<!--quoteo(post=1937113:date=May 18 2012, 10:57 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ May 18 2012, 10:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937113"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->They are abilities. The fact that his ability resembles a structure and is stationary does not take away the fact that it is his method of interacting with the world and using the tools given to him. No other class costs pres to use their abilities. An arms lab is far different from a hydra.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Could you please report this crucial bug with hydras to the dev's ?
I just opened up my Hydra.lua file and was surprised to see this :
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->// Structure droppable by Gorge that attacks enemy targets with clusters of shards. Can be built // on walls.
Script.Load("lua/Structure.lua")
... class 'Hydra' (Structure)<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
This is without a doubt a bug since hydra are abilities and not structures.
<!--quoteo(post=1937121:date=May 19 2012, 12:22 AM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ May 19 2012, 12:22 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937121"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Could you please report this crucial bug with hydras to the dev's ?
I just opened up my Hydra.lua file and was surprised to see this :
This is without a doubt a bug since hydra are abilities and not structures.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1937050:date=May 18 2012, 02:33 PM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ May 18 2012, 02:33 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937050"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I really dislike the idea of changes being undone. Not because I care how they decide mechanics should work, but because it symbolises wasted man hours.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You guys can say this is trolling all you want, but I actually agree with this completely (and I swear I'm not trolling).
After the bile bomb is re-tweaked and put on the gorge again, we basically end up at square one after 2 months of the lerk being a huge mess. The lerk remains a huge mess, and the time that went toward "learning that bile bomb doesn't work on the lerk" really should have been wasted a couple years ago, not now. Think of all the arguing back and forth, all the time you spent in game studying bile bomb on both lifeforms, liking or disliking it on the lerk/gorge and so on...it was all a waste because bilebomb fit the gorge better, and everyone who "gets" NS knew it all along.
It won't help in the redesign of the gorge, because the two classes are so dissimilar that their bile bombs should be very different.
<!--quoteo(post=1937089:date=May 18 2012, 04:23 PM:name=SabaHell)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SabaHell @ May 18 2012, 04:23 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937089"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Lerks are going to be overhauled quite a bit in terms of attacks. I can assure you that it's not just going to be a spike/spore fest.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
See this? This is the sign of more wasted hours to come. If UWE doesn't know what the lerk should be doing now, there's no way they're going to get it right for release. I hate to be a doomsayer or whatever, but feel free to quote this post in a few months when the lerk is/isn't fixed.
Now, here's what I wanted to say originally! There is a right way to go about doing this, and a wrong way.
<b>The right way: Forget the Lerk experiment</b> <ul><li>Revert bile bomb to how it was before its damage/area were changed, before the lerk had it and so on (when it was very very powerful, but on the gorge)</li><li>Begin tweaking the damage, area, rate of fire, energy cost and so on<!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--> build-by-build<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> until it works</li><li>Make small changes, let the whole playerbase assess the results (since the playtesters clearly can't do this effectively and never have), iterate, refine</li></ul> <b>The wrong way: Staple the current awful Lerk bile bomb back on the Gorge and call it a day</b> <ul><li>It will be bad, and you'll have to waste <i>even more</i> time returning this to square one (before realizing you made it too powerful and nerfing it into uselessness again)</li></ul>
The bile bomb we had in February was fine except for the "numbers" (damage, area of effect etc), so don't waste time trying to reinvent the wheel in that regard. Just make it so 2 gorges can't solo the marines' base in 10 seconds with it and it's good. Then you can mark it off as 'completed' and fix other parts of the game without having a bad design waiting to make things crazy later on.
<!--quoteo(post=1937063:date=May 18 2012, 03:04 PM:name=JuCCi-PuCCi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JuCCi-PuCCi @ May 18 2012, 03:04 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937063"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->OK then.... i got 921 hours been here since 180. You say it sucks to see changes that you feel are pointless..... The gorge had bile bomb before you came around.... And there has been many on going changes. I feel with 3.5 hours you have no clue what you're talking about. Orrrrr you are the troll Master talks about. Please play the game and understand it more before you make more post past 403<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Sarcasm
<---------------- you
Its just as well, I dont think bilebomb could have worked in its intended role as a turtle break on the lerk without being horribly OP (Lerks mad mobility necessitates it having terrible damage to counterbalance). So this is all well and good imo.
<!--quoteo(post=1937075:date=May 18 2012, 03:22 PM:name=PsiWarp)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (PsiWarp @ May 18 2012, 03:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937075"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->All I remember was differentiation between Bombard and Bile Bomb, but I have hopes for Lerk yet :)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, some sort of bombard attack for the lerk would be cool. Curious to see how this is going to play out but I have faith in UWE and the community to get it all sorted right.
<!--quoteo(post=1937059:date=May 19 2012, 04:56 AM:name=JuCCi-PuCCi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JuCCi-PuCCi @ May 19 2012, 04:56 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937059"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><img src="http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e371/grinsalot/bangpow.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" /> Design task Move Bile Bomb to Gorge has appeared with status Unstarted ... THANK YOU!!!!!!! now just remove the free stuff :)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1937121:date=May 18 2012, 06:22 PM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ May 18 2012, 06:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937121"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Could you please report this crucial bug with hydras to the dev's ?
