McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
It getting there guys. I know, I'm moving at a snails pace...blame RL. If you're curious what's left, check the tracker link in my sig. I'm putting in what little free time I have this entire week on it. And regardless if it's shippable, I'm releasing it this Saturday evening (EST timezone).
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
Smashing the last few (release holding) bugs now. Just got done doing a final pass on the textures. Here is a comparison shot of the two team's color schemes.
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
edited February 2013
It's published! Take a look at the first post of this thread for the low down. I'll be setting up a server or two shortly. Enjoy and let me know (constructively) what you think!
With the first playtest, I already notice one huge issue. Grenade Launchers have no counter and they are massively OP. I don't like to flat out say things such a that, but I am seeing that they need a nerf, and I would recommend TF2 style. Lower the explosion radius to around 2-3, if not less.
With the first playtest, I already notice one huge issue. Grenade Launchers have no counter and they are massively OP. I don't like to flat out say things such a that, but I am seeing that they need a nerf, and I would recommend TF2 style. Lower the explosion radius to around 2-3, if not less.
I will edit post with more things to notice.
I was in the same game in refinery on yellow. LOL the gl actually was very fun to use. But it took out structures so fast man and is a bit too powerful. And dat spam on the marines base they couldn't do anything. Other than that the game was very fun especially with shotguns and dancing around each other trying to get the kill.
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
I agree. The GL just doesn't quite fit right now. I've felt that way about it for some time. The problem is it faces is its role. If it's nerfed too much or outright removed, then the only real anti-structure option is ARCs. So, I'll drop the explosion radius and damage a little. It's the best compromise for now. Thanks for the feedback
Lets start off with the basic. Currently the Marines effective health against Rifles go from 160/200/240/280. That takes 18/23/27/32 shots from a normal rifle to kill with no weapons upgrade. Assuming the same armor vs damage upgrade however, total amount of shots go to, 18/20/23/24. This is due to rounding and assuming 9/9.9/10.8/11.7 damage on the rifles. If it rounds up to 9/10/11/12, the amount of bullets to kill is 18/20/22/24. I really suggest you figure out how many shots you want a Marine to take to die late game. I would suggest something like 19/19/18/17 bullets late game assuming the same armor vs weapon to make later game more aggressive once everyone has crazy mobility and guns. Mind, this is something that you can disregard, but I really want to bring up the point of number of shots to kill.
Flamethrowers deal too damage against everything. I died in around 1.5 seconds at worst and unlike Rifles, the thing has a crazy damage cone. I did run away a few times, but it still was an insane amount of damage. My suggestion with that one is to make it heavy anti-infantry like it is if that is needed, but the entire destroying building and Exos is kinda dumb. Changing it to light damage might be the best option, but once again it is my opinion. Even then, the buffed Jetpacks make this go into crazy territory.
Exos currently feel useless. They are just bait for direct hits from Grenade Launcher but you said you are nerfing that. Even then, it dies really fast to Marines. With 650 armor, it dies in 108 shots from a Rifle. That is five seconds with two Marines, not nearly as much as it sounds. They don't have as much DPS as I would expect as well due to the loss of accuracy at range, so I only really see them being used as a res sink. My suggestion with that is to give them more armor and damage, countering Flamethrowers and Riflemen. It also gives a nerfed Grenade Launcher a very strong use besides countering camped positions.
The idea for a Grenade Launcher to have a use considering Arcs exist, destroy Exos and fortified positions. Not buildings, but positions. They should be quite strong against camping marines. It is when they get spammed everywhere to be a complete area of denial does it become stupid. In that light, I would almost recommend making the fire rate a bit slower and increasing the time they take to explode. They currently have no real counter such as whips and I really do think they can fit in a fight, but should only be one or two per group of Marines. Arcs still have the niche for destroying buildings with that done.
Jetpacks are currently very good and function as one designs. High mobility and harassment. However, the question is do the role they fulfill be needed with this mod? I don't really have any idea on what I want to say exactly, but you should ask yourself that. With that in mind, what is the suggested player count this game is balanced on? That number determines how strong the Flamethrower/Grenade Launcher should be.
