<!--quoteo(post=1941471:date=Jun 4 2012, 03:38 PM:name=-Azona-)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (-Azona- @ Jun 4 2012, 03:38 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941471"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Whel if we talk about shotgun, today multiple times point blank put my barrle into maulth of fade, shot it 5 times with tech lvl 3 weapon upgrade same with lerks, lerk just fly away..... 5 full hits in the face........ must be me but something wrong there.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
these things aren't possible unless the game isn't registering your shots, in which case you didn't really 'hit' 5 times...you just expected to :)
it's important to not confuse cases like this with the reality of the numbers - i.e., that lerks/fades have too much health and survive too many shotgun hits (or they don't, or whatever)
"poor performance" (due to many different factors) causing shots to miss unexpectedly is a different problem from "the balance of spread/damage/range/health/armor/damagetype"
Isn't just the pellet spread "damage falloff" enough? I mean, the closer you are the more likely all of your pellets hit, and the further away you are less pellets will hit. It's basically a "damage falloff per distance", I've never understood why there's a need for <i>both</i> a spread <i>and</i> an artificial damage falloff.. Anyone else had those thoughts?
The way I see it is that if you have a shotgun that's cheap, you're always going to have headaches balancing it. I would like to see a non-redundant shotgun that can one-shot skulks but which is considerably more expensive so that we don't see as many of them. I'd also like to see one or two more options in the menu that are cheap utility items, perhaps, that make menu choices a bit more interesting in general. I still don't feel any "crap, I just lost 20pres" moments which I should be, really.
<!--quoteo(post=1941499:date=Jun 4 2012, 02:16 PM:name=internetexplorer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (internetexplorer @ Jun 4 2012, 02:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941499"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->these things aren't possible unless the game isn't registering your shots, in which case you didn't really 'hit' 5 times...you just expected to :)
it's important to not confuse cases like this with the reality of the numbers - i.e., that lerks/fades have too much health and survive too many shotgun hits (or they don't, or whatever)
"poor performance" (due to many different factors) causing shots to miss unexpectedly is a different problem from "the balance of spread/damage/range/health/armor/damagetype"<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
whel I see blood form alien each hit should say I hit it not? or does game just show blood and say nana you dint hit but we let you think you did.
if that is the case there is a major issue with hit indecation and should be fixed first.
<!--quoteo(post=1941612:date=Jun 5 2012, 08:43 AM:name=Tweadle)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Tweadle @ Jun 5 2012, 08:43 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941612"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The way I see it is that if you have a shotgun that's cheap, you're always going to have headaches balancing it. I would like to see a non-redundant shotgun that can one-shot skulks but which is considerably more expensive so that we don't see as many of them. I'd also like to see one or two more options in the menu that are cheap utility items, perhaps, that make menu choices a bit more interesting in general. I still don't feel any "crap, I just lost 20pres" moments which I should be, really.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The shotgun isn't cheap in close games. It may seem so occasionally because you start with 25(!) pres. If players started with a more reasonable, say 10, pres, then losing your first shotgun would mean that you don't get another for a few minutes. That's a big deal. A single RT produces a shotgun's worth of pres every 640 seconds. In evenly matched games, you're typically going to have 2-4 RTs. That's 1 shotgun every 320s (5:20) to 160s (2:40). 4 RTs means you're winning.
On shotgun cost is equal cost to two gorges, 67% of a lerk, 40% of a fade, and 27% of an onos. While there are some differences due to activation cost of lifeforms (30, 50, 75 vs 20 of each shotgun), the 20 pres cost of shotguns is not "cheap." The chance of your teammate saving your weapon (assuming they win the battle), while non-trivial, is not a huge factor. If you're attacking or in mid field, there's a very high chance that your shotgun dies when you die.
<!--quoteo(post=1941620:date=Jun 5 2012, 09:27 AM:name=-Azona-)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (-Azona- @ Jun 5 2012, 09:27 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941620"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->whel I see blood form alien each hit should say I hit it not? or does game just show blood and say nana you dint hit but we let you think you did.
if that is the case there is a major issue with hit indecation and should be fixed first.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The current shotguns has pretty ridiculous spread. You can miss 40% of your pellets from point blank range. So you may be seeing blood with a perfect shot, but still missing half your damage due to RNG.
