Personal Res/Team Res
MuYeah
Join Date: 2006-12-26 Member: 59261Members
Join Date: 2006-12-26 Member: 59261Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Specifically regarding spores</div>One of the most interesting and tactical abilities in NS1 was spore and I'm glad to see it basically copy/pasted into NS2 (but with prettier visuals).
It was so interesting because not only did it soften up the marines, it also acted as a resource sponge. What I mean by that is if you were behind econ or tech-wise as the alien team, you could play incredibly passively just harassing resource towers with your skulks while trying to hit the marines as much as possible with spore; forcing the commander to waste their res on med-packs instead of weapons and upgrades, allowing the aliens to catch up. This also lead to two divergent styles of lerk play: the offensive celerity lerk and the defensive adren lerk. The only other lifeform to have this really was the skulk where you'd either be adren (or silence)/scent of fear eating res or silence/celerity / focus leaping into marines.
My worry is that in NS2 this mechanic has been removed by the separation of personal res and team res (marine commander spends personal res on medpacks now). I do agree with the split of res types on a general level, but personally, loss of this mechanic is somewhat of a show-stopper on that front for me. I'd love to see something similar implemented where you could force the opposing team's commander to spend team resources. Killing res towers doesn't count, by the way :B
With the unification of the resource models, surely there should be a tech/econ-depletion style of play for <i>both</i> teams rather than neither? Or will it just be one of those things we'll have to leave by the way-side in the name of progress?
It was so interesting because not only did it soften up the marines, it also acted as a resource sponge. What I mean by that is if you were behind econ or tech-wise as the alien team, you could play incredibly passively just harassing resource towers with your skulks while trying to hit the marines as much as possible with spore; forcing the commander to waste their res on med-packs instead of weapons and upgrades, allowing the aliens to catch up. This also lead to two divergent styles of lerk play: the offensive celerity lerk and the defensive adren lerk. The only other lifeform to have this really was the skulk where you'd either be adren (or silence)/scent of fear eating res or silence/celerity / focus leaping into marines.
My worry is that in NS2 this mechanic has been removed by the separation of personal res and team res (marine commander spends personal res on medpacks now). I do agree with the split of res types on a general level, but personally, loss of this mechanic is somewhat of a show-stopper on that front for me. I'd love to see something similar implemented where you could force the opposing team's commander to spend team resources. Killing res towers doesn't count, by the way :B
With the unification of the resource models, surely there should be a tech/econ-depletion style of play for <i>both</i> teams rather than neither? Or will it just be one of those things we'll have to leave by the way-side in the name of progress?
Comments
Change Energy-costs (of which there are... 3?) for the Marine Commander to P.Res costs.
...
Profit?
I'm very much in favour of this if there's not any better system planned. The whole idea is that you've got good alternatives for your res spending. With the gun decisions already lost to the field marines, 2 pools seems like a very limited system.
I'm confused. Are you stating this as an argument FOR or AGAINST the statement you're basing it off of? And more importantly, what are you saying?
Also, Tech nodes = T.res, Res nodes = P.res.
the seperation was necessary, medpacks which cost teamres will produce a no-medpack-philosophy.
to keep more than 7 marines well supplied with basic medspam, you need 4 full upgraded restowers.
Given that arcs cost Pres, in a 16v16 game, both marine-commanders are already the most consuming pres units.
They are already running out of the possibility to medspam.
Gun and Lifeform purchases are in the middle.
Followed by the Aliencomms which usually goes gorge and puts some hydras up, and still have enough res to go fade.
In short: Aliencomms dont need a energy system, they should rely on paying with p-res.
At least for Drifters and DI.
I don't think we're on the same wavelength, I was not referring to med-pack carpeting. The comm had to drop meds in NS1 or you lose your position on the map. The aliens would abuse this by specifically sporing the marines as much as possible with no further intention of trying to attack at that time unless absolutely necessary (if they're strolling towards your final RT or something). Usually movement chambers would be out on the map in a good position or the lerk would take adren to aid this, which were both also fun strategic trade-offs.
