Resource wise, 100% return but health based seems like an OK idea
Only suggestion is make sure that recycling animation is in place so that skulk's dont end up wasting time chewing a recycling extractor. (Or at least they can make a better decision)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
why would it be time waste? you reduce the HP -> marine team receives less resources from the recycled structure
For early relocations, suggestion is to keep the CC component to be similar timing but make IPS build quicker OR, give a free/fast building IP for each CC that is built.
The slow original CC build means it can't be abused by some wierd Ninja IP strategy etc.. but once the CC has been built, I don't see how the first IP can be abused even if it built quicker (or even instantly).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Don't quite get how, 'not able to build on infestation' is going to stop Mines spam outside infestation areas
I also don't get 'infestation will blow up mines' actually stops the spamming. All it does is allow something to counter the spamming
so the question is, what exactly are you trying to address?
The ability to place many mines all over the place (Spamming)
Or the lack of ability to get rid of them?
Or the ability to place mines in enemy territory?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
mines are really easy to destroy, cost 10 p.res and if placed smart quite powerful. sounds like a good, tactical game feature to me. im not too concerned about spam (can be destroyed very easy) and once jp and exo are in people will need to think more about what they want to purchase
How about making alien's evolve their upgrades, like gaining experience points. So, if marines are using weapon upgrades on you, every time an alien dies they gain points towards upgrading health/armor. And when aliens chomp on marines with high armor, they gain points towards upgrading damage. The amount of points gained depends on the differential of your current dmg/health/armor relative to what the marines have.
It makes intuitive sense because it's just like how humans spend money and time on research for cures for viruses and such, but eventually the viruses evolve and become resistant to those technologies.
When an alien dies, you could show some meters on the death screen showing how much the alien's different properties are improving. Across the whole alien team, different aliens might evolve differently, but overall they would be responding to what the marines are using against them.
Marine upgrades would grant an advantage to the marines for a period of time, but eventually the aliens gain the advantage until marines can upgrade again. This may create a nice ebb and flow where players are finding the game harder then easier, harder than easier. It encourages new players, when they are doing well when their team has advantage, but skill becomes even more important when their team has the disadvantage.
For marines, it would be all about timing your upgrades, and making the most out of the time that they are most effective.
This could help extreme late games by giving aliens a big advantage once marines are maxed on upgrades, thus putting the onus on marines to get out there and win rather than camp.
DghelneshiAims to surpass Fana in post edits.Join Date: 2011-11-01Member: 130634Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
@Luxon5: So you want to have the aliens automatically scale with the marines so that marine upgrades are pretty much useless in the long run? That would utterly destroy gameplay as aliens will ALWAYS win in the long run if they get even stronger after every upgrade is purchased and marines will have some small time windows in which they need to make a desperate rush, only to get completely hammered if they fail. We already have enough of that with the current "must rush to prevent second hive" gameplay. It is just not fun. It would also mean that marines probably won't get any upgrades at all and just turret farm, since upgrading would only make the aliens stronger.
<!--quoteo(post=1892914:date=Jan 6 2012, 07:49 PM:name=Schimmel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Schimmel @ Jan 6 2012, 07:49 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1892914"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->why would it be time waste? you reduce the HP -> marine team receives less resources from the recycled structure
i think the build times are quite ok right now.
mines are really easy to destroy, cost 10 p.res and if placed smart quite powerful. sounds like a good, tactical game feature to me. im not too concerned about spam (can be destroyed very easy) and once jp and exo are in people will need to think more about what they want to purchase<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
build time is ok now? Was just suggesting things to make re-locating more feasable. I havn't seen any good relocation attempts yet in the games I've played.
Mines.. I did not realise they cost 10 p.res?, I thought they were free with macs (so 5 T.res for 3 mines)
if mines are easy to destroy already, then agree that I don't see issue with mines as it is. From design log entry I just assumed they were hard to kill right now..
ZeikkoJoin Date: 2007-12-16Member: 63179Members, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester
<!--quoteo(post=1892960:date=Jan 7 2012, 01:11 PM:name=ogz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ogz @ Jan 7 2012, 01:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1892960"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Mines.. I did not realise they cost 10 p.res?, I thought they were free with macs (so 5 T.res for 3 mines)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Schimmel is a developer and was talking about the next build.