True on all points. At this time there is little to nothing that actually feels satisfying ingame. And saying that the shotgun will be frustrating to new players is absurd and should not even be considered as an argument point. Everything will frustrate newcomers, but the question is, do you want newcomers to get frustrated but with time learn to enjoy the game, or do you want newcomers to "enjoy" it in the beginning and later on abandon the game for lack of depth? So in a nutshell, it's a decision between more new customers hence more money, but little to no loyal customers, or less newcomers hence less money with a strong loyal customer base.
<!--quoteo(post=1941403:date=Jun 4 2012, 04:09 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 4 2012, 04:09 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941403"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->... People who argue for accessibility first don't realize that by gimping all the weapons you actually make the game less fun for everyone (even beginners), because nothing feels satisfying and it becomes more about the game mechanics being powerful rather than the player who is using them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have thought a while over all the replies and have to admit, that they sound logical to me and you have convinced me to a great part. And to make this clear, I don't want to argue directly on the topic if the spread of the SG is too wide or not. I want to discuss a fundamentally game-mechanic. The one point I have been taken wrong is the quoted above.
I don't want to have the SG gimped down until it is not fun to use anymore. And beside the following, one should be careful in judging these. Because playing with overpowered weapons may be more fun than with balanced ones, but don't take the fun you have with overpowered weapons as starting point or you will have a game full of hard-counters that may be balanced in the whole picture, but are overpowered against the weapon / life form they counter.
My point was something I have read in a design doc from valve for TF2. I can't find it now, but they mentioned that <b>you frustrate a player when you punish him for something he couldn't have avoided</b>. Three short examples to make clear what I'm writing about:<ul><li>I'm a marine and moving down a corridor fast and alone. Moments later, my back got chewed by an ambushing skulk. After my death, I think about this situation and realize what I have done wrong. I should have looked at the ceiling, moving slower and with teammates. Than I could have a avoided this death. It was my fault. I have learned something and carry on.</li><li>I'm a skulk and camping on a ceiling. A marine passes by and I engage him. I manage to bite him once, but miss the second time. He one-shots me to death with his SG. I think about it and identify my mistake: I have missed him with my second bite. It was my fault, I have to aim better.</li><li>Same situation as skulk but this time my second bite hits. But 2 bites are not enough to kill him and before I have the time to bite him again, he one-shots me with his SG. This time, it's not easy to see for me, what I have done wrong. Sure, I could have engaged him together with other aliens. But this is easier said than done. Especially on pubs. And if you experience this situation again and again, it gets frustrating.</li></ul> Now, like other people have already said, the SG costs res and the skulk doesn't. So it is logical that one SG marine should be better than one skulk. But if you accept the statement from the valve design doc as a fact, than this is a problem that is inherent through the whole design of NS2. The possibility of upgrades and better weapons / units will cause situations where you are doomed to lose. (see 1 onos vs. 1 marine) This sadly lies in the nature of a RTS game (because tier2 defeats tier1 tech.).
So what do I want to say with all that? Just: Be careful with adding <b>too much</b> hard counters to this game. A hard-counter is something, that you will lose against if you have the weapon / life form that it counters. Too much of them can frustrate players. This gets even more bad, when the defeated player couldn't see the upgrade. (Weapon lvl upgrades for example or carapace.) If the player can see that it wasn't his fault that he died, he will bear this situations for longer.
Beside all that, the skulk gets weaker and weaker while the game carries on. Because he can't counter armor and weapon upgrades (beside carapace and maybe leap). That means in the late game, the skulk is already soft-countered by the LMG and hard-countered by the high armor lvl, where he needs to many bites to kill a marine and mostly get killed before. Adding one more thing that is a hard-counter to the skulk is just not necessary. What you need in the mid- and end-game is weapon that counters fade and onos. A weapon that does enough damage to kill those higher life forms. But it should not gimp the skulk further, because he is already on the weak end in this state of the game.
That said, I lastly want to thank you for the polite discussion.
There is also something related about balance which is not usually discussed.
Let's imagine you have a balanced game. In theory you can nerf or buff all abilities/weapon by the same amount such that the game remains balanced.
So there is an additional degree of freedom in the balancing process, a kind of general op-ness, that you should be able to tune to make the game as fun as possible. I don't know where ns2 stand in this regard.
