IxianDenmarkJoin Date: 2014-03-16Member: 194783Members, Squad Five Blue
There is less than a handful of players, who play NS2 regularily, who can play ns2 to the maximum possible. If this standart was used, very few people would be able to kill skulks, because marines have 35-55% (35 is the lowest I've seen Herakles at, and 55% is the highest i've seen Fulgo at) aim at the end of the match. It is not a useful standart when looking at rookies, who aim 8-15%.
In Nordics wonitor data he has 48.408 non rookie games recorded with playercounts between 12-24. In 7,272 of them, aliens had a biomass level of 9 or more at the games end. In about 15% of games, aliens reach the ability to use contamination. Most games end before biomass 9.
While it isn't possible to collect data from competitive games exclusively, it is very safe to say that contamination is even rarer in competitive games. The games that do get contamination are over already. Read: it breaks down last stands, and ends games already over. It seems more a principal arguement, rather than anything else.
Completely agree with the boneshield remark.
HMGs are fine. You forget it was nerfed to this level, not buffed to this level, when it was first implemented in comp. mod, and was nerfed by the competitive community.
Health bars are a usefull feedback tool for non-competitive players. Even in CS:GO you are able to see how much damage you have done to the enemy player, and even get a dink feedback on a headshot. In competitive, you cannot open the console to check how much damage you did. While healthbars as they are implemented now, which allows players an indirect assist to aim, the feedback does belong in casual gameplay. I'd wish there was a way to do one without the other, but that solution has eluded everyone so far.
The measurment should always be made on the maximum and the balance should focus at the maximum possible.
I cannot stress how important this is (for the Nth time x)... If you balance around pubbers, you give veterans a huge advantage and thus destroy your own balancing when that veteran plays among scrubs like me x)
Looks like Ixian completely forgot there is something called damage numbers which gives you exact Feedback to the damage you did. Come on, we had so many threads for this discussion, how can you even argue like that, your Post seems more like a Troll Post than anything else.
...and regarding to you Nordic: You mentioned the onos explosion. I want to add a few thoughs to this. Imo it has not really to do wie balance. It is more that:
1. Rookies think onos is the hyper, mega, best , super lifeform ever that can kill everything. it costs the most and from much games we learned: highest cost= best upgrade or lifeform. So poeple always want an onos.
2. rookies cant handle lerks and fades probably. Onos is way easier to master.
We should try to get more rookies in other lifeforms than onos. Make lifeforms easier to handle and to learn.
Thank you for reiterating what I said, but in your own language so others might also understand. I was already pretty sure of the logic I used, but you have assured me further.
There is less than a handful of players, who play NS2 regularily, who can play ns2 to the maximum possible. If this standart was used, very few people would be able to kill skulks, because marines have 35-55% (35 is the lowest I've seen Herakles at, and 55% is the highest i've seen Fulgo at) aim at the end of the match. It is not a useful standart when looking at rookies, who aim 8-15%.
Soo... instead of realizing the fact that the game is potentially playable at 55% accuracy (stemming from alien speed + weapon spread) and balance around it, you ignore that and balance assuming 20% accuracy? That's the reason why pro's are stomping on public, you marginalize them...
Health bars are a usefull feedback tool for non-competitive players.
Most FPS shooters solve it by showing an extra reticle when you hit your target. You dont even need dmg count or hit region indication in NS, only that your shot landed. You know the engineering rule, dont fix what's not broken.
I'd even settle for health bars if your assumptions were validated by rookie feedback or faster rookie learning curve. But I haven't seen those happen
IxianDenmarkJoin Date: 2014-03-16Member: 194783Members, Squad Five Blue
@home Damage numbers are only useful to those who knows the sum they are retracting from. Aliens have different amounts of health. Several competitive players even forget this often, calling out a lifeform as "lit" while it is barely chipped.
I am not trolling - you're not worth that kind of attention.