SewlekThe programmer previously known as SchimmelJoin Date: 2003-05-13Member: 16247Members, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Developer
<!--quoteo(post=1892967:date=Jan 7 2012, 06:35 AM:name=Zeikko)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zeikko @ Jan 7 2012, 06:35 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1892967"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->.. and was talking about the next build.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
forgot that to mention :D mines will be dropable by players and you can purchase them from the armory in the next build (10 p.res -> 3 mines).
<!--quoteo(post=1892968:date=Jan 7 2012, 12:41 PM:name=Schimmel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Schimmel @ Jan 7 2012, 12:41 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1892968"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->forgot that to mention :D mines will be dropable by players and you can purchase them from the armory in the next build (10 p.res -> 3 mines).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Calling it here - I will use nothing but mines next patch.
swalkSay hello to my little friend.Join Date: 2011-01-20Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
edited January 2012
<!--quoteo(post=1892973:date=Jan 7 2012, 01:21 PM:name=Triggerman)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Triggerman @ Jan 7 2012, 01:21 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1892973"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->10 p.res for 3 mines? I hope you guys test those values properly, or the marine camping base with sentries have just become significantly worse!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Just make sentries be required to be within a certain range of the robotics factory. That way hallways would not be spammed for cheap costs. And entire rooms could not be filled without extreme costs.
<!--quoteo(post=1892953:date=Jan 7 2012, 03:15 AM:name=Dghelneshi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dghelneshi @ Jan 7 2012, 03:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1892953"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->@Luxon5: So you want to have the aliens automatically scale with the marines so that marine upgrades are pretty much useless in the long run? That would utterly destroy gameplay as aliens will ALWAYS win in the long run if they get even stronger after every upgrade is purchased and marines will have some small time windows in which they need to make a desperate rush, only to get completely hammered if they fail. We already have enough of that with the current "must rush to prevent second hive" gameplay. It is just not fun. It would also mean that marines probably won't get any upgrades at all and just turret farm, since upgrading would only make the aliens stronger.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Even with the current level upgrade system the same thing basically happens. You only get the advantage of your upgrade until the other team upgrades to bring it back into balance. Upgrade advantages never last forever.
The system sounds unfair, but it seems to work pretty well in company of heroes. In that game, the axis purchase upgrade levels for their units, but the allies units cannot. Each individual allies unit must gain upgrades from fighting and gaining xp. Some careful balancing is needed, but it seems to work out okay there.
DghelneshiAims to surpass Fana in post edits.Join Date: 2011-11-01Member: 130634Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited January 2012
Gaining XP could work if carefully balanced, but usually it ends up with players trying to farm as much XP as possible instead of contributing to the game, although you could get unwilling players to do teamwork by offering them XP. It's very hard to do for gorge players or alien comms, though, for example. It is A LOT of balancing work to get it right where you want it - encouraging players to do useful stuff.
Edit: I also don't really like the idea of automatic scaling. It's just very unintuitive and I like to have control over what happens in the game. You basically take macro-management out of the game for the comm (other than placing RTs).
swalkSay hello to my little friend.Join Date: 2011-01-20Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
edited January 2012
Not XP, Score. The scoresystem should get a rework to deal with this, I really like the one the prototype mod has. Rewards RFK/Score from damage dealt. Rewards gorges for healing.
DghelneshiAims to surpass Fana in post edits.Join Date: 2011-11-01Member: 130634Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited January 2012
Yeah, but tieing it to gameplay bonuses is usually a bad decision, since there will always be ways to farm XP/Score/whatever faster than when doing something useful. Just look at BFBC2 or games like that. Medics are always #1 on the scoreboard. It's also still a huge time investment to get halfway right.
<!--quoteo(post=1893051:date=Jan 7 2012, 05:09 PM:name=Dghelneshi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dghelneshi @ Jan 7 2012, 05:09 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1893051"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Gaining XP could work if carefully balanced, but usually it ends up with players trying to farm as much XP as possible instead of contributing to the game, although you could get unwilling players to do teamwork by offering them XP. It's very hard to do for gorge players or alien comms, though, for example. It is A LOT of balancing work to get it right where you want it - encouraging players to do useful stuff.
Edit: I also don't really like the idea of automatic scaling. It's just very unintuitive and I like to have control over what happens in the game. You basically take macro-management out of the game for the comm (other than placing RTs).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think you have some good points there about the troubles of making XP reward the right kinds of actions.
I does remove a decision for the alien commander to make. I think in general right now the alien comm doesn't quite have enough to do, upgrades or no. But if more micro/macro stuff is added for him to do, there might be enough already without upgrades having to be part of it.