<!--quoteo(post=1941835:date=Jun 6 2012, 02:44 PM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Jun 6 2012, 02:44 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941835"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My point was something I have read in a design doc from valve for TF2. I can't find it now, but they mentioned that <b>you frustrate a player when you punish him for something he couldn't have avoided</b>.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes! This is exactly what I have been reiterating for a while now. I would love to see that document if anyone can find it.
In a well designed game there will always be something that you could have done to counter your opponent. Whether or not you have the skill / ability and knowledge to be able to pull off that counter is the thing that will determine if you are successful or not.
The more you have situations where the player couldn't do anything the more frustrating and less fun the game is.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Now, like other people have already said, the SG costs res and the skulk doesn't. So it is logical that one SG marine should be better than one skulk. But if you accept the statement from the valve design doc as a fact, than this is a problem that is inherent through the whole design of NS2. The possibility of upgrades and better weapons / units will cause situations where you are doomed to lose. (see 1 onos vs. 1 marine) This sadly lies in the nature of a RTS game (because tier2 defeats tier1 tech.).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I really dislike people using res cost as a rationalization for something be over powered. I could put a super weapon in the game make it 100 res and then say it's fine that it 1 shots everything because it's so expensive, but that wouldn't be good design and it would cause a high amount of frustration. IMO there should be no such thing as X beats Y in an FPS game. The better player should beat the inferior player. Of course, certain weapons will have an advantage at range, others will have an advantage at melee distance etc. but those advantages should never be enough to determine the outcome alone.
I agree that fighting an Onos is highly frustrating as a marine and IMO the design needs to be changed. Many people claim that 1 Onos SHOULD beat 1 marine, but I have stated above how I dislike that line of thinking. Compare it to the tank from L4D and you see the difference. In L4D the tank is a very powerful unit will lots of HP that can kill survivors in a few hits. Yet, because it is a little bit slower than the survivors they can use their speed to out maneuver the tank and take him down. Even when you are the last survivor alive and you are against a tank, there is still a chance that you can win. Most of the time you won't, because if you make 1 mistake it is over, but you are the one to blame for the mistake. You can always look back and think, I could have played better or done something different. Rather than thinking that you had no chance at all.
In NS2 right now the Onos can kill 1 marine and he can't do anything at all about it. 1 onos vs 1 mairine (without jp) and the onos will win 100% of the time. That is bad design and it becomes frustrating and boring to play. It means that even if you group up against an onos inevitably there will be 1 or 2 marines who die with no possibility of avoiding it.
It's not just a problem with the onos either, these kind of situations and plentiful in ns2.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So what do I want to say with all that? Just: Be careful with adding <b>too much</b> hard counters to this game. A hard-counter is something, that you will lose against if you have the weapon / life form that it counters. Too much of them can frustrate players. This gets even more bad, when the defeated player couldn't see the upgrade. (Weapon lvl upgrades for example or carapace.) If the player can see that it wasn't his fault that he died, he will bear this situations for longer.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree, but I think that even if the player can see that it wasn't his fault that he will probably be much more frustrated than if it was his fault. Players want to feel responsible for the outcome of the game.
You bring up another point about the upgrades in ns2. IMO the marine weapon and armour upgrades are bad for gameplay. As you pointed out they are hidden modifiers that change the balance of things without being immediately obvious to the players. If the weapons damage going up is supposed to be in line with carapace then just get rid of both of them and balance it at the default values. It just makes certain upgrades absolutely necessary or else you're at a very severe disadvantage. "Didn't get cara?" too bad, now you're gonna be raped by weapons3. I can't see anyway to get rid of this situation without removing these upgrades entirely. Any kind of boost to the enemy weapons that can be counters by a boost to your own armour will just create must have upgrades in order to prevent your enemy from becoming too powerful.
I also think (and I did write about this in detail before) that the damage system is NS2 is completely crazy. There are so many hidden numbers. Different weapons do different amounts of damage to health than they do to armour. If I shoot with my weapons in a different order then it can take more bullets to kill the same target. I don't even understand the hide armour stuff either, more hidden numbers.
The damage system adds nothing to the game while making it far more complicated than it needs to be.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Beside all that, the skulk gets weaker and weaker while the game carries on....<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, I agree. The skulk is supposed to not become obsolete but currently the skulks just gets progressiveness weaker as the marines get more and more tech.
