I don't get where the difference is supposed to be.
In early builds you expanded as marines to take tech, because you needed it to win the game, but you also needed map control because marines were stupid and slow, and the only way you could get anywhere was by paving the road there with bases and sentries and general stuff to keep aliens busy.
Aliens on the other hand expanded because they can, because there was no reason not to.
Now you have marines expanding to build phase gates and aliens expanding because of tech.
I really don't see what the difference is, both sides expanded before, both sides expand now, the only way to win is to expand, or rush I suppose if you're aliens but that's unreliable. What's changed in that regard?
Aliens have less default map control than before, because before infestation was hard to move and aliens were less tied to protecting multiple hives, now aliens are more confined to hives and forced to react to marines a lot more, they are far less fluid than they were because they are constrained by the failings of their base building mechanics.
Combine this with a major nerfing of alien lifeforms and a significant buffing of marines what you usually get is not decentralised aliens and focussed marines, but bumrushes of marines followed by aliens all being recalled from whatever they're doing to re-centralise on wherever the marines are focussed.
This is actually a general thing, both sides tend to react identically to problems, if they get bottled up at the start they end up sitting there for half an hour until the game ends, both sides have to respond to bumrushes the same way, by urgently grabbing everyone from whatever they're doing to respond to it, both sides attack the same way, by rushing in large groups and smashing everything up, hopefully before the enemy can react. Both sides are also well advised to send lone units around to kill the enemy resources.
Honestly I don't see any of what you said really, if anything the game has gotten a lot more symmetrical with the increase in marine mobility and the weakening of indiivdual aliens, and along the way it's picked up a bunch of really bad mechanics like the race for hive2 which is even more annoying than the marine race for CC2, which at least you only needed to build, and didn't need to actually defend for more than a second. Along with a bunch of really meh changes to the alien classes and a general iffyness on the marine side. Not to mention both sides suffering from stupid things like not having a good commander at the start, lack of effective/functional alerts, general lack of interest in teamwork, 'rain of bodies' being probably the most effective strategy in any given situation due to both sides getting lots of effective damage buffs since early builds in the form of hitreg improvements but neither side having anything in the way of damage resistance, turning combat almost entirely into cheap shots with grenades/shotguns on the alien side and whoever is in front dies on the marine side. Thus neccessitating just throwing lots of replacement people at the enemy until one side runs out of money/their PG/hive goes down because repairing them is really awkward.
I find most of what you said to be far more true of early versions than the current ones. Presumably because the earlier versions were based off the first release, which seems as though it had more cohesive concepts behind it, whereas now we've got a lot more reactive stuff, stopgaps and experiments to try things out to see if any of it can fix problems, which kind of muddies the overall feel of the game. At the moment the game feels lacking in coherent direction.
<!--quoteo(post=1868777:date=Aug 13 2011, 03:59 PM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Aug 13 2011, 03:59 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868777"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Walls of very relevant text.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This echos my thoughts exactly.
I hate the "new" Marine tech tree, it's very linear, both how you build up and how the game progresses. If you tech up as a Marine, it's permanent. Aliens can take out your armoury but you can still get SGs, GLs and FTs from any other armoury. You can take out Arms lab, but you still have all your weapon and armour upgrades (which actually makes the Arms lab a recyclable structure once it serves it's purpose). There is no pendulum with the tech tree, it's straight progression and ever any regression. Only exception I can think of is robotics factory preventing sentries and ARCs (which hardly anyone ever uses now because it's near impossible to defend them, and if you can, they bug out with shades around).
Aliens have the same issues but with more opportunity to regress if they have 2 hives they can lose one and lose fade. But other than that, there is no regression. If Marines had a bigger pocket, it wouldn't be an issue to have to re-research things you lose. Or even, just have a time delay and no cost to re-research, so taking out that advanced armoury prevents Marines getting SGs, GLs and FTs for a couple of minutes.
I'm sure someone will have some smart ass comment to make about how regression is detrimental to the progression of the game or some bull###### like that. But as it stands, most RTSs have some level of regression usually based on reliance of the presence of a structure to build a unit (weapon).
The problem there is that bases are already a very annoying mechanic for both teams.
Both teams need their bases, but they are also a huge liability for both teams. You spend so much time reacting to aggression against your structures that it really removes a lot of the creativity and freedom from the game. I spend less time fighting aliens and more time running around to pick up after the failings of the commander. it's not even because they're bad commanders either, it's because the commander is physically incapable of doing anything to defend the bases they build, the only recourse is to drop a tonne of players on every single problem, which means you spend all your time running around after the commander.
If you add regression to both teams, it's just going to make bases even more of an annoyance, bases either need to be a lot more replaceable, a lot more expendable, or a lot more defensible, because at the moment you spend way too much time blowing up and rebuilding bases, and comparatively little time engaged in actual interesting fighting.
Regression might work in an RTS, but NS isn't a very good RTS, in an RTS you shouldn't be losing base structures, not really. You might lose a forward outpost or two, but your main base shouldn't come under attack. In NS forward outposts are hard to build and main bases often come under attack because there's no way to control enemy movements that well.
Basically you need to treat NS as an FPS first, which means you can't be asking players to focus on base mechanics all the time, because it isn't much fun. There's enough regression I think in things like losing forward healing outposts as aliens, or losing ARCs/armory outposts as marines. Adding it to easily snipeable base structures is just going to add another annoying thing to rebuild time and time again.
A couple of sentry guns goes a long long way to defending bases. People always deride them but they also whine when one skulk takes out their IP's which could have easily be covered mutually by a pair of sentry guns.
Do sentry guns lose to bile bombs? Sure. Do they help immensely in the early game? Yes, granted, the cost is off putting because it slows down player upgrades.
Maybe a 20 pt sentry gun weapon that players purchase or something instead of tres placement. In any case, sentry guns are a huge boon to a base as is intelligent base design, don't go putting robotics between sentry guns, always pair sentries, place IP's close enough to be serviced by a power pack but far enough to not be splashed together with bile bombs, don't block off fire lanes with armories, put arms labs way out of the way, put robotics behind the command chair so that skulks can't sit behind it and eat it.
They're better than nothing but they are ultimately a delay tactic, sentry guns don't so much defend against attacks as buy time for marines to respond to attacks. This would be OK if there were any such thing as battle lines in the game, but currently it's more or less impossible to actually control enemy movement because they can always just go round the other way.
Basically you need less emphasis on running to defend a rear base, and more emphasis on forward bases being able to block access to rear bases, because you're already going to have players at forward bases so that's where you need to force enemies to attack. At the moment it is possible and advantageous to just avoid enemies and go after their infrastructure. Not a very fun thing for either side to have to do.
<!--quoteo(post=1868545:date=Aug 13 2011, 03:32 AM:name=kabab)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (kabab @ Aug 13 2011, 03:32 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868545"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Its only going to get better to :D
As they release more classes to get rid of the annoying stalemates that currently happen there will be a bit of an arms race as well....
One thing i'd like to see for NS2 after release is the introduction of some new marine / alien abilities and units to make the tech tree even wider and allow for even more strategies...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Are you talking about something like giving teams a choice between this or that? This is just an example but what i mean is so aliens can only choose 1 of 3 available tech tree skills for the whole duration of the game.
Lets take diablo2 for an example. If you make a necromancer and apply his tech points to be a skelemaster, theres no way to turn him into a bone spirit necromancer thus no point in gearing him for that either.
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
<!--quoteo(post=1868849:date=Aug 14 2011, 09:34 AM:name=assbda)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (assbda @ Aug 14 2011, 09:34 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868849"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Are you talking about something like giving teams a choice between this or that? This is just an example but what i mean is so aliens can only choose 1 of 3 available tech tree skills for the whole duration of the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is actually I case where I will argue that you SHOULDN'T give people a choice. Just like with random hive placement, having a random tech tree selected for you is actually better than having a choice - for one thing, it forces you to play with it, and it also makes sure there is an incentive to make it balanced.
In NS1, you basically had a choice when you placed the first chamber ... but he trees were NOT balanced, so if a noob placed a sensory chamber, he got bawled out and ppl basically gave up on that game. Sensory first games just weren't played.
If a third of the game had started with sensory, it would have been patched to become balanced.