@trixX Those numbers are from the handful of players. They are the extreeme margin. I dont balance around 20% accuracy - i am merely stating that doubling the skulks HP isn't a viable option, which is the case if we should play by those marginal players. Ever played ns2:combat? Thats a first hand experience, in skulks getting out of proportion in the size/hp category.
Pros are stomping against worse players because of many reasons, mechanics only being one of the more prominent ones. The lack of communication, knowledge about baiting, attacking as a team is difficult to do with a player you have never played with before, when we are talking about the degree required to take down one of the handful. No lone marine can kill 3 skulks attacking together inteligently.
A counter arguement to that could be visual clutter, but to me it seems like a fine alternative to the current.
You said you dont have a feedback tool for seeing how much damage you did, and that is just wrong and has nothing to do with how much HP aliens have.
When you really can't see how it affects the game in a bad way that you can see not only the damage dealt but also the remaining health of the enemy, I suggest you read the tons of thread we had about this health bar "feature".
IxianDenmarkJoin Date: 2014-03-16Member: 194783Members, Squad Five Blue
I never said healthbars didn't impact the game in a bad way. I even said I wish there was a better alternative.
I suggest you read what I actually write, and if it isn't clear, ask me to clear it up. You putting words in my mouth isn't going to help the case you are making.
MephillesGermanyJoin Date: 2013-08-07Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
High skilled players do stomp low skilled players, that's absolutely correct and should be that way. I don't want a ns2 where being the better player doesn't help me in winning the game. Meaning the reason why pros stomp rookies is because they just play better. The only way you can fix this is by skill segregation which is on the roadmap I think.
For the list that the NSL community wants:
Remove Contamination FFS!!!:
Not rly a fan of that. Might not fit well into 6v6 competitive but I have seen enough 40 minute marine turtles to appreciate that a gameender like Contamination exists in pub games.
Remove the buff of boneshield. Really.:
Well a nerf is needed, but removing it? I'd like the boneshield armor heal to stay just because I like the reaction of "Oh shit they have an onos" instead of "Oh they have an onos, time to hunt it down"
Strenghten the hmg:
I think Compmod has the HMG weight on par with the Shotgun weight. That feels good imo. Not sure how pub HMG feels atm
Add bunnyhop for gorges.
Yes please!
Remove healthbars.
I agree that healthbars don't belong into competitive but they have a good place in pub. It is a way to compensate the lack of communication in pubs and intuitively promote focus fire.
And around what do you want to balance?
Difficult one. (Always will be)
If you balance around high skill you imbalance for low skill and vice versa. The advantage behind balancing for high skill is that on low skill games it is a L2P issue + low skill people care less about balance. However if a game is imbalanced in lower skill regions you will have a harder time getting new players to stick around.
Then take into account that you have to balance for everything between 8v8 and 12v12.
Just a wild suggestion of mine is to balance for the players that are a bit above average (if average ELO is 1200 for example then balance for 1600 or so). This might hit a sweetspot where the very low end and the high end of skill are not too imbalanced and for the very high skilled players we still have compmod to deal with that.
This applies only for balancing winratios. You still have to balance weapon/ability effectivity and tech tree effectivity against each other which is a completely different story again
Remove the buff of boneshield. Really.:
Well a nerf is needed, but removing it? I'd like the boneshield armor heal to stay just because I like the reaction of "Oh shit they have an onos" instead of "Oh they have an onos, time to hunt it down"
Meph, your argument is flawed. "Hunt down Onos" is not because it is so weak, but because it is the biggest threat in the alien team.
And around what do you want to balance?
Difficult one. (Always will be)
If you balance around high skill you imbalance for low skill and vice versa. The advantage behind balancing for high skill is that on low skill games it is a L2P issue + low skill people care less about balance. However if a game is imbalanced in lower skill regions you will have a harder time getting new players to stick around.
This makes no sense. A well balanced game is a well balanced game, it has nothing to do with involved skill.