Also side note, I don't see the point of mines currently. 15 res is a lot and they cost too much in the start considering everyone needs phase gate/armor. Since everyone runs so fast and it is even running speed, it is not like it is needed vs someone much faster than you to secure position. I could be wrong here since I've only played three games, but meh.
*Edit*
Here is a simple chart I made of the health/damage ratio in Excel. You can see on the bottom two suggestions for increased damage or decreased armor.
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
Damn, now THAT is some constructive feedback! Many thanks CyberKun!
I pretty much agree with everything you posted. I knew this would be pretty nasty balance wise the first time it went out the door. In all honesty, the bulk of my time on MvM has been figuring out technical problems (multi-skins being most obvious one), and just twisting the NS2 code to work cleanly for this mod.
I'll be putting some serious thought into balance for the next major version. Oh, the Flamethrower was a brain-fart mistake on my part (oops). Marines, Exos, MACs, and Extractors were defined as "flammable" which meant they receive a 6X damage multiplier from the FT. That's all ready been corrected. I'm hoping to push a hot-fix update out tonight to address it.
Marine combat with Shotgun vs Flamethrower. Jetpack and on the ground. Who should win overall? Considering the shotgun is similare role to flamethrower, this falls into the roles. Shotgun is more single target, able to damage buildings as well. Flamethrower is more of an area denial weapon. Due to that, shotgun should win every time.
Should two direct hits with a Grenade Launcher kill a Marine or not?
Suggested quick and easy changes for hotfix.
Grenade radius decreased to 2.5. Primer time increased by 40%. Damage decreased to around 105 max or so normal damage.
Flamethrower damage decreased to something sane. If possible maybe make core thing deal around 30-40 normal damage a second with 30 or so light damage over the next five seconds per second of being in the fire.
Wielders do the same amount of building damage that the Hand Axe deals.
Exo max health increased to 800. Damage increased to 30.
Mine research cost decreased to 5. Mine cost 6-9 res to buy.
Armor per level decreased to 10/20/30 instead of 20/40/60.
Jetpack cost increased to 15.
I know I am getting pushy at this point but I really want to play this again being more sane.
Just played a few hours on the 156 server, very fun mod and have been waiting for it's release for a while.
-First off, flames are OP as I am sure you have seen. Most games I played today, we had a gentleman's agreement not to research them and it works out well.
-I am torn on the issue of the power nodes, I really don't what power to be removed because it sometimes creates a sort of no mans land and can be fun. However, you can shoot down a power node with ease on some maps and it only takes a few seconds if you got a buddy with you. Maybe if the power HP is increased quite dramatically it could help the situation. Also, the power node can be taken out of your own base by your own team and can cause griefing. I see no real way to counter this other then removed power nodes or constant admin presence.
-At one point we had a full 24 player count server going on, and that seems to be way to high, even on a big map like docking. GL spam and a mess of rings on the HUD is what it ended up being. I know you want a lot of people to experience the mod but it just gets to be too much.
-I do not like that I spawn with a welder if my comm researches it. I like my ax and the decision I have to make to buy one or not. I have yet to figure out a reason for this, but I am sure there is one. Maybe make welders free but you still have to buy them, therefore giving the player a choice.
Overall, very fun mod and I am glad it is finally released. Get Hugh to do another Modspot video and post it on NS2HD to get some coverage.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention how I didn't crash at all using your mod, wish I could say that about the main game :P
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
edited February 2013
@CyberKun Thanks for the ideas, quite helpful. I'm not quite ready to normalize the Welder and Ax because once researched all Marines spawn with a welder. So the time delay and benefit of that would be reduced a little. Unfortunately, what I really need to do, as you said, is change the ROF on the GL but I currently don't know exactly how to do so. It may be just a matter of tweaking the animation graph, not sure. I'll have to dig into that.
@Cat-Poker Glad you enjoyed it! It's still got lots of rough edges that need to be polished. FT bug should be fixed now with this update. I've also been struggling with how to solves the problem of power nodes. I'd really hate to just out-right remove them because of the gameplay options they open up. I'm working on a few ideas how to tackle this, and I'll be posting about them sometime this week. Hehe, glad you didn't crash. I've spent a lot of time (too much honestly) squashing any and all script errors I could find. Let's hope it holds true.
