well you have to assume that both teams are of equal skill when you design the game for balancing purposes,
but ultimately, in a real game, skill will be what determines the winner. Right now, thats not true in 1.04 since aliens can be extremely good, but against a 2 hive lock down, they don't have a chance against lvl3 weapons and armor and HMG JP or HA combos. basicly allowing the marines to tech up fully leaving the aliens further and further behind each moment.
I dont like to think of it in terms of 3 strategies, interacting like rock paper scissors, because a good player will never use just one "strategy" against another good player. they will use a variety of actions and reactions to gain the upper hand.
Strategy is the art of allocating resources to achieve a goal.
in rts games there are basically 4 resources.
a)time - represents the fact that the enemy is working against you, if the aliens have onos then the marines are very short on time.
b)money - is somehwhat obvious, minerals, gas, tiberium, "resources", whatever.
c)combat power - is troops, marines, ion cannons, anything that can affect the enemy.
d)land - is any location on the map, some are more valuable than others of course.
each team starts with a given amount of each resource, now the goal is to convert these resources between types, and collect more. In order to eventually deprive the enemy of whichever resources are required to continue playing.
so based on this model there are 3 imbalances in ns as I see it, 2 of which are problems to gameplay.
1) marines start with more resources, at the very start of a round each team is about equal as far as land goes. However marines have much more combat power, and they have many more expendable resources.
2) marines can, with a very small amount of land and combat power, gain a near infinite supply of time and resources, and put a very low ceiling on aliens' combat power.
3) with onos at their disposal aliens' maximum potential combat power far surpasses the marines' (this is not a serious problem in 1.4 since aliens have to command a large amount of all 3 other resources to obtain this)
thankfully it sounds like the problems have already been dealt with and a cherry on top.
oh and rushing and massing are two distinct ideas, truly people often mis-apply the term "rush" but just because it is misused does not mean it is useless. a true "rush" would mean converting all of your available resources into combat power in an attempt to take down the enemy quickly with a much smaller force than would be required later. The recycle jp rush is a good example imo. The jp+hmg "rush" is not even a rush, in fact it is pretty slow, in fact it is merely an exploitation of the first imbalance mentioned above. Aliens simply dont get enough starting resources to obtain effective counter technologyy in time.
BreakfastSausages, good post. Aliens actually get resources faster than marines, but marines can use them early game while aliens cannot. Perhaps, the aliens should start off with 35 resources (our of 100 max resources), so an alien can immediately morph gorge and drop a RT, or morph into a lerk. Get rid of the res overflow to since that discourages hive 1 lerks.
<!--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-->It's not an accident, it's deliberate. The initial concept of NS was for marines to be more squad based, but have Kharaa be more flexible. Because of this however, I do feel that at least at a public play level, people do not work together nearly enough as Kharaa.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know that it's deliberate, but it nevertheless introduces a flaw that must be dealt with. I'm not saying that this alien and marine dependence on teamwork should be equal. NS just needs something to help counteract this teamwork "imbalance" yet retain the individuality of aliens.
ChurchMeatshield grunt-fodder // Has pre-ordered NS2Join Date: 2002-12-31Member: 11646Members, Constellation
Well at least the resource inbalance willbe addressed in 1.1. I still think that marines should be > skulks early game or else the marines would be screwed big time.
Comments
but ultimately, in a real game, skill will be what determines the winner. Right now, thats not true in 1.04 since aliens can be extremely good, but against a 2 hive lock down, they don't have a chance against lvl3 weapons and armor and HMG JP or HA combos. basicly allowing the marines to tech up fully leaving the aliens further and further behind each moment.
Strategy is the art of allocating resources to achieve a goal.
in rts games there are basically 4 resources.
a)time - represents the fact that the enemy is working against you, if the aliens have onos then the marines are very short on time.
b)money - is somehwhat obvious, minerals, gas, tiberium, "resources", whatever.
c)combat power - is troops, marines, ion cannons, anything that can affect the enemy.
d)land - is any location on the map, some are more valuable than others of course.
each team starts with a given amount of each resource, now the goal is to convert these resources between types, and collect more. In order to eventually deprive the enemy of whichever resources are required to continue playing.
so based on this model there are 3 imbalances in ns as I see it, 2 of which are problems to gameplay.
1) marines start with more resources, at the very start of a round each team is about equal as far as land goes. However marines have much more combat power, and they have many more expendable resources.
2) marines can, with a very small amount of land and combat power, gain a near infinite supply of time and resources, and put a very low ceiling on aliens' combat power.
3) with onos at their disposal aliens' maximum potential combat power far surpasses the marines' (this is not a serious problem in 1.4 since aliens have to command a large amount of all 3 other resources to obtain this)
thankfully it sounds like the problems have already been dealt with and a cherry on top.
oh and rushing and massing are two distinct ideas, truly people often mis-apply the term "rush" but just because it is misused does not mean it is useless. a true "rush" would mean converting all of your available resources into combat power in an attempt to take down the enemy quickly with a much smaller force than would be required later. The recycle jp rush is a good example imo. The jp+hmg
"rush" is not even a rush, in fact it is pretty slow, in fact it is merely an exploitation of the first imbalance mentioned above. Aliens simply dont get enough starting resources to obtain effective counter technologyy in time.
<!--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-->It's not an accident, it's deliberate. The initial concept of NS was for marines to be more squad based, but have Kharaa be more flexible. Because of this however, I do feel that at least at a public play level, people do not work together nearly enough as Kharaa.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know that it's deliberate, but it nevertheless introduces a flaw that must be dealt with. I'm not saying that this alien and marine dependence on teamwork should be equal. NS just needs something to help counteract this teamwork "imbalance" yet retain the individuality of aliens.