I'm not sure I agree it's unintuitive though. I think most people are pretty comfortable with the idea of characters increasing their stats from xp or whatever. I guess maybe you mean how you can't tell when a skulk is coming at you what his exact stats are. If so, that's a good point. In fact it already happens now in the game. I guess you can tell if one alien kills you in 2 hits, they all have +1 attack. So it's not so bad.
However, I think the thing I mostly like about this idea we are discussing, is that it makes aliens upgrade gradually, and individually. It makes sense for marines to make tech advances all of a sudden, and all get exact copies of the upgraded weapons as a team since they are all manufactured the same way. However, for alien creatures, it makes more sense for it to work more like evolution, a series of gradual changes. With lots of variations between individuals.
Maybe some kind of visual distinction could make it work? Like if skulk #1 has claws that are slightly longer/thicker/different color or shading/glowing/whatever than skulk #2, then you would know he will be hitting you harder. Something like that might be great for the alien ability upgrades too, especially when there are more of them and you have creatures with different combinations of them.
But anyway, this was more of just an idea for an alternative way of doing alien upgrades, as per the design blog. If aliens could keep up with marines just using their chamber upgrades as per the blog entry, that would be fine by me. I worry it would mean that aliens who are low on res would all of a sudden be up against +3/+3 marines and just have to say GG, but we'll just have to see how it shakes out.
DghelneshiAims to surpass Fana in post edits.Join Date: 2011-11-01Member: 130634Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
edited January 2012
<!--quoteo(post=1893107:date=Jan 8 2012, 06:24 AM:name=Luxon5)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Luxon5 @ Jan 8 2012, 06:24 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1893107"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I worry it would mean that aliens who are low on res would all of a sudden be up against +3/+3 marines and just have to say GG, but we'll just have to see how it shakes out.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> That is actually what is supposed to happen. If you don't manage to get map control and resources, you lose. You won't magically gain strength and make the game even longer than it needs to be. NS2 games can already be long enough as it is right now.
My point with your idea being unintuitive was in particular that aliens would gain strength when marines get upgrades, which wouldn't make any sense imho, especially not for gameplay.
<!--quoteo(post=1892973:date=Jan 7 2012, 07:21 AM:name=Triggerman)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Triggerman @ Jan 7 2012, 07:21 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1892973"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->10 p.res for 3 mines? I hope you guys test those values properly, or the marine camping base with sentries have just become significantly worse!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
When marines hide behind the turrets, between stacks of mines, all the aliens need is one gorge and a good aimed bile bomb. And BOOM go the camping marines + all structures get damaged
"...having things increase numerically just seems boring."
Finally! Having things scale numerically on both sides is a bad thing, it will just constantly balance both teams out in the same situations.
I like the idea of Marines progressively upgrading, where as aliens have these little 'boosts' they can use/upgrade to - that are perhaps more useful in different situations.
The thing I like about upgrading off of structures, is that it actually gives aliens 'paths' to choose in how it effects gameplay.
I'd like to see this becoming what the game is about on both sides really, rather than just countering each other with higher and higher stats.
Sort of how, if you are parasited you can lull aliens into a false sense of security and have your hidden team mate shoot them off you.
Therefore you are making important strategic decisions as commander, and the players have to think more tactically on the ground.
<!--quoteo(post=1893121:date=Jan 8 2012, 04:30 AM:name=subshadow)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (subshadow @ Jan 8 2012, 04:30 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1893121"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->When marines hide behind the turrets, between stacks of mines, all the aliens need is one gorge and a good aimed bile bomb. And BOOM go the camping marines + all structures get damaged<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1893399:date=Jan 10 2012, 06:37 PM:name=luns)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (luns @ Jan 10 2012, 06:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1893399"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I hope gorge's bile bomb splash is increased, and its damage as well. The arc bile bomb travels it shoots also needs to be improved.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I read they already changed the bilbomb to be a spit like attack, but I am not sure. What is the problem how the bomb trvells? IMO it is easy to handel but it gets stuck at the weirdest places.