The only difference in balance can occur when having servers with different player sizes.
MephillesGermanyJoin Date: 2013-08-07Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
Both teams have different learning curves. I think that on low level skill marines have an easier time, while on mid skill aliens have an easier time and on high skill marines again
But I don't have prove of that and I am sure @Nordic can either prove or disprove me
Meph, even if you were right (what I highly doubt), how are you gonna balance around the low skill? Have you ever seen an organized match in low skill? No because there are none. There is only pubs and if you would want to try to balance for that skill level, you couldn't because there is simply zero data.
MephillesGermanyJoin Date: 2013-08-07Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
edited January 2017
I never said to balance around low skill. However having the target group in mind that PDT is aiming for (tbh I am not sure what target group that is) I think balancing around the highest possible skill that not even the current NSL players can reach (yes no one is even close as good as prem div used to be around season 5, except for the guys who used to be in that prem div) would probably not give the result PDT would want to achieve
EDIT: And I said above that this is just a wild suggestion. I am completely aware that I do not have a good solution to solve this problem.
Both teams have different learning curves. I think that on low level skill marines have an easier time, while on mid skill aliens have an easier time and on high skill marines again
But I don't have prove of that and I am sure @Nordic can either prove or disprove me
Aliens tend to dominate rookie only servers, but I don't think that is useful information. The data shows middle and high skill servers are both balanced in outcome.
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited February 2017
While I liked the initial changes in this mod. Some of the latest changes seem logic defying and balance breaking. I'm talking about the Fade Blink and alien trait changes. Although I think "long" Blink could have a purpose, if it allows Fade to reach higher speeds faster rather than being a suboptimal noobtrap (risk vs reward).
Is it possible to further break down the data to take into account evenness of player count throughout the games as well as commanders' skill levels? Since both of them can have significant influence on the outcomes.
While I liked the initial changes in this mod. Some of the latest changes seem logic defying and balance breaking. I'm talking about the Fade Blink and alien trait changes. Although I think "long" Blink could have a purpose, if it allows Fade to reach higher speeds faster rather than being a suboptimal noobtrap (risk vs reward).
Is it possible to further break down the data to take into account evenness of player count throughout the games as well as commanders' skill levels? Since both of them can have significant influence on the outcomes.
Thanks for the feedback. The fade change was removed over a week ago because yeah it didn't work out. Balance changes of this mod are introduced each monday and the impact is then watched over the week and analyzed at the weekend. If changes are not working out as thought they are removed or tweaked.
I would like to hear a little more about why you think the alien upgrade swap/tweak has a negative and game breaking effect. The change has been made to avoid certain really strong combinations (like focus and silence) and to turn more rarely used upgrades like vampirism into viable options (offense alternative to regeneration).
Though i would agree that both Crush and Vampirism need another closer look onto them.
Also yes stats can and are grouped by hive skill stats, player counts, maps and even sometimes servers and running mods (how else could we compare the performance of this mod vs vanilla or comp mod)
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited February 2017
My apologies for making judgements based on old change notes. I shall give your updated mod a try.
One small wish of mine is that all traits in a Hive branch are as unique as possible in their functions, while the three traits cover a wide range of playstyles to allow meaningful choices. Carapace and Vampiricism do seem to overlap a little, as they both provide health and assist in small scale skirmish.
My apologies for making judgements based on old change notes. I shall give your updated mod a try.
One small wish of mine is that all traits in a Hive branch are as unique as possible in their functions, while the three traits cover a wide range of playstyles to allow meaningful choices. Carapace and Vampiricism do seem to overlap a little, as they both provide health and assist in small scale skirmish.
Keep up the good work!
No apologies needed, even late feedback is still great.
I agree that at the moment Vampirism and Carapace overlap too much. Also having the cloaking trait on the crag hive is rather odd and misleading for new players.