In NS2 what ways are there for one team to catch up to the other tech-wise? So far I can only see killing resource nodes and hoping to defend your own. I rather liked that you had two different methods in NS1: disrupting supply (killing nodes) and depletion of stockpiled resources (forcing med drops).
Am I right in thinking the only way to deplete a big stockpile of Team res in NS2 is if the comm decides to drop turrets? An option which I find completely unappealing because I hate being shot at by AI from across a room. Maybe that's just me :). Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the turrets only operated for ~30s then fell over and got destroyed. Or were coin-operated.
Am I also going completely mental and have I missed something fundamental in the design of NS2 that allows for something similar to old spore-spam?
By the way Bacillus, don't stop posting: you're awesome. I look out for your avatar over anyone else's on these forums (except Jiriki, he owns too) when skimming threads.
I suppose they could let the commander drop meds using team res as well, if that doesn't work.
The whole resource system is difficult to deal with though. It was designed from an NS1 standpoint assuming you used X amount on buildings and Y amount on weapons/support. There isn't much room for varying that ratio.
Yep. Does away with NS1: "no medpacks everyone, don't get bitten: i'm saving for phase gates".
Should be trade-offs for all com actions, or its just bs baby sitting.
Not always. Armories were usually dropped to resupply & heal marines. I very rarely drop med/ammo in the first 10 minutes, but I was a very liberal welder dropper after armor 2.
A building (could easily be tacked on to armory) with energy similar to observatory that allows med-packs and ammo to be dropped. Regenerates at a fixed rate, like 1 medpack every 10 seconds or something. If you want to drop more meds you then invest more res into infrastructure.
Examples: Early pressure build could be 2 fast armory / Higher armory count to help mitigate lerk-centred builds.
Would also encourage forward field bases and fun things like that, allows ramping up of production as a tech option which has a very high threshold before seeing diminishing returns (which allows a totally dominant team to turn its immense territorial/economic/tech advantage into a turtle-breaking blow) and re-introduces "tech harassment" concept.
Would need a good UI fix, like a "med button" rather than clicking on individual structures like the crag with umbra at the moment. And potential problems with spamming them all in one place them turtling it forever. Aliens would need good enough abilities of their own to deal with stuff like this. I suppose stomp which disables buildings would do fine, though!
As a sidenote: perhaps, this and my lack of proper english combined with a lacking explaining-ability, and a difference in regional strategys ^^ Or perhaps im thinking too much in ns2 terms. Atleast its a growground of new ideas, if theyre good is a different thematic.
What i meant is you tryed to dictate the commander how he should play, back in the ns1days with your way of lerking. But in the end it was the commanders decision to play your game and waste hundreds of res, or play your game and use it against you (keeping soldiers alive and order some other marines to ninja a pg at the 2nd hive as an example).
The thing with the madpacks was: You are already harrassing one of the resourcepools of a overteched marineteam, limiting them from one relative strong ability of their commander. The whole upgrading the marinerts and also loosing high valued rts, as a sideeffect, is a good hit at their economy.
The problem of the "feeling of only way is to kill rts" atm in ns2, is that we have no visual indication that the "obs is jumping so its researching pg or mt", "armory jumps so its going the get advanced" and "armslab jumping, they get upgrades".
Having no visual for it doesnt mean they dont upgrade in ns2. I catched myself attacking the unguarded rt in marinespawn instead of the ip first. Same with the armory.
Loosing a armory with weaponsmodule and flamer in research is a way more attracting target than the ip directly. NS1 was a game of attacking the weakest, sadly most times its the rts because they are outside of a guarded area.
A building (could easily be tacked on to armory) with energy similar to observatory that allows med-packs and ammo to be dropped. Regenerates at a fixed rate, like 1 medpack every 10 seconds or something. If you want to drop more meds you then invest more res into infrastructure.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, I've been trying to spread the idea of Assists using Observatory Energy as well.
Also, should the total number of reserved Medpacks be limited/upgradeable?