swalkSay hello to my little friend.Join Date: 2011-01-20Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
edited January 2012
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Decided to forgo alien armor advantages per hive: in NS1, armor counted for 2 health with 1 hive, 3 health with 2 and 4 with 3. That was a hack and I was never happy with it. It’s not intuitive and hidden. But as marines gain power with weapon upgrades, how shall aliens (alien armor and damage upgrades removed in Build 190).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> How about increasing the armor with hives, but making it visual at your armor points? Re-calculates new armor when hive goes up? That way players can see when the hive goes up and they get more armor. Also, I would add to remove the # of hives requirement for onos and fade, as soon as Metabolize is in the game. And make the Frenzy upgrade a skulk-only upgrade, it's simply too powerful for fades. They can stay in combat for so much longer. Regen and Metabolize should be fully capable of keeping fades on the battlefield. Also, I see you tried giving the fades momentum after blinking, but it only works when going directly up. Here is a mod(made by Yuuki, and others), that solves your problems with momentum: <a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12784365/modFade%20%281%29.zip" target="_blank">http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12784365/modFade%20%281%29.zip</a>
Why not give the "flamer" some special abilitys :P Maybe when the aliens are on fire ( palyer ) it cant use any abilitys only his normal attack. Like Fade cant teleport and Lerk cant fly :D
ZeikkoJoin Date: 2007-12-16Member: 63179Members, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester
<!--quoteo(post=1896778:date=Jan 23 2012, 07:49 AM:name=swalk)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (swalk @ Jan 23 2012, 07:49 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1896778"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How about increasing the armor with hives, but making it visual at your armor points? Re-calculates new armor when hive goes up? That way players can see when the hive goes up and they get more armor.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I would also like to see how things would work if all the alien upgrades (carapace, regen, cloak, etc) got more powerful as the number of hives increased instead the number of shells etc. It could lead to a very boring one sided tech tree but could also enable aliens to scale well to the late game.
<!--quoteo(post=1896787:date=Jan 23 2012, 03:14 AM:name=BuzterOne)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (BuzterOne @ Jan 23 2012, 03:14 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1896787"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why not give the "flamer" some special abilitys :P Maybe when the aliens are on fire ( palyer ) it cant use any abilitys only his normal attack. Like Fade cant teleport and Lerk cant fly :D<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
it already saps energy from anything it hits... if a fade isn't careful he CAN'T teleport.
ZeikkoJoin Date: 2007-12-16Member: 63179Members, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester
edited January 2012
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Trying to see why alien win percentages jumped up in Build 192<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Here's my analysis why the balance got way off in this build:
<b>Lerk hide</b> Lerks were already very powerful in the early game because the amount of damage they do and the relatively high amount of HP they have compared to early game marines and skulks. Are their speed makes it possible for single lerk to harass different rts every 10 seconds without marines having a chances to hunt him down. But the main imbalance is that the whole alien team can go lerk without slowing the economy down at all. For example 6 lerks can kill full health CC in like 3 seconds. It doesn't matter if you have nano shield on CC, have turrets in base, mines everywhere or even marines camping in the base. There's nothing you can do against this strategy. Also building multiple CCs just takes more time to get down but doesn't change anything. But in addition to that the hide armor made lerks invulnerable in the early game. LMG deal almost no damage to the lerk while pistol still does some but is quite hard to use effectively against dodging lerk. Shotguns and GLs are still quite effective against lerk.
<b>Hive cost 75</b> I know this change appearad earlier than in this build, but not all players actually realized that the hive cost had changed. With hive cost as low as 75 aliens can easily drop hive before marines get GLs thus making it very hard to get the hive down even with just couple of hydras and skulks defending it. With one or two destroyed marine rts aliens can finish the hive before marines get GLs.
<b>Fade armor</b> The high armor on fades makes fades who know how to use blink impossible to kill no matter how many marines you have and regardless of their weaponry. Fade player who knows what's going on can always blink away from combat without dying.
<b>Marine repair rate</b> Marine repair rate is ridiculously low making welding players and repairing power nodes very difficult. Currently it takes more time to weld the armor of your teammate than it takes for the alien to respawn and engage again. Thus making marines immobile players who keep all their time defending and welding. Also losing a power node is game breaker because it can take minutes to get the node repaired in a contested zone.
<b>Doors are not lockable</b> This ruined the balance of a custom map called ns2_turtle. This map has 5 doors and now aliens win 90% of the time because marines can't lock doors anymore. This does bad things to the balance in summit too because aliens can backstab marines who are trying to build, repair or defend ventilation. Even worse is that the aliens can usually bypass marine players totally and just rush to the marine base kill the CC in 5 seconds.
