While We're Waiting For 1.1
Savant
Join Date: 2002-11-30 Member: 10289Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Join Date: 2002-11-30 Member: 10289Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
<div class="IPBDescription">let's talk about mines...</div> OK, so I'm playing NS and facing game after game of tech rushes. Yeah I know, this will supposedly be addressed in 1.1
My concern is that I think what's being addressed isn't the real problem. For the tech rush to work JPs need to researched straight away. Fair enough. To do this you need resources.
What seems to be the REAL problem is that the marine resource economy is too strong. A couple resouce nodes is all it takes. While this has been acknowledged by the developers, no statement has been made on whether they intend to weaken the marine resource economy in the next build.
Let's consider if they just increase JP research time. All the marines need to do is convert the JP/HMG rush to a HA/HMG rush. (right noww this would only take a minute longer than JP/HMG) Since skulks are no match for HA/HMG they will have a slow 'trot' to the hive and take it out. (I've seen this before)
The other thing I am seeing come out more and more often is the use of mines. Much like the JP/HMG rush, marines are only now descovering how exploitable mines are. Cheap, and one shot kills, mines are used more often as an OFFENSIVE weapon, which was not their intent. All marines grab a pack of mines each. Rush a hive and then everyone mines the entrances. Instant lockdown while the marines built at their leisure.
I've even seen a person use them in the middle of a fight. Marine runs into hive and hears alien footsteps. Equips mine and bunny hops around while dropping them in a rough circle. Then he works the circle and fires, knowing if the skulk approaches he gets killed. I saw it (as a marine in spawn queue) and initially thought it wouldn't work, but he killed 3 skulks with mines, and 2 with his LMG. (half of the team) Of course there were the OMG!!! remarks in chat, but I just sat shaking my head. These were NOT noob aliens either. (BTW the aliens ended up winning by a fluke when the marines left their spawn undefended momentarily and a skulk slipped through the minefield)
While I love using mines as a marine, even I feel guilty since I know they can be used in a way to disadvantage the aliens. It's getting to the point where the comms are building armories in the 'lockdown' locations just so they can mine spam.
Of course I expect the requisite whines of "mines aren't too strong" much the same way people have tried to say the JP/HMG rush was not too strong. Spare me because I don't buy it.
In the end, I really think we should up the cost AND reduce the number of mines given out per bundle. If you want to spam a room with mines it should COST you dearly. Something along the order of 5 res for 2 mines. That way mines go back to being used for protecting small key areas and not for blanketing the map.
Regards,
Savant
My concern is that I think what's being addressed isn't the real problem. For the tech rush to work JPs need to researched straight away. Fair enough. To do this you need resources.
What seems to be the REAL problem is that the marine resource economy is too strong. A couple resouce nodes is all it takes. While this has been acknowledged by the developers, no statement has been made on whether they intend to weaken the marine resource economy in the next build.
Let's consider if they just increase JP research time. All the marines need to do is convert the JP/HMG rush to a HA/HMG rush. (right noww this would only take a minute longer than JP/HMG) Since skulks are no match for HA/HMG they will have a slow 'trot' to the hive and take it out. (I've seen this before)
The other thing I am seeing come out more and more often is the use of mines. Much like the JP/HMG rush, marines are only now descovering how exploitable mines are. Cheap, and one shot kills, mines are used more often as an OFFENSIVE weapon, which was not their intent. All marines grab a pack of mines each. Rush a hive and then everyone mines the entrances. Instant lockdown while the marines built at their leisure.
I've even seen a person use them in the middle of a fight. Marine runs into hive and hears alien footsteps. Equips mine and bunny hops around while dropping them in a rough circle. Then he works the circle and fires, knowing if the skulk approaches he gets killed. I saw it (as a marine in spawn queue) and initially thought it wouldn't work, but he killed 3 skulks with mines, and 2 with his LMG. (half of the team) Of course there were the OMG!!! remarks in chat, but I just sat shaking my head. These were NOT noob aliens either. (BTW the aliens ended up winning by a fluke when the marines left their spawn undefended momentarily and a skulk slipped through the minefield)
While I love using mines as a marine, even I feel guilty since I know they can be used in a way to disadvantage the aliens. It's getting to the point where the comms are building armories in the 'lockdown' locations just so they can mine spam.
Of course I expect the requisite whines of "mines aren't too strong" much the same way people have tried to say the JP/HMG rush was not too strong. Spare me because I don't buy it.