Ok, hotfix for the absurd FT bug and a few balance tweaks going out shortly
Changes
Fixed Flamethrower absurd damage multiplier being applied when it shouldn't have
Reduced Flamethrower cost to 20 (was 25)
Reduced Flamethrower Research to 20 (was 25)
Reverted all Flamethrower damage values to vanilla NS2 values (burning, flame stacking, etc)
Increased Grenade Launcher cost to 25 and Grenade Launcher research to 25
Decreased Grenade Launcher explosion radius to 4 (was 6)
Decreased Grenade Launcher explosive damage to 110 (was 130)
Increased Grenade lifetime (before non-impact detonation) to 3 seconds (was 2)
Decreased pistol damage to 26 (was 28)
Increased Rifle damage to 10 (was 9)
Decreased Mine Research cost to 10 (was 15)
Decreased Mines cost to 10 (was 15)
Increased Mine damage radius to 4 (was 3)
Decreased Shotgun spread at range (tighter spread)
Increased Shotgun damage per pellet to 18 (was 17)
Increased Exo armor per upgrade to 150 (was 100, max Level 3 armor now 800)
Increased Exo Mini-gun bullet damage to 25 (was 20)
Alright, I will be attempting to talk a large amount about health/damage. To start, here is the chart of the current weapons/armor upgrade to kill for basic riflemen and what happens with less armor and more damage.
The biggest thing to note is what is the point of increase in armor/damage in a basic game? The point is to give the Marines a way to deal with the higher lifeforms and increased abilities of the Zerg Kharaa. What is the point of the increased damage/health in Marine vs Marine? The only thing to damage upgrade will now give is a way to make later game base breaking more viable. In example, the Phase Gate takes 360, 328, 300, 277 Rifleshots to kill currently. This is what the point of increased damage. The Jetpack and Exo falls into the point of making later games more agressive while giving the early game more control over area. The issue this currently faces is the sheer amount of health the Marines get with the armor upgrade. It takes 16 shots to kill a Marine at weapons 0 and armor 0. It takes 22 shots to kill a Marine at weapons 3 and armor 3. This ends up making the later game more about pushes as a team. Early game is more important to take control of an area, you die easier and the buildings support you heavily. One Marine has to have 2.2 seconds of 100% accuracy to kill someone. This is a bit crazy when Jetpacks and teammates exist. In general, this makes the best thing to do late game is group up and team fight. Now in a less general statement, is this what you want?
In a more general statement, late game Phase Gate rushes are kinda stupid easy to do right now. If one Marine gets through, it is near instant Phase Gate and the Marines don't have an easy way to cover all of the map with vision unlike the Zerg Kharaa. Talking more about Phase Gates, considering that everyone moves faster, I would almost suggest that you increase the time Phase Gate takes to research by 50 or so seconds. I never liked how much of a rush it is and it is less needed since everyone is the same. That is me hating on it though.
As this is important, what is the suggested player size? That helps fine tune damage on weapons and stuff.
On another large game, even though Onos Exos are crazy powerful, they are designed OP in a good way. The amount of damage and health they deal are really offset by their movement. They also cost the same amount as two jetpacking Grenade Launchers, and it is tough to say what one is more useful.
Also for pistols, automatic fire would be amazing due to the script issues it currently has.
Also the server has issues with griefers killing the power.
Nice work on the mod, looks like you got the balance issues covered, so ill just say that i find skins to be a bit too dull and hard to tell the difference at the moment, apart from tweaking the textures i think something to make your own team stand out would be a good idea, perhaps a subtle glow effect similar to what aliens have?
UlmontJoin Date: 2011-10-02Member: 125211Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
edited February 2013
Nice work on the mod, looks like you got the balance issues covered, so ill just say that i find skins to be a bit too dull and hard to tell the difference at the moment, apart from tweaking the textures i think something to make your own team stand out would be a good idea, perhaps a subtle glow effect similar to what aliens have?
Essentially there is no way to make the teams more easily differentiable without compromising game-play by only editing texture files, or adding shader effects. There are quite a few texture tricks that I've tried to make team differentiation easier (things like increasing brightness of textures, adding glow you you suggested, making one team bright while the other is dark, etc.) however 90% of the tricks available compromise game-play. We've considered adding a shader effect that outlines either friendlies or enemies, however this (again), compromised game-play in playtests. As it stands now, I've been using a system whereby Team 2 (gold) is generally brighter than Team 1 (blue). Team 2 sports bright red lighting on all of their models, with a brighter primary and much brighter secondary colors on textures themselves. Team 1 sports bright blue lighting on all of their models with darker primary and secondary colors, as well as darkened trims. I am currently working with a modeler in the hope that we can modify one of the team's models to look visually different, which should solve all problems of differentiation between teams without compromising game-play.