<b>CC Health</b> CC health is ridiculously low. I end up building like 10 CCs in many games because aliens are able to rush them down even though they have only 1 hive and no upgrades while marines have all upgrades, phase gates, all weapons, turrets, mines, etc. CC goes down in couple seconds by organized skulk, lerk or gorge rush and there's pretty much no counter for this other than keep more spamming CCs around the map.
We have fixed some of the issues in gather games by modding the lua files this way: <ul><li>Remove lerk hide alltogether. We tried changing it to 1 only first, but it didn't have much effect. LMGs were still unable to deal lethal damage to lerks.</li><li>Change hive cost back to 100</li><li>Remove the maximum fade armor with carapace from 100 to 80 (I hope i remember the numebrs correctly)</li><li>Double the marine repair rate (this is pretty recent fix and i'm not personally sure if the numbers are the perfect)</li></ul> I feel we should increase the CC health too but we haven't gone for it yet.
With these changes I feel that the games are pretty balanced and challenging and enjoyable on both sides.
Anyhow i am very happy to see UWE moving more to statistics driven balancing which is ultimately the best way to do this. I am also happy that you show your concern about balance and are asking for feedback. I am pretty sure the community would like to help more than is currently possible by providing more feedback on the balance.
Lerks are crazy overpowered now (especially with carapce and regen), but last build they were really weak and almost useless. They need to be somewhere in between.
Fades have always been overpowered. The problem is the movement mechanics. They are very easy to learn and there isn't much skill involved which basically means the fade is going either be overpowered and impossible to kill a good player, or really weak and useless. It's dumb how you can blink huge distances. I think there should be a limit on how far you can blink so you can't just blink 20ft around a corner to escape marines. Momentum from the blink should maintain like the fade mode yukki made. You should be able to block a fade blinking by standing in his path. I'm still unsure if an ability that makes the player both invisible and invulnerable is possible to be balance. I think it's important to get the movement mechanics really down, because any changes to HP will obviously need to be looked at again.
Random spawns make it easy for aliens to rush the marines and just pin them into their base.
Marine repair rate is too slow. It takes way too long for the marines to get ready for the next encounter with an alien, while the aliens have regen and can travel really fast to quickly heal and get back into the fight with minimal down time. Also, com needs little health icons to come up around the players so he can see when they need med packs - a lot of coms just dont bother dropping them at all and it's a huge disadvantage to go into a fight with half hp. Also, players need to be able to see when their team mates need welded and also they should have a voice command to request armour repair.
Comments
Resource wise, 100% return but health based seems like an OK idea
Only suggestion is make sure that recycling animation is in place so that skulk's dont end up wasting time chewing a recycling extractor. (Or at least they can make a better decision)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
why would it be time waste? you reduce the HP -> marine team receives less resources from the recycled structure
<!--quoteo(post=1892704:date=Jan 5 2012, 04:15 AM:name=ogz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ogz @ Jan 5 2012, 04:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1892704"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Time wise:
For early relocations, suggestion is to keep the CC component to be similar timing but make IPS build quicker OR, give a free/fast building IP for each CC that is built.
The slow original CC build means it can't be abused by some wierd Ninja IP strategy etc.. but once the CC has been built, I don't see how the first IP can be abused even if it built quicker (or even instantly).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i think the build times are quite ok right now.
<!--quoteo(post=1892704:date=Jan 5 2012, 04:15 AM:name=ogz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ogz @ Jan 5 2012, 04:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1892704"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Mines:
Don't quite get how, 'not able to build on infestation' is going to stop Mines spam outside infestation areas
I also don't get 'infestation will blow up mines' actually stops the spamming. All it does is allow something to counter the spamming
so the question is, what exactly are you trying to address?
The ability to place many mines all over the place (Spamming)
Or the lack of ability to get rid of them?
Or the ability to place mines in enemy territory?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
mines are really easy to destroy, cost 10 p.res and if placed smart quite powerful. sounds like a good, tactical game feature to me. im not too concerned about spam (can be destroyed very easy) and once jp and exo are in people will need to think more about what they want to purchase
How about making alien's evolve their upgrades, like gaining experience points. So, if marines are using weapon upgrades on you, every time an alien dies they gain points towards upgrading health/armor. And when aliens chomp on marines with high armor, they gain points towards upgrading damage. The amount of points gained depends on the differential of your current dmg/health/armor relative to what the marines have.
It makes intuitive sense because it's just like how humans spend money and time on research for cures for viruses and such, but eventually the viruses evolve and become resistant to those technologies.