In the end, I really think we should up the cost AND reduce the number of mines given out per bundle. If you want to spam a room with mines it should COST you dearly. Something along the order of 5 res for 2 mines. That way mines go back to being used for protecting small key areas and not for blanketing the map.
Regards,
Savant
Comments
Huh?
To quote the front page of the site, News Item dated 2/24:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The tech tree is being reworked for both sides, new abilities and technologies are being added, and even the resource model is undergoing big changes.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As for mines, they used to detonate chain-reaction-style if placed too close together; I'd love to see that reinstated. It's a very fine line between making them too powerful, and making them too annoying to be useful (have to re-mine something every time a skulk blows it up).
I mean the only reason the marines get away with it is because the aliens dont attack / harry the marines into forcing them to waste money on mines / tf etc.
I don't like the idea of slowing hte marines down too much, i prefer forcing people to try and work as a team ;-) for the aliens a rush of 4 or 5 against a mediocre marine side will always inflict heavy damage. The problem is coordinating the attack.
Its very easy to waste their prototype lab / obs - etc, if you all go in and do something about it... hell i wish i could get some of the people who i see playing on the "no time for muppets" server and lecture them on it ;-)
Just like 1 marine in ha or 1 fade is pretty uselss against any 1/2 decent team, but 4 or 5 will wipe the floor.
Ok, so you can't "magic" people working together, but i think there must be a better way of trying to get sides to work together than seriously slowing the game down... especially with public servers where they can often drag on well past their "for gods sake FINISH it" date.
-LIMIT TO THE !@#$ amount of mines that can be placed. I mean really, we can only have so many webs its only fair...
-all mines in range of A mine that blows up all blow too, cause really it just makes sence
-and the most important of all have it so that when a skulk suicides on mines that rines that are beside take FULL DAMAGE! this includes weapons upgrades! and none of this "the only marine that takes damage is the one who placed it and he only takes half damage" garbage cause
its total crap IMO.
If they invest 40 rp+ in mines, an extra carapace/redemption gorge is worth the cost of smashing their little defense with the power of DOOM!!!
- A mine limit might be okay, would just make the marines use them better, which is fine. Although the only way the do this would be to prevent the commander from dropping mines once a certain number of mine packs have been either dropped by him, are held by marines, or placed on the map. That would be SOOOOO hard to code. I'd feel sorry for the NS guys.
- It does this on the tourny mode servers...and they don't bother with mines half the time, it makes them useless. Any decent semi-smart skulk will see and go around any mine they see on the ground, mine kills wouldn't be about placing mines to defend an area, they would be about getting a lucky and random mine kill somewhere way out of the way on the map.
- Same reason for bad idea as the second one. Instead of seeing mine fields to protect a base, you'd just see a random mine here and there, which totally defeats the purpose of the mine.
People aren't going to use a useless item, no matter how "cool" you make it.
My change- A radius around built structures where you can place a mine, something the commander could see, but not something the marines would "see" as to not clutter the FoV of them. Just an idea, but at least it wouldn't make them defensively useless, but it would remove most of their offensive abilities.
1) They probably should be limited (same rules as web, area cap AND world cap)
2) They should do some damage (even if only a little) to 'rines AND 'rine buildings. (its impossible to go AROUND mines when they are placed next to/on the base your trying to attack, so this would make them not spam their base).
3) they should explode if hit by MARINE weapon fire.
4) I think gorgs should be able to lay "eggs" (mines) that have the same rules as Marine mines. They would explode like a bile bomb , or maybe hatch a headcrab from HL. (either should be SO EASY to program in short time, 1 week?). Tweak to balance/whatever works.
5) shrapnel should be present in the Mine explosions (personnel asthetic [sp?] taste)
<i>what do you guys think</i> ?
<b>I think you should use text tags for emphasis, not to make your entire post bleeding-eyes yellow. -coil</b>
Mines are only usefull in the early game anyway, once fades enter the picture acid rockets blow those mines off the map. If their spaming mines in early game their idiots, their income won't allow them to get the upgrades they need later on. I have nothing against mines their great to keep n00b skulks out of the base for awhile but only lasts untill about the time the gorge gets lvl 3 carapace up at that point the marines are simply losing more money on mines then it's worth.