My vision would be to make Regeneration the best choice for hit and run, Carapace for short "burst" engagements and Vampirism for "longer" engagements (specially mid and late game) with a higher gain/skill ratio than Carapace.
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
I'll vent a few of my pet peeves with current NS2 here.
-I'm not a huge fan of how Focus scales. Losing veils disrupt attack counting and timing during combat, as attack speed and damage suddenly change.
-Contaminate can be difficult to drop in crowded marine bases. "Can't build on entity" error pops up everywhere. Maybe it should be changed to allow dropping under players and on top of structures. Contaminate cost and cooldown seem too low for such a powerful ability.
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited February 2017
I wonder what the reason for moving Spores to biomass 5 is? I think it should even be moved to biomass 3, to give low skill Lerks something to use mid gamr, and balance around it. The default Lerk with bite and spikes is rather challenging to use.
Was the Flamethrower ever a pistol replacement? It could be worth a try to allow interesting loadout choices.
Comments
In Nordics wonitor data he has 48.408 non rookie games recorded with playercounts between 12-24. In 7,272 of them, aliens had a biomass level of 9 or more at the games end. In about 15% of games, aliens reach the ability to use contamination. Most games end before biomass 9.
While it isn't possible to collect data from competitive games exclusively, it is very safe to say that contamination is even rarer in competitive games. The games that do get contamination are over already. Read: it breaks down last stands, and ends games already over. It seems more a principal arguement, rather than anything else.
Completely agree with the boneshield remark.
HMGs are fine. You forget it was nerfed to this level, not buffed to this level, when it was first implemented in comp. mod, and was nerfed by the competitive community.
Health bars are a usefull feedback tool for non-competitive players. Even in CS:GO you are able to see how much damage you have done to the enemy player, and even get a dink feedback on a headshot. In competitive, you cannot open the console to check how much damage you did. While healthbars as they are implemented now, which allows players an indirect assist to aim, the feedback does belong in casual gameplay. I'd wish there was a way to do one without the other, but that solution has eluded everyone so far.
I cannot stress how important this is (for the Nth time x)... If you balance around pubbers, you give veterans a huge advantage and thus destroy your own balancing when that veteran plays among scrubs like me x)
Are you serious on this one? Come on Ixian.
Soo... instead of realizing the fact that the game is potentially playable at 55% accuracy (stemming from alien speed + weapon spread) and balance around it, you ignore that and balance assuming 20% accuracy? That's the reason why pro's are stomping on public, you marginalize them...
Most FPS shooters solve it by showing an extra reticle when you hit your target. You dont even need dmg count or hit region indication in NS, only that your shot landed. You know the engineering rule, dont fix what's not broken.
I'd even settle for health bars if your assumptions were validated by rookie feedback or faster rookie learning curve. But I haven't seen those happen
I am not trolling - you're not worth that kind of attention.
@trixX Those numbers are from the handful of players. They are the extreeme margin. I dont balance around 20% accuracy - i am merely stating that doubling the skulks HP isn't a viable option, which is the case if we should play by those marginal players. Ever played ns2:combat? Thats a first hand experience, in skulks getting out of proportion in the size/hp category.
Pros are stomping against worse players because of many reasons, mechanics only being one of the more prominent ones. The lack of communication, knowledge about baiting, attacking as a team is difficult to do with a player you have never played with before, when we are talking about the degree required to take down one of the handful. No lone marine can kill 3 skulks attacking together inteligently.
A counter arguement to that could be visual clutter, but to me it seems like a fine alternative to the current.
When you really can't see how it affects the game in a bad way that you can see not only the damage dealt but also the remaining health of the enemy, I suggest you read the tons of thread we had about this health bar "feature".
I suggest you read what I actually write, and if it isn't clear, ask me to clear it up. You putting words in my mouth isn't going to help the case you are making.