When an alien dies, you could show some meters on the death screen showing how much the alien's different properties are improving. Across the whole alien team, different aliens might evolve differently, but overall they would be responding to what the marines are using against them.
Marine upgrades would grant an advantage to the marines for a period of time, but eventually the aliens gain the advantage until marines can upgrade again. This may create a nice ebb and flow where players are finding the game harder then easier, harder than easier. It encourages new players, when they are doing well when their team has advantage, but skill becomes even more important when their team has the disadvantage.
For marines, it would be all about timing your upgrades, and making the most out of the time that they are most effective.
This could help extreme late games by giving aliens a big advantage once marines are maxed on upgrades, thus putting the onus on marines to get out there and win rather than camp.
So you want to have the aliens automatically scale with the marines so that marine upgrades are pretty much useless in the long run?
That would utterly destroy gameplay as aliens will ALWAYS win in the long run if they get even stronger after every upgrade is purchased and marines will have some small time windows in which they need to make a desperate rush, only to get completely hammered if they fail. We already have enough of that with the current "must rush to prevent second hive" gameplay. It is just not fun.
It would also mean that marines probably won't get any upgrades at all and just turret farm, since upgrading would only make the aliens stronger.
I'm about ready to throw in the towel.. AUSNS are about ready to ban me :p
i think the build times are quite ok right now.
mines are really easy to destroy, cost 10 p.res and if placed smart quite powerful. sounds like a good, tactical game feature to me. im not too concerned about spam (can be destroyed very easy) and once jp and exo are in people will need to think more about what they want to purchase<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
build time is ok now? Was just suggesting things to make re-locating more feasable. I havn't seen any good relocation attempts yet in the games I've played.
Mines.. I did not realise they cost 10 p.res?, I thought they were free with macs (so 5 T.res for 3 mines)
if mines are easy to destroy already, then agree that I don't see issue with mines as it is. From design log entry I just assumed they were hard to kill right now..
Schimmel is a developer and was talking about the next build.
forgot that to mention :D mines will be dropable by players and you can purchase them from the armory in the next build (10 p.res -> 3 mines).
Calling it here - I will use nothing but mines next patch.
I hope you guys test those values properly, or the marine camping base with sentries have just become significantly worse!
I hope you guys test those values properly, or the marine camping base with sentries have just become significantly worse!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Just make sentries be required to be within a certain range of the robotics factory.
That way hallways would not be spammed for cheap costs.
And entire rooms could not be filled without extreme costs.
So you want to have the aliens automatically scale with the marines so that marine upgrades are pretty much useless in the long run?
That would utterly destroy gameplay as aliens will ALWAYS win in the long run if they get even stronger after every upgrade is purchased and marines will have some small time windows in which they need to make a desperate rush, only to get completely hammered if they fail. We already have enough of that with the current "must rush to prevent second hive" gameplay. It is just not fun.
It would also mean that marines probably won't get any upgrades at all and just turret farm, since upgrading would only make the aliens stronger.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Even with the current level upgrade system the same thing basically happens. You only get the advantage of your upgrade until the other team upgrades to bring it back into balance. Upgrade advantages never last forever.
The system sounds unfair, but it seems to work pretty well in company of heroes. In that game, the axis purchase upgrade levels for their units, but the allies units cannot. Each individual allies unit must gain upgrades from fighting and gaining xp. Some careful balancing is needed, but it seems to work out okay there.
It is A LOT of balancing work to get it right where you want it - encouraging players to do useful stuff.
Edit: I also don't really like the idea of automatic scaling. It's just very unintuitive and I like to have control over what happens in the game. You basically take macro-management out of the game for the comm (other than placing RTs).
The scoresystem should get a rework to deal with this, I really like the one the prototype mod has.
Rewards RFK/Score from damage dealt.
Rewards gorges for healing.
It is A LOT of balancing work to get it right where you want it - encouraging players to do useful stuff.
Edit: I also don't really like the idea of automatic scaling. It's just very unintuitive and I like to have control over what happens in the game. You basically take macro-management out of the game for the comm (other than placing RTs).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think you have some good points there about the troubles of making XP reward the right kinds of actions.
I does remove a decision for the alien commander to make. I think in general right now the alien comm doesn't quite have enough to do, upgrades or no. But if more micro/macro stuff is added for him to do, there might be enough already without upgrades having to be part of it.