McGlaspiewww.team156.comJoin Date: 2010-07-26Member: 73044Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Onos, WC 2013 - Gold, Subnautica Playtester
Indeed. Ulmont and I spent quite a lot of time just iterating through different color variations, patterns, and a few other things to try and make each side stand out a lot more. In fact, this exact problem is why the red lighting when the power is out was changed to soft white light. Without using something similar to outlining friendlies (like Hive Sight), you can't really do much to address this with pure texture changes. Normal NS2 doesn't suffer from this because the huge difference in silhouettes between the two sides. I'm still not happy with where things are at and I'll be trying to improve this all I can. Next to the power node oddness, I think this is the biggest problem with MvM right now.
The blue team colour would be better greyer or more blue. Right now it looks like lilac. The other team colour looks like splodgy poo. Sorry to be blunt.
UlmontJoin Date: 2011-10-02Member: 125211Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
edited February 2013
The blue team colour would be better greyer or more blue. Right now it looks like lilac. The other team colour looks like splodgy poo. Sorry to be blunt.
There's no such thing as too blunt. That said, I'm not quite sure I follow.
Team 1
Team 2
Team 2, I'll grant you is a taste thing. Team 1, however is significantly more blue than it is light purple. Could you clarify please?
EDIT:
Also, keep in mind that the way NS2 renders things is fairly odd and thus changing the textures can result in strange and unexpected things. If you absolutely can't stand the textures (and if its all-right with McGlaspie), I'll upload the .psd's I used so you can create your own personal texture mod to run, if you like.
Comments
Waiting for release
http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/116645/marine-vs-marine-released/p1
I will edit post with more things to notice.
I was in the same game in refinery on yellow. LOL the gl actually was very fun to use. But it took out structures so fast man and is a bit too powerful. And dat spam on the marines base they couldn't do anything. Other than that the game was very fun especially with shotguns and dancing around each other trying to get the kill.
Lets start off with the basic. Currently the Marines effective health against Rifles go from 160/200/240/280. That takes 18/23/27/32 shots from a normal rifle to kill with no weapons upgrade. Assuming the same armor vs damage upgrade however, total amount of shots go to, 18/20/23/24. This is due to rounding and assuming 9/9.9/10.8/11.7 damage on the rifles. If it rounds up to 9/10/11/12, the amount of bullets to kill is 18/20/22/24. I really suggest you figure out how many shots you want a Marine to take to die late game. I would suggest something like 19/19/18/17 bullets late game assuming the same armor vs weapon to make later game more aggressive once everyone has crazy mobility and guns. Mind, this is something that you can disregard, but I really want to bring up the point of number of shots to kill.
Flamethrowers deal too damage against everything. I died in around 1.5 seconds at worst and unlike Rifles, the thing has a crazy damage cone. I did run away a few times, but it still was an insane amount of damage. My suggestion with that one is to make it heavy anti-infantry like it is if that is needed, but the entire destroying building and Exos is kinda dumb. Changing it to light damage might be the best option, but once again it is my opinion. Even then, the buffed Jetpacks make this go into crazy territory.
Exos currently feel useless. They are just bait for direct hits from Grenade Launcher but you said you are nerfing that. Even then, it dies really fast to Marines. With 650 armor, it dies in 108 shots from a Rifle. That is five seconds with two Marines, not nearly as much as it sounds. They don't have as much DPS as I would expect as well due to the loss of accuracy at range, so I only really see them being used as a res sink. My suggestion with that is to give them more armor and damage, countering Flamethrowers and Riflemen. It also gives a nerfed Grenade Launcher a very strong use besides countering camped positions.
The idea for a Grenade Launcher to have a use considering Arcs exist, destroy Exos and fortified positions. Not buildings, but positions. They should be quite strong against camping marines. It is when they get spammed everywhere to be a complete area of denial does it become stupid. In that light, I would almost recommend making the fire rate a bit slower and increasing the time they take to explode. They currently have no real counter such as whips and I really do think they can fit in a fight, but should only be one or two per group of Marines. Arcs still have the niche for destroying buildings with that done.