Yeah i have to agree with you there, i thought about it a bit more and you notice that when such features are in place- most of the time people just do what works, so you end up getting the same build over and over and over until it becomes stale or a patch is made to nerf it so it doesnt work 100% of the time
<!--quoteo(post=1868498:date=Aug 12 2011, 10:59 AM:name=Skipjack)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Skipjack @ Aug 12 2011, 10:59 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868498"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I finally like were ns2 is going. Every patch makes it similar to ns1 :) (never change a running system)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I think like the same.
The perfect NS would be: 1. All gameplay elements of NS1 (including alien upgrades, damn these upgrades are so nice and so dynamic, ill take redemption, silence and ...^^) 2. The graphics and engine from ns2 3. The alien commander, powernodes, drifters for aliens, marines can buy their own weapons(?) and dynamic infestation from ns2. Thats my perfect ns game. Also i miss the building gorge, he is now just a medic and die very fast, but its beta...so he will changed maybe. So i hope someday i can see a mod. like that. If no macs/Weldbots and the welder is back, the teamplay would be much more important, macs destroy the addiction from the commander to the marines. Also i see sometimes the commander was overwhelmed (right word? to much work...) with repairing all stuff. In my opinion, macs should be removed and the welder should come back.
Also i love the old map layout. Summit is fanmade and very nice but i miss the shafts, there not very much in it.
I did not play alien commander a lot but what gives crag right now for upgrades? I see shade gives the aliens the upgrade cloak, what did crag do?
Anyway the UWE team works hard, there so much coding going on you did not notice. For example the spectator, i don't know when, but they add the collision to the spectator, so you don't clip into walls if you are alien. Im excited for lerk shotgun :P So now i end my horrible english...its hard to translate, im getting old :-(
<!--quoteo(post=1868844:date=Aug 13 2011, 09:12 PM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Aug 13 2011, 09:12 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868844"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->They're better than nothing but they are ultimately a delay tactic, sentry guns don't so much defend against attacks as buy time for marines to respond to attacks. This would be OK if there were any such thing as battle lines in the game, but currently it's more or less impossible to actually control enemy movement because they can always just go round the other way.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> They are ultimately a delayer, but I don't agree they also don't provide serious defense. You always need to place sentry guns mutually covering one another so you can't just go around them, you'll always be under fire. There have been many cases where marines have not been forced to RTB because of a lone skulk attacking IP's because I like to cover my pair of IP's with two sentry guns, each in the others arc so no matter where the skulk goes to bother the IP's he can't kill them nor can he kill either sentry gun because he will immediately come under fire from the supporting gun. I've also had some come from behind victories due to sentry gun networks in the base which kept fades from being able to stick around with frenzy and slay marine after marine due to constantly being under fire. Sentry guns are only as effective as the person placing them makes them, placed in proper locations, supporting one another, they can turn the base into a network of firepower that prevents anything from spending more than a cursory period within....then they bile bomb them of course, but hey, at least you've got some time to respond to wimpier gorges vs fade spam.
Sentry guns aren't what I'd consider game winners (though they have been on some occasions) but they are what I'd consider useful defensive structures. A pair covering IP's can make a massive difference in whether a SA Hive raid goes off without a hitch (because a lone skulk can't force everyone back to base) or if it stalls and fails entirely because marines have to recall to defend home base.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Basically you need less emphasis on running to defend a rear base, and more emphasis on forward bases being able to block access to rear bases, because you're already going to have players at forward bases so that's where you need to force enemies to attack. At the moment it is possible and advantageous to just avoid enemies and go after their infrastructure. Not a very fun thing for either side to have to do.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> The current structure of the game is weird, it's like it wants to be an RTS but it isn't playing up the things that it needs. To me the RTS aspect feels very tacked on to the FPS gameplay. Upgrades like Melee 1 vs Armor 1 seem ridiculous, the whole point of an RTS is to have an overall strategic plan, which you can't have if you have mandatory upgrades to chug through just to stay even, it's like racing on a treadmill, at best you're just keeping up. A solid RTS needs options that can be viable if played properly, otherwise it might as well just be a menu with the button "next" that takes you to the next upgrade.
You can and certainly do get attacked in the home base in RTS games, but you always have a strong home team advantage due to the proximity of your spawning structures. I don't know exactly what they plan to do here (and I'm sure we all have ideas) but I think the RTS system needs a serious looking at to make it more than effectively an upgrade manager with a different view.
<!--quoteo(post=1868882:date=Aug 14 2011, 12:32 PM:name=azimaith)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (azimaith @ Aug 14 2011, 12:32 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868882"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->They are ultimately a delayer, but I don't agree they also don't provide serious defense. You always need to place sentry guns mutually covering one another so you can't just go around them, you'll always be under fire. There have been many cases where marines have not been forced to RTB because of a lone skulk attacking IP's because I like to cover my pair of IP's with two sentry guns, each in the others arc so no matter where the skulk goes to bother the IP's he can't kill them nor can he kill either sentry gun because he will immediately come under fire from the supporting gun. I've also had some come from behind victories due to sentry gun networks in the base which kept fades from being able to stick around with frenzy and slay marine after marine due to constantly being under fire. Sentry guns are only as effective as the person placing them makes them, placed in proper locations, supporting one another, they can turn the base into a network of firepower that prevents anything from spending more than a cursory period within....then they bile bomb them of course, but hey, at least you've got some time to respond to wimpier gorges vs fade spam.
Sentry guns aren't what I'd consider game winners (though they have been on some occasions) but they are what I'd consider useful defensive structures. A pair covering IP's can make a massive difference in whether a SA Hive raid goes off without a hitch (because a lone skulk can't force everyone back to base) or if it stalls and fails entirely because marines have to recall to defend home base.
The current structure of the game is weird, it's like it wants to be an RTS but it isn't playing up the things that it needs. To me the RTS aspect feels very tacked on to the FPS gameplay. Upgrades like Melee 1 vs Armor 1 seem ridiculous, the whole point of an RTS is to have an overall strategic plan, which you can't have if you have mandatory upgrades to chug through just to stay even, it's like racing on a treadmill, at best you're just keeping up. A solid RTS needs options that can be viable if played properly, otherwise it might as well just be a menu with the button "next" that takes you to the next upgrade.
You can and certainly do get attacked in the home base in RTS games, but you always have a strong home team advantage due to the proximity of your spawning structures. I don't know exactly what they plan to do here (and I'm sure we all have ideas) but I think the RTS system needs a serious looking at to make it more than effectively an upgrade manager with a different view.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They are not a serious defence because a lone skulk is not a serious threat, I can get out of the command chair and shoot the skulk in the face if it gets into marine start. You can fill marine start with overlapping sentry guns and you still need marines to defend against a gorge with bile bomb, a lerk with spikes, or a fade blinking in and out targeting the inevitable gaps in the coverage. They are just not good at defending things, you hit the entity limit before you can make them an effective sole defense.
I agree that upgrades are a completely pointless idea, you could take them out and lower the res income and the game would play exactly the same way, except for less stupid losses because someone didn't research upgrades. The only rationalisation is that they buff players and weaken structures, but you can achieve that goal infinitely better by just making later game weapons better against structures inherently, which is already the case, so upgrades are stupid.
I don't think NS2 is ever going to be a good RTS unless it detaches it from the players, aliens were a good RTS side before cysts, now they're reliant on aliens to rush back to base because they don't get any advance warning of attacks and marines can easily set up a base right outside alien start.
It'd probably work a a lot better if both sides got some anti-structure 'map control' thing, like alien infestation, it prevents marines from advancing until they take it out, marines need something like that for aliens. Then you make the units which take out map control also be commander controlled, so commanders will expand, control large areas of the map, and eventually stalemate each other with opposing control spreaders, that's where players come in. Players add the neccesary extra force to break into a new area and defend against a concerted attack, but it differs from the current implementation because the maps should not be so open that you have to defend everywhere. More to the point, players attacking alone should be very hard pressed to do damage to an area, it should require commander support and commander support would only work on the edges of commander control.
The overall effect should be that you get clear battle lines being drawn by the opposing control mechanics, and to take territory or do serious damage, you have to attack at the edge of the lines with commander support units, like arcs for marines or some new alien equivalent, that keeps the players at the front and fighting close to where they already are, minimises running around after people, keeps the game structured so you don't just have essentially team deathmatch and also buildings to destroy which is what you have now, and makes commanding and playing more fun due to greater freedom on both parts, comms have the freedom to expand on their own, players have the freedom to go off and fight.
But then you'd no doubt get people whining about feeling 'disconnected' from the commander as though this is some sort of marriage counselling simulation so apparently everyone else just loves having to babysit bases all the time and what do I know.
