Make Weapons & Equipment "Free" For Better Pubbing Experience
Terminotaur
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 3132Members
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 3132Members
In many NS pubs, many commanders, especially newer commanders, are reluctant to drop equipment for their team. The main reasons the commander will not drop equipment readily, especially early in the game, is a psychological issue of "wasting" resources and a distrust that newly endowed players will immediately squander the equipment. This also sucks for people who are not the commander. A great majority of my pubbing experience involved just heading out with the stock lmg and the ammo from the armory even if the commander had resources to spare.
I suggest changing the acquisition of equipment from a fixed cost per unit to a "free" cooldown system. Placing the equipment is free once you have paid the initial outlay of building or upgrade. You should only be able to stockpile and hand out a certain amount of a certain equipment. When equipment is handed out, a slow cooldown starts to stockpike the weapon again back to the max stockpile. This means losing the equipment all at once is still disastrous.
As an example, consider an early game shotgun upgrade that costs 50 resources (the exact res or specific numbers DO NOT MATTER, this is just an example for illustration). This may immediately give the commander 1 shotgun to hand out. Then, slowly, a shotgun cooldown will replenish slowly til 3. At any time only 3 shotguns can be on the field at any one time. Whenever a shotgun is available, the commander can hand out the shotgun for "free." However, the cost truly isn't free. The opportunity cost of the 50 resources could have possibly been used elsewhere.
What are the benefits to this system? I believe such a system would encourage commanders much more to give players equipment. Just from a psychological standpoint, pub commanders would be much more likely to hand out equipment because they feel that if the equipment is lost they will just get it back anyways. Even if getting 5 shotguns cost the exact same amount of overall resources in the classic NS system and this "free" system, I think the psychological aspect would make commanders much more willing to hand stuff out and spend their resources directly on marines.
You could greatly tweak the system and have many different types of gradual upgrades. For example, you could have upgrades that increase the rate of cooldown and/or the max amount you could stockpile of a certain weapon. This could tailor builds to be more early-game shotgun-centric or more oriented toward another weapon. You could even have fun little side equipment with this system such as a cool pistol on a really long cooldown or something stupid like that that comes with certain weapon upgrades that the commander would actually hand out since it comes "free" with the research cost of the main weapon. Who would actually ever seriously buy a marginal pistol side weapon that's a moderate upgrade to the regular pistol in the classic NS system if it cost 5+ resources?
Depending on how you tweak the numbers, you could make the initial outlay buy a lot of immediate weapons or have a gradual ramp-up so that getting new tech doesn't immediatley allow a really strong timing push. Maybe the initial outlay could be cheap for just having one of a weapon and you would have to spend resources to gradually ramp up how many you could have at once.
This system can lessen a slippery slope effect of losing a lot of equipment at once in a disastrous battle. If the team does not constantly die again and they don't lose a lot of resource towers, they will gradually acquire the same power they had before although they will likely cede some of the map. Dying has consequences, but it isn't a steep cliff where comebacks are impossible.
How would you balance a game where the marines research all the little cooldown upgrades and the entire tech tree and are turtling on one resource tower? You could always tie the speed of the cooldowns to the rate of resource flow without actually directly costing resources. As an example, having 3 or more resource towers would allow the maximum rate of cooldown. However, if you get down to one resource tower, the cooldowns should drastically slow down so that marines can't just turtle forever on one base with "free" equipment and so that an overwhelming resource advantage on the other team would allow them to break the turtle.
I feel systems that encourage commanders to actually drop equipment for their players would greatly improve the pubbing experience in NS2!
I suggest changing the acquisition of equipment from a fixed cost per unit to a "free" cooldown system. Placing the equipment is free once you have paid the initial outlay of building or upgrade. You should only be able to stockpile and hand out a certain amount of a certain equipment. When equipment is handed out, a slow cooldown starts to stockpike the weapon again back to the max stockpile. This means losing the equipment all at once is still disastrous.
As an example, consider an early game shotgun upgrade that costs 50 resources (the exact res or specific numbers DO NOT MATTER, this is just an example for illustration). This may immediately give the commander 1 shotgun to hand out. Then, slowly, a shotgun cooldown will replenish slowly til 3. At any time only 3 shotguns can be on the field at any one time. Whenever a shotgun is available, the commander can hand out the shotgun for "free." However, the cost truly isn't free. The opportunity cost of the 50 resources could have possibly been used elsewhere.