I just opened up my Hydra.lua file and was surprised to see this :
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->// Structure droppable by Gorge that attacks enemy targets with clusters of shards. Can be built // on walls.
Script.Load("lua/Structure.lua")
... class 'Hydra' (Structure)<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
This is without a doubt a bug since hydra are abilities and not structures.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hey, yeah! Plus, hydras are similar to marine turret sentries and those are structures too, not abilities. Right??
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
edited May 2012
<!--quoteo(post=1937121:date=May 18 2012, 03:22 PM:name=Yuuki)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Yuuki @ May 18 2012, 03:22 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937121"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is without a doubt a bug since hydra are abilities and not structures.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You misunderstood me. <i>You can call it whatever you want</i>, a structure, a casted spell, a cheat, a nuke, pretty object or a gift from the heavens.... <b>its still a player's ability.</b>
Edit: Turrets are dropped by the <u>Comm</u>, and just like the gorge, if they need healing a player must do it. (unless a comm's crag or mac is nearby) If you want we can dedicate a player on the marine side to spending his pres per turret, or we can mimic the current format and have a marine only place 3 turrets with a welder and maybe a pistol for the duration of his life?
I dont think this is optimal though, and i think is the opportune time to bring out the asymmetry card, <i>given that there's a dedicated builder on aliens and not on marines.</i>
p.s. why are we having this discussion again? i would have thought this thread would be about celebrating instead... :-/
Unfortunately there were good arguments on both sides as far as who should get the Bile Bomb. The main reason why it was moved to the Lerk was to make the Gorge more of a defensive type (builder). It also allowed UWE to try something that wasn't done already in NS1.
As far as wasted hours: UWE gives the play testers the builds to test the new changes. We provide our feedback on the changes and whether the change is good/bad (with solid evidence) in public play. Sometimes you have to give it a go for a few patches and get the community's feel on the particular change. As this feedback comes in the changes depend on how big a priority they are on the list of things to do. With changing Bile Bomb back to Gorge you have to essentially give at least something to the Lerk to keep it from being just a gutted and even more useless life form. We are a small percentage of players who give our feedback.. without the community feedback and the discussions on the public forums you would still have Lerk Bile Bomb. It takes time.. and we know that it seems like we're all beating a dead horse about certain topics, but things take time to sink in and come up with possible alternatives for a life form as dynamic as Lerk or an ability such as the Bile Bomb.
As far as build-by-build it would be essentially impossible considering that developers are also working on the build as we play test, and only push out builds when there are huge changes or fixes to errors. Once the PT is done everyone has the ability to look at the lua (including in public builds.. a shock, I know). Whether you want to spend hours testing (usually 4-5 hours on top of play testing) to try out different values is really dependent on how much of your own free time you want to spend on it. This is essentially one of the reasons why the patches are no longer being released weekly and have been pushed to bi-weekly. This allows us more time to give better feedback on balance issues.
<!--quoteo(post=1937113:date=May 18 2012, 01:57 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ May 18 2012, 01:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937113"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->They are abilities. The fact that his ability resembles a structure and is stationary does not take away the fact that it is his method of interacting with the world and using the tools given to him. No other class costs pres to use their abilities.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> So the "problem" as you describe it, was that the Gorge was somehow too <b>unique</b>, and the "<b>fix</b>" was to simply further homogenize the two teams? Yeah, that sure sounds like a great change. There's not been enough homogenization already.</sarcasm>
<!--quoteo(post=1937113:date=May 18 2012, 01:57 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ May 18 2012, 01:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937113"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->An arms lab is far different from a hydra.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> And how different is a pack of Mines? they cost 15 PRes and let you *relatively* secure a location against Skulks, which could be considered a parallele to a vanilla Marine, which is what Hydras were good at denying territory against. Those also cost PRes.
<!--quoteo(post=1937113:date=May 18 2012, 01:57 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ May 18 2012, 01:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937113"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Costing Pres meant you were always locked into PermaGorge.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> As opposed to now where you are locked in to PermaGorge or your Hydras vanish?
Now you are not only locked in to PermaGorge, but you are also locked to the location where you drop your measely 3 Hydras. Move away from them and you just risk getting killed. Don't even get me started on the clunky/cumbersome way you have to get rid of them to be able to drop them someplace else, it's so counter-intuitive I don't even know where to begin.
Look at a simple scenario that happens during any game, you put some Hydras at the edge of your territory to defend it, your Skulks/other teammates take more territory further up, if you're not at your Hydras already you first have to run back to them, get rid of them, then run to the new territory and re-drop them. With PRes you could steadily drop a new hydra in a new area that you gained ground in quite easily. Was this a bad thing? No, because it was helping your team secure some territory at the cost of your personal PRes, which meant you couldn't *also* soon evolve into a higher lifeform as a tradeoff.
Then there are numerous other core gameplay problems stemming from this change such as all the gorges now having no PRes sinks just sit around at their measely 3 Hydras for 9-10 minutes collecting res to go Fade or Onos, which is boring. It's also just another contributation to the alien "tech explosion" where at a certain point in a game all the aliens evolve Fade and Onos at the same time. Why are they making this "tech explosion" problem even worse? It was already a problem because of Gorges not being <b>required</b> to drop upgrades and RTs and Hives, but now it's just made even worse because the few people that are masochistic enough to play a Gorge in its current state don't spend any PRes at all!