Chris, I'm sure glad you aren't designing this game. The ideas you are describing would create very boring gameplay. The whole point in an RTS is that you aren't just fighting at 1 location. You need to spread your troops around and a good opponent will time their attacks and hit you at the weak spots and at multiple places at once. If the commander could completely lock down the map and you were only fighting in 1 location the game would become very boring very quickly.
I can't believe you think that sentries hit the entity limit before they become a valid defence. Sentries can hold off multiple aliens for a loooong time. Easily enough time for you to respond. They shouldn't be able to hold off multiple aliens for ages. That would be ridiculous and make it impossible for aliens to attack anywhere and they'd be stuck fighting marines on the edge of their base for the entire game. IMO sentries are overpowered, too many can be placed and they create boring stalemate games where even when the aliens control the entire map they can't finish it.
The commander should need to spread his troops around and try to attack key locations of the enemy, and the enemy should be trying to do the same while responding to any threats. If you send all your troops up one side of the map, then you're asking to be attacked on the other side. There is no such thing as clear battle lines. The whole map is the battlefield and anywhere you can do damage to the enemy you should, and vice versa.
As far as upgrades go, this game is still in beta. While there may be an optimal upgrade path right now, I'm sure once more upgrades are added and tweaked there will be a genuine choice in what upgrades you get and when based on the commanders strategy. I wouldn't worry much about it at the moment.
<!--quoteo(post=1868479:date=Aug 11 2011, 10:47 PM:name=RichardRahl)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RichardRahl @ Aug 11 2011, 10:47 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868479"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I have to agree with you HD, im liking the way ns2 is shaping up so far. I wish the naysayers, CoD and battlefield kiddies would stop trying to turn this into every other generic shooter out there.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> +1
<!--quoteo(post=1868496:date=Aug 12 2011, 12:19 AM:name=Kalabalana)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kalabalana @ Aug 12 2011, 12:19 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868496"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What is with the hate?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> i think it has more to do with the fact that quite a few people keep begging for easier mechanics and a snap and shoot gameplay style. who then rage when told thats not what NS2 is about. in English trolls
<!--quoteo(post=1868903:date=Aug 14 2011, 03:10 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Aug 14 2011, 03:10 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868903"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Chris, I'm sure glad you aren't designing this game. The ideas you are describing would create very boring gameplay. The whole point in an RTS is that you aren't just fighting at 1 location. You need to spread your troops around and a good opponent will time their attacks and hit you at the weak spots and at multiple places at once. If the commander could completely lock down the map and you were only fighting in 1 location the game would become very boring very quickly.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Which would be fine if this was an RTS, but it isn't. Unlike an RTS the things you're having run around the entire map are players, and running around the map isn't fun for a player.
FPS games work better when you focus players, you don't have them running around the entire map, you have them fighting between a couple of flags to get the next couple of flags, or fighting towards the enemy base to take their flag, or you pack so many of them into a level that they constantly run into each other, you keep the action going, rather than having them run around for five minutes, shoot one guy, then run around some more to shoot the next thing. Having a couple of fronts is fine and good, having a complete and utter lack of battle lines on a large map is bad from both an FPS and an RTS perspective. RTS games have things like choke points to force players into one path, or victory locations like company of heroes to force players to all congregate on one point. There's also the rise of nations approach, which generally requires you to take cities on the edge of territory because ignoring them will get your units attrition-killed. Expecting players to defend half the level at any given time with no controlling ability is really silly. They should be working on a slice of the level at a time, and progress there changes where the lines are drawn. Good FPS and RTS games focus players, they don't just let them run around willy nilly.
This is even more important as you don't have many units, you have maybe eight to twelve units on your side, and as marines particularly you need at least two to do anything after the start of the game. You can't send a few spare units to take out every threat, because you haven't got any spare.
Sentries are terrible defenses, you even said yourself you need players to respond, which means players are the defences and sentries are nothing more than concrete walls that force aliens to attack them first by shooting at them. The failing is in the entire idea of sentries as a defence, they are inaequate for securing areas, and they are excessively powerful when combined with marines, this further reinforces the dire need for proper map control mechanics. If you make it so that rear bases are somehow stronger than frontline bases simply by virtue of being rear bases, you fix this problem, you don't need to spam sentries everywhere to try to secure them, and sentries themselves can be tuned to something more fun.
Say as a very obvious approach, you made alien hives work differently. If you connect a cyst chain to two hives, then all cysts in that chain become near-invincible. This makes attacking behind alien lines very difficult, as you can't clear infestation out, and are forced to attack a hive directly, with lots of advance warning for the aliens and no reinforcements from a phase gate. It's possible, but generally very ill advised. This would force marines to focus on the frontline hives, they still have choices as to which one to attack, because there will obviously be more than one, and they can still traverse the alien controlled areas at risk, but they are focussed on a smaller portion of the map, which means aliens can focus on that part of the map too, meaning aliens can do the things they do so well, like harassing marines on the move, coming from unexpected directions, that sort of thing, because they aren't being forced to all pile onto the suprise marine base that went up in crevice every five minutes.
The marine equivalent might be something like if you build extra command stations, they network together, and networked command stations buff all surrounding structures, if a command station has two other stations networked to it, (say marine start if marines hold heliport and surface access) then it buffs sentries to be pinpoint accurate (normally they might have slightly erratic targetting) and it gives all marine structures powerful health regen with nanites or something. That way aliens have to focus on outlying marine bases to weaken the ones further back, and both sides can focus on skirmishing in the no mans land between forward bases, both trying to get to the enemy forward base and destroy it, while placing one of their own to secure it and lock down their territory behind it.
Stuff like that would do a lot to keep the game focussed and keep the action going, as well as adding massively to the strategic aspect, which is currently pretty lacking as no amount of strategy will stop one guy running round blowing up all your harvesters, or an uncoordinated rush building a surprise PG somewhere, there's no progression, just random flailing around with bases going up and down all over with no real pattern to it.
<!--quoteo(post=1868909:date=Aug 14 2011, 06:37 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Aug 14 2011, 06:37 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868909"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Which would be fine if this was an RTS, but it isn't. Unlike an RTS the things you're having run around the entire map are players, and running around the map isn't fun for a player.
FPS games work better when you focus players, you don't have them running around the entire map, you have them fighting between a couple of flags to get the next couple of flags, or fighting towards the enemy base to take their flag, or you pack so many of them into a level that they constantly run into each other, you keep the action going, rather than having them run around for five minutes, shoot one guy, then run around some more to shoot the next thing. Having a couple of fronts is fine and good, having a complete and utter lack of battle lines on a large map is bad from both an FPS and an RTS perspective. RTS games have things like choke points to force players into one path, or victory locations like company of heroes to force players to all congregate on one point. There's also the rise of nations approach, which generally requires you to take cities on the edge of territory because ignoring them will get your units attrition-killed. Expecting players to defend half the level at any given time with no controlling ability is really silly. They should be working on a slice of the level at a time, and progress there changes where the lines are drawn. Good FPS and RTS games focus players, they don't just let them run around willy nilly.
This is even more important as you don't have many units, you have maybe eight to twelve units on your side, and as marines particularly you need at least two to do anything after the start of the game. You can't send a few spare units to take out every threat, because you haven't got any spare.
Sentries are terrible defenses, you even said yourself you need players to respond, which means players are the defences and sentries are nothing more than concrete walls that force aliens to attack them first by shooting at them. The failing is in the entire idea of sentries as a defence, they are inaequate for securing areas, and they are excessively powerful when combined with marines, this further reinforces the dire need for proper map control mechanics. If you make it so that rear bases are somehow stronger than frontline bases simply by virtue of being rear bases, you fix this problem, you don't need to spam sentries everywhere to try to secure them, and sentries themselves can be tuned to something more fun.
Say as a very obvious approach, you made alien hives work differently. If you connect a cyst chain to two hives, then all cysts in that chain become near-invincible. This makes attacking behind alien lines very difficult, as you can't clear infestation out, and are forced to attack a hive directly, with lots of advance warning for the aliens and no reinforcements from a phase gate. It's possible, but generally very ill advised. This would force marines to focus on the frontline hives, they still have choices as to which one to attack, because there will obviously be more than one, and they can still traverse the alien controlled areas at risk, but they are focussed on a smaller portion of the map, which means aliens can focus on that part of the map too, meaning aliens can do the things they do so well, like harassing marines on the move, coming from unexpected directions, that sort of thing, because they aren't being forced to all pile onto the suprise marine base that went up in crevice every five minutes.