Jetpacks are currently very good and function as one designs. High mobility and harassment. However, the question is do the role they fulfill be needed with this mod? I don't really have any idea on what I want to say exactly, but you should ask yourself that. With that in mind, what is the suggested player count this game is balanced on? That number determines how strong the Flamethrower/Grenade Launcher should be.
Also side note, I don't see the point of mines currently. 15 res is a lot and they cost too much in the start considering everyone needs phase gate/armor. Since everyone runs so fast and it is even running speed, it is not like it is needed vs someone much faster than you to secure position. I could be wrong here since I've only played three games, but meh.
*Edit*
Here is a simple chart I made of the health/damage ratio in Excel. You can see on the bottom two suggestions for increased damage or decreased armor.
I pretty much agree with everything you posted. I knew this would be pretty nasty balance wise the first time it went out the door. In all honesty, the bulk of my time on MvM has been figuring out technical problems (multi-skins being most obvious one), and just twisting the NS2 code to work cleanly for this mod.
I'll be putting some serious thought into balance for the next major version. Oh, the Flamethrower was a brain-fart mistake on my part (oops). Marines, Exos, MACs, and Extractors were defined as "flammable" which meant they receive a 6X damage multiplier from the FT. That's all ready been corrected. I'm hoping to push a hot-fix update out tonight to address it.
Marine combat with Shotgun vs Flamethrower. Jetpack and on the ground. Who should win overall? Considering the shotgun is similare role to flamethrower, this falls into the roles. Shotgun is more single target, able to damage buildings as well. Flamethrower is more of an area denial weapon. Due to that, shotgun should win every time.
Should two direct hits with a Grenade Launcher kill a Marine or not?
Suggested quick and easy changes for hotfix.
Grenade radius decreased to 2.5. Primer time increased by 40%. Damage decreased to around 105 max or so normal damage.
Flamethrower damage decreased to something sane. If possible maybe make core thing deal around 30-40 normal damage a second with 30 or so light damage over the next five seconds per second of being in the fire.
Wielders do the same amount of building damage that the Hand Axe deals.
Exo max health increased to 800. Damage increased to 30.
Mine research cost decreased to 5. Mine cost 6-9 res to buy.
Armor per level decreased to 10/20/30 instead of 20/40/60.
Jetpack cost increased to 15.
I know I am getting pushy at this point but I really want to play this again being more sane.
-First off, flames are OP as I am sure you have seen. Most games I played today, we had a gentleman's agreement not to research them and it works out well.
-I am torn on the issue of the power nodes, I really don't what power to be removed because it sometimes creates a sort of no mans land and can be fun. However, you can shoot down a power node with ease on some maps and it only takes a few seconds if you got a buddy with you. Maybe if the power HP is increased quite dramatically it could help the situation. Also, the power node can be taken out of your own base by your own team and can cause griefing. I see no real way to counter this other then removed power nodes or constant admin presence.
-At one point we had a full 24 player count server going on, and that seems to be way to high, even on a big map like docking. GL spam and a mess of rings on the HUD is what it ended up being. I know you want a lot of people to experience the mod but it just gets to be too much.
-I do not like that I spawn with a welder if my comm researches it. I like my ax and the decision I have to make to buy one or not. I have yet to figure out a reason for this, but I am sure there is one. Maybe make welders free but you still have to buy them, therefore giving the player a choice.
Overall, very fun mod and I am glad it is finally released. Get Hugh to do another Modspot video and post it on NS2HD to get some coverage.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention how I didn't crash at all using your mod, wish I could say that about the main game :P
@Cat-Poker Glad you enjoyed it! It's still got lots of rough edges that need to be polished. FT bug should be fixed now with this update. I've also been struggling with how to solves the problem of power nodes. I'd really hate to just out-right remove them because of the gameplay options they open up. I'm working on a few ideas how to tackle this, and I'll be posting about them sometime this week. Hehe, glad you didn't crash. I've spent a lot of time (too much honestly) squashing any and all script errors I could find. Let's hope it holds true.