Offensive mine spaming is only effective if the skulks are n00bs, theirs many ways to counter this type of strategy just use your imagenation. Have the gorge put down an offensive chamber at spawn remember the hive will heal you when attacking a marine draw him in close don't leave the proxamity of the hive. I could come up with list of ways to counter offinsive attacks with mines just take a bit of teamwork and imagenation. I always tell my alien team to go sucidal into those mines don't let the marines feel safe, often if they don't feel safe they'll use their res on more mines again and again, I'm not saying sucide on every mine just enough to give your team a path into their base.
Final thought, I find those FPS players playing this game tend to stick to the same thing over and over again my advice to you pure FPS buffs to buy an RTS game like Empire Earth and expand your imagenation. This mod has left a lot of room for imagenation being that it's RTS related. I love this game for the sole reason it intergrates my two favorite types of games no thinking (I use this term loosly as FPS requires a bit of thinking but still much less then RTS) FPS and and lots of thinking RTS. I can also tell you because of my RTS experience I have implemented strategies into this game not many have seen the idea is to keep them guessing.
I guess what i'm saying mine up in early game if you dare but if i'm playing something might just catch you off guard.
I mean the only reason the marines get away with it is because the aliens dont attack / harry the marines into forcing them to waste money on mines / tf etc.
I don't like the idea of slowing hte marines down too much, i prefer forcing people to try and work as a team ;-) for the aliens a rush of 4 or 5 against a mediocre marine side will always inflict heavy damage. The problem is coordinating the attack.
Its very easy to waste their prototype lab / obs - etc, if you all go in and do something about it... hell i wish i could get some of the people who i see playing on the "no time for muppets" server and lecture them on it ;-)
Just like 1 marine in ha or 1 fade is pretty uselss against any 1/2 decent team, but 4 or 5 will wipe the floor.
Ok, so you can't "magic" people working together, but i think there must be a better way of trying to get sides to work together than seriously slowing the game down... especially with public servers where they can often drag on well past their "for gods sake FINISH it" date. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ok, but have you ever seen the tech rush in a Clan war?
If not, you have no idea how powerful it can possibly be.....
It owns most of the clans it is played against when used by a good team...........
5 skulks rush base, get killed by 2 marines easy without carapace. And by the time you have carapce, they have JP HMG, so there is virtually nout you can do about it.
Yes Coil, I did read that, but it does NOT mention whether the marine economy will be weakened. I recall from the interview (I think) that Flayra did say he wanted to stay away from any system where aliens and marines received different amounts of resouces when they had the same number of res nodes. So while changes may be made, we have no idea if the marine economy will still end up stronger because of the aforementioned change. Will they make the marine economy weaker? Will they make the OVERALL economy weaker? What they do will have a marked impact on both sides, but unless they address the issue of the marine economy being stronger without making the alien economy weaker, then nothing will change. In the end we'll have to wait and see. (thus why I titles the post "While we're waiting..." <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->)
DMS wrote: <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->i was "introduced" to the idea of the tech rush a few games ago. For me its not a tech rush at all, its a "lazy useless alien side sitting there scratching their backsides" strategy.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Spoken as someone who only plays marines obviously. The alines team can't be everywhere as one group ALL the time. One person says (in another thread) how aliens are at fault when their hive is attacked and are not there to defend it, and you criticize aliens for not being away from the hive covering all locations on the map in order to kill every marine that leaves the marine spawn. Please, please a dozen games straight as alien and THEN come back and say that.
Elric wrote: <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Gorge spit, owner of mines everywhere!.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I've only had sucess detting mines that area set across an opening (with the red laser) but I haven't been able to set off floor mounted mines.
Zenn wrote: <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->So, basicly, you wanna make mines completely useless.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->Absolutely not! If you read my message I suggested changing the cost, I have NOT suggested change HOW they work or how much damage they do. While I would like to see mines do damage to EVERYTHING when they go off (including ALL people and structures) I don't think the damage should be reduced. Cost should be changed so you can't abuse them. Plain and simple.
I'm not looking to 'nerf' mines at all. I just want to see them regain their 'place' in the game as a SUPPLEMENTAL defense weapon. Mine spam only cheapens the gameplay.
Regards,
Savant
End of problem with mines.
if aliens can go fade from hive 1, just for more res. Then mines will be properly balanced. Also gorge spit needs to set them off more repeatedly, sometimes it sets them off and sometimes it doesn't. Its seems to help if you are falling while you shoot..
get a fade defending the hive/s, when the rines place one mine, have the skulk radio for a mine clearing, boom gone
Aliens will be able to go fade at hive 1 in 1.1, i am sure of it, so DONT change the mines
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=35' target='_blank'>http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/in...act=ST&f=1&t=35</a>
And then maybe the skulk rush should not always be used. It is quite the gamble when the marines can aim because of the slow 1-hive respawn rate. Instead, have the skulks lay in ambush for the marines as they leave their start. Don't charge into their base where you often have to cover ground to get to them. Deny them the res nodes they are trying to grab and you'll slow their tech rush down.