The marine equivalent might be something like if you build extra command stations, they network together, and networked command stations buff all surrounding structures, if a command station has two other stations networked to it, (say marine start if marines hold heliport and surface access) then it buffs sentries to be pinpoint accurate (normally they might have slightly erratic targetting) and it gives all marine structures powerful health regen with nanites or something. That way aliens have to focus on outlying marine bases to weaken the ones further back, and both sides can focus on skirmishing in the no mans land between forward bases, both trying to get to the enemy forward base and destroy it, while placing one of their own to secure it and lock down their territory behind it.
Stuff like that would do a lot to keep the game focussed and keep the action going, as well as adding massively to the strategic aspect, which is currently pretty lacking as no amount of strategy will stop one guy running round blowing up all your harvesters, or an uncoordinated rush building a surprise PG somewhere, there's no progression, just random flailing around with bases going up and down all over with no real pattern to it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> +2
Chris, I think forcing people to attack certain areas of the map is boring and will just created repetitive gameplay where the only viable option is to attack the forward base every time.
You say that in an FPS players shouldn't be forced to run around the map, I agree. I don't think players currently are in NS2 (even at this early beta stage). Players can hold areas of the map quite comfortably. A few guys in data control can easily hold it and defend vent at the same time. A few guys in heli can do the same while keeping an eye on flight control. You aren't required to tell individual players to run away across the map all the time, as you are suggesting.
If all your guys on one side of the map go down then the other team should be rewarded by being able to take out your structures.
With the addition of phase gates and distress beacon, the marines can easily move around to where they are needed as quickly as possible.
Sentries are a completely viable defensive structure right now. Static defensive structures should never be able to hold off multiple players attacking them. Otherwise It'd be almost impossible for the other team to push up. Static defence should only delay the enemy team if there are no players there to defend.
The best form of defence is attack. If you don't want your stuff to get attacked then you need to force the enemy to defend. This back and forth is exciting and the com needs to try and manage his players to make sure he sends enough to each area of the map. All that would be removed if you had ultra defence with just a small "no mans land" area in the middle of the map where teams trade blows.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Stuff like that would do a lot to keep the game focussed and keep the action going, as well as adding massively to the strategic aspect, which is currently pretty lacking as no amount of strategy will stop one guy running round blowing up all your harvesters, or an uncoordinated rush building a surprise PG somewhere, there's no progression, just random flailing around with bases going up and down all over with no real pattern to it<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I completely disagree. I think the changes you are suggesting would remove strategic play and create more predictable boring games. This statement reeks of ignorance to me and it sounds like you've just spend most of your time playing on public servers with little co-ordination and then judged the entire gameplay on that alone.
<!--quoteo(post=1868952:date=Aug 14 2011, 09:50 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Aug 14 2011, 09:50 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868952"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I completely disagree. I think the changes you are suggesting would remove strategic play and create more predictable boring games. This statement reeks of ignorance to me and it sounds like you've just spend most of your time playing on public servers with little co-ordination and then judged the entire gameplay on that alone.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Public servers <i>are</i> the entire gameplay, or at least the vast proportion of the gameplay if the game is remotely successful.
If only a minority of the players are going to actually enjoy the game, the game is crap, the game needs to be fun for everyone.
Personally I'd like the game to be a little more challenging than just organising one decent rush to the most important point the enemy have and crippling everything in one shot, regardless of the 'strategy' being employed by either side. No skill in that. Better if the game requires multiple concerted efforts while at the same time making them less hassle to organise by keeping players closer together and limiting targets to two or three places at any given time.
<!--quoteo(post=1869076:date=Aug 15 2011, 08:00 AM:name=Chris0132)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chris0132 @ Aug 15 2011, 08:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1869076"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Public servers <i>are</i> the entire gameplay, or at least the vast proportion of the gameplay if the game is remotely successful.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Totally disagree. With no consideration for competitive game play the game will become stale within weeks. There would be no reason to improve other than a good k/d ratio and no depth of play would emerge. All the best videos of all video games come from competitive play no matter the genre. Not saying pubs should be ignore but i would rather see the game geared towards competitive to the max extent like NS1 was.
<!--quoteo(post=1869080:date=Aug 15 2011, 03:18 PM:name=RisingSun)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (RisingSun @ Aug 15 2011, 03:18 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1869080"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Totally disagree. With no consideration for competitive game play the game will become stale within weeks. There would be no reason to improve other than a good k/d ratio and no depth of play would emerge. All the best videos of all video games come from competitive play no matter the genre. Not saying pubs should be ignore but i would rather see the game geared towards competitive to the max extent like NS1 was.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You don't need consideration for competitive games, competition can make scrabble entertaining for people who give a damn about that sort of thing (although scrabble is fun anyway). If you want a close parallel take the RTS/FPS game 'Empires'. That game is a heap of crap, badly designed, cobbled together by dozens of different people none of whom are remotely qualified to do it, changed dev teams more times than I change my underwear, and yet it's still probably the most fun I've had in a game in a long time, simply because I know a lot of the people who play it and if you get half a dozen of us on a server we can happily content ourselves running around being an awesome teamworking squad and kicking arse.
The fun of organised play is not derived from the game, it's derived from the organisation, NS has plenty of room for that simply because both sides work much better if you think about how you play, and especially if you communicate well with other people. You don't need to stuff the entire casual community to pander to a bunch of elitist tools who think CS1.6+Starcraft would be the undisputed pinnacle of game design and anyone who disagrees is a stupid casual and shouldn't get to call themselves a gamer.
Also I don't know about you but competitive videos are crap, let's plays are good, they inform, are often humorous, in fact they have many of the good qualities associated with playing games with friends, watching two people I've never heard of play starcraft against each other while some overexcited commentator prattles on in amazement about something I do every time I start a game (OMG HE'S BUILDING COLLECTORS AND NOW HE'S BUILDING A BARRACKS WTF HOW AMAZING IS THAT?!) is pretty boring in comparison.
People are actually playing the beta comeptitively, they're playing this half finished, bug riddled, laggy game competitively and apparently they're enjoying it, that more than anything tells me that the game itself simply does not matter most of the time, it's the people you play it with, it's the social element, which you can get in any game, or by going outside and having friends, or by talking to people. There's plenty of ways to get that kind of fun. One of the best ways to induce it in a game is probably to make it as popular as possible, that way you'll attract plenty of people, plenty of potential clan members, plenty of new talent to play in organised games. Games are not competitive because they're designed to be competitive, they're competitive because they're popular. You think the original starcraft was designed to be an e-sport? I don't think the word e-sport even existed other than as the butt of a joke back when starcraft was published, but it was a very good RTS game for its time, and so it became very popular, and so people decided to play it competitively.
Same with counter strike, same with team fortress, same with unreal tournament although that was probably a little bit too old at the time, quake 3 is probably a better example. All of those games have very little to them beyond getting a good K/D (or a good wins/losses in the case of starcraft) but that's plenty of basis for forming strong competition.
The <i>second</i> best thing you can do is include things to make organised play easier, things like steam integration (which you already have) to make communicating between people who can play easier, things like perhaps a plugin for servers that allows them to program specific teams for matches, and to do things like swap teams and announce a best of three winner, and to store those stats and maybe do things like display a knockout tournament diagram between levels. Things like a good map editor to allow the creation of new maps and particularly tournament style maps with a focus on balance rather than fun gimmicks. Things like good admin tools to help with organisation, replay capture and playback to allow good refereeing, things like that are good for organised play. As well as obvious things like a focus on bug free games and making sure the game is pretty well balanced.
Those are the important things for organised play, the things people organising leagues and tournaments can use, and which make playing in such matches more fun for the players.
I hardly know wtf you two are even on about now but i somewhat agree with chris that the game needs those sort of choke points and forcing the enemy into taking a path they would have rather ignored.
As for the full clash of sides battling each other and it becomes a matter of endurance i believe those things will eventually happen, and atm it sort of does (when a hive goes up aliens defend it, marines are attacking) is this the same thing?
Also to agree with wilson yes the whole map is and should be a battlefield with little skirmishes everywhere but with the lack of team balance there is right now its just not going to work.
