Whatever happened to tying Marine Tech to TPs?

Techercizer

<div class="IPBDescription">Maybe one of you guys can help me out here.</div>I remember back in my day before all these fancy flamethrowers and jetpacks, I was hearing that the Proto Lab was going to require control of a second TP to construct. New features came and went, and in time we got our Protos and our JPs, but we never got that incentive to push out and capture TPs beyond our home base. What ever happened to that idea? When did it go out of style? Was it ever even planned? Maybe I was just hearing hearsay all that time, but it seemed like it was intended to reduce the effectiveness of turtling and get Marines looking to hold more than just RTs on the map.

Now that Kharaa are getting life forms unlocked from hives, I'm starting to see less reward for investment in non-base areas. Focus is shifting closer and closer to home, leaving less to build and less to fight over. What, if anything, ever happened to making both teams fight for their upgrades?

paradoxum

I only started playing in 199 and I still hear people talking in-game about these "tech points" (as Marines) and it really confused me, so now I know what they meant.

Kouji_San

It was in the earlier builds where certain tech was indeed tied to securing multiple tech points, but it was removed due to aliens being faster then marines back then. I'm not sure what the current stance on it is...

Techercizer

So it was in at earlier builds, then? Good to know. I wonder if balance reasons were the only reason they were removed, and if so, how they would change the current NS2 climate if implemented. I think for starters we'd see more tactical choices from Marines, with the change forcing them to build outside their base more and maybe giving an incentive not to have of all their eggs in one basket.

Wilson

I prefer it as it is currently and think the aliens tech shouldn't require multiple hives either. It creates a more dynamic game with the fighting taking place over RTs rather than always trying to deny an expansion. I feel like the whole game then becomes centred around stopping the expansion rather than on denying RTs. If you fail to stop the expansion then the enemy get a huge tech increase and it's game over.

Techercizer

<!--quoteo(post=1921986:date=Apr 4 2012, 07:37 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Apr 4 2012, 07:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1921986"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I prefer it as it is currently and think the aliens tech shouldn't require multiple hives either. It creates a more dynamic game with the fighting taking place over RTs rather than always trying to deny an expansion. I feel like the whole game then becomes centred around stopping the expansion rather than on denying RTs. If you fail to stop the expansion then the enemy get a huge tech increase and it's game over.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But if both sides have to expand, then they can afford to maintain offensive and defensive battles for technology. Even if your enemy gets an expansion to an TP completed, you can still win; you just have to stop them from killing your expansion for a short period until the two of you are on equal footing again.

If only one side is expanding, it's because the other side isn't trying or has no map control/RTs. Either one of these conditions already results in a loss, but creating a TP fight shifts focus out of the home base and into the field; that's a much more dynamic fight than just destroying the same harvesters and Extractors again and again, periodically rushing back to try and save your own.

Evil_bOb1

I like the fact that you don't have to expand, but if you want to win...

Like a game of starcraft really, you don't have to expand, but if you want to win...

Techercizer

You need to have RTs, but that's about all the expansion you need. All the other structures stay locked up in base and as thin as possible to facilitate your mad rush to getting bigger guns for your fortress of solitude. Marines and Kharaa don't so much take control of areas as scramble through, drop extractors, and move on.

Deadzone

I think part of the reason that expansion doesn't feel tied to winning compared to Starcraft is the supply chain. In Blizzard's RTS games, workers have to physically carry the resources back to a base structure. Without actually building a second base, gathering resources from far away is slow and stupidly dangerous. Also don't forget that in all their games, resources are finite, and if you don't get a new supply, you'll run out and die.

In NS, however, the RT's are fully independent. No workers required, so you can put one on the other side of the map for all it matters.

I do think that expanding will have a bigger impact once aliens get their movement chambers/teleporty service back. Marines have phase gates, and mini bases often go up to protect those gates. Aliens will have hives to teleport between, so they'll want one or two options to cover the map.

Beyond that, there's also redundancy. Hives can be ninja'd very easily, and having backups around is a good thing. Similarly, if aliens rushed, nommed the obs, and starting killing IPs, the marines are doomed if they didn't have another base.

paradoxum

<!--quoteo(post=1921992:date=Apr 4 2012, 05:56 PM:name=Techercizer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Techercizer @ Apr 4 2012, 05:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1921992"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You need to have RTs, but that's about all the expansion you need. All the other structures stay locked up in base and as thin as possible to facilitate your mad rush to getting bigger guns for your fortress of solitude. Marines and Kharaa don't so much take control of areas as scramble through, drop extractors, and move on.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I think this boils down to games being too fast. Nobody bothers to secure nodes in NS2 with turrets, if one is being attacked just send a lone marine off to kill the skulk on it and then sprint back to base

Techercizer

Nobody bothers because nobody can afford it. For the price of one easily-killed turret, you could just rebuild the entire extractor. Not to mention the cost of a Robotics Factory. Additionally, progressively higher lifeforms invalidate turrets with increasing strengths, so at the end of the day, trying to secure an RT with automatic defenses is a massive waste of resources.