What are the benefits to this system? I believe such a system would encourage commanders much more to give players equipment. Just from a psychological standpoint, pub commanders would be much more likely to hand out equipment because they feel that if the equipment is lost they will just get it back anyways. Even if getting 5 shotguns cost the exact same amount of overall resources in the classic NS system and this "free" system, I think the psychological aspect would make commanders much more willing to hand stuff out and spend their resources directly on marines.
You could greatly tweak the system and have many different types of gradual upgrades. For example, you could have upgrades that increase the rate of cooldown and/or the max amount you could stockpile of a certain weapon. This could tailor builds to be more early-game shotgun-centric or more oriented toward another weapon. You could even have fun little side equipment with this system such as a cool pistol on a really long cooldown or something stupid like that that comes with certain weapon upgrades that the commander would actually hand out since it comes "free" with the research cost of the main weapon. Who would actually ever seriously buy a marginal pistol side weapon that's a moderate upgrade to the regular pistol in the classic NS system if it cost 5+ resources?
Depending on how you tweak the numbers, you could make the initial outlay buy a lot of immediate weapons or have a gradual ramp-up so that getting new tech doesn't immediatley allow a really strong timing push. Maybe the initial outlay could be cheap for just having one of a weapon and you would have to spend resources to gradually ramp up how many you could have at once.
This system can lessen a slippery slope effect of losing a lot of equipment at once in a disastrous battle. If the team does not constantly die again and they don't lose a lot of resource towers, they will gradually acquire the same power they had before although they will likely cede some of the map. Dying has consequences, but it isn't a steep cliff where comebacks are impossible.
How would you balance a game where the marines research all the little cooldown upgrades and the entire tech tree and are turtling on one resource tower? You could always tie the speed of the cooldowns to the rate of resource flow without actually directly costing resources. As an example, having 3 or more resource towers would allow the maximum rate of cooldown. However, if you get down to one resource tower, the cooldowns should drastically slow down so that marines can't just turtle forever on one base with "free" equipment and so that an overwhelming resource advantage on the other team would allow them to break the turtle.
I feel systems that encourage commanders to actually drop equipment for their players would greatly improve the pubbing experience in NS2!
Comments
ja, thats the way i remember it too. Â Though, is there actually an official statement concerning buying and costs of weapons for marines?
Players buy their own weapons in NS2, as you would know if you had either played the Alpha or read the forums even slightly.
As far as NS1 goes; No, I will not buy you a shotgun within 60 seconds of the game starting. There are infinitely better things I can be doing with those resources. They are not "spare" they are "reserved" for building work and upgrades that I as Commander choose to give you, not that you as a player demand.
Kill a couple of aliens with the gun, you get to buy it again if you die.
Seems pretty reasonable to me, especially if the guns are more choices than simple straight upgrades.
Even if ns2 marines didnt have their own personal res now and can buy their wepon of choice...how would the aliens reply to a 5 min HMG/Shotgun rush....should aliens now be able to get free life forms to counter this??...this just wouldnt work...
Anyway. I've played on CS:S servers, a long time ago, and they had instant respawn + all guns free... and it was decent.
Lastly, the whole philosophy of spending money to "own" a gun for 1 life is very much unlike the desired experience played out in thousands of NS1 servers, and i am of course referring to CO where you keep your weapon even if you die. Or in siege servers where their is a pile of hmgs next to the pile of heavies or jps next to the pile of mines and welders. The simple fact is it is very annoying to loose your gun. Imagine if in CO you lost your hmg after dieing, and had to repeat the cycle of damage 1-3 -> shotgun -> hmg (WITHOUT DIEING) just to get it back. Although it would be nice to see that the aliens that died as onos and fade would be FORCED to play as skulk again instead of simply re-egging into a fade/onos lmao.
Therefore the majority of the NS1 community would very much like free guns.
Does someone care to take an inventory of all the games in existence where the guns are free? Lets start with taking a ###### on counterstrike, and looking at all the games in the RainbowSix genre right up to Bad Company 2.