If everyone did this it would leave the hive undefended, so I think it would be balanced. (although the res cost could be changed) have it replace the BUILD HIVE option for all aliens except gorges?
play marines once in a while you nub.
edit: sorry for being inflammatory, but theres too many players complaining about this or that, its like complaining that skulks can run and hide too well. so we should break their legs.
Tech rush takes VERY LITTLE skill. If I want an 'easy game' I'll go for tech rush. Most of the time however I usually try and encourage the marines to NOT tech rush so we can have a bit of a challenge.
When the guy who wrote the game thinks that the tech rush strat is too powerful, then I'll believe him over anyone else.
Regards,
Savant
the next tactic of 1.1 : the JP/mine rush - just mine up their hive, and sit on top of it knifing it <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
chain reaction mine explosions = gg hive, gg aliens...gg gameplay <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I fully agree.
For that matter, parasites should also set off mines IF the skulk is willing to sit there long enough - maybe 2 energy bars worth of parasite, which is about the same as 1 acid rocket in terms of damage anyway. It'd force at least one marine to hang around the base to chase off pestering skulks, and it'd give the aliens a way to erode the minefield without having to wait one respawn cycle per mine detonated.
One mines should do FULL damage to the marine who laid them.
Two mines should do 1/2 damage to all marines and buildings.
Maby add a tech level for them that returns them to "smart mines" that use the friendly fire system.
also, please make it so that you can't put a mine on top of a building. I mean, i phase over and BOOM! I chomp on an IP and BOOM!
Anyway, I didn't think anyone else would bring up this issue about mines being too powerful. I knew this all the time, but never brought it up in the forums. Haha
I mean the only reason the marines get away with it is because the aliens dont attack / harry the marines into forcing them to waste money on mines / tf etc.
I don't like the idea of slowing hte marines down too much, i prefer forcing people to try and work as a team ;-) for the aliens a rush of 4 or 5 against a mediocre marine side will always inflict heavy damage. The problem is coordinating the attack.
Its very easy to waste their prototype lab / obs - etc, if you all go in and do something about it... hell i wish i could get some of the people who i see playing on the "no time for muppets" server and lecture them on it ;-)
Just like 1 marine in ha or 1 fade is pretty uselss against any 1/2 decent team, but 4 or 5 will wipe the floor.
Ok, so you can't "magic" people working together, but i think there must be a better way of trying to get sides to work together than seriously slowing the game down... especially with public servers where they can often drag on well past their "for gods sake FINISH it" date. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ok so DMS I take it you play Marines quite alot if you think the tech rush isnt a tech rush but an aliens sitting on their behind waiting for the rush. Heres what I suggest to you. Hop on a clan server, such as CoFR alien infestation something something and jump on aliens a few games in a row. Then get all your little buddies to rush the marines with you. If they have even 3 people watching the doors that little rush of yours will be ended quickly. Skulks are supposed to rush in and die so as to distract the marines. That doesnt mean they distract a seasoned comm.
So while the marines are wiping the floor with the skulks the comm is sitting in his little chair quickly getting the necessities and preparing for a jp rush. After about ohh 5-10 mins you hear jps hovering all around the place and no matter how many times the skulks rush in and die its not going to make a difference against a mediocore marine team and a good comm.
Oh and for the record the best games are the ones that last a while with frequent switches in power. Not the ones that are over quickly.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
V. good point, I can't blow up floor or roof mines with spit. If the gorge as a support class is supposed to be a "minesweeper" as such he should probably be able to destroy all mines, regardless of their placement. This is balanced by the fact that the gorge would be a sitting duck for any marine charge.
why dont they make mines have an radius to be placed.. ie.. all of marine spawn can have mines placed.... and RTs have a radius area where mines can be placed... ie...like a TF with placing Turrets...
furthermore.... only CERTAIN buildings can have this mine radius... in order to prevent explotiting of comms making a cheap building on random places in the map...
this way mines will retain their defensive role and unless a comm places a TF down to seige a hive.. only then can the mines be placed <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->