Rfk Problem?
Kid-A
Join Date: 2002-12-17 Member: 10908Members
Join Date: 2002-12-17 Member: 10908Members
<div class="IPBDescription">balancing more difficult...</div> I had a realisation earlier.
Flayra just made his job ALOT harder with RFK.
RFK will accentuate any imbalances between the teams. What starts out as a small advantage at the start will become amplified as the game progresses. As such only if near perfect balance is attained will balace with RFK be achieved.
How about a beta with 0 RFK? then we can check if its balanced without it.
Flayra just made his job ALOT harder with RFK.
RFK will accentuate any imbalances between the teams. What starts out as a small advantage at the start will become amplified as the game progresses. As such only if near perfect balance is attained will balace with RFK be achieved.
How about a beta with 0 RFK? then we can check if its balanced without it.
Comments
RFK is fine.
The problem is I hardly ever get to be anything but a skulk or a gorge because I'm busy dropping OC's chambers and healing the team and because this gives me virtually no res there is little point in me doing anything else but go gorge and continue the healing and droppings. It's a vicous circle. Sometimes I think - the hell with it I'm going to stay skulk, kill stuff and get res for an onos. The times I've done that the alien team has come very close to losing completely, not because I'm a bad skulk (although that might faxctor into it) but because everybody else does the same and we soon find we have no res nodes, no defences and no upgrades.
I think Kid-A is right that resource for kills exagerates any inbalance but it is possible for the balance to swing depending on the first 5 minutes of the game. I like rfk's, although perhaps if the aliens resources were still divided out to the team. Perhaps. Dunno. Waiting for 2.1a tbh. Think that will answer many prayers.
It's a great idea, but of course, it needs to be hammered out for balance.
It's a great idea, but of course, it needs to be hammered out for balance. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh! So kind like this other game where when you kill people you get extra money to buy things! Makes sense....
Kind of like what ?
Thinking that NS is the very <i>definition</i> of any RTSFPS game. And that it's entirely unique to have RFK for a Strategy.
Cmon Commy, you know we can't compare NS to CS.
Giving the Res to one ppl don?t help for teamplay. Exp. Why should i use Umbra to Protect my Teammates when i also can make kills with Spores und Spikes and keep the res for my own <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> Thats not the way i think but many ppl do so. Especially these guys that are saving for Onos and spent no Res Point for the Team. Why do we reward them for being so egostic ???Rfk for team would make it fair.
P.S. I only want a explanation that makes sense for RFK for players. I dont want to flame at RFK i like it. But i dont understand why RFK reward single player in a Teamgame.
Aliens were meant to be more individualistic. You can either be selfish or go gorge and build structures. Simple. As for marines it already goes into a pool.
(Emphasis added)
You need to play more RTS games if you think RFK is unique to NS. It is a real problem - aliens ahve a much harder time getting any sort of defenses since the very class that needs res the most (gorges) gets the least res (very few kills).
Aliens were meant to be more individualistic. You can either be selfish or go gorge and build structures. Simple. As for marines it already goes into a pool. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Herein lies the main problem in my view, not in RFK <i>per se</i>.
If aliens are designed to be more individual, and they can work effectively that way, when they work together (because let's face it, it's a team game) they then become greater than the sum of their parts. This leads to two eventualities:
1) Aliens work individually. The game is moderately balanced as long as the marine team is using teamwork strongly.
2) Aliens work together. Marines have next to no chance in the game at all, regardless of their team skill.
Clearly this is a vast oversimplification of a "real"-life problem, however unless we rethink the way the aliens interact OR (better) ditch the concept that aliens should be individuals and marines should be a team and move over to the more even - both teams must play as a team to win - we will find ourselves unable to solve the various balance problems inherent in a game of this nature with such huge variety.
That said, Flay has made it work surprisingly well in almost all releases to date, so maybe there is a way that the disparity of teamwork necessity can comfortably exist...
Roo
The reward in being a better player SHOULD be staying alive longer and slowing the progress of the enemy. The RFK smacks of individualism that shouldn't be present in a team game. You might as well put up kill counts on the scoreboard.
It also wildly unbalances the game. If you get a number of better players on one team it increases the rate at which they get resources and makes them even CLOSER to winning, when they already had an advantage to start with! G
Game design 101 says, NEVER put an element in a game that changes the game according to the skill of a player. That's what's happening with RFK. In otherwords, skill levels of players will never be equal, but at least make the playing field level, something that can't be done with RFK.