In reading one of those books you guys posted i somewhat grew on the idea that for what is an "RTS" game there really is little for the commander to do that goes acknowledged beyond his team, if you know what i mean- e.g yeah good work com you got level 3 upgrades for us and put a phase here yea well done? o and you beacon'd. But im not going to stick to that thought since the game isnt finished yet. Tho it would be nice to see commanders have a bigger role in the success/failure of winning/losing rather than the team doing everything of whats needed. (dropping an armory for squads and building arc cannons is just a little yawn for hardcore rts players)
Very good arguments about this game for both points. So much I don't have time to summarize them.
If you want the game to be an RTS go back to the earlier builds where it felt like it was marine comm vs alien comm, marine players vs alien players. It also felt much like and FPS for the players back then too. Slowly we've been integrating both aspects of the game but because of this we lost a lot of the focus on advancing gameplay. Right now aliens are tied too much to their commander, and much like marines, their focus has been on moving in regards to commanders orders or the consequences(losing fade, leap) essentially can leave them and a longstanding battle to their loss. And as this point, the marines are well OP. If the marines only need to defend their base then with a turret defense(turtled or not) and lots of beacon they can continually push out and take down hives in seconds with gl/grenades. The more distance they have to shoot the hive the better. Aliens needs to be able to focus on expanding, holding back marine. But they shouldn't need to call to arms their entire team to do so.
so while the class may have become less symmetrical the overall gameplay has and its essentially comes down attack in a pack and defend base. However marine commander can always call back their units to base whenever they choose to do so and the alien team actually has to listen and work together and come back.
<!--quoteo(post=1869098:date=Aug 15 2011, 04:51 PM:name=Rulgrok)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Rulgrok @ Aug 15 2011, 04:51 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1869098"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Very good arguments about this game for both points. So much I don't have time to summarize them.
If you want the game to be an RTS go back to the earlier builds where it felt like it was marine comm vs alien comm, marine players vs alien players. It also felt much like and FPS for the players back then too. Slowly we've been integrating both aspects of the game but because of this we lost a lot of the focus on advancing gameplay. Right now aliens are tied too much to their commander, and much like marines, their focus has been on moving in regards to commanders orders or the consequences(losing fade, leap) essentially can leave them and a longstanding battle to their loss. And as this point, the marines are well OP. If the marines only need to defend their base then with a turret defense(turtled or not) and lots of beacon they can continually push out and take down hives in seconds with gl/grenades. The more distance they have to shoot the hive the better. Aliens needs to be able to focus on expanding, holding back marine. But they shouldn't need to call to arms their entire team to do so.
so while the class may have become less symmetrical the overall gameplay has and its essentially comes down attack in a pack and defend base. However marine commander can always call back their units to base whenever they choose to do so and the alien team actually has to listen and work together and come back.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's a pretty good summary, actually, I'd agree. Except for the bit about marines being OP, aliens are generally better I think, but at the moment it's mostly decided by which team lends itself better to cheap shotting the enemy in the res nodes or spawn points, which aliens are definitely better at. Marines are less mobile and hives are harder to kill than IPs, not to mention aliens can rebuild their RTs much easier than marines due to drifters. That sort of thing tends to decide most games for me.
Comments
In early builds you expanded as marines to take tech, because you needed it to win the game, but you also needed map control because marines were stupid and slow, and the only way you could get anywhere was by paving the road there with bases and sentries and general stuff to keep aliens busy.
Aliens on the other hand expanded because they can, because there was no reason not to.
Now you have marines expanding to build phase gates and aliens expanding because of tech.
I really don't see what the difference is, both sides expanded before, both sides expand now, the only way to win is to expand, or rush I suppose if you're aliens but that's unreliable. What's changed in that regard?
Aliens have less default map control than before, because before infestation was hard to move and aliens were less tied to protecting multiple hives, now aliens are more confined to hives and forced to react to marines a lot more, they are far less fluid than they were because they are constrained by the failings of their base building mechanics.
Combine this with a major nerfing of alien lifeforms and a significant buffing of marines what you usually get is not decentralised aliens and focussed marines, but bumrushes of marines followed by aliens all being recalled from whatever they're doing to re-centralise on wherever the marines are focussed.
This is actually a general thing, both sides tend to react identically to problems, if they get bottled up at the start they end up sitting there for half an hour until the game ends, both sides have to respond to bumrushes the same way, by urgently grabbing everyone from whatever they're doing to respond to it, both sides attack the same way, by rushing in large groups and smashing everything up, hopefully before the enemy can react. Both sides are also well advised to send lone units around to kill the enemy resources.
Honestly I don't see any of what you said really, if anything the game has gotten a lot more symmetrical with the increase in marine mobility and the weakening of indiivdual aliens, and along the way it's picked up a bunch of really bad mechanics like the race for hive2 which is even more annoying than the marine race for CC2, which at least you only needed to build, and didn't need to actually defend for more than a second. Along with a bunch of really meh changes to the alien classes and a general iffyness on the marine side. Not to mention both sides suffering from stupid things like not having a good commander at the start, lack of effective/functional alerts, general lack of interest in teamwork, 'rain of bodies' being probably the most effective strategy in any given situation due to both sides getting lots of effective damage buffs since early builds in the form of hitreg improvements but neither side having anything in the way of damage resistance, turning combat almost entirely into cheap shots with grenades/shotguns on the alien side and whoever is in front dies on the marine side. Thus neccessitating just throwing lots of replacement people at the enemy until one side runs out of money/their PG/hive goes down because repairing them is really awkward.
I find most of what you said to be far more true of early versions than the current ones. Presumably because the earlier versions were based off the first release, which seems as though it had more cohesive concepts behind it, whereas now we've got a lot more reactive stuff, stopgaps and experiments to try things out to see if any of it can fix problems, which kind of muddies the overall feel of the game. At the moment the game feels lacking in coherent direction.
The lighting is fantastic (but has been for a while!).
Love the art style.
The performance is the only stumbling block for me.
This echos my thoughts exactly.
I hate the "new" Marine tech tree, it's very linear, both how you build up and how the game progresses. If you tech up as a Marine, it's permanent. Aliens can take out your armoury but you can still get SGs, GLs and FTs from any other armoury. You can take out Arms lab, but you still have all your weapon and armour upgrades (which actually makes the Arms lab a recyclable structure once it serves it's purpose). There is no pendulum with the tech tree, it's straight progression and ever any regression. Only exception I can think of is robotics factory preventing sentries and ARCs (which hardly anyone ever uses now because it's near impossible to defend them, and if you can, they bug out with shades around).
Aliens have the same issues but with more opportunity to regress if they have 2 hives they can lose one and lose fade. But other than that, there is no regression. If Marines had a bigger pocket, it wouldn't be an issue to have to re-research things you lose. Or even, just have a time delay and no cost to re-research, so taking out that advanced armoury prevents Marines getting SGs, GLs and FTs for a couple of minutes.
I'm sure someone will have some smart ass comment to make about how regression is detrimental to the progression of the game or some bull###### like that. But as it stands, most RTSs have some level of regression usually based on reliance of the presence of a structure to build a unit (weapon).
Both teams need their bases, but they are also a huge liability for both teams. You spend so much time reacting to aggression against your structures that it really removes a lot of the creativity and freedom from the game. I spend less time fighting aliens and more time running around to pick up after the failings of the commander. it's not even because they're bad commanders either, it's because the commander is physically incapable of doing anything to defend the bases they build, the only recourse is to drop a tonne of players on every single problem, which means you spend all your time running around after the commander.
If you add regression to both teams, it's just going to make bases even more of an annoyance, bases either need to be a lot more replaceable, a lot more expendable, or a lot more defensible, because at the moment you spend way too much time blowing up and rebuilding bases, and comparatively little time engaged in actual interesting fighting.
Regression might work in an RTS, but NS isn't a very good RTS, in an RTS you shouldn't be losing base structures, not really. You might lose a forward outpost or two, but your main base shouldn't come under attack. In NS forward outposts are hard to build and main bases often come under attack because there's no way to control enemy movements that well.
Basically you need to treat NS as an FPS first, which means you can't be asking players to focus on base mechanics all the time, because it isn't much fun. There's enough regression I think in things like losing forward healing outposts as aliens, or losing ARCs/armory outposts as marines. Adding it to easily snipeable base structures is just going to add another annoying thing to rebuild time and time again.
Do sentry guns lose to bile bombs? Sure. Do they help immensely in the early game? Yes, granted, the cost is off putting because it slows down player upgrades.
