Marines "buying" weapons?
FocusedWolf
Join Date: 2005-01-09 Member: 34258Members
Join Date: 2005-01-09 Member: 34258Members
<div class="IPBDescription">big ole wtf</div>Doesn't the concept seem a little off...
Even in NS1 it seems odd that the commander is building your guns... i would rather believe their getting transported in from a marine ship nearby...
But still the concept of needing to "buy" things in ns2 with personal money is WRONG imho. Unless you prefer counterstrike gameplay which ends in everyone being poorly equipped for battle through the use of stock weaponry because they have no more personal resources.
Because of this awkwardness of that scheme, i propose the following approach:
<ol type='1'><li>As the marine commander acquires either resource or objectives, the upper limit to the amount of personal resources permitted to each marine will grow. Note: This upper limit will NEVER decrease. The reason being... the whole situation in NS1 where the alien team could win by taking out marine rts, in order to starve them of points (so they couldn't afford hmgs, which were nerfed anyway) was not fun... it really meant that the marine commander had to tf-farm every rt... which is also not fun... and really the whole gameplay became less about attacking the hive and aliens and more about defending resources towers, putting up new resource towers, and welding resource towers.
I think the NS devs realized this concept of gameplay sucked and that's where the whole idea of personal res came from. Also because commanders didn't like having to babysit the marine team. I mean they're marines... they should spawn with all magazines filled and weapons at the ready anyway... Like in CO essentially. The commanders job should not be about personally micromanaging what weapon each marine gets...
</li><li>A marine is given these "points" or "credits", and they may customize their loadout within the bounds of those credits... but the difference being from money is as follows.
<ul>A. A point is not "spent", it is simply allocated to weapons and equipment of the players choice. What this will mean is if a marine dies and respawns then those points are not lost... Infact he respawns with the same guns and equipment / scopes / attachments that he has decided on earlier (which is much better then having to buy new guns and equipment with additional personal res every time you die,.. isn't it?)
B. A marine may re-allocate those points to get different weapons and equipment as the round progresses... reiterating that points are NOT spent! Or rather they may be reclaimed and re-spent, if you prefer the "spent" word lol.</li></ul></li></ol>
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So what do you think?? The system can easily be adapted to the alien team, utilizing an identical setup.
If you have a hard time accepting this, then think of CO in NS1.... You spawned everytime with the previous upgrades and weapons... This is just like that, but now you have the ability to undo things that you bought.... for example maybe you don't need that GL anymore... perhaps you want a shotgun... and 10 minutes later perhaps you want a hmg... See this system is so flexible that it can even be directly ported to CO (and improve CO in the process lol).
And to answer the question of how does the alien team win if knocking out all marine RTs is accomplished? Well my proposal has essentially separated the marine players armor, weaponry, and equipment from the state of the battle with the aliens. This was done to make it less stressful and easier to play as marine... not for realism considerations. So i guess we can either have a time limit which sounds crappy... or we make it epic and the aliens will need to destroy all ips and CC to win, despite the challenge that every marine may have a hmg ALL THE TIME if they so choose it (actually we already know that it will be different per player... some with jetpacks and lighter weaponry, and others with heavies and heavy weapons and flamethrowers, and lastly light weight ninja scouts with silenced submachine guns and poison darts... but if the commander requested everyone with hmgs... then it would be possible).
This will mean that every alien can be a fade at one point, or a onos... which gives the marines a chance to have heavy damage upgrades... this will just make the game more about strategic battle and less about strategic resource tower capping, while as time goes on the personal res cap for both team grows, thereby ratcheting up the battle (they can also grow independent of each other so one team can get stronger first, making it easier for them to ultimately win). Why would we need a CO game mode if the NS game mode contains ample combat experiences that someone can just join the server to experience, while keeping that NS commander strategy concept entertained?
I think ultimately we need this because if i remember correctly 90% of all NS servers are running CO maps... and yet NS2 doesn't have that game mode (no matter how easy it is to throw a crappy CO mode together)... So the idea is to make a hybrid between NS1 CO and NS modes for NS2, to be the one mode that unites the banned CS players that play CO with the shadow people that play NS?
Even in NS1 it seems odd that the commander is building your guns... i would rather believe their getting transported in from a marine ship nearby...
But still the concept of needing to "buy" things in ns2 with personal money is WRONG imho. Unless you prefer counterstrike gameplay which ends in everyone being poorly equipped for battle through the use of stock weaponry because they have no more personal resources.
Because of this awkwardness of that scheme, i propose the following approach:
<ol type='1'><li>As the marine commander acquires either resource or objectives, the upper limit to the amount of personal resources permitted to each marine will grow. Note: This upper limit will NEVER decrease. The reason being... the whole situation in NS1 where the alien team could win by taking out marine rts, in order to starve them of points (so they couldn't afford hmgs, which were nerfed anyway) was not fun... it really meant that the marine commander had to tf-farm every rt... which is also not fun... and really the whole gameplay became less about attacking the hive and aliens and more about defending resources towers, putting up new resource towers, and welding resource towers.