Then there's the hypocrisy of the devs refusing to put a hard cap on things like ARCs and yet they're perfectly fine with doing it for Hydras and Crags.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
<!--quoteo(post=1937202:date=May 18 2012, 06:35 PM:name=paradoxum)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (paradoxum @ May 18 2012, 06:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937202"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So the "problem" as you describe it, was that the Gorge was somehow too <b>unique</b>, and the "<b>fix</b>" was to simply further homogenize the two teams? Yeah, that sure sounds like a great change. There's not been enough homogenization already.</sarcasm><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> When speaking about what is considered to be "intuitive" amongst an array of things, the word "unique" is generally not a good thing. It generally stands out as the one thing that is <i>not </i>intuitive; wrong. Where you see homogenization as a bad thing - it works very well for the "easy to learn, hard to master" game design philosophy so many reach for.
I heard someone say it best on these forums, (Intuitive/homogenized) game design means knowing the game is never the challenge, playing it is.
And regarding the rest of the post, i feel like we are derailing this conversation. If you wish to continue ( i honestly would like to) please use one of the threads already made.
<!--quoteo(post=1937177:date=May 18 2012, 08:31 PM:name=SabaHell)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SabaHell @ May 18 2012, 08:31 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937177"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As far as build-by-build it would be essentially impossible considering that developers are also working on the build as we play test, and only push out builds when there are huge changes or fixes to errors. Once the PT is done everyone has the ability to look at the lua (including in public builds.. a shock, I know). Whether you want to spend hours testing (usually 4-5 hours on top of play testing) to try out different values is really dependent on how much of your own free time you want to spend on it. This is essentially one of the reasons why the patches are no longer being released weekly and have been pushed to bi-weekly. This allows us more time to give better feedback on balance issues.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I was one of the advocates for patching less often, or rather "making less big changes per patch", and I don't agree with this.
Look at Starcraft 2 for instance: when it first released, there were some problems with bunkers and reapers, so Terran could rush in really weird unstoppable ways on a lot of maps. There were like 10 patches in a row where the changelog said "Bunker build time increased by 5 seconds" or "Bunker build time decreased by 5 seconds" - they kept making small iterative changes (along with other bigger ones like new maps), and eventually the bunker ended up in a state that everyone could agree upon. This was based, of course, on the worldwide ladder/tournament statistics that Flayra said he doesn't trust in Q&A#1. They had millions of people test a tiny, seemingly insignificant change, and they knew the results were "real" in the sense that they weren't subject to lots of different biases (the way everything going on in the tiny insular playtest group for NS2 necessarily is). The longer time between patches means more time for the playtesting group to feed back on itself, and less time for the group of all players to show them the truth of things. At the end of the day, it's bad for the game even if it makes you feel special.
Look at the last hmm...14 builds. Every build since the onos and mineshaft were added. What's to say we couldn't +/- the lerk's speed, gorge bile bomb damage, onos damage, onos hide armor, with each of these builds? What's to say we can't do that right now? Sure, I can individually edit my LUA files and host a server with them, but that won't provide statistically meaningful feedback the way it would if you released the tweaked LUA to <i>every single player</i>. This is what most game betas do (instead of testing newly designed features or finishing the engine). There's still time to do this with the game, and it doesn't even have to take much away from the big goals (performance, finishing the design, new maps etc). Look at any of ADHD's threads - he's testing a lot of small interesting changes on his server, but those could be getting put on <i>every server </i>with small, simple public builds.
<!--quoteo(post=1937208:date=May 18 2012, 10:23 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ May 18 2012, 10:23 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937208"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->(Intuitive/homogenized) game design means knowing the game is never the challenge, playing it is.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not sure how far you can go applying this to NS, but Quake is a really great example. Look at quake duelling - at face value it's a very, very simple game...at the same time, though, basically nobody posting on this forum could beat any of the top duel players because they've taken a simple game to very great lengths (in terms of developed skill, complexity of the mental game etc).
I guess in NS terms, you would strive for having fewer mechanics, and making more of them <i>significant</i>. You don't need to homogenize the two sides, but it's a good idea to not continuously add new abilities and 'obvious' complexity. You end up with an enormous web of ideas, and you have to make a lot of your new abilities too weak or too strong (in order to satisfy the most immediate 'balance' conditions) - really powerful or really weak ideas don't scale well with player skill, and they don't give you a game like Quake where<a href="http://www.quakeworld.nu/" target="_blank"> people are still playing it 16 years after release</a>. If you have a lot of mechanics that are <i>decent </i>in their own niche, you end up with the oversaturation of every MMO/MOBA where it's completely baffling to new players or spectators.
rhombusLerk QueenJoin Date: 2011-06-23Member: 106055Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
edited May 2012
<!--quoteo(post=1937214:date=May 18 2012, 10:54 PM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ May 18 2012, 10:54 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937214"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I was one of the advocates for patching less often, or rather "making less big changes per patch", and I don't agree with this.