Extractors have no supply lines, no operating requirements, and are always a quick Nano Shield and Recycle away from giving the commander a comfortable refund towards their later reconstruction. The things pay for themselves; there's no reason to risk large expenditures of resources to create exciting and dynamic expansion into dangerous territory to protect something that costs less than anything you would build to protect it. The only reason we even see Armories being built away from base is because they're cheap, infinite supplies of bullets and health; the only reason they stay around after Marines move their focus is for the off chance combat may return to the area, or because the Com forgot to recycle.

IronHorse

oh i have a lot to say on this topic.. lol.
feel like a broken record though saying it all again. :-/
the impact on stalemates is the largest of this issue.

eh?

From what I remember,

Marines would just rush to get a CC up for a split second and then recycle once they upgraded the starting CC. This seems pretty ###### to me.

Then marines had flamethrowers which were super op back then, also the only way to win before cysts pustules.

Techercizer

<!--quoteo(post=1922041:date=Apr 5 2012, 12:00 AM:name=eh?)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (eh? @ Apr 5 2012, 12:00 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1922041"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->From what I remember,

Marines would just rush to get a CC up for a split second and then recycle once they upgraded the starting CC. This seems pretty ###### to me.

Then marines had flamethrowers which were super op back then, also the only way to win before cysts pustules.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So let's not do that. Deny tech access if the second CC is lost, like we remove lifeform abilities when a Hive goes down.

Another idea I had was only allowing Prototype Labs to be built on TPs, but that's an idea for another topic, and one that isn't very good.

Molecule

They need to decide fairly soon what to do with marines and TP's, per this post:

<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=117265" target="_blank">TP decision affecting mappers</a>

Wilson

<!--quoteo(post=1921988:date=Apr 5 2012, 01:44 AM:name=Techercizer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Techercizer @ Apr 5 2012, 01:44 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1921988"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->...creating a TP fight shifts focus out of the home base and into the field; that's a much more dynamic fight than just destroying the same harvesters and Extractors again and again, periodically rushing back to try and save your own.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I don't think so. What ends up happening is that the same expansions get taken every time and then the fights take place in the exact same part of the map each game. Rather than different RTs being attacked by different amounts of players. I also think it will be very difficult to balance both teams tech to make them equal, so no doubt one teams upgrade will be more powerful and more likely to win the game and the other team will focus on destroying their expansion more than defending their own.

I just think it turns the game into a very simple deny expansion to win. Rather than slowing their tech progression by fighting over the RTs. You still require map control to gain the resource advantage without requiring an expansion. It just doesn't rest the entire game on this large investment away from your main base.

Zeikko

I agree with Wilson. Fighting over 3-6 rts is much more interesting, dynamic and strategic than fighting over 1-2 tps. Untying the lifeforms from hives made the gameplay much more interesting. Too bad the onos still makes most of the marine strategies worthless to even try.

ogz

TPs add another level of complexity into the game.

Might be a good/bad thing depending on the person playing i guess

but if ns2 is meant to be more FPS focus and less RTS focus then i guess the answer is probably not TPs

Techercizer

<!--quoteo(post=1922086:date=Apr 5 2012, 05:30 AM:name=Zeikko)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zeikko @ Apr 5 2012, 05:30 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1922086"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I agree with Wilson. Fighting over 3-6 rts is much more interesting, dynamic and strategic than fighting over 1-2 tps. Untying the lifeforms from hives made the gameplay much more interesting. Too bad the onos still makes most of the marine strategies worthless to even try.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why not fight over both? TP structures and their infrastructure don't come cheap.

Zeikko

<!--quoteo(post=1922170:date=Apr 5 2012, 05:01 PM:name=Techercizer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Techercizer @ Apr 5 2012, 05:01 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1922170"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Why not fight over both? TP structures and their infrastructure don't come cheap.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

That would be the best case scenario. But tying tech points on lifeforms or major researches makes the fighting to revolve mainly around the tps. I'm sure you experienced this with the second hive in the previous builds.

Techercizer

<!--quoteo(post=1922174:date=Apr 5 2012, 10:17 AM:name=Zeikko)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Zeikko @ Apr 5 2012, 10:17 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1922174"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That would be the best case scenario. But tying tech points on lifeforms or major researches makes the fighting to revolve mainly around the tps. I'm sure you experienced this with the second hive in the previous builds.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That was because all the hive upgrades were given for free, and Kharaa have few other resource sinks besides hives; as a result, they had little use for harvesters beyond stepping stones to hives and as a passive Pres booster. If you had to research your expensive new upgrades from your second base, you'd want to get as many RTs as possible. A team with 100 Tres and 1 TP would still easily beat a team with 0 Tres and 2 TPs.