I say NO to having a counterstrike-style buying of weapons in NS2, and i predict there will be many NS2 servers running scripts to let people get any gun or lifeform for free.
Ohoh, you might want remove focusedwolf from your ignore list and read his post fully.
Happy Heart Attack
Again i ask...how are aliens suppose to respond to MARINES FREE WEPON...
would we now need to give aliens FREE LIFEFORMS? how about just throw out the resource system while you're at it....
would we now need to give aliens FREE LIFEFORMS?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes.
<!--quoteo(post=1793634:date=Aug 11 2010, 10:25 PM:name=salor)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (salor @ Aug 11 2010, 10:25 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1793634"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->how about just throw out the resource system while you're at it....<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes the community will make a CO mod for NS2 and yes the resource system will be the first thing that gets tossed, just like CO for NS1.
Could this CO mode satisfy the OP's request for a "Free" equipment mode "for better pubbing experience". Possibly, but it would fall short in standard NS mod (if that was what you wanted to play, and with the resource system thrown out).
And in the end the final decisions for implementation of these game modes will fall to the custom-server admins and script makers. But we can still discuss the implications here :P
Still, we've no way of conclusively testing that theory at this stage.
Still, we've no way of conclusively testing that theory at this stage.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
see sig.
For starters, there's "positive feedback" problems, where performing well makes it easier to perform even better and performing poorly makes it even harder to catch up. Would you play a racing game in which being behind actually makes you slower, and the guys in front actually get a speed boost? Of course not. Most racing games do the opposite if they meddle with speed at all. So why would you play a shooter where a good kill/death ratio makes it easier to have even better guns? It's the same problem with positive feedback leading to a static, uninteresting game environment.
Not to mention that this encourages unsportsmanlike behavior (spawn camping) and passive rather than aggressive strategy, which rarely contributes to fun.
Also isolating the map-based resource system to only commander functions cuts down their direct interrelation with the average marine down to just passive upgrades. Most casual players probably won't even notice they're getting them. Worries that the new system will degrade the commander/grunt interrelationship, reduce perceived or actual importance of territorial control, and encourage "ramboing" seem justified to me.
Finding a solution for the original problem (having to be completely dependent on the commander for gear) that avoids these new problems, then, would be great.
<b><!--coloro:#FFFF88--><span style="color:#FFFF88"><!--/coloro-->I suggest a hybridization of sorts, in which marines still have personal resources and buy their own weapons, but rather than being generated freely from kills they're deducted from the territorial resource income.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b> The Commander could set a fractional budget (say, anywhere from 20% to 100%) of the overall resource income to be distributed as individual res to the grunts, and perhaps further choose from several methods of distribution, such as a flat even split or distribution in proportion to each player's performance. Perhaps he could even be able to drop specific players "packets" of extra resources, so long as he's not allowed to completely cut the base income, as a way to manually focus some oomph where it's needed the most or reward good players more visibly.
What I hope you'd wind up with here would be a system where the average casual grunt can have control over his own loadout and good performance can potentially be rewarded automatically (as the current NS2 weapon/resource system accomplishes nicely), but still has every reason to care about the strategy side of the game and cooperate with the team and commander, since every res node secured means a direct increase in his own equipment budget rather than <i>maybe</i> some more upgrades or turrets in the future.
Ah, memories... I always favoured a representative currency system, personally.
That problem can never be solved.
Making good guns more available without being overpowered.... if they aren't good enough they don't feel like a reward. So they have to be better than normal. But then you can't hand them out for free otherwise they are overpowered.
One option is to make all guns equal in terms of DPS (or other metrics of "usefulness"), but have different functions. The individual player can have get a "better gun" because it suits their preference, but its not overpowered because it just does damage differently instead of being straight up and boring x2 damage.
I prefer siege, i.e. NS mode + free guns is like playing siege.
Anyway, <!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro--><b>*NUKED.*</b> Be polite. -Talesin<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
For starters, there's "positive feedback" problems, where performing well makes it easier to perform even better and performing poorly makes it even harder to catch up. Would you play a racing game in which being behind actually makes you slower, and the guys in front actually get a speed boost? Of course not. Most racing games do the opposite if they meddle with speed at all. So why would you play a shooter where a good kill/death ratio makes it easier to have even better guns? It's the same problem with positive feedback leading to a static, uninteresting game environment.