Thank you for the discussion sir. I think this line of thinking is really good for the community to be on. Sometimes people make radical suggestions which on the face of it seem extreme (like removing upgrades entirely or completely changing certain mechanics) but once you delve a little deeper you start to look at "what makes a fun game" it becomes obvious what needs to change. I also think that this line of thinking could be very productive for helping to shape a community "pro-mod" if NS2 doesn't turn out as good as we would like.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I agree, but I think that even if the player can see that it wasn't his fault that he will probably be much more frustrated than if it was his fault. Players want to feel responsible for the outcome of the game.
You bring up another point about the upgrades in ns2. IMO the marine weapon and armour upgrades are bad for gameplay. As you pointed out they are hidden modifiers that change the balance of things without being immediately obvious to the players. If the weapons damage going up is supposed to be in line with carapace then just get rid of both of them and balance it at the default values. It just makes certain upgrades absolutely necessary or else you're at a very severe disadvantage. "Didn't get cara?" too bad, now you're gonna be raped by weapons3. I can't see anyway to get rid of this situation without removing these upgrades entirely. Any kind of boost to the enemy weapons that can be counters by a boost to your own armour will just create must have upgrades in order to prevent your enemy from becoming too powerful.
I also think (and I did write about this in detail before) that the damage system is NS2 is completely crazy. There are so many hidden numbers. Different weapons do different amounts of damage to health than they do to armour. If I shoot with my weapons in a different order then it can take more bullets to kill the same target. I don't even understand the hide armour stuff either, more hidden numbers.
The damage system adds nothing to the game while making it far more complicated than it needs to be.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Quoting this because it needs to be seen again.
Either aliens and marines scale together as the game progresses, or get rid of armor/weapon upgrades completely.
A skulk twenty minutes into the game is exactly the same as a skulk at the start of the game (carapace is a given). Aliens scaling is non-existant while Marines continue to advance.
Either Aliens need a way to scale (more hives give armor+weapon dmg/or speed even), or Marine dmg/armor upgrades need to be removed and both sides balanced to reflect that.
Aliens are heading in the same direction as in NS1, stupid op early game, wet noodles late game (as soon as exosuits come out).
fanaticThis post has been edited.Join Date: 2003-07-23Member: 18377Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
The RTS part of NS2 is already shallow enough as it is. If you start plucking out the fundamentals such as upgrades (and by extension the resource war), you're left with a big pile of nothing.
Removing upgrades that have parity with eachother because they are hidden, though probably appropriate in isolation, is a little less so when factoring in the economy aspects of NS2. They are not there to just to progress in a linear fashion alongside your opponents - they are a reflection of economy dominance and allow for incremental advantages to be gained relatively, not just absolutely. I agree in principal, but in practice, even linear and comparative upgrades can serve useful purposes in a game like NS2. The possibility for choosing different upgrade paths (marines) and different upgrades entirely (aliens) is another retort that I won't labour. That they are 'hidden' is unfortunate though, I agree.
The design goal to always give a player power to overcome a situation is a really good one. Violations of that goal (in soft or hard terms) is a large source of my frustration behind negative abilities.
<!--quoteo(post=1941875:date=Jun 6 2012, 06:46 PM:name=fanatic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fanatic @ Jun 6 2012, 06:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941875"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The RTS part of NS2 is already shallow enough as it is. If you start plucking out the fundamentals such as upgrades (and by extension the resource war), you're left with a big pile of nothing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think a better alternative would be to replace the current upgrades with ones that affect weapon accuracy, ammo capacity etc. rather than just uping the damage and armour levels. You can try to claim that having those upgrades is fundamental to the RTS aspect of the game, but that doesn't address my point. If those upgrades are so essential to both teams then they don't add any meaningful choice. You just get into the situation where the enemy is overpowered because your com forgot or didn't know to get the specific upgrade to counter it, or because you simply didn't get enough res and you're stuck in a slippery slope trying to comeback with inferior weapons and armour.
What's worse is that the current marine upgrades have no counter. As a skulk there is nothing you can do to prevent armour3 marines taking 4 bites to kill. You may argue that they shouldn't have let the marines get that much res in the first place but that's a weak argument at best since I could say the very same about a super 1 shot kill weapon. Just because an upgrade is expensive does not justify it being overpowered or uncounterable.
I ask the question, what do these weapon and armour upgrades add to the game? And whatever they add, is there a better way of doing it?