I think the NS devs realized this concept of gameplay sucked and that's where the whole idea of personal res came from. Also because commanders didn't like having to babysit the marine team. I mean they're marines... they should spawn with all magazines filled and weapons at the ready anyway... Like in CO essentially. The commanders job should not be about personally micromanaging what weapon each marine gets...
</li><li>A marine is given these "points" or "credits", and they may customize their loadout within the bounds of those credits... but the difference being from money is as follows.
<ul>A. A point is not "spent", it is simply allocated to weapons and equipment of the players choice. What this will mean is if a marine dies and respawns then those points are not lost... Infact he respawns with the same guns and equipment / scopes / attachments that he has decided on earlier (which is much better then having to buy new guns and equipment with additional personal res every time you die,.. isn't it?)
B. A marine may re-allocate those points to get different weapons and equipment as the round progresses... reiterating that points are NOT spent! Or rather they may be reclaimed and re-spent, if you prefer the "spent" word lol.</li></ul></li></ol>
----------------------------------
So what do you think?? The system can easily be adapted to the alien team, utilizing an identical setup.
If you have a hard time accepting this, then think of CO in NS1.... You spawned everytime with the previous upgrades and weapons... This is just like that, but now you have the ability to undo things that you bought.... for example maybe you don't need that GL anymore... perhaps you want a shotgun... and 10 minutes later perhaps you want a hmg... See this system is so flexible that it can even be directly ported to CO (and improve CO in the process lol).
And to answer the question of how does the alien team win if knocking out all marine RTs is accomplished? Well my proposal has essentially separated the marine players armor, weaponry, and equipment from the state of the battle with the aliens. This was done to make it less stressful and easier to play as marine... not for realism considerations. So i guess we can either have a time limit which sounds crappy... or we make it epic and the aliens will need to destroy all ips and CC to win, despite the challenge that every marine may have a hmg ALL THE TIME if they so choose it (actually we already know that it will be different per player... some with jetpacks and lighter weaponry, and others with heavies and heavy weapons and flamethrowers, and lastly light weight ninja scouts with silenced submachine guns and poison darts... but if the commander requested everyone with hmgs... then it would be possible).
This will mean that every alien can be a fade at one point, or a onos... which gives the marines a chance to have heavy damage upgrades... this will just make the game more about strategic battle and less about strategic resource tower capping, while as time goes on the personal res cap for both team grows, thereby ratcheting up the battle (they can also grow independent of each other so one team can get stronger first, making it easier for them to ultimately win). Why would we need a CO game mode if the NS game mode contains ample combat experiences that someone can just join the server to experience, while keeping that NS commander strategy concept entertained?
I think ultimately we need this because if i remember correctly 90% of all NS servers are running CO maps... and yet NS2 doesn't have that game mode (no matter how easy it is to throw a crappy CO mode together)... So the idea is to make a hybrid between NS1 CO and NS modes for NS2, to be the one mode that unites the banned CS players that play CO with the shadow people that play NS?
Comments
I like what forcing people to buy weapons does. It allows the team with more resources, and therefor more map control, to have the advantage at that time. This is how the system should work, in my opinion. Just because a team was able to quickly cap 4 or 5 towers in the first opening minutes doesn't mean they should gain an advantage that can never be taken away throughout the rest of the game.
I'd rather see each resource tower provide a specific amount of points to the marine's or alien's resource pool. The points are removed from the pool when the resource tower is lost. I see this as a comprise to the problem I described above. Players can still have the weapon / lifeform they want without worrying about running out of money, assuming they have enough RTs, but the map still holds strategic locations as they could lose those weapons / lifeforms if they ignore RTs.
In both our examples I'm assuming the commander is unchanged by all of this and they would still have to research / build things / etc.
I'm surprised no one mentioned it earlier, but I think it's fitting to point out help description for the RT in the pre-alpha vid:
<!--QuoteBegin-pre-alpha vid @ 0:48+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (pre-alpha vid @ 0:48)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteEBegin-->this resource tower generates <!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->INCOME<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> for you and your team<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
what!? did I just read that right? yeah I know placeholder, etc... but someone had to think that up, and the fact that INCOME came to their mind above the immediately obvious RESOURCES speaks volumes.
I'm surprised no one mentioned it earlier, but I think it's fitting to point out help description for the RT in the pre-alpha vid:
what!? did I just read that right? yeah I know placeholder, etc... but someone had to think that up, and the fact that INCOME came to their mind above the immediately obvious RESOURCES speaks volumes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
None of this made any sense. Weapons were bought in NS:Classic. Was it "defintely wrong" and did it "cheapify the game?" NS2 is allowing individual marines to have their own resource pools, resources generated through nodes and possibly RFK, so that they are in control of their own gameplay experience. I never enjoyed the fact that I had an LMG most of the time in Classic and I never enjoyed the fact that the commander was in sole control of my load out.