Maybe a 20 pt sentry gun weapon that players purchase or something instead of tres placement. In any case, sentry guns are a huge boon to a base as is intelligent base design, don't go putting robotics between sentry guns, always pair sentries, place IP's close enough to be serviced by a power pack but far enough to not be splashed together with bile bombs, don't block off fire lanes with armories, put arms labs way out of the way, put robotics behind the command chair so that skulks can't sit behind it and eat it.
Basically you need less emphasis on running to defend a rear base, and more emphasis on forward bases being able to block access to rear bases, because you're already going to have players at forward bases so that's where you need to force enemies to attack. At the moment it is possible and advantageous to just avoid enemies and go after their infrastructure. Not a very fun thing for either side to have to do.
As they release more classes to get rid of the annoying stalemates that currently happen there will be a bit of an arms race as well....
One thing i'd like to see for NS2 after release is the introduction of some new marine / alien abilities and units to make the tech tree even wider and allow for even more strategies...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Are you talking about something like giving teams a choice between this or that?
This is just an example but what i mean is so aliens can only choose 1 of 3 available tech tree skills for the whole duration of the game.
Lets take diablo2 for an example. If you make a necromancer and apply his tech points to be a skelemaster, theres no way to turn him into a bone spirit necromancer thus no point in gearing him for that either.
cause if thats what you mean then +1
This is just an example but what i mean is so aliens can only choose 1 of 3 available tech tree skills for the whole duration of the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is actually I case where I will argue that you SHOULDN'T give people a choice. Just like with random hive placement, having a random tech tree selected for you is actually better than having a choice - for one thing, it forces you to play with it, and it also makes sure there is an incentive to make it balanced.
In NS1, you basically had a choice when you placed the first chamber ... but he trees were NOT balanced, so if a noob placed a sensory chamber, he got bawled out and ppl basically gave up on that game. Sensory first games just weren't played.
If a third of the game had started with sensory, it would have been patched to become balanced.
Every patch makes it similar to ns1 :) (never change a running system)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think like the same.
The perfect NS would be:
1. All gameplay elements of NS1 (including alien upgrades, damn these upgrades are so nice and so dynamic, ill take redemption, silence and ...^^)
2. The graphics and engine from ns2
3. The alien commander, powernodes, drifters for aliens, marines can buy their own weapons(?) and dynamic infestation from ns2.
Thats my perfect ns game.
Also i miss the building gorge, he is now just a medic and die very fast, but its beta...so he will changed maybe.
So i hope someday i can see a mod. like that.
If no macs/Weldbots and the welder is back, the teamplay would be much more important, macs destroy the addiction from the commander to the marines.
Also i see sometimes the commander was overwhelmed (right word? to much work...) with repairing all stuff.
In my opinion, macs should be removed and the welder should come back.
Also i love the old map layout.
Summit is fanmade and very nice but i miss the shafts, there not very much in it.
I did not play alien commander a lot but what gives crag right now for upgrades?
I see shade gives the aliens the upgrade cloak, what did crag do?
Anyway the UWE team works hard, there so much coding going on you did not notice.
For example the spectator, i don't know when, but they add the collision to the spectator, so you don't clip into walls if you are alien.
Im excited for lerk shotgun :P
So now i end my horrible english...its hard to translate, im getting old :-(
They are ultimately a delayer, but I don't agree they also don't provide serious defense. You always need to place sentry guns mutually covering one another so you can't just go around them, you'll always be under fire. There have been many cases where marines have not been forced to RTB because of a lone skulk attacking IP's because I like to cover my pair of IP's with two sentry guns, each in the others arc so no matter where the skulk goes to bother the IP's he can't kill them nor can he kill either sentry gun because he will immediately come under fire from the supporting gun. I've also had some come from behind victories due to sentry gun networks in the base which kept fades from being able to stick around with frenzy and slay marine after marine due to constantly being under fire. Sentry guns are only as effective as the person placing them makes them, placed in proper locations, supporting one another, they can turn the base into a network of firepower that prevents anything from spending more than a cursory period within....then they bile bomb them of course, but hey, at least you've got some time to respond to wimpier gorges vs fade spam.
Sentry guns aren't what I'd consider game winners (though they have been on some occasions) but they are what I'd consider useful defensive structures. A pair covering IP's can make a massive difference in whether a SA Hive raid goes off without a hitch (because a lone skulk can't force everyone back to base) or if it stalls and fails entirely because marines have to recall to defend home base.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Basically you need less emphasis on running to defend a rear base, and more emphasis on forward bases being able to block access to rear bases, because you're already going to have players at forward bases so that's where you need to force enemies to attack. At the moment it is possible and advantageous to just avoid enemies and go after their infrastructure. Not a very fun thing for either side to have to do.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The current structure of the game is weird, it's like it wants to be an RTS but it isn't playing up the things that it needs. To me the RTS aspect feels very tacked on to the FPS gameplay. Upgrades like Melee 1 vs Armor 1 seem ridiculous, the whole point of an RTS is to have an overall strategic plan, which you can't have if you have mandatory upgrades to chug through just to stay even, it's like racing on a treadmill, at best you're just keeping up. A solid RTS needs options that can be viable if played properly, otherwise it might as well just be a menu with the button "next" that takes you to the next upgrade.
You can and certainly do get attacked in the home base in RTS games, but you always have a strong home team advantage due to the proximity of your spawning structures. I don't know exactly what they plan to do here (and I'm sure we all have ideas) but I think the RTS system needs a serious looking at to make it more than effectively an upgrade manager with a different view.
Sentry guns aren't what I'd consider game winners (though they have been on some occasions) but they are what I'd consider useful defensive structures. A pair covering IP's can make a massive difference in whether a SA Hive raid goes off without a hitch (because a lone skulk can't force everyone back to base) or if it stalls and fails entirely because marines have to recall to defend home base.
The current structure of the game is weird, it's like it wants to be an RTS but it isn't playing up the things that it needs. To me the RTS aspect feels very tacked on to the FPS gameplay. Upgrades like Melee 1 vs Armor 1 seem ridiculous, the whole point of an RTS is to have an overall strategic plan, which you can't have if you have mandatory upgrades to chug through just to stay even, it's like racing on a treadmill, at best you're just keeping up. A solid RTS needs options that can be viable if played properly, otherwise it might as well just be a menu with the button "next" that takes you to the next upgrade.
You can and certainly do get attacked in the home base in RTS games, but you always have a strong home team advantage due to the proximity of your spawning structures. I don't know exactly what they plan to do here (and I'm sure we all have ideas) but I think the RTS system needs a serious looking at to make it more than effectively an upgrade manager with a different view.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They are not a serious defence because a lone skulk is not a serious threat, I can get out of the command chair and shoot the skulk in the face if it gets into marine start. You can fill marine start with overlapping sentry guns and you still need marines to defend against a gorge with bile bomb, a lerk with spikes, or a fade blinking in and out targeting the inevitable gaps in the coverage. They are just not good at defending things, you hit the entity limit before you can make them an effective sole defense.
I agree that upgrades are a completely pointless idea, you could take them out and lower the res income and the game would play exactly the same way, except for less stupid losses because someone didn't research upgrades. The only rationalisation is that they buff players and weaken structures, but you can achieve that goal infinitely better by just making later game weapons better against structures inherently, which is already the case, so upgrades are stupid.
I don't think NS2 is ever going to be a good RTS unless it detaches it from the players, aliens were a good RTS side before cysts, now they're reliant on aliens to rush back to base because they don't get any advance warning of attacks and marines can easily set up a base right outside alien start.
It'd probably work a a lot better if both sides got some anti-structure 'map control' thing, like alien infestation, it prevents marines from advancing until they take it out, marines need something like that for aliens. Then you make the units which take out map control also be commander controlled, so commanders will expand, control large areas of the map, and eventually stalemate each other with opposing control spreaders, that's where players come in. Players add the neccesary extra force to break into a new area and defend against a concerted attack, but it differs from the current implementation because the maps should not be so open that you have to defend everywhere. More to the point, players attacking alone should be very hard pressed to do damage to an area, it should require commander support and commander support would only work on the edges of commander control.
The overall effect should be that you get clear battle lines being drawn by the opposing control mechanics, and to take territory or do serious damage, you have to attack at the edge of the lines with commander support units, like arcs for marines or some new alien equivalent, that keeps the players at the front and fighting close to where they already are, minimises running around after people, keeps the game structured so you don't just have essentially team deathmatch and also buildings to destroy which is what you have now, and makes commanding and playing more fun due to greater freedom on both parts, comms have the freedom to expand on their own, players have the freedom to go off and fight.