Look at Starcraft 2 for instance: when it first released, there were some problems with bunkers and reapers, so Terran could rush in really weird unstoppable ways on a lot of maps. There were like 10 patches in a row where the changelog said "Bunker build time increased by 5 seconds" or "Bunker build time decreased by 5 seconds" - they kept making small iterative changes (along with other bigger ones like new maps), and eventually the bunker ended up in a state that everyone could agree upon. This was based, of course, on the worldwide ladder/tournament statistics that Flayra said he doesn't trust in Q&A#1. They had millions of people test a tiny, seemingly insignificant change, and they knew the results were "real" in the sense that they weren't subject to lots of different biases (the way everything going on in the tiny insular playtest group for NS2 necessarily is). The longer time between patches means more time for the playtesting group to feed back on itself, and less time for the group of all players to show them the truth of things. At the end of the day, it's bad for the game even if it makes you feel special.
Look at the last hmm...14 builds. Every build since the onos and mineshaft were added. What's to say we couldn't +/- the lerk's speed, gorge bile bomb damage, onos damage, onos hide armor, with each of these builds? What's to say we can't do that right now? Sure, I can individually edit my LUA files and host a server with them, but that won't provide statistically meaningful feedback the way it would if you released the tweaked LUA to <i>every single player</i>. This is what most game betas do (instead of testing newly designed features or finishing the engine). There's still time to do this with the game, and it doesn't even have to take much away from the big goals (performance, finishing the design, new maps etc). Look at any of ADHD's threads - he's testing a lot of small interesting changes on his server, but those could be getting put on <i>every server </i>with small, simple public builds.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We can only give so much feedback to UWE - it's really up to them whether or not they feel the change needs to be made; providing them with reasoning as to why it needs to be changed. Quite a lot of things have been suggested regarding the Onos, Lerk, and Mineshaft issues, but again it's up to UWE to decide whether or not they want to implement these changes into the builds and how high a priority they are. As far as releasing tiny patches for these things: it was brought up before and I didn't hear the reasoning as to why it's not being done. For server changes on the public build: I believe HBZ was told to remove the stat tracking portion off their servers due to how much they changed on them as they'd skew the stats that UWE collected. I'm all for modifying what's there right now; I'd even spend my own free time updating lua with minor changes if I could to get them out, but again it's all up to UWE.
I never liked Bile for the Gorge. That cuddly little creature somehow doing massive amounts of damage against structures. ARC's, Onos Gore, Grenade Launchers ... sure, but Gorges obliterating entire rooms? No...
I think Bile was well-suited for the Lerk. Gorges are slow and need help from the rest of the team to stay alive on the frontlines and that maybe worked to keep the Alien team together, but Lerk Bile just have to be made less effective on itself and more effective when used in unison with other lifeforms to promote teamplay and coordinated attacks instead of irritating hit-and-run raids. For instance when a structure is Biled it could get more vulnerable to melee damage.
<!--quoteo(post=1937243:date=May 19 2012, 12:52 AM:name=Namm)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Namm @ May 19 2012, 12:52 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937243"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I never liked Bile for the Gorge. That cuddly little creature somehow doing massive amounts of damage against structures. ARC's, Onos Gore, Grenade Launchers ... sure, but Gorges obliterating entire rooms? No...
I think Bile was well-suited for the Lerk. Gorges are slow and need help from the rest of the team to stay alive on the frontlines and that maybe worked to keep the Alien team together, but Lerk Bile just have to be made less effective on itself and more effective when used in unison with other lifeforms to promote teamplay and coordinated attacks instead of irritating hit-and-run raids. For instance when a structure is Biled it could get more vulnerable to melee damage.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You seem to be thinking about it AESTHETICALLY but not from a practical gameplay point of view. I like bile bomb on lerk. But how can you give such a powerful attack to the most mobile class? It will likely always be underpowered or overpowered, but never balanced.
It worked on the gorge because the powerful attack was countered by the gorge's lack of mobility.
Also the gorge is a fat ugly creature so secreting giant disgusting smelly sacks of bile makes more sense for such a disgusting thing.
<!--quoteo(post=1937313:date=May 19 2012, 12:24 PM:name=TremanN)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TremanN @ May 19 2012, 12:24 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937313"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->UWE needs a group of balance testers. These players will play the game and use abusive strategies to 'break' the game.
You can't trust the statistics gathered from servers. There are new players all the time that have no idea how the game works.
PS. It seems we're moving closer to NS1 features. Weird.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1937313:date=May 19 2012, 07:24 AM:name=TremanN)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TremanN @ May 19 2012, 07:24 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937313"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->UWE needs a group of balance testers. These players will play the game and use abusive strategies to 'break' the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I would have thought the "playtester team" would do things like that?
<!--quoteo(post=1937313:date=May 19 2012, 10:24 AM:name=TremanN)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TremanN @ May 19 2012, 10:24 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937313"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->PS. It seems we're moving closer to NS1 features. Weird.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Although NS1 started out quite haphazardly, ~3 years was spent polishing it and fiddling with it(AKA 3 years in beta) after version 1.0. NS2 is not even feature complete(AKA alpha).
If you're short on time the quick fix is to do what worked before.