UWE is taking the right step by allowing marines to equip themselves. The only question is should it be through income that can be spent and lost or should it be though points that are allocated. If it should be though points allocated, should the point pool ever decrease (the OP says no) or should it increase/decrease with the amount of RT's a team holds (I say yes).
what!? did I just read that right? yeah I know placeholder, etc... but someone had to think that up, and the fact that INCOME came to their mind above the immediately obvious RESOURCES speaks volumes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You are overreacting over word choice. The denotative and connotative difference between "income" and "resources" is so small its subjective. Just calm down; you'll like NS2, I promise.
I'd rather see each resource tower provide a specific amount of points to the marine's or alien's resource pool. The points are removed from the pool when the resource tower is lost. I see this as a comprise to the problem I described above. Players can still have the weapon / lifeform they want without worrying about running out of money, assuming they have enough RTs, but the map still holds strategic locations as they could lose those weapons / lifeforms if they ignore RTs.
In both our examples I'm assuming the commander is unchanged by all of this and they would still have to research / build things / etc.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes like i said there is good reason not to take away this advantage... The whole point is that rounds complete in a reasonable amount of time, are action packed, and it sort of guarantees that every round will see marines and aliens climb high through the tech tree for that epic battle in the end.
I think the whole system can be balanced by what you said... in short... we require that marines must hold a RT point for a set amount of time, BEFORE the personal res cap is raised higher (maybe only crediting marines that helped cap? although i'd rather see the team benefit). Naturally we make LOOSING rts bad for the commander... but the point is he will still have equipped soldiers to fight with (and he doesn't need to arm them every time they die which frees him up for other tasks!!). Ultimate victory is up to the commanders strategy.... the personal safety of the marines is up to their weapons... i think it all works out in the end :P
In a recent interview Flayra was asked how quickly rounds in NS2 would be over. He said replied with something close to 15 to 25 minutes. That is most likely short enough for the vast majority of players. Second, due to map design and the powergrid system players should be more focused within areas ensuring rounds are action packed. Third, this is not just an FPS. There is an RTS side to this game and not every round in an RTS sees the high end tech. It sounds like you basically want Combat but with a Commander who would research the technology before the marines are allowed to allocate their points to it.
That does not sound like a fun role and most of the points around the map would lose their strategic importance if the points pool never decreased.
Either way, it sounds like UWE has already addressed your reasoning for wanting this change in NS2. Shorter and more action packed rounds are already in NS2 so let's not gimp the RTS side which, in NS1, was already weak to begin with.
Are you referring to building resource towers? :P
So, this is sort of out of the blue, but, do you even have NS downloaded and installed and/or, have you ever played it before?
I know FocusedWolf is emphasising strategic combat, instead of strategic overall gameplay. In that case, its pretty much like modern warfare, where the player can customise his own loadout every match. NS2 would then be a generic space shooter. The thing that was so great in NS1 was that if you took down enemy buildings, you still hurt them. You also had to weigh consequences. Whether to spend on weapons or save up for something else? Taking these aspects away would be dumbing it down too much.
<b>I know FocusedWolf is emphasising strategic combat, instead of strategic overall gameplay.</b> In that case, its pretty much like modern warfare, where the player can customise his own loadout every match. NS2 would then be a generic space shooter. The thing that was so great in NS1 was that if you took down enemy buildings, you still hurt them. You also had to weigh consequences. Whether to spend on weapons or save up for something else? Taking these aspects away would be dumbing it down too much.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I disagree to the statement i've made in bold for the reasons that my suggestions maintains the RTS aspect for the commanders.
For example, the commanders still would need resources to drop structures and sieges/turrets etc and conduct upgrades like NS1. Perhaps we can make it where the commander decides if he wants to spend some of those resources on upping the marines personal res... so like NS1 the commander is still in charge of the marine equipment, but also like NS2... it's up to the individual marines what weapons they decide to use, and like my idea... the marines personal res can be infinitely reconfigured (and perhaps for balance reasons this reconfiguring of personal-res-credits-things can only be done at an armory... thus making armories more important in the field and adding to the list of things the commander needs to consider spending res on).
Overall my idea is just slightly expanding on the concept of personal res that the devs want to have per player in NS2. Since the devs already severed the connection between marine and commander at this level then i guess we can say that they have an interest in NS2 "emphasizing strategic combat...pretty much like modern warfare". I'm just trying to suggest a way of doing this that is NOT like counter strike... which would suck btw... Does anyone here want to be making decisions every time they spawn on what equipment they carry and having to stand around the armory making these purchases? Or don't we all know that their's a 75% your gonna die and so you decide to always go into battle with lmgs, or just to scavenge for weapons that other marines dropped? IMO that will impede the marines efforts to much, and take a lot of time for no good reason.