I'm not sure I agree it's unintuitive though. I think most people are pretty comfortable with the idea of characters increasing their stats from xp or whatever. I guess maybe you mean how you can't tell when a skulk is coming at you what his exact stats are. If so, that's a good point. In fact it already happens now in the game. I guess you can tell if one alien kills you in 2 hits, they all have +1 attack. So it's not so bad.
However, I think the thing I mostly like about this idea we are discussing, is that it makes aliens upgrade gradually, and individually. It makes sense for marines to make tech advances all of a sudden, and all get exact copies of the upgraded weapons as a team since they are all manufactured the same way. However, for alien creatures, it makes more sense for it to work more like evolution, a series of gradual changes. With lots of variations between individuals.
Maybe some kind of visual distinction could make it work? Like if skulk #1 has claws that are slightly longer/thicker/different color or shading/glowing/whatever than skulk #2, then you would know he will be hitting you harder. Something like that might be great for the alien ability upgrades too, especially when there are more of them and you have creatures with different combinations of them.
But anyway, this was more of just an idea for an alternative way of doing alien upgrades, as per the design blog. If aliens could keep up with marines just using their chamber upgrades as per the blog entry, that would be fine by me. I worry it would mean that aliens who are low on res would all of a sudden be up against +3/+3 marines and just have to say GG, but we'll just have to see how it shakes out.
That is actually what is supposed to happen. If you don't manage to get map control and resources, you lose. You won't magically gain strength and make the game even longer than it needs to be. NS2 games can already be long enough as it is right now.
My point with your idea being unintuitive was in particular that aliens would gain strength when marines get upgrades, which wouldn't make any sense imho, especially not for gameplay.
I hope you guys test those values properly, or the marine camping base with sentries have just become significantly worse!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
When marines hide behind the turrets, between stacks of mines, all the aliens need is one gorge and a good aimed bile bomb. And BOOM go the camping marines + all structures get damaged
Finally! Having things scale numerically on both sides is a bad thing, it will just constantly balance both teams out in the same situations.
I like the idea of Marines progressively upgrading, where as aliens have these little 'boosts' they can use/upgrade to - that are perhaps more useful in different situations.
The thing I like about upgrading off of structures, is that it actually gives aliens 'paths' to choose in how it effects gameplay.
I'd like to see this becoming what the game is about on both sides really, rather than just countering each other with higher and higher stats.
Sort of how, if you are parasited you can lull aliens into a false sense of security and have your hidden team mate shoot them off you.
Therefore you are making important strategic decisions as commander, and the players have to think more tactically on the ground.
only if friendlyfire is on :p
i think he meant by bilebomb damage. anyway, he is right. mines are very easy to take out with bilebombs, and infestation will do the job as well
I read they already changed the bilbomb to be a spit like attack, but I am not sure.
What is the problem how the bomb trvells? IMO it is easy to handel but it gets stuck at the weirdest places.
How about increasing the armor with hives, but making it visual at your armor points? Re-calculates new armor when hive goes up?
That way players can see when the hive goes up and they get more armor.
Also, I would add to remove the # of hives requirement for onos and fade, as soon as Metabolize is in the game.
And make the Frenzy upgrade a skulk-only upgrade, it's simply too powerful for fades. They can stay in combat for so much longer.
Regen and Metabolize should be fully capable of keeping fades on the battlefield.
Also, I see you tried giving the fades momentum after blinking, but it only works when going directly up.
Here is a mod(made by Yuuki, and others), that solves your problems with momentum:
<a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12784365/modFade%20%281%29.zip" target="_blank">http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12784365/modFade%20%281%29.zip</a>
Maybe when the aliens are on fire ( palyer ) it cant use any abilitys only his normal attack.
Like Fade cant teleport and Lerk cant fly :D
That way players can see when the hive goes up and they get more armor.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I would also like to see how things would work if all the alien upgrades (carapace, regen, cloak, etc) got more powerful as the number of hives increased instead the number of shells etc. It could lead to a very boring one sided tech tree but could also enable aliens to scale well to the late game.
Maybe when the aliens are on fire ( palyer ) it cant use any abilitys only his normal attack.
Like Fade cant teleport and Lerk cant fly :D<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
it already saps energy from anything it hits... if a fade isn't careful he CAN'T teleport.
