NS2: An RTS without consequence
Raneman
Join Date: 2010-01-07 Member: 69962Members
Join Date: 2010-01-07 Member: 69962Members
In recent patches, the devs appear to have taken a stance against any choices or actions or battles having consequences.
You lost your second hive?
Oh, poor baby, it's okay, you can still go fade and onos, don't cry.
Down on resources?
Don't cry, it's okay. Here, I'll give you all your upgrades and items for less.
Lost your entire alien team in an attack?
Oh, don't worry, I made emergency spawning to make sure the people who killed your entire ###### team have 0 advantage.
You lost your second hive?
Oh, poor baby, it's okay, you can still go fade and onos, don't cry.
Down on resources?
Don't cry, it's okay. Here, I'll give you all your upgrades and items for less.
Lost your entire alien team in an attack?
Oh, don't worry, I made emergency spawning to make sure the people who killed your entire ###### team have 0 advantage.
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
1 hive fade and onos aren't as good as 2+ hive fade/onos either. Sure, you can purchase the lifeforms, but they can't be nearly as effective.
It's the same in any RTS - if I kill all your workers in Starcraft, but then I let you remake them and build up an army before I attack again, I can miss the window of opportunity I created for myself. To paraphrase Artosis (an SC2 caster): everybody who plays this game is still bad. Even the top competitive players simply haven't had enough time, and a high-enough skill community to really develop how we play this game.
When people play a more clean/precise game, things like killing cysts and forcing scans will become important. Right now nobody even notices those happening because the flow of the game is so variable.
You lost your second hive?
Oh, poor baby, it's okay, you can still go fade and onos, don't cry.
Down on resources?
Don't cry, it's okay. Here, I'll give you all your upgrades and items for less.
Lost your entire alien team in an attack?
Oh, don't worry, I made emergency spawning to make sure the people who killed your entire ###### team have 0 advantage.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Since the game is not ready for public release, any balance changes they make at this moment do not even slightly concern me as all their eggs are not in the basket yet. Some builds may seem to overpower some classes or abilities but it's to be expected in an unfinished product.
There are a great many ways things can go wrong for any given player, and comparatively few ways they can go right.
There are numerous players on any given team.
Any given team therefore will have a great many things going wrong for them at any given time.
If the game says 'sorry, had your chance, you failed, game ends now' as a response to failure, you're going to spend a lot of time not being able to play.
RTS mechanics are fine for RTS games, but I'm not really playing an RTS game as a player on the field, or at least I don't <i>want</i> to be playing an RTS game, I want to be playing an FPS game where I get guns and shoot bullets at aliens for points/get claws and stab marines for points. That's fun, unlike most things I would be doing if I was playing an RTS game, such as running around the map, standing still for long periods of time, waiting for forces to be built up, being used as cannon fodder, all the things that ACTUAL rts games don't make players themselves have to sit through.
The point of an RTS is you get to boss around a bunch of horrible proles and laugh when they die. The point of an FPS game is to be an action hero and run guns blazing through waves of enemies blowing them all up. To combine the two you kind of have to not treat your RTS units like RTS units, they cannot be expected to be held accountable for every tiny thing that happens, because they're not going to enjoy being affected by things outside their control (which is to say, anything anyone else does).
FPS games work better when you have a loosely justified premise for two teams of angry dudes with lots of guns to shoot each other up for 20 minutes, maybe while trying to steal some item of arbitrary value from he other team if you want to add a little flavour. Winning or losing doesn't <i>really</i> matter that much, the point is to enjoy shooting enemies and getting kills and generally have fun. Winning or losing is mostly just a reason to change map.
1 hive fade and onos aren't as good as 2+ hive fade/onos either. Sure, you can purchase the lifeforms, but they can't be nearly as effective.
It's the same in any RTS - if I kill all your workers in Starcraft, but then I let you remake them and build up an army before I attack again, I can miss the window of opportunity I created for myself. To paraphrase Artosis (an SC2 caster): everybody who plays this game is still bad. Even the top competitive players simply haven't had enough time, and a high-enough skill community to really develop how we play this game.
When people play a more clean/precise game, things like killing cysts and forcing scans will become important. Right now nobody even notices those happening because the flow of the game is so variable.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
true, true, and true.
lots of ppl complain stuff like this, but the community's game sense simply could not develop yet.
let players gain a certain level of game sense and they will be able to take advantage from any upcoming opportunity
If marines push all alien RTs down they delay onos/fade/hive/ups but the marines often fail in this job, the get the cysts or try to shoot the gorge 1 mile away. Rines should focus on 1 objective/unit in NS2 the RTs.