<!--quoteo(post=1937317:date=May 19 2012, 11:46 AM:name=paradoxum)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (paradoxum @ May 19 2012, 11:46 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937317"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I would have thought the "playtester team" would do things like that?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yea, them and we also have competitive matches where players can give feedback.
<!--quoteo(post=1937309:date=May 19 2012, 05:07 PM:name=Master Blaster)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Master Blaster @ May 19 2012, 05:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937309"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You seem to be thinking about it AESTHETICALLY but not from a practical gameplay point of view. I like bile bomb on lerk. But how can you give such a powerful attack to the most mobile class? It will likely always be underpowered or overpowered, but never balanced.
It worked on the gorge because the powerful attack was countered by the gorge's lack of mobility.
Also the gorge is a fat ugly creature so secreting giant disgusting smelly sacks of bile makes more sense for such a disgusting thing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually with all the nerfs lerk got, the bb really suits him. In my opinion the lerk was always a harassing-type unit. With the bb nerfed, it serves the purpose quite well. I was against it when they moved it from gorge too, but that was cz the bb was ridiculously op. Right now, the lerk seems to be serving his purpose quite nicely. After all these builds, i have to say that i agreed with uwe's decision. Now they want to move it back... I'm not for it, i'm not against it, i have faith in the guys, and im sure it's going to work too. I'm just saying, that right now, the bb actually works in my opinion.
Bile bomb on the lerk did not work. The reason some feel it might have is due to the fact you would need like 4+ lerks to make it worth it to take down a base. It had no rage on it so if marines turtle it would be hard for a lerk to last in the room. With it on gorge it is ranged. But the issue before was 1) huge splash damage 2) stackable damage with frenzy?(i think). 3) marines letting 2 or more gorges to sneak up on there base. On the plus side when a team seen them and could aim the gorges would die.
<!--quoteo(post=1937326:date=May 19 2012, 06:04 PM:name=JuCCi-PuCCi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JuCCi-PuCCi @ May 19 2012, 06:04 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937326"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Bile bomb on the lerk did not work. The reason some feel it might have is due to the fact you would need like 4+ lerks to make it worth it to take down a base. It had no rage on it so if marines turtle it would be hard for a lerk to last in the room. With it on gorge it is ranged. But the issue before was 1) huge splash damage 2) stackable damage with frenzy?(i think). 3) marines letting 2 or more gorges to sneak up on there base. On the plus side when a team seen them and could aim the gorges would die.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The thing that perplexed me the most was that UWE never decided to try the most obvious approach (to me) of massively reducing the direct damage caused by the bile bomb, but giving quite a buff to damage done to the affected target from other sources, depending on the damage type. So something like 30% increase to normal damage, 15% increase to puncture and light damage, and 5% increase to siege damage. I'm quite sure UWE thought of or knew of the approach, but I guess it didn't fit what they envisioned for the Lerk.
<!--quoteo(post=1937320:date=May 19 2012, 05:50 PM:name=peregrinus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (peregrinus @ May 19 2012, 05:50 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937320"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I thought the play testers did specific things like trying to replicate bugs and testing new features.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> This is exactly what we do.
<!--quoteo(post=1937325:date=May 19 2012, 08:57 AM:name=cake.)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (cake. @ May 19 2012, 08:57 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937325"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm just saying, that right now, the bb actually works in my opinion.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No it doesn't. It's incapable of doing any real damage or significantly impacting the game. No one is scared of lerk right now, except when SabaHell plays and even then she is using spikes, not bile bomb.
Comments
Note that you can still keep the P-res and T-res system even if you remove the alien comm; the gorge would simply use T-res to drop structures.
Could you please report this crucial bug with hydras to the dev's ?
I just opened up my Hydra.lua file and was surprised to see this :
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->// Structure droppable by Gorge that attacks enemy targets with clusters of shards. Can be built
// on walls.
Script.Load("lua/Structure.lua")
...
class 'Hydra' (Structure)<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
This is without a doubt a bug since hydra are abilities and not structures.
I just opened up my Hydra.lua file and was surprised to see this :
This is without a doubt a bug since hydra are abilities and not structures.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So very very infantile.
You guys can say this is trolling all you want, but I actually agree with this completely (and I swear I'm not trolling).
After the bile bomb is re-tweaked and put on the gorge again, we basically end up at square one after 2 months of the lerk being a huge mess. The lerk remains a huge mess, and the time that went toward "learning that bile bomb doesn't work on the lerk" really should have been wasted a couple years ago, not now. Think of all the arguing back and forth, all the time you spent in game studying bile bomb on both lifeforms, liking or disliking it on the lerk/gorge and so on...it was all a waste because bilebomb fit the gorge better, and everyone who "gets" NS knew it all along.
It won't help in the redesign of the gorge, because the two classes are so dissimilar that their bile bombs should be very different.
<!--quoteo(post=1937089:date=May 18 2012, 04:23 PM:name=SabaHell)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SabaHell @ May 18 2012, 04:23 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937089"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Lerks are going to be overhauled quite a bit in terms of attacks. I can assure you that it's not just going to be a spike/spore fest.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
See this? This is the sign of more wasted hours to come. If UWE doesn't know what the lerk should be doing now, there's no way they're going to get it right for release. I hate to be a doomsayer or whatever, but feel free to quote this post in a few months when the lerk is/isn't fixed.