But then you'd no doubt get people whining about feeling 'disconnected' from the commander as though this is some sort of marriage counselling simulation so apparently everyone else just loves having to babysit bases all the time and what do I know.
I can't believe you think that sentries hit the entity limit before they become a valid defence. Sentries can hold off multiple aliens for a loooong time. Easily enough time for you to respond. They shouldn't be able to hold off multiple aliens for ages. That would be ridiculous and make it impossible for aliens to attack anywhere and they'd be stuck fighting marines on the edge of their base for the entire game. IMO sentries are overpowered, too many can be placed and they create boring stalemate games where even when the aliens control the entire map they can't finish it.
The commander should need to spread his troops around and try to attack key locations of the enemy, and the enemy should be trying to do the same while responding to any threats. If you send all your troops up one side of the map, then you're asking to be attacked on the other side. There is no such thing as clear battle lines. The whole map is the battlefield and anywhere you can do damage to the enemy you should, and vice versa.
As far as upgrades go, this game is still in beta. While there may be an optimal upgrade path right now, I'm sure once more upgrades are added and tweaked there will be a genuine choice in what upgrades you get and when based on the commanders strategy. I wouldn't worry much about it at the moment.
+1
<!--quoteo(post=1868496:date=Aug 12 2011, 12:19 AM:name=Kalabalana)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kalabalana @ Aug 12 2011, 12:19 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1868496"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What is with the hate?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i think it has more to do with the fact that quite a few people keep begging for easier mechanics and a snap and shoot gameplay style. who then rage when told thats not what NS2 is about. in English trolls
Which would be fine if this was an RTS, but it isn't. Unlike an RTS the things you're having run around the entire map are players, and running around the map isn't fun for a player.
FPS games work better when you focus players, you don't have them running around the entire map, you have them fighting between a couple of flags to get the next couple of flags, or fighting towards the enemy base to take their flag, or you pack so many of them into a level that they constantly run into each other, you keep the action going, rather than having them run around for five minutes, shoot one guy, then run around some more to shoot the next thing. Having a couple of fronts is fine and good, having a complete and utter lack of battle lines on a large map is bad from both an FPS and an RTS perspective. RTS games have things like choke points to force players into one path, or victory locations like company of heroes to force players to all congregate on one point. There's also the rise of nations approach, which generally requires you to take cities on the edge of territory because ignoring them will get your units attrition-killed. Expecting players to defend half the level at any given time with no controlling ability is really silly. They should be working on a slice of the level at a time, and progress there changes where the lines are drawn. Good FPS and RTS games focus players, they don't just let them run around willy nilly.
This is even more important as you don't have many units, you have maybe eight to twelve units on your side, and as marines particularly you need at least two to do anything after the start of the game. You can't send a few spare units to take out every threat, because you haven't got any spare.
Sentries are terrible defenses, you even said yourself you need players to respond, which means players are the defences and sentries are nothing more than concrete walls that force aliens to attack them first by shooting at them. The failing is in the entire idea of sentries as a defence, they are inaequate for securing areas, and they are excessively powerful when combined with marines, this further reinforces the dire need for proper map control mechanics. If you make it so that rear bases are somehow stronger than frontline bases simply by virtue of being rear bases, you fix this problem, you don't need to spam sentries everywhere to try to secure them, and sentries themselves can be tuned to something more fun.
Say as a very obvious approach, you made alien hives work differently. If you connect a cyst chain to two hives, then all cysts in that chain become near-invincible. This makes attacking behind alien lines very difficult, as you can't clear infestation out, and are forced to attack a hive directly, with lots of advance warning for the aliens and no reinforcements from a phase gate. It's possible, but generally very ill advised. This would force marines to focus on the frontline hives, they still have choices as to which one to attack, because there will obviously be more than one, and they can still traverse the alien controlled areas at risk, but they are focussed on a smaller portion of the map, which means aliens can focus on that part of the map too, meaning aliens can do the things they do so well, like harassing marines on the move, coming from unexpected directions, that sort of thing, because they aren't being forced to all pile onto the suprise marine base that went up in crevice every five minutes.
The marine equivalent might be something like if you build extra command stations, they network together, and networked command stations buff all surrounding structures, if a command station has two other stations networked to it, (say marine start if marines hold heliport and surface access) then it buffs sentries to be pinpoint accurate (normally they might have slightly erratic targetting) and it gives all marine structures powerful health regen with nanites or something. That way aliens have to focus on outlying marine bases to weaken the ones further back, and both sides can focus on skirmishing in the no mans land between forward bases, both trying to get to the enemy forward base and destroy it, while placing one of their own to secure it and lock down their territory behind it.
Stuff like that would do a lot to keep the game focussed and keep the action going, as well as adding massively to the strategic aspect, which is currently pretty lacking as no amount of strategy will stop one guy running round blowing up all your harvesters, or an uncoordinated rush building a surprise PG somewhere, there's no progression, just random flailing around with bases going up and down all over with no real pattern to it.
FPS games work better when you focus players, you don't have them running around the entire map, you have them fighting between a couple of flags to get the next couple of flags, or fighting towards the enemy base to take their flag, or you pack so many of them into a level that they constantly run into each other, you keep the action going, rather than having them run around for five minutes, shoot one guy, then run around some more to shoot the next thing. Having a couple of fronts is fine and good, having a complete and utter lack of battle lines on a large map is bad from both an FPS and an RTS perspective. RTS games have things like choke points to force players into one path, or victory locations like company of heroes to force players to all congregate on one point. There's also the rise of nations approach, which generally requires you to take cities on the edge of territory because ignoring them will get your units attrition-killed. Expecting players to defend half the level at any given time with no controlling ability is really silly. They should be working on a slice of the level at a time, and progress there changes where the lines are drawn. Good FPS and RTS games focus players, they don't just let them run around willy nilly.
This is even more important as you don't have many units, you have maybe eight to twelve units on your side, and as marines particularly you need at least two to do anything after the start of the game. You can't send a few spare units to take out every threat, because you haven't got any spare.
Sentries are terrible defenses, you even said yourself you need players to respond, which means players are the defences and sentries are nothing more than concrete walls that force aliens to attack them first by shooting at them. The failing is in the entire idea of sentries as a defence, they are inaequate for securing areas, and they are excessively powerful when combined with marines, this further reinforces the dire need for proper map control mechanics. If you make it so that rear bases are somehow stronger than frontline bases simply by virtue of being rear bases, you fix this problem, you don't need to spam sentries everywhere to try to secure them, and sentries themselves can be tuned to something more fun.
Say as a very obvious approach, you made alien hives work differently. If you connect a cyst chain to two hives, then all cysts in that chain become near-invincible. This makes attacking behind alien lines very difficult, as you can't clear infestation out, and are forced to attack a hive directly, with lots of advance warning for the aliens and no reinforcements from a phase gate. It's possible, but generally very ill advised. This would force marines to focus on the frontline hives, they still have choices as to which one to attack, because there will obviously be more than one, and they can still traverse the alien controlled areas at risk, but they are focussed on a smaller portion of the map, which means aliens can focus on that part of the map too, meaning aliens can do the things they do so well, like harassing marines on the move, coming from unexpected directions, that sort of thing, because they aren't being forced to all pile onto the suprise marine base that went up in crevice every five minutes.
The marine equivalent might be something like if you build extra command stations, they network together, and networked command stations buff all surrounding structures, if a command station has two other stations networked to it, (say marine start if marines hold heliport and surface access) then it buffs sentries to be pinpoint accurate (normally they might have slightly erratic targetting) and it gives all marine structures powerful health regen with nanites or something. That way aliens have to focus on outlying marine bases to weaken the ones further back, and both sides can focus on skirmishing in the no mans land between forward bases, both trying to get to the enemy forward base and destroy it, while placing one of their own to secure it and lock down their territory behind it.
Stuff like that would do a lot to keep the game focussed and keep the action going, as well as adding massively to the strategic aspect, which is currently pretty lacking as no amount of strategy will stop one guy running round blowing up all your harvesters, or an uncoordinated rush building a surprise PG somewhere, there's no progression, just random flailing around with bases going up and down all over with no real pattern to it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+2
You say that in an FPS players shouldn't be forced to run around the map, I agree. I don't think players currently are in NS2 (even at this early beta stage). Players can hold areas of the map quite comfortably. A few guys in data control can easily hold it and defend vent at the same time. A few guys in heli can do the same while keeping an eye on flight control. You aren't required to tell individual players to run away across the map all the time, as you are suggesting.