Wilson

<!--quoteo(post=1922175:date=Apr 5 2012, 04:19 PM:name=Techercizer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Techercizer @ Apr 5 2012, 04:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1922175"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That was because all the hive upgrades were given for free, and Kharaa have few other resource sinks besides hives; as a result, they had little use for harvesters beyond stepping stones to hives and as a passive Pres booster. If you had to research your expensive new upgrades from your second base, you'd want to get as many RTs as possible. A team with 100 Tres and 1 TP would still easily beat a team with 0 Tres and 2 TPs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

While that is true, it wouldn't change the fact that without the expansion you wouldn't be able to tech past a certain point. At some point in the game it wouldn't matter how many RTs the other team had, as long as you can deny their expansion then you can prevent them from ever teching up. The whole game would basically be won or lost by who managed to get or deny the other teams expansion. You would see teams ignoring the enemy RTs and just focusing on denying expansions as it wouldn't make any difference if they had lots of res because they wouldn't be able to tech anyway.

Contrast this with just res needed to tech up and it becomes a lot more interesting. Perhaps 1 team gets an early lead and holds 4 rts for a minute or two, but the the other team kills 2 and now they have 1 extra rt for a few minutes. This constant race for res makes it interesting because the speed at which team can tech up changes throughout the match. It doesn't just place the focus on 1 big game winning move.

It also means that even if you manage to tech up faster than the other team, you will want to push their base quickly because even on 1 RT they will eventually get more advanced upgrades and could come back into the game.

Techercizer

You can win the game without teching up, you know. If neither team can get an expansion off, then the team behind in RTs needs to make a gambit or get crushed by attrition. You can still have a resource race, but there's another race going along side it; the race for map control and technology. Tying tech to TPs creates a focus to expand, but it doesn't create instant win buttons or invalidate other forms of victory because new technology needs to be researched just like it does now (for Marines, anyway. Kharaa get theirs for free, which I'm not a fan of).

A Marine team with two TPs and upgrades won't be doing anything to you that a Marine team with a Proto Lab wouldn't be.

Venatos

i always fellt like i should do something when i reach a tp as marine, but we allways only set up the extraktor and leave.
to be honest this always feels unnatural, we should bould a base there, connect it with phasegates and secure that portion of the map.
this would go a long way towards mapcontrol, because as it is, marines dont have any kind of mapcontrol what so ever. even if you have every extractor on the map and are pushing the hive, you can loose 3-4 extractors in 1minute, thats not what i call control!
sometimes you even have a ninja marine take down an alien extractor bevore he gets killed, but at least aliens have investation, so when you are in alien territorry, they know where you are, ill let that slip through as mapcontrol.

so i think giving marines an incentiv to build an mantain tps is a two birds, one stone scenario:
1. TPs suddenly are usefull and not only large empty rooms where u bild an extractor an leave.
2. with 2 - 3 bases, the marines gain better mapcontrol, because they are slow and can now reach extractors bevore they are destroyed.

IronHorse

just on the incentive / giving importance to TP discussion side of this thread, here's some ideas:

<b>2nd TP?</b> How about opening the ability to research Phasetech? think about it. you got to DC from Sub access. time to hold your territory. throw down a CHEAP CC. (10 tres /or same cost as phasetech, but you still have to wait for tech to research on OBS) Places like drill repair might still be too close to operations, on Mineshaft, but Refinery to operations is a good example. you almost always PG there anyways. same with Shipping to Repair room on tram. This encourages a concept and is intuitive, based on movement and map control.

<b>3rd TP?</b> Protype lab. JP are already in that quasi useable stage of where a comm questions if he should spend money on that AA , and then proto, and then jp - or just GL. what if 10-15 res to throw down 3rd CC means you can put down a Prototype lab? you would find comms would go for map control before AA! interesting tradeoff, if nothing else. And once again this encourages a concept and is intuitive, based on movement and map control.

Venatos

i would realy like a system where for both sides its like: 1TP = early game, 2TP= mid-game, 3TP = endgame.

as there are 5 TPs on a map the side that can capture and hold 3TPs is about to win anyway.
but tying them to techs and liveforms somehow feels wrong especialy as alien liveforms are untied now.

but maybe a system like that could work with: 1TP=lowtech marines||skulk,gorge,lerk ;; 2TP=phasegate, AA||Fade ;; 3TP=protolab||onos ;; im not sure where to place the armslab thou

Venatos

my try to ty alienabilitys and marine tech to techpoints/hives:

1 TP:
aliens: skulk(bite/parasite) gorge(healspray/build) lerk(shoot spikes) fade(swipe/shadowstep) onos(gore[without stun])
marines: obs, normal armory, turret factory, armslab

2 TP:
aliens: skulk(+leap) gorge(+spit) lerk(+spores) fade(+blink) onos(+stomp*)
marines: advanced armory, phasegate

3 TP:
aliens: skulk(+armor) gorge(+armor) lerk(+bilebomb) fade(+energyregeneration) onos(+smash*)
marines: prototypelab

*im not sure which onosability is the longrange aoe 2s stun, but that one should be hive3.