Now, here's what I wanted to say originally! There is a right way to go about doing this, and a wrong way.
<b>The right way: Forget the Lerk experiment</b>
<ul><li>Revert bile bomb to how it was before its damage/area were changed, before the lerk had it and so on (when it was very very powerful, but on the gorge)</li><li>Begin tweaking the damage, area, rate of fire, energy cost and so on<!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--> build-by-build<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> until it works</li><li>Make small changes, let the whole playerbase assess the results (since the playtesters clearly can't do this effectively and never have), iterate, refine</li></ul>
<b>The wrong way: Staple the current awful Lerk bile bomb back on the Gorge and call it a day</b>
<ul><li>It will be bad, and you'll have to waste <i>even more</i> time returning this to square one (before realizing you made it too powerful and nerfing it into uselessness again)</li></ul>
The bile bomb we had in February was fine except for the "numbers" (damage, area of effect etc), so don't waste time trying to reinvent the wheel in that regard. Just make it so 2 gorges can't solo the marines' base in 10 seconds with it and it's good. Then you can mark it off as 'completed' and fix other parts of the game without having a bad design waiting to make things crazy later on.
Sarcasm
<---------------- you
Its just as well, I dont think bilebomb could have worked in its intended role as a turtle break on the lerk without being horribly OP (Lerks mad mobility necessitates it having terrible damage to counterbalance). So this is all well and good imo.
Yeah, some sort of bombard attack for the lerk would be cool. Curious to see how this is going to play out but I have faith in UWE and the community to get it all sorted right.
Design task Move Bile Bomb to Gorge has appeared with status Unstarted ... THANK YOU!!!!!!! now just remove the free stuff :)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I just opened up my Hydra.lua file and was surprised to see this :
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->// Structure droppable by Gorge that attacks enemy targets with clusters of shards. Can be built
// on walls.
Script.Load("lua/Structure.lua")
...
class 'Hydra' (Structure)<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->
This is without a doubt a bug since hydra are abilities and not structures.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hey, yeah! Plus, hydras are similar to marine turret sentries and those are structures too, not abilities. Right??
You misunderstood me.
<i>You can call it whatever you want</i>, a structure, a casted spell, a cheat, a nuke, pretty object or a gift from the heavens.... <b>its still a player's ability.</b>
Edit: Turrets are dropped by the <u>Comm</u>, and just like the gorge, if they need healing a player must do it. (unless a comm's crag or mac is nearby)
If you want we can dedicate a player on the marine side to spending his pres per turret, or we can mimic the current format and have a marine only place 3 turrets with a welder and maybe a pistol for the duration of his life?
I dont think this is optimal though, and i think is the opportune time to bring out the asymmetry card, <i>given that there's a dedicated builder on aliens and not on marines.</i>
p.s. why are we having this discussion again? i would have thought this thread would be about celebrating instead... :-/
Unfortunately there were good arguments on both sides as far as who should get the Bile Bomb. The main reason why it was moved to the Lerk was to make the Gorge more of a defensive type (builder). It also allowed UWE to try something that wasn't done already in NS1.
As far as wasted hours: UWE gives the play testers the builds to test the new changes. We provide our feedback on the changes and whether the change is good/bad (with solid evidence) in public play. Sometimes you have to give it a go for a few patches and get the community's feel on the particular change. As this feedback comes in the changes depend on how big a priority they are on the list of things to do. With changing Bile Bomb back to Gorge you have to essentially give at least something to the Lerk to keep it from being just a gutted and even more useless life form. We are a small percentage of players who give our feedback.. without the community feedback and the discussions on the public forums you would still have Lerk Bile Bomb. It takes time.. and we know that it seems like we're all beating a dead horse about certain topics, but things take time to sink in and come up with possible alternatives for a life form as dynamic as Lerk or an ability such as the Bile Bomb.
As far as build-by-build it would be essentially impossible considering that developers are also working on the build as we play test, and only push out builds when there are huge changes or fixes to errors. Once the PT is done everyone has the ability to look at the lua (including in public builds.. a shock, I know). Whether you want to spend hours testing (usually 4-5 hours on top of play testing) to try out different values is really dependent on how much of your own free time you want to spend on it. This is essentially one of the reasons why the patches are no longer being released weekly and have been pushed to bi-weekly. This allows us more time to give better feedback on balance issues.
So the "problem" as you describe it, was that the Gorge was somehow too <b>unique</b>, and the "<b>fix</b>" was to simply further homogenize the two teams? Yeah, that sure sounds like a great change. There's not been enough homogenization already.</sarcasm>
<!--quoteo(post=1937113:date=May 18 2012, 01:57 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ May 18 2012, 01:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937113"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->An arms lab is far different from a hydra.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And how different is a pack of Mines? they cost 15 PRes and let you *relatively* secure a location against Skulks, which could be considered a parallele to a vanilla Marine, which is what Hydras were good at denying territory against. Those also cost PRes.
<!--quoteo(post=1937113:date=May 18 2012, 01:57 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ May 18 2012, 01:57 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937113"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Costing Pres meant you were always locked into PermaGorge.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As opposed to now where you are locked in to PermaGorge or your Hydras vanish?
