given the different play styles?
Will UWE help or do we need to rely on another unofficial/community made ensl mod?
Seeing as 6v6 match making seems to be on the horizon, a alien nerf/rine buff is needed and i assume this will ruin public play?
debate and discuss :]
Its always going to be different because the alien team play element in public games is nil compared to competitive. It seems like we have never had a good level of balance across both public and competitive at the same time.
Is it even possible given the different play styles?
Will UWE help or do we need to rely on another unofficial/community made ensl mod?
Seeing as 6v6 match making seems to be on the horizon, a alien nerf/rine buff is needed and i assume this will ruin public play?
debate and discuss :]
Comments
The pve just becomes too much hp for the marines to possibly whittle down whilst withstanding whatever lifeforms the aliens have. It simply becomes too difficult to push an entrenched area and at the same time it being too simple and cheap for the aliens to set one up.
Since I haven't pubbed in the longest while I really can't comment on whatever is happening on that front. Although a viable alien tech tree would benefit both competitive and public. The pve structure fortresses being so cost effective and having immediate benefits in comparison to bio+hive+bio+shift+lerk upgrade (ie. umbra) is what needs to be addressed.
Or
Lessen HP of whips? (i like this one more because it makes placement more important, and easier to push through entrenched areas)
From what I've seen, the main reason (aside from aim) that marines have a hard time is due to the marines having a much higher impact Commander than aliens.
Marines are far more dependant on a good Comm that Aliens (imo), and it is far from uncommon to have a Marine comm not understand what research needs to be prioritized (such as phase gates vs upgrades vs weapons/tech).
Often times, a public marine comm will go heavy in one direction and neglect everything else (such as getting all upgrades, but no PGs or shotguns at 10 min).
This is most definitely a L2P issue, which should (hopefully) go away as the playerbase gets more experience, but I've never seen a bad Kahmm have such an impact on aliens.
It just seems that no matter what the Kahmm does, the alien team as a whole cannot help but benefit (aside from the whip spam), while one or two mistakes by the Comm (or even being slow at meds/ammo) can be devastating to the whole team.
Increase the whip cost BACK to 15 (because it was reduced for BAD reasons). As well as taking half of the whips armor, doubling the figure, and making it health. This makes it a lot harder to mucus spam your whips... It also means that after marines leave, if a crag is healing the whip up it will take LONGER to reach full health again, even though it's the same amount of health.
@tallhotblonde It's possible, but the devs have stated they do not want to do this. They want a single build to work for both styles of play.
It's already risky considering the "front line" / "first structure contact when entering room" nature of the whip.. Increasing its cost just heightens this issue.
But i agree with the armor suggestion.. But think the overall HP could stand to be lowered too.
Could leave the cost where it is if you do the armour change AND lower its health (a significant amount) though I guess.
For instance, consider whips costing 25 tres and the skulk upgrade costing 0..
I would keep that expensive structure hidden in base like a spur or shell. The whip would cease to serve it's primary function /role, as i wouldn't be able to afford replacing it, so i would not risk it's life. (and thus it would not be useful as a structure beyond an upgrade)
If it maintains its current cost, it's easily replaceable (just a tad more than an RT) - with the research itself being your investment.
I see why sewlek made this decision
In pubs whips are already useless though, people just don't know that. With the amount of marines on the field you can easily push and wipe out rooms full of whips without breaking a sweat. People are just too stupid to do that, and we don't balance for stupidity.
One random thing I've noticed that drastically changes between pubs and comp is the need for medpacks. Essentially the game is balanced around marines receiving medpacks in combat, which is an absolutely great game mechanic for competitive play. Unfortunately, the average public commander either never medpacks or prioritizes medpacking below building new structures and stuff, which severely limits what a marine team is capable of accomplishing. Drifter sprays don't make as big of a difference as medpacks, so it sort of pushes balance off. I really wish the game stressed the importance of medpacks more, it's really the most important thing you need to do as a commander.
And as has been addressed already (here and countless other places) the current alien tech tree is terrible. Having lifeform upgrades separate from biomass is dubious but mostly acceptable, but linking them to support structures is just terrible. No excuse for something that makeshift being in the game so many months after release. It needs to be changed, and until it is balance will always be off.
Really when it boils right down to it, most of the game's balance issues come from the presence of the alien commander itself. It is not well integrated into the game and many balance issues could be immediately fixed if we went back to the old NS1 style of khamm gorges. But now I'm just getting on a tangent so I'll stop talking there.
faster 1 Hive lifeforms >>> than 2 Hive anything. As such you sacrifice everything to secure P.Res and get lifeforms out faster. there is no reasonable marine answer to 2 onos popping at 9-10 minutes.
As for mid-level comp players...
The upgrades in mid-level games actually favor marine a lot of the time. The difference is lack of planning/strategy hurts marines a ton. Aliens do much better being reactive, marines simply lack the mobility to play reactive.