IMO, upgrades like ammo capacity (or increased energy for aliens) are much better since they don't influence combat directly but still make weapons more powerful. They allow a good player to perform better, while keeping the balance in terms of damage and armour the same. This way the team that is leading in res still has better weapons without unbalancing combat with increased damage.
There are many ways you can improve weapons without simply increasing damage. Off the top of my head: Improved accuracy, improved reload speed, more ammo capacity, more pellets per shot, faster rate of fire, secondary fire modes.
Unfortunately as far as cara goes it just seems to be too good right now to be worth sacrificing in favour of another upgrade. Perhaps if they tone it down a bit and improve the other upgrades somewhat then there will be a more viable choice there. I still don't like having a hidden health bonus though. I think having a change in the models based on what upgrade they have might be interesting. Perhaps making the skulk model 10% smaller if they don't have carapace, so you need to choose between more armour or a smaller hitbox.
<!--quoteo(post=1941900:date=Jun 6 2012, 04:23 PM:name=OnosFactory)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (OnosFactory @ Jun 6 2012, 04:23 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941900"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->A Skulk twenty minutes into the game has possibly 3 upgrades from a selection of *many*, leap and soon xeno....<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Keyword: possibly. IE: not always the case. Also, half of the upgrades which are completely useless; even more-so for a skulk. Xeno kills you, so that's a pretty dumb point to make. Leap, I'll give you, but it's not enough.
Fact of the matter is. Damage and health/armor is flat and never advances. As the game progresses, the longer it takes a skulk to kill a marine and the easier it is to kill a skulk.
If this is not addressed, we will be back to the same problems NS1 aliens had. Marine turtle2win.
"Addressing" that problem entails having lifeforms that are distinctly equal in worth to the skulk because, in order to justify skulks' equivalent progress, you have to ignore the fact that the alien team should be pretty well-equipped with lerks/fades/onos. It's not necessarily a bad thing that skulks are progressively less effective, so long as they don't remain entirely useless.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I ask the question, what do these weapon and armour upgrades add to the game?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Going for upgrades mean you want to play a longer game; they are expensive and take long to research. You can skip them and try to go for a timing attack (gls/arcs/jp/turret push), just before the fade comes out for example.
Ideally there should have an upgrade race with interesting timing windows, for example if marines get weapong 2 before aliens get cara then the marine have a time window to deal damage before cara arrives. Or if aliens get fades before armor 2 then aliens have a time window as well.
Getting a good intuition of all these timings and exploiting them correctly is not a trivial thing and is a significant aspect of what make strategy games interesting.
But I agree that the game doesn't do a good job of letting you know which upgrades marine have, some suggestions :
- Change firing sound slightly with weapons upgrade. - Change muzzle flare color (from red to blue) with weapons upgrade. - Change the bite/attack sound slightly when marines have armor. - Change the skin/model slightly with armor upgrade and carapace. - Make sure that upgrades can be scouted by looking at the arms lab.
<!--quoteo(post=1941863:date=Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941863"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yes! This is exactly what I have been reiterating for a while now. I would love to see that document if anyone can find it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I have tried my best google magic, but couldn't find it. Maybe they have taken it down. The best I could find was the list of publications. I have only looked into a few of them and didn't find the one I'm searching for, but "Valves approach to playtesting" is interesting. Look for yourself: <a href="http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/publications.html" target="_blank">http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/publications.html</a>
To the discussion: I'm all with you Wilson and want to go into the detail of some of your points. <!--quoteo(post=1941863:date=Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941863"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In a well designed game there will always be something that you could have done to counter your opponent. Whether or not you have the skill / ability and knowledge to be able to pull off that counter is the thing that will determine if you are successful or not.