Same for aliens. Kill marine RTs. Yeah tech is cheaper but without res you can not research all those nice things. Also alien should always try to kill an RT even if you die 4 times till the RT is down, it forces the marines to rebuild a RT or research welders.
Looking at aliens as an example, if you can consistently kill marines and earn res while keeping your first RT, you can evolve to a higher life form and in that scenario the role of the commander is diminished.
Likewise, with marines, if your team is having difficulty holding res nodes, the team can still be supported through kills. Depending on the climate of the marine team, the rest of the game is more or less focused on the marine players successes and not the commander; however, a reciprocal effect can be seen in either scenario-- if the ground players are doing that well, then the job of the respective commander becomes much easier- generally- based on skill.
though I'm not really critical and staying pleasantly patient as this is still a work in progress.
Funny, when the aliens attack at the 10 minute mark, I keep hearing Marines look to he doors, screaming ONOS! ONOS! ONOS! over voice chat, yet I see nothing explode.
is this a really obscure dune quote I'm not recognizing?
The critical actions are very good to add tension to the game, when you know can loose or win the game if you don't do the right thing in the next 30 seconds, it brings a lot suspense and excitement. Critical actions should be hard to pull off or risky, for example rushing the marine base should be risky for the aliens.
The less critical actions are good to allow a team to come back or win the game by adding little wins one after the other.
Concerning the recent changes,
>You lost your second hive?
>Oh, poor baby, it's okay, you can still go fade and onos, don't cry.
Actually unlinking fade and onos from second hive helped to make more actions meaningful, before it the only meaningful thing to do was to get/deny the second hive, the rest didn't had so much consequences in comparison.
I do agree with the egg spawn rate, dying badly as aliens don't really matter anymore, you can rush all day long.
The idea of removing the res for hydras also goes into the direction of less consequences for your actions.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->When people play a more clean/precise game, things like killing cysts and forcing scans will become important. Right now nobody even notices those happening because the flow of the game is so variable.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think people that play regularly on ensl gathers can notice, e.g. on turtle the games can become very typical.
There are a great many ways things can go wrong for any given player, and comparatively few ways they can go right.
There are numerous players on any given team.
Any given team therefore will have a great many things going wrong for them at any given time.
If the game says 'sorry, had your chance, you failed, game ends now' as a response to failure, you're going to spend a lot of time not being able to play.
RTS mechanics are fine for RTS games, but I'm not really playing an RTS game as a player on the field, or at least I don't <i>want</i> to be playing an RTS game, I want to be playing an FPS game where I get guns and shoot bullets at aliens for points/get claws and stab marines for points. That's fun, unlike most things I would be doing if I was playing an RTS game, such as running around the map, standing still for long periods of time, waiting for forces to be built up, being used as cannon fodder, all the things that ACTUAL rts games don't make players themselves have to sit through.
The point of an RTS is you get to boss around a bunch of horrible proles and laugh when they die. The point of an FPS game is to be an action hero and run guns blazing through waves of enemies blowing them all up. To combine the two you kind of have to not treat your RTS units like RTS units, they cannot be expected to be held accountable for every tiny thing that happens, because they're not going to enjoy being affected by things outside their control (which is to say, anything anyone else does).
FPS games work better when you have a loosely justified premise for two teams of angry dudes with lots of guns to shoot each other up for 20 minutes, maybe while trying to steal some item of arbitrary value from he other team if you want to add a little flavour. Winning or losing doesn't <i>really</i> matter that much, the point is to enjoy shooting enemies and getting kills and generally have fun. Winning or losing is mostly just a reason to change map.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Just like real war the lives of RTS units are long stretches of boredom interrupted by hectic stretches of often terminal excitement.
Also I do not think aliens need to get egglocked any time most of their team dies, it already happens plenty of often with how easy the damn things are to kill and camp. Sure it might 'punish' the team but it sure isnt fun unless you like spectating the hive. Besides there is no reason marines should have a massive advantage in the spawning department.
Exactly. Every time the opponent fails to capitalize on your weakness, you're being given another chance.
There are two <i>broad </i>skills that players need to do well in a game like this: capitalizing on opponents' mistakes, and coming back when they haven't been eliminated yet.
I see pub games where the marines rush the aliens down in 5 minutes with grenades, and I see pub games where the aliens win after getting their 2nd hive up at the 20 minute mark. The marines aren't playing their best in both cases.