Not to mention that this encourages unsportsmanlike behavior (spawn camping) and passive rather than aggressive strategy, which rarely contributes to fun.
Also isolating the map-based resource system to only commander functions cuts down their direct interrelation with the average marine down to just passive upgrades. Most casual players probably won't even notice they're getting them. Worries that the new system will degrade the commander/grunt interrelationship, reduce perceived or actual importance of territorial control, and encourage "ramboing" seem justified to me.
Finding a solution for the original problem (having to be completely dependent on the commander for gear) that avoids these new problems, then, would be great.
<b><!--coloro:#FFFF88--><span style="color:#FFFF88"><!--/coloro-->I suggest a hybridization of sorts, in which marines still have personal resources and buy their own weapons, but rather than being generated freely from kills they're deducted from the territorial resource income.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></b> The Commander could set a fractional budget (say, anywhere from 20% to 100%) of the overall resource income to be distributed as individual res to the grunts, and perhaps further choose from several methods of distribution, such as a flat even split or distribution in proportion to each player's performance. Perhaps he could even be able to drop specific players "packets" of extra resources, so long as he's not allowed to completely cut the base income, as a way to manually focus some oomph where it's needed the most or reward good players more visibly.
What I hope you'd wind up with here would be a system where the average casual grunt can have control over his own loadout and good performance can potentially be rewarded automatically (as the current NS2 weapon/resource system accomplishes nicely), but still has every reason to care about the strategy side of the game and cooperate with the team and commander, since every res node secured means a direct increase in his own equipment budget rather than <i>maybe</i> some more upgrades or turrets in the future.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Giving massive boost to people who lag behind can make a game more fun when people from varying skill levels are involved, but it get pretty frustrating when played on a high level.
Lets take mario kart as an example: Mario KArt an a high level is frustrating, because the game is usually won by the guy who was behind before the last corner and recieved an infinite mushroom ensuring victory. This results in players holding back just the right amount.
However the system works for casual mario kart pretty well, because there is a predetermined round end. When your fastest time is 6 minutes you wont need ore than 10 to finish a race.
In NS on the other hand boosting the loosing team will result in rounds being dragged into oblivion; especially when marines are on the loosing side and receiving free weapons/upgrades/equipments.
NS has always been a game where two equally strong teams could battle each other for hours on a balanced map. Those were fun games, but now imagine that every ns round lasted 5 hours, because the loosing team cannot be drained of resources or get damage/health boosts.
Giving boosts to the loosing team would also greatly hamper the RTS side of NS. One of the main concepts of RTS is to gain a economical advantage and then expand on that advantage, forcing your opponent to act.
Hand out an early shoutgun? Thats one RT less you can place, but if that shotgun allows you to take out a RES node and 3 skulks, it paid itself off. You made a small economical sacrifce in order to hurt the enemies economy in a greater way than your own sacrifice.
Giving out free weapons is just foolish. We already have free spawns and free starting weapons. Just like in a RTS game you need to pay out for the better stuff. This creates a need to gather resources somehow. Probably by controlling the map. Making better weapons free is simply foolish.
in the army, if you want better gear than the stuff you are issued, then you have to pay for it
Way to miss the point of that post, Loey. How many marines have you met that have bought and use their own gun instead of the one they were issued?
you cant bring and use your own weapon, but your webbing and most opther equipment you can and most grunts i know use their own gear.
Pretty much a very similar one, yes. It provides personal res but we can retain a set income for the commander to manage for the team. Also, it deals with team scaling since the commander is promised a certain portion of the income so that more players don't starve the commander's progression of the team's economy/tech (see Gorges in giant 16v16 games). Makes perfect sense to me.
Least that's what I figured, could be wrong though.
Least that's what I figured, could be wrong though.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Would be interesting then if the commander could divert additional res to the marines.
Then build a regular community on the server and condition them into doing what you want for their crap.
...i shouldnt read so much sexual mind control stuff.