For the list that the NSL community wants:
Remove Contamination FFS!!!:
Not rly a fan of that. Might not fit well into 6v6 competitive but I have seen enough 40 minute marine turtles to appreciate that a gameender like Contamination exists in pub games.
Remove the buff of boneshield. Really.:
Well a nerf is needed, but removing it? I'd like the boneshield armor heal to stay just because I like the reaction of "Oh shit they have an onos" instead of "Oh they have an onos, time to hunt it down"
Strenghten the hmg:
I think Compmod has the HMG weight on par with the Shotgun weight. That feels good imo. Not sure how pub HMG feels atm
Add bunnyhop for gorges.
Yes please!
Remove healthbars.
I agree that healthbars don't belong into competitive but they have a good place in pub. It is a way to compensate the lack of communication in pubs and intuitively promote focus fire.
And around what do you want to balance?
Difficult one. (Always will be)
If you balance around high skill you imbalance for low skill and vice versa. The advantage behind balancing for high skill is that on low skill games it is a L2P issue + low skill people care less about balance. However if a game is imbalanced in lower skill regions you will have a harder time getting new players to stick around.
Then take into account that you have to balance for everything between 8v8 and 12v12.
Just a wild suggestion of mine is to balance for the players that are a bit above average (if average ELO is 1200 for example then balance for 1600 or so). This might hit a sweetspot where the very low end and the high end of skill are not too imbalanced and for the very high skilled players we still have compmod to deal with that.
This applies only for balancing winratios. You still have to balance weapon/ability effectivity and tech tree effectivity against each other which is a completely different story again
This makes no sense. A well balanced game is a well balanced game, it has nothing to do with involved skill.
The only difference in balance can occur when having servers with different player sizes.
But I don't have prove of that and I am sure @Nordic can either prove or disprove me
EDIT: And I said above that this is just a wild suggestion. I am completely aware that I do not have a good solution to solve this problem.
Aliens tend to dominate rookie only servers, but I don't think that is useful information. The data shows middle and high skill servers are both balanced in outcome.
Is it possible to further break down the data to take into account evenness of player count throughout the games as well as commanders' skill levels? Since both of them can have significant influence on the outcomes.
Thanks for the feedback. The fade change was removed over a week ago because yeah it didn't work out. Balance changes of this mod are introduced each monday and the impact is then watched over the week and analyzed at the weekend. If changes are not working out as thought they are removed or tweaked.
I would like to hear a little more about why you think the alien upgrade swap/tweak has a negative and game breaking effect. The change has been made to avoid certain really strong combinations (like focus and silence) and to turn more rarely used upgrades like vampirism into viable options (offense alternative to regeneration).
Though i would agree that both Crush and Vampirism need another closer look onto them.
Also yes stats can and are grouped by hive skill stats, player counts, maps and even sometimes servers and running mods (how else could we compare the performance of this mod vs vanilla or comp mod)
One small wish of mine is that all traits in a Hive branch are as unique as possible in their functions, while the three traits cover a wide range of playstyles to allow meaningful choices. Carapace and Vampiricism do seem to overlap a little, as they both provide health and assist in small scale skirmish.
Keep up the good work!
No apologies needed, even late feedback is still great.
I agree that at the moment Vampirism and Carapace overlap too much. Also having the cloaking trait on the crag hive is rather odd and misleading for new players.
My vision would be to make Regeneration the best choice for hit and run, Carapace for short "burst" engagements and Vampirism for "longer" engagements (specially mid and late game) with a higher gain/skill ratio than Carapace.
-I'm not a huge fan of how Focus scales. Losing veils disrupt attack counting and timing during combat, as attack speed and damage suddenly change.
-Contaminate can be difficult to drop in crowded marine bases. "Can't build on entity" error pops up everywhere. Maybe it should be changed to allow dropping under players and on top of structures. Contaminate cost and cooldown seem too low for such a powerful ability.
Was the Flamethrower ever a pistol replacement? It could be worth a try to allow interesting loadout choices.