It's the reason we see redeeming Onos before the marines even have any heavy weapons to deal with it.
I must agree with some of the other posters here, remove RFK and see what happens.
Res towers will be more important with the absence of R4K, too. And isn't that what this game is about? Controlling parts of the map? Growing stronger until you crush your enemies?
So the better player shouldn't win?
No, really, lets not whine about gorges and distrbuted res. Lets whine about everyone's lack of ability to give up thier res and build stuff. I regularly either save for a needed class (lerk/onos) or get a ton of res, drop a hive and a full complement of defence and run off to kill. Some people, like my homie fa sheezy, gorge entire games. He seems to have little trouble getting some kills and extra res, and on top of that, he never whines. He knows the RFK system is giving me the ability to expand my options and help him. I have a ton of res, what do we need more? Hive, chambers, res nodes, oni? I usually ask him, and he usually says "go buck wild" or "yeah, get that hive up, I'll be over shortly to defend it."
I really think that everyone just needs to adjust thier strats and communicate. Aliens do require some teamwork and sacrifice. I'm a fair enough skulk and player that I can run through about 200-700 res a pub game. Either through building stuff or oni/fades. I change with the current flow of the game.
The source of most problems are the people, not the software.
Now, there are a lot of marine gripes about RFK ... and how it makes the aliens too powerful early game. I agree, if you give aliens (or 1-2 aliens) lots of RFK then the game becomes alien-sided very quickly. The solution to this problem is early shotguns/early upgrades/med spam ... which allows the MARINES to win the early RFK game. More commanders need to look at med spam less as keeping your marines alive, but more as denying the aliens RFK. RFK allows marines to devote their starting res to upgrades (particularly armor 1) and then attack/expand using the RFK to do so. Half of the marine game is win the RFK game, if you start winning it most likely you will CONTINUE winning it.
In the end, I think RFK the cause of 3 positive elements of NS. It helps defeat the usefulness of suicide tactics due to the RFK the enemy team will get. Secondly, it makes attrition warfare harder, particularly if the attackers die easily and often. Third, it focuses more and more attention towards CRUSHING engagements, ones where you attack the enemy with overwelming power to maximize damage while minimizing casualities (once again, to get the most res while denying your enemy the same). In essence, I think RFK causes both teams to make more strategic judgments about their position (assuming these are ... successful teams) due to fear of getting slaughtered in an enemy attack or an attack of their own. Simply put, I thought the purpose of 2.0 was to place more emphasis on players and less on buildings ... RFK does that plain and simple.
So the better player shouldn't win?
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He should have a better chance of winning, but not if you bend the rules of the game because he is more skilled. That makes no sense!
It would be like giving a football team that scores the first two touchdowns two extra men to play on the field.
Marines with that extra res finding it impossible to get past the OC walls into the last hive can now build sieges and turret farms more quickly with the res they earned to prtect them as the push forwards and aliens trying to push into marine base can select any group of evolutions and upgrades they require. Take RFK away and the winning side has to sit of res towers long enough to accomplish the same thing.
Flayra just made his job ALOT harder with RFK.
RFK will accentuate any imbalances between the teams. What starts out as a small advantage at the start will become amplified as the game progresses. As such only if near perfect balance is attained will balace with RFK be achieved.
How about a beta with 0 RFK? then we can check if its balanced without it. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You have no idea how many threads/pages/posts have been made about this subject. Just keep in mind its being disscussed throughly.
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Roo
Res For Kills isn't a big problem in general, but the way that the RFK works on the Aliens team promotes Lonerism, which is bad!
I think that becasue we all have a res pool on the alien team, we should all be giving the RFKs to that pool!
RFKs on the aliens side should work just as it does for the marines, it goes to the pool, like normal res income!
It dosen't pay to play as a gorge anymore (some times it does, if you build a good WoL in a Area of Interest) but most of the game, I find my self saving my team, when I really want to be an ONOS, I am the only willing person going back to gorge and dropping the DCs/RT/OCs/MC/SC becasue no one wants to give up being an ONOS or the chance to be an ONOS to help the team.
RFK to individuals is the root of the problem for the aliens and I think it would also stop some of these stalemates and 1 sided games if the res went to the pool and not the person!