If all your guys on one side of the map go down then the other team should be rewarded by being able to take out your structures.
With the addition of phase gates and distress beacon, the marines can easily move around to where they are needed as quickly as possible.
Sentries are a completely viable defensive structure right now. Static defensive structures should never be able to hold off multiple players attacking them. Otherwise It'd be almost impossible for the other team to push up. Static defence should only delay the enemy team if there are no players there to defend.
The best form of defence is attack. If you don't want your stuff to get attacked then you need to force the enemy to defend. This back and forth is exciting and the com needs to try and manage his players to make sure he sends enough to each area of the map. All that would be removed if you had ultra defence with just a small "no mans land" area in the middle of the map where teams trade blows.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Stuff like that would do a lot to keep the game focussed and keep the action going, as well as adding massively to the strategic aspect, which is currently pretty lacking as no amount of strategy will stop one guy running round blowing up all your harvesters, or an uncoordinated rush building a surprise PG somewhere, there's no progression, just random flailing around with bases going up and down all over with no real pattern to it<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I completely disagree. I think the changes you are suggesting would remove strategic play and create more predictable boring games. This statement reeks of ignorance to me and it sounds like you've just spend most of your time playing on public servers with little co-ordination and then judged the entire gameplay on that alone.
Public servers <i>are</i> the entire gameplay, or at least the vast proportion of the gameplay if the game is remotely successful.
If only a minority of the players are going to actually enjoy the game, the game is crap, the game needs to be fun for everyone.
Personally I'd like the game to be a little more challenging than just organising one decent rush to the most important point the enemy have and crippling everything in one shot, regardless of the 'strategy' being employed by either side. No skill in that. Better if the game requires multiple concerted efforts while at the same time making them less hassle to organise by keeping players closer together and limiting targets to two or three places at any given time.
Totally disagree. With no consideration for competitive game play the game will become stale within weeks. There would be no reason to improve other than a good k/d ratio and no depth of play would emerge. All the best videos of all video games come from competitive play no matter the genre. Not saying pubs should be ignore but i would rather see the game geared towards competitive to the max extent like NS1 was.
You don't need consideration for competitive games, competition can make scrabble entertaining for people who give a damn about that sort of thing (although scrabble is fun anyway). If you want a close parallel take the RTS/FPS game 'Empires'. That game is a heap of crap, badly designed, cobbled together by dozens of different people none of whom are remotely qualified to do it, changed dev teams more times than I change my underwear, and yet it's still probably the most fun I've had in a game in a long time, simply because I know a lot of the people who play it and if you get half a dozen of us on a server we can happily content ourselves running around being an awesome teamworking squad and kicking arse.
The fun of organised play is not derived from the game, it's derived from the organisation, NS has plenty of room for that simply because both sides work much better if you think about how you play, and especially if you communicate well with other people. You don't need to stuff the entire casual community to pander to a bunch of elitist tools who think CS1.6+Starcraft would be the undisputed pinnacle of game design and anyone who disagrees is a stupid casual and shouldn't get to call themselves a gamer.
Also I don't know about you but competitive videos are crap, let's plays are good, they inform, are often humorous, in fact they have many of the good qualities associated with playing games with friends, watching two people I've never heard of play starcraft against each other while some overexcited commentator prattles on in amazement about something I do every time I start a game (OMG HE'S BUILDING COLLECTORS AND NOW HE'S BUILDING A BARRACKS WTF HOW AMAZING IS THAT?!) is pretty boring in comparison.
People are actually playing the beta comeptitively, they're playing this half finished, bug riddled, laggy game competitively and apparently they're enjoying it, that more than anything tells me that the game itself simply does not matter most of the time, it's the people you play it with, it's the social element, which you can get in any game, or by going outside and having friends, or by talking to people. There's plenty of ways to get that kind of fun. One of the best ways to induce it in a game is probably to make it as popular as possible, that way you'll attract plenty of people, plenty of potential clan members, plenty of new talent to play in organised games. Games are not competitive because they're designed to be competitive, they're competitive because they're popular. You think the original starcraft was designed to be an e-sport? I don't think the word e-sport even existed other than as the butt of a joke back when starcraft was published, but it was a very good RTS game for its time, and so it became very popular, and so people decided to play it competitively.
Same with counter strike, same with team fortress, same with unreal tournament although that was probably a little bit too old at the time, quake 3 is probably a better example. All of those games have very little to them beyond getting a good K/D (or a good wins/losses in the case of starcraft) but that's plenty of basis for forming strong competition.
The <i>second</i> best thing you can do is include things to make organised play easier, things like steam integration (which you already have) to make communicating between people who can play easier, things like perhaps a plugin for servers that allows them to program specific teams for matches, and to do things like swap teams and announce a best of three winner, and to store those stats and maybe do things like display a knockout tournament diagram between levels. Things like a good map editor to allow the creation of new maps and particularly tournament style maps with a focus on balance rather than fun gimmicks. Things like good admin tools to help with organisation, replay capture and playback to allow good refereeing, things like that are good for organised play. As well as obvious things like a focus on bug free games and making sure the game is pretty well balanced.
Those are the important things for organised play, the things people organising leagues and tournaments can use, and which make playing in such matches more fun for the players.
As for the full clash of sides battling each other and it becomes a matter of endurance i believe those things will eventually happen, and atm it sort of does (when a hive goes up aliens defend it, marines are attacking) is this the same thing?
Also to agree with wilson yes the whole map is and should be a battlefield with little skirmishes everywhere but with the lack of team balance there is right now its just not going to work.
In reading one of those books you guys posted i somewhat grew on the idea that for what is an "RTS" game there really is little for the commander to do that goes acknowledged beyond his team, if you know what i mean-
e.g yeah good work com you got level 3 upgrades for us and put a phase here yea well done? o and you beacon'd.
But im not going to stick to that thought since the game isnt finished yet.
Tho it would be nice to see commanders have a bigger role in the success/failure of winning/losing rather than the team doing everything of whats needed. (dropping an armory for squads and building arc cannons is just a little yawn for hardcore rts players)
If you want the game to be an RTS go back to the earlier builds where it felt like it was marine comm vs alien comm, marine players vs alien players. It also felt much like and FPS for the players back then too. Slowly we've been integrating both aspects of the game but because of this we lost a lot of the focus on advancing gameplay. Right now aliens are tied too much to their commander, and much like marines, their focus has been on moving in regards to commanders orders or the consequences(losing fade, leap) essentially can leave them and a longstanding battle to their loss. And as this point, the marines are well OP. If the marines only need to defend their base then with a turret defense(turtled or not) and lots of beacon they can continually push out and take down hives in seconds with gl/grenades. The more distance they have to shoot the hive the better. Aliens needs to be able to focus on expanding, holding back marine. But they shouldn't need to call to arms their entire team to do so.
so while the class may have become less symmetrical the overall gameplay has and its essentially comes down attack in a pack and defend base. However marine commander can always call back their units to base whenever they choose to do so and the alien team actually has to listen and work together and come back.
If you want the game to be an RTS go back to the earlier builds where it felt like it was marine comm vs alien comm, marine players vs alien players. It also felt much like and FPS for the players back then too. Slowly we've been integrating both aspects of the game but because of this we lost a lot of the focus on advancing gameplay. Right now aliens are tied too much to their commander, and much like marines, their focus has been on moving in regards to commanders orders or the consequences(losing fade, leap) essentially can leave them and a longstanding battle to their loss. And as this point, the marines are well OP. If the marines only need to defend their base then with a turret defense(turtled or not) and lots of beacon they can continually push out and take down hives in seconds with gl/grenades. The more distance they have to shoot the hive the better. Aliens needs to be able to focus on expanding, holding back marine. But they shouldn't need to call to arms their entire team to do so.
so while the class may have become less symmetrical the overall gameplay has and its essentially comes down attack in a pack and defend base. However marine commander can always call back their units to base whenever they choose to do so and the alien team actually has to listen and work together and come back.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That's a pretty good summary, actually, I'd agree. Except for the bit about marines being OP, aliens are generally better I think, but at the moment it's mostly decided by which team lends itself better to cheap shotting the enemy in the res nodes or spawn points, which aliens are definitely better at. Marines are less mobile and hives are harder to kill than IPs, not to mention aliens can rebuild their RTs much easier than marines due to drifters. That sort of thing tends to decide most games for me.