The more you have situations where the player couldn't do anything the more frustrating and less fun the game is. [...] IMO there should be no such thing as X beats Y in an FPS game. The better player should beat the inferior player. Of course, certain weapons will have an advantage at range, others will have an advantage at melee distance etc. but those advantages should never be enough to determine the outcome alone.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> We should not forget to differentiate between the ego-shooter and the RTS. Your main point is right. The player of an ego-shooter and the player of an RTS should both be able to counter any opponent if they are more skilled. If so, than the game is balanced. But what do we have here with NS2? We have players, that embody the little Orc Peon in WC3. While the player of WC3 sure has the possibility to build better units to counter the paladin of his enemy, the Peon himself has not. He will lose against a tier3 unit, no matter what. This brings us to the dilemma of NS. If you don't want to kill the fundamental RTS-parts of the game (which is: teching faster than your enemy), we need a solution to the whole mechanic of upgrades in RTS and find something, that make it less frustrating when you are tier1 and fighting against tier3 as the little Peon. <!--quoteo(post=1941863:date=Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941863"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I agree that fighting an Onos is highly frustrating as a marine and IMO the design needs to be changed. Many people claim that 1 Onos SHOULD beat 1 marine, but I have stated above how I dislike that line of thinking. Compare it to the tank from L4D and you see the difference. In L4D the tank is a very powerful unit will lots of HP that can kill survivors in a few hits. Yet, because it is a little bit slower than the survivors they can use their speed to out maneuver the tank and take him down. Even when you are the last survivor alive and you are against a tank, there is still a chance that you can win. Most of the time you won't, because if you make 1 mistake it is over, but you are the one to blame for the mistake. You can always look back and think, I could have played better or done something different. Rather than thinking that you had no chance at all.
In NS2 right now the Onos can kill 1 marine and he can't do anything at all about it. 1 onos vs 1 mairine (without jp) and the onos will win 100% of the time. That is bad design and it becomes frustrating and boring to play. It means that even if you group up against an onos inevitably there will be 1 or 2 marines who die with no possibility of avoiding it.
It's not just a problem with the onos either, these kind of situations and plentiful in ns2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Absolutely right. The problem with the onos is luckily an easy to solve one. As you mentioned the solution already. L4D did it with the Tank. Now in NS2 we have the mechanic of a slow back walking marine. That means he can't shoot the onos while he is retreating. So it's simple to balance the onos. Just make him slower than a sprinting marine (Do not make this circumventable with celerity!) and shorten the range of stomp so he can't stop retreating marines but can use stomp in battle to take out some of the pressure. It is ok that the mighty onos can kill a group of 2 marines single handedly, but the marines should have at least the option to escape. If they see the onos it should not be a death sentence. They should have the option to flee until they meet reinforcements to be strong enough to kill the onos. <!--quoteo(post=1941863:date=Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941863"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->[To the sentence: "If the player can see that it wasn't his fault that he died, he will bear this situations for longer."] I agree, but I think that even if the player can see that it wasn't his fault that he will probably be much more frustrated than if it was his fault. Players want to feel responsible for the outcome of the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes, in a normal ego-shooter this should be standard. But in NS2 where you embody a unit in an RTS it's not so easy. You can expect some tolerance from players ala: "Ok, I died because our com hasn't researched upgrade X. We are losing the RTS-part of the game, so logically we also lose the single fights where I'm involved in." But you are right, it gets frustrating when it is not your fault, that you are losing. But I can't think of a solution for this. This sadly comes with the making of an RTS-FPS-crossing game. The only things that could help to lessen this factor, is to focus on soft- instead of hard-counters and, as you wrote, upgrades that don't push directly the damage / armor. <!--quoteo(post=1941863:date=Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941863"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You bring up another point about the upgrades in ns2. IMO the marine weapon and armour upgrades are bad for gameplay. As you pointed out they are hidden modifiers that change the balance of things without being immediately obvious to the players. If the weapons damage going up is supposed to be in line with carapace then just get rid of both of them and balance it at the default values. It just makes certain upgrades absolutely necessary or else you're at a very severe disadvantage. "Didn't get cara?" too bad, now you're gonna be raped by weapons3. I can't see anyway to get rid of this situation without removing these upgrades entirely. Any kind of boost to the enemy weapons that can be counters by a boost to your own armour will just create must have upgrades in order to prevent your enemy from becoming too powerful.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yes, the feeling for the com when he researches a new weapon- / armor-upgrade is very rewarding. You making your troops directly stronger. But if this makes it a mandatory and even hidden upgrade it should be revisited and thought about if this upgrades are worth the problems they create. One idea to solve the problem that it's a hidden modifier could be to change the color of the tracer rounds. Yellow for lvl0, orange for lvl1, red for lvl2 and blue for lvl3 for example. That would need to make every shot a tracer round, so it's obvious for aliens what weapon upgrade the enemies get. And the weapon upgrades maybe should only count for the LMG. (Will make this upgrades less mandatory and create more options for the com: researching more power for the LMG or other weapons...) Yuuki ninjad me here with even better ideas. :) Armor and carapace upgrades would need new models which is some work to do and difficult to design, so it is identifiable on range. (Carapace may be solved with the material system. There was a thread about that.)