Ok, hotfix for the absurd FT bug and a few balance tweaks going out shortly
Changes
Fixed Flamethrower absurd damage multiplier being applied when it shouldn't have
Reduced Flamethrower cost to 20 (was 25)
Reduced Flamethrower Research to 20 (was 25)
Reverted all Flamethrower damage values to vanilla NS2 values (burning, flame stacking, etc)
Increased Grenade Launcher cost to 25 and Grenade Launcher research to 25
Decreased Grenade Launcher explosion radius to 4 (was 6)
Decreased Grenade Launcher explosive damage to 110 (was 130)
Increased Grenade lifetime (before non-impact detonation) to 3 seconds (was 2)
Decreased pistol damage to 26 (was 28)
Increased Rifle damage to 10 (was 9)
Decreased Mine Research cost to 10 (was 15)
Decreased Mines cost to 10 (was 15)
Increased Mine damage radius to 4 (was 3)
Decreased Shotgun spread at range (tighter spread)
Increased Shotgun damage per pellet to 18 (was 17)
Increased Exo armor per upgrade to 150 (was 100, max Level 3 armor now 800)
Increased Exo Mini-gun bullet damage to 25 (was 20)
The biggest thing to note is what is the point of increase in armor/damage in a basic game? The point is to give the Marines a way to deal with the higher lifeforms and increased abilities of the Zerg Kharaa. What is the point of the increased damage/health in Marine vs Marine? The only thing to damage upgrade will now give is a way to make later game base breaking more viable. In example, the Phase Gate takes 360, 328, 300, 277 Rifleshots to kill currently. This is what the point of increased damage. The Jetpack and Exo falls into the point of making later games more agressive while giving the early game more control over area. The issue this currently faces is the sheer amount of health the Marines get with the armor upgrade. It takes 16 shots to kill a Marine at weapons 0 and armor 0. It takes 22 shots to kill a Marine at weapons 3 and armor 3. This ends up making the later game more about pushes as a team. Early game is more important to take control of an area, you die easier and the buildings support you heavily. One Marine has to have 2.2 seconds of 100% accuracy to kill someone. This is a bit crazy when Jetpacks and teammates exist. In general, this makes the best thing to do late game is group up and team fight. Now in a less general statement, is this what you want?
In a more general statement, late game Phase Gate rushes are kinda stupid easy to do right now. If one Marine gets through, it is near instant Phase Gate and the Marines don't have an easy way to cover all of the map with vision unlike the Zerg Kharaa. Talking more about Phase Gates, considering that everyone moves faster, I would almost suggest that you increase the time Phase Gate takes to research by 50 or so seconds. I never liked how much of a rush it is and it is less needed since everyone is the same. That is me hating on it though.
As this is important, what is the suggested player size? That helps fine tune damage on weapons and stuff.
Also for pistols, automatic fire would be amazing due to the script issues it currently has.
Also the server has issues with griefers killing the power.
Essentially there is no way to make the teams more easily differentiable without compromising game-play by only editing texture files, or adding shader effects. There are quite a few texture tricks that I've tried to make team differentiation easier (things like increasing brightness of textures, adding glow you you suggested, making one team bright while the other is dark, etc.) however 90% of the tricks available compromise game-play. We've considered adding a shader effect that outlines either friendlies or enemies, however this (again), compromised game-play in playtests. As it stands now, I've been using a system whereby Team 2 (gold) is generally brighter than Team 1 (blue). Team 2 sports bright red lighting on all of their models, with a brighter primary and much brighter secondary colors on textures themselves. Team 1 sports bright blue lighting on all of their models with darker primary and secondary colors, as well as darkened trims. I am currently working with a modeler in the hope that we can modify one of the team's models to look visually different, which should solve all problems of differentiation between teams without compromising game-play.
There's no such thing as too blunt. That said, I'm not quite sure I follow.
Team 1
Team 2
Team 2, I'll grant you is a taste thing. Team 1, however is significantly more blue than it is light purple. Could you clarify please?
EDIT:
Also, keep in mind that the way NS2 renders things is fairly odd and thus changing the textures can result in strange and unexpected things. If you absolutely can't stand the textures (and if its all-right with McGlaspie), I'll upload the .psd's I used so you can create your own personal texture mod to run, if you like.