Here's my analysis why the balance got way off in this build:
<b>Lerk hide</b>
Lerks were already very powerful in the early game because the amount of damage they do and the relatively high amount of HP they have compared to early game marines and skulks. Are their speed makes it possible for single lerk to harass different rts every 10 seconds without marines having a chances to hunt him down. But the main imbalance is that the whole alien team can go lerk without slowing the economy down at all. For example 6 lerks can kill full health CC in like 3 seconds. It doesn't matter if you have nano shield on CC, have turrets in base, mines everywhere or even marines camping in the base. There's nothing you can do against this strategy. Also building multiple CCs just takes more time to get down but doesn't change anything.
But in addition to that the hide armor made lerks invulnerable in the early game. LMG deal almost no damage to the lerk while pistol still does some but is quite hard to use effectively against dodging lerk. Shotguns and GLs are still quite effective against lerk.
<b>Hive cost 75</b>
I know this change appearad earlier than in this build, but not all players actually realized that the hive cost had changed. With hive cost as low as 75 aliens can easily drop hive before marines get GLs thus making it very hard to get the hive down even with just couple of hydras and skulks defending it. With one or two destroyed marine rts aliens can finish the hive before marines get GLs.
<b>Fade armor</b>
The high armor on fades makes fades who know how to use blink impossible to kill no matter how many marines you have and regardless of their weaponry. Fade player who knows what's going on can always blink away from combat without dying.
<b>Marine repair rate</b>
Marine repair rate is ridiculously low making welding players and repairing power nodes very difficult. Currently it takes more time to weld the armor of your teammate than it takes for the alien to respawn and engage again. Thus making marines immobile players who keep all their time defending and welding. Also losing a power node is game breaker because it can take minutes to get the node repaired in a contested zone.
<b>Doors are not lockable</b>
This ruined the balance of a custom map called ns2_turtle. This map has 5 doors and now aliens win 90% of the time because marines can't lock doors anymore. This does bad things to the balance in summit too because aliens can backstab marines who are trying to build, repair or defend ventilation. Even worse is that the aliens can usually bypass marine players totally and just rush to the marine base kill the CC in 5 seconds.
<b>CC Health</b>
CC health is ridiculously low. I end up building like 10 CCs in many games because aliens are able to rush them down even though they have only 1 hive and no upgrades while marines have all upgrades, phase gates, all weapons, turrets, mines, etc. CC goes down in couple seconds by organized skulk, lerk or gorge rush and there's pretty much no counter for this other than keep more spamming CCs around the map.
We have fixed some of the issues in gather games by modding the lua files this way:
<ul><li>Remove lerk hide alltogether. We tried changing it to 1 only first, but it didn't have much effect. LMGs were still unable to deal lethal damage to lerks.</li><li>Change hive cost back to 100</li><li>Remove the maximum fade armor with carapace from 100 to 80 (I hope i remember the numebrs correctly)</li><li>Double the marine repair rate (this is pretty recent fix and i'm not personally sure if the numbers are the perfect)</li></ul>
I feel we should increase the CC health too but we haven't gone for it yet.
With these changes I feel that the games are pretty balanced and challenging and enjoyable on both sides.
Anyhow i am very happy to see UWE moving more to statistics driven balancing which is ultimately the best way to do this. I am also happy that you show your concern about balance and are asking for feedback. I am pretty sure the community would like to help more than is currently possible by providing more feedback on the balance.
Lerks are crazy overpowered now (especially with carapce and regen), but last build they were really weak and almost useless. They need to be somewhere in between.
Fades have always been overpowered. The problem is the movement mechanics. They are very easy to learn and there isn't much skill involved which basically means the fade is going either be overpowered and impossible to kill a good player, or really weak and useless. It's dumb how you can blink huge distances. I think there should be a limit on how far you can blink so you can't just blink 20ft around a corner to escape marines. Momentum from the blink should maintain like the fade mode yukki made. You should be able to block a fade blinking by standing in his path. I'm still unsure if an ability that makes the player both invisible and invulnerable is possible to be balance. I think it's important to get the movement mechanics really down, because any changes to HP will obviously need to be looked at again.
Random spawns make it easy for aliens to rush the marines and just pin them into their base.
Marine repair rate is too slow. It takes way too long for the marines to get ready for the next encounter with an alien, while the aliens have regen and can travel really fast to quickly heal and get back into the fight with minimal down time. Also, com needs little health icons to come up around the players so he can see when they need med packs - a lot of coms just dont bother dropping them at all and it's a huge disadvantage to go into a fight with half hp. Also, players need to be able to see when their team mates need welded and also they should have a voice command to request armour repair.