Now you are not only locked in to PermaGorge, but you are also locked to the location where you drop your measely 3 Hydras. Move away from them and you just risk getting killed. Don't even get me started on the clunky/cumbersome way you have to get rid of them to be able to drop them someplace else, it's so counter-intuitive I don't even know where to begin.
Look at a simple scenario that happens during any game, you put some Hydras at the edge of your territory to defend it, your Skulks/other teammates take more territory further up, if you're not at your Hydras already you first have to run back to them, get rid of them, then run to the new territory and re-drop them. With PRes you could steadily drop a new hydra in a new area that you gained ground in quite easily. Was this a bad thing? No, because it was helping your team secure some territory at the cost of your personal PRes, which meant you couldn't *also* soon evolve into a higher lifeform as a tradeoff.
Then there are numerous other core gameplay problems stemming from this change such as all the gorges now having no PRes sinks just sit around at their measely 3 Hydras for 9-10 minutes collecting res to go Fade or Onos, which is boring. It's also just another contributation to the alien "tech explosion" where at a certain point in a game all the aliens evolve Fade and Onos at the same time.
Why are they making this "tech explosion" problem even worse? It was already a problem because of Gorges not being <b>required</b> to drop upgrades and RTs and Hives, but now it's just made even worse because the few people that are masochistic enough to play a Gorge in its current state don't spend any PRes at all!
Then there's the hypocrisy of the devs refusing to put a hard cap on things like ARCs and yet they're perfectly fine with doing it for Hydras and Crags.
When speaking about what is considered to be "intuitive" amongst an array of things, the word "unique" is generally not a good thing. It generally stands out as the one thing that is <i>not </i>intuitive; wrong. Where you see homogenization as a bad thing - it works very well for the "easy to learn, hard to master" game design philosophy so many reach for.
I heard someone say it best on these forums, (Intuitive/homogenized) game design means knowing the game is never the challenge, playing it is.
And regarding the rest of the post, i feel like we are derailing this conversation. If you wish to continue ( i honestly would like to) please use one of the threads already made.
I was one of the advocates for patching less often, or rather "making less big changes per patch", and I don't agree with this.
Look at Starcraft 2 for instance: when it first released, there were some problems with bunkers and reapers, so Terran could rush in really weird unstoppable ways on a lot of maps. There were like 10 patches in a row where the changelog said "Bunker build time increased by 5 seconds" or "Bunker build time decreased by 5 seconds" - they kept making small iterative changes (along with other bigger ones like new maps), and eventually the bunker ended up in a state that everyone could agree upon. This was based, of course, on the worldwide ladder/tournament statistics that Flayra said he doesn't trust in Q&A#1. They had millions of people test a tiny, seemingly insignificant change, and they knew the results were "real" in the sense that they weren't subject to lots of different biases (the way everything going on in the tiny insular playtest group for NS2 necessarily is). The longer time between patches means more time for the playtesting group to feed back on itself, and less time for the group of all players to show them the truth of things. At the end of the day, it's bad for the game even if it makes you feel special.
Look at the last hmm...14 builds. Every build since the onos and mineshaft were added. What's to say we couldn't +/- the lerk's speed, gorge bile bomb damage, onos damage, onos hide armor, with each of these builds? What's to say we can't do that right now? Sure, I can individually edit my LUA files and host a server with them, but that won't provide statistically meaningful feedback the way it would if you released the tweaked LUA to <i>every single player</i>. This is what most game betas do (instead of testing newly designed features or finishing the engine). There's still time to do this with the game, and it doesn't even have to take much away from the big goals (performance, finishing the design, new maps etc). Look at any of ADHD's threads - he's testing a lot of small interesting changes on his server, but those could be getting put on <i>every server </i>with small, simple public builds.
<!--quoteo(post=1937208:date=May 18 2012, 10:23 PM:name=ironhorse)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ironhorse @ May 18 2012, 10:23 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1937208"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->(Intuitive/homogenized) game design means knowing the game is never the challenge, playing it is.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not sure how far you can go applying this to NS, but Quake is a really great example. Look at quake duelling - at face value it's a very, very simple game...at the same time, though, basically nobody posting on this forum could beat any of the top duel players because they've taken a simple game to very great lengths (in terms of developed skill, complexity of the mental game etc).
I guess in NS terms, you would strive for having fewer mechanics, and making more of them <i>significant</i>. You don't need to homogenize the two sides, but it's a good idea to not continuously add new abilities and 'obvious' complexity. You end up with an enormous web of ideas, and you have to make a lot of your new abilities too weak or too strong (in order to satisfy the most immediate 'balance' conditions) - really powerful or really weak ideas don't scale well with player skill, and they don't give you a game like Quake where<a href="http://www.quakeworld.nu/" target="_blank"> people are still playing it 16 years after release</a>. If you have a lot of mechanics that are <i>decent </i>in their own niche, you end up with the oversaturation of every MMO/MOBA where it's completely baffling to new players or spectators.