No, never stop, the kham must die.
We definatly should not balance for stupid, thats just stupid. :P
As far as balancing for Comp and Pub in one build, I guess the main issue comes back to in-game training and hints. If we cant balance for stupid, maybe we should try to make things easier for said people to understand.
Improving the Commander Help would be an AMAZING start. IDK, maybe some kind of structure/research importance value should be created for the help system? I mean, people should know without a doubt that PGs are much more important than a Robo Factory.
Another GREAT thing to do is scrolling tips and info cards on the loading screens (since it takes a long time for most people to load anyway) or even a Tip of the Day on the main menu that players can scroll thorugh.
Some example tips that would go a long way towards making people play "properly":
"Its not always beneficial to spend the time to destroy the power in every room."
"Keep getting ambushed? Let your buddy go in first, and ambush the ambushers! Live bait works best!"
"Remember, be aggressive. If you don't buy any gear, consider yourself expendable and go for what costs the enemy Resources!"
"If you are not making any progress on one side of the map, try going a different way."
I never can find servers with people running NS2C, which is a shame. I would probably play it more than NS2 if possible.
Pretty much, yeah.
Too true. If both aliens and marines don't miss, it's mathematically impossible to win as aliens. The more both teams miss, the easier it becomes to win with aliens.
So, when there's people that are good playing on both teams, it's much easier to win as marines. Conversely, when both teams are bad, it's much easier to win as aliens.
... and the game is pretty much balanced around the former at the moment IMO. That's why pub marines suffer... but there's the rub - make aliens less-powerful and aliens get roflstomped when people get more experience and bads are filtered out (no recent sales etc.).
But that matters little, because probably about 95% of the game and its recorded/reported stats revolve around a can of
P.S. I remember someone saying that "good marines are a lot more scary than good aliens." Easily explained in a game of melee vs ranged. With melee, even if you're the most præ with all aimbots on in the face of the universe (mars aimbots included), you can't even cause significant damage before you can get to a marine on alien side (except lerk/gorge), whereas with marines, you can cause death as fast as the DPS of your gun (which in NS2 is pretty high, pretty much almost instant for skulks with the quite lulz lag compensation, assuming 100% hit of course).
Of course, you can camp around corners which minimizes that distance, which is assumed when everyone is that perfect, but even then there is some travel and lagDERPolation time in which a marine can dispose of skulks with little or no damage received IMO.
I don't think that's a solution.
If them being spammed is an issue, then them being easier to kill can counter that issue, can it not?
ideally.. the evolution chamber is the solution, allowing us to balance these structures without concern for lifeform upgrades.. but who knows if that will happen.
E.g. one arc, one GL.
The problem on the other side, with marine sentries, is that if you spam them, no alien can even turn a corner to attempt to bile bomb them.
If you think whip spam is a problem, I suggest you play on servers with semi-decent people (hint: look for hats. I mean, icons).
Whip spam is only an issue in small (comp) games. 2-3 whips stops that 1-2 marine push until it can be reinforced by an alien player, but in the larger pub servers they are just speedbumps to the 6+ marine deathball.
A server mod may be the best "quick" solution, I've always thought that some form of scaling balance based on player count would help.
Besides that, the problem really lies within the balancing of idividual skill / team play / player numbers.
Not competive vs pub; it does feel like it because in competitive you usually have teamwork, a bunch of more or less skilled players and a low player number as opposed to the avarage pub server with plently of bad players, very little teamwork and 18-24 players.
Ideally, this should be balanced for both.
I think some scaling for the player count is required, because currently the game is really different compared 6v6 to 12v12. Such as the alien building, which is "OP" in low player count, while on marines are bound to build, and aliens can just pressure. Also marines with 1 IP on 12v12 end up being in a massive queue, which requires an additional 20 TRES drop early.
Also affects the combat mechanics; buildings die signifcantly faster to more players, 5 onos are hard to priorize on one to take them down, and so on...
Skill floor/ceiling changes can make it work different skill levels. Though I'd rather leave it that way it is, to make this highly skill based, then going down the COD route and making it too easy.
It does work if teams are roughly of the same level of skill and teamplay.
Of course there are other issues to address that happen regardless, if something is really off in terms of balance (lifeforms coming out a bit early, etc). I might do my own balance/redesign mod at some time, but I don't really feel like messing with NS2's lua.
Upgraded my card recently, got a few extra FPSes and suddenly am scoring much better.
Reality is, most pub players dont have £1000 monster gaming rigs, and most comp/ 'decent' players and those whose aim is magically better than everyone else, all the time, do.
If the performance issues were fixed (though I am under the impression they will never be?) I guarantee pub marines would suddenly become much more dangerous, and comp/pub balance would be much closer to reconciliation.