But all this does not solve the inherent problem of the existence of mandatory upgrades which you need, to keep track with the enemy team. Maybe this is inevitable in an RTS-FPS-crossover because tier3 > tier1. But I also really like your idea of having upgrades for more ammo, faster reload etc. as a possible solution.
In general the ideal upgrade is one that does not simply make you more powerful, but give you a bonus in a certain situation. It is now on you to lure the enemy in this situation to get the reward of your upgrade. The jetpack is such an upgrade for example. It gives you the option to be much stronger in rooms with a high ceiling. But you have to lure the enemy in such rooms or you will have no advantage of your jetpack. So upgrades should open you new battlefields, new situations in which you are on an advantage but shouldn't touch the normal battle and your chances in them. <!--quoteo(post=1941863:date=Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941863"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I also think (and I did write about this in detail before) that the damage system is NS2 is completely crazy. There are so many hidden numbers. Different weapons do different amounts of damage to health than they do to armour. If I shoot with my weapons in a different order then it can take more bullets to kill the same target. I don't even understand the hide armour stuff either, more hidden numbers.
The damage system adds nothing to the game while making it far more complicated than it needs to be.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Agreed on the main point. The damage system is not only hidden, it is very complicated. But it does add more options to the variety of the game. Having weapons that are better against buildings or better against units adds to the depth. Even having weapons that are better against armored targets or light targets are good to balance lighter life forms against heavy life forms. But the implementation of this system is way to complicated and not transparent for the player right now. We would at least need some information in the armory- / evolve-screen that says like in TF2 "does 30% more damage against armored targets" or "does 100% more damage against buildings" or on the alien side "hide-armor: takes 2 points less damage from every bullet"...
This way the player has a chance to learn which weapon is best against what target while playing both sides. And you don't have the complainers ala "OMG what is the grenade launcher good for? It can't kill a fade in one hit!" Giving information to the player is the first step to increase tolerance that he is playing a RTS-FPS-crossover and that there are situations where he is at the weak end. Like: "I have high armor and fought against a marine with an armor breaking weapon, thats why I died." It's like hitting on a heavy as pyro in TF2. Where you are doomed in most cases too. But in TF2 you have the choice to change to sniper without costs to kill that heavy. In NS2 if you haven't enough res, you have to play skulk and keep getting owned by the SG. Again a problem that is inherent for an resourced base RTS-FPS-crossover.
<!--quoteo(post=1941902:date=Jun 6 2012, 10:25 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 6 2012, 10:25 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941902"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think a better alternative would be to replace the current upgrades with ones that affect weapon accuracy, ammo capacity etc.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Ammo capacity upgrade idea just made me go "Ooooohh...!" :p Something like 25% more ammo per clip, now there's an upgrade you FEEL and you WANT but is not 100% necessary.
<!--quoteo(post=1941835:date=Jun 6 2012, 09:44 AM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Jun 6 2012, 09:44 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941835"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My point was something I have read in a design doc from valve for TF2. I can't find it now, but they mentioned that <b>you frustrate a player when you punish him for something he couldn't have avoided</b>. Three short examples to make clear what I'm writing about:<ul><li>I'm a marine and moving down a corridor fast and alone. Moments later, my back got chewed by an ambushing skulk. After my death, I think about this situation and realize what I have done wrong. I should have looked at the ceiling, moving slower and with teammates. Than I could have a avoided this death. It was my fault. I have learned something and carry on.</li><li>I'm a skulk and camping on a ceiling. A marine passes by and I engage him. I manage to bite him once, but miss the second time. He one-shots me to death with his SG. I think about it and identify my mistake: I have missed him with my second bite. It was my fault, I have to aim better.</li><li>Same situation as skulk but this time my second bite hits. But 2 bites are not enough to kill him and before I have the time to bite him again, he one-shots me with his SG. This time, it's not easy to see for me, what I have done wrong. Sure, I could have engaged him together with other aliens. But this is easier said than done. Especially on pubs. And if you experience this situation again and again, it gets frustrating.</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The logic that you've applied to skulk vs marine is exactly the reason why increasing the shotgun spread is frustrating to players and thus bad for game play. As a marine with a shotgun, I'm relying on 1 shot -> 1 kill to effectively engage skulks in close quarters. With the increased spread, assuming perfect accuracy, I'm still not going to 1 shot skulks some large percentage of the time due to how the spread randomly rotates its self -- causing even point blank shots to require 2 hits to kill. The increased shotgun spread is frustrating to marines because they can not control the (now greatly increased) randomness of the spread. A marine dies because of something they couldn't avoid.