Look at Starcraft 2 for instance: when it first released, there were some problems with bunkers and reapers, so Terran could rush in really weird unstoppable ways on a lot of maps. There were like 10 patches in a row where the changelog said "Bunker build time increased by 5 seconds" or "Bunker build time decreased by 5 seconds" - they kept making small iterative changes (along with other bigger ones like new maps), and eventually the bunker ended up in a state that everyone could agree upon. This was based, of course, on the worldwide ladder/tournament statistics that Flayra said he doesn't trust in Q&A#1. They had millions of people test a tiny, seemingly insignificant change, and they knew the results were "real" in the sense that they weren't subject to lots of different biases (the way everything going on in the tiny insular playtest group for NS2 necessarily is). The longer time between patches means more time for the playtesting group to feed back on itself, and less time for the group of all players to show them the truth of things. At the end of the day, it's bad for the game even if it makes you feel special.
Look at the last hmm...14 builds. Every build since the onos and mineshaft were added. What's to say we couldn't +/- the lerk's speed, gorge bile bomb damage, onos damage, onos hide armor, with each of these builds? What's to say we can't do that right now? Sure, I can individually edit my LUA files and host a server with them, but that won't provide statistically meaningful feedback the way it would if you released the tweaked LUA to <i>every single player</i>. This is what most game betas do (instead of testing newly designed features or finishing the engine). There's still time to do this with the game, and it doesn't even have to take much away from the big goals (performance, finishing the design, new maps etc). Look at any of ADHD's threads - he's testing a lot of small interesting changes on his server, but those could be getting put on <i>every server </i>with small, simple public builds.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We can only give so much feedback to UWE - it's really up to them whether or not they feel the change needs to be made; providing them with reasoning as to why it needs to be changed. Quite a lot of things have been suggested regarding the Onos, Lerk, and Mineshaft issues, but again it's up to UWE to decide whether or not they want to implement these changes into the builds and how high a priority they are. As far as releasing tiny patches for these things: it was brought up before and I didn't hear the reasoning as to why it's not being done. For server changes on the public build: I believe HBZ was told to remove the stat tracking portion off their servers due to how much they changed on them as they'd skew the stats that UWE collected. I'm all for modifying what's there right now; I'd even spend my own free time updating lua with minor changes if I could to get them out, but again it's all up to UWE.
I think Bile was well-suited for the Lerk. Gorges are slow and need help from the rest of the team to stay alive on the frontlines and that maybe worked to keep the Alien team together, but Lerk Bile just have to be made less effective on itself and more effective when used in unison with other lifeforms to promote teamplay and coordinated attacks instead of irritating hit-and-run raids. For instance when a structure is Biled it could get more vulnerable to melee damage.
I think Bile was well-suited for the Lerk. Gorges are slow and need help from the rest of the team to stay alive on the frontlines and that maybe worked to keep the Alien team together, but Lerk Bile just have to be made less effective on itself and more effective when used in unison with other lifeforms to promote teamplay and coordinated attacks instead of irritating hit-and-run raids. For instance when a structure is Biled it could get more vulnerable to melee damage.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You seem to be thinking about it AESTHETICALLY but not from a practical gameplay point of view. I like bile bomb on lerk. But how can you give such a powerful attack to the most mobile class? It will likely always be underpowered or overpowered, but never balanced.
It worked on the gorge because the powerful attack was countered by the gorge's lack of mobility.
Also the gorge is a fat ugly creature so secreting giant disgusting smelly sacks of bile makes more sense for such a disgusting thing.
You can't trust the statistics gathered from servers. There are new players all the time that have no idea how the game works.
PS. It seems we're moving closer to NS1 features. Weird.
You can't trust the statistics gathered from servers. There are new players all the time that have no idea how the game works.
PS. It seems we're moving closer to NS1 features. Weird.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What he said. ^ :)
I would have thought the "playtester team" would do things like that?
Although NS1 started out quite haphazardly, ~3 years was spent polishing it and fiddling with it(AKA 3 years in beta) after version 1.0. NS2 is not even feature complete(AKA alpha).
If you're short on time the quick fix is to do what worked before.
Yea, them and we also have competitive matches where players can give feedback.
It worked on the gorge because the powerful attack was countered by the gorge's lack of mobility.
Also the gorge is a fat ugly creature so secreting giant disgusting smelly sacks of bile makes more sense for such a disgusting thing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually with all the nerfs lerk got, the bb really suits him. In my opinion the lerk was always a harassing-type unit. With the bb nerfed, it serves the purpose quite well. I was against it when they moved it from gorge too, but that was cz the bb was ridiculously op. Right now, the lerk seems to be serving his purpose quite nicely. After all these builds, i have to say that i agreed with uwe's decision. Now they want to move it back... I'm not for it, i'm not against it, i have faith in the guys, and im sure it's going to work too. I'm just saying, that right now, the bb actually works in my opinion.
The thing that perplexed me the most was that UWE never decided to try the most obvious approach (to me) of massively reducing the direct damage caused by the bile bomb, but giving quite a buff to damage done to the affected target from other sources, depending on the damage type. So something like 30% increase to normal damage, 15% increase to puncture and light damage, and 5% increase to siege damage. I'm quite sure UWE thought of or knew of the approach, but I guess it didn't fit what they envisioned for the Lerk.
This is exactly what we do.
No it doesn't. It's incapable of doing any real damage or significantly impacting the game. No one is scared of lerk right now, except when SabaHell plays and even then she is using spikes, not bile bomb.