So it comes down to what is more frustrating: Being one-shotted or not being able to one-shot. I know, this argument can be used in both directions but why should a marine be able to go out alone and rambo its way through the map? If the SG only makes a little less damage than needed to one-shot a skulk, than one other marine is enough to deliver the missing bullet. Sure, now you will say, but the skulk could bring his buddy too. But this doesn't void the fact that one of the both skulks will die while engaging the SG-marine.
Anyway, I don't want to argue on the SG-spread in particular. But I think it has only been looked at, with the eyes of a rambo-marine being alone.
<!--quoteo(post=1942034:date=Jun 7 2012, 10:41 AM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Jun 7 2012, 10:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1942034"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So it comes down to what is more frustrating: Being one-shotted or not being able to one-shot. I know, this argument can be used in both directions but why should a marine be able to go out alone and rambo its way through the map? If the SG only makes a little less damage than needed to one-shot a skulk, than one other marine is enough to deliver the missing bullet. Sure, now you will say, but the skulk could bring his buddy too. But this doesn't void the fact that one of the both skulks will die while engaging the SG-marine.
Anyway, I don't want to argue on the SG-spread in particular. But I think it has only been looked at, with the eyes of a rambo-marine being alone.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, you're assuming 100% accuracy. A LMG with 100% accuracy kills 5 skulks (3 if they have carapace). Pretty silly to assume every LMG marine is killing 3-5 skulks, so the assumption of 100% accuracy is pretty illogical when transplanting the numbers back into "real gameplay" by assuming rambo marines beating multiple skulks in a "real game".
Two good skulks will still typically beat a good shotgunner. Just like a fade will typically beat 2 shotgunners.
All of this also ignore that NS2 is a team based game. So relevant question is: what could have we done, as a team, to avoid situation X ?
Coming back at the sg, something I've wondered if it's possible to do a "conic trace" instead of several line traces. I guess it might be heavy because you need to compute collision with walls, the surface of the target exposed, etc. But it would avoid all those randomness issues (it would play like if the sg would shoot a large number of bullets).
I don't think the weapons and armour are needed for the RTS element of the game. If you say it's okay for weapons and armour upgrades to be overpowered as long as they are for the team that is winning the res war - I disagree. I think it's okay for the team who is winning the res war to have a small advantage but I think that the current weapons and armour upgrades don't give a small advantage - they unbalance the game. Often you will hear players saying "Oh, we don't have upgrades and they have onos, gg" IMO there shouldn't be situations where you can't do anything, even if you are losing the res war
You can compare the ns2 res system with the money system in cs. In cs as you win rounds you earn more money that allows you to buy more powerful weapons and equipment. But those weapons are never so powerful to determine the outcome of a fight. The losing team can almost always afford weapons that give them a reasonable chance of success even if they are slightly less powerful. On top of that if you keep losing rounds over and over then you get more money for each round lost. This prevents situations where you have very unfair fights (i.e. awps vs glocks) and stops the slippery slope scenario that makes it very difficult to come back from a losing position.
The winning team can also buy more support equipment like flashbangs, nades, smokes etc. and again, these things give you a small advantage but can be countered by the enemy. Having more money leads to more equipment which leads to a small advantage. IMO this is the way it should be in ns2.
I think that having weapons and armour upgrades as they are currently is very difficult to balance. I think there's a sweet spot for balance especially with the melee classes. 2 bites to kill a marine is overpowered, and 4 bites is unpowered. The same thing goes for the fade. If it takes 2 slashes to kill a marine then even if that marine aims perfectly he can't deal enough damage to the fade before he dies. He also can't run. So it's one of those situations talked about earlier where you punish the player for something he can't avoid. It's the equivalent of an awp vs a glock in cs (in fact worse).
Either having no upgrades is balanced and then upgrades are over powered or having no upgrades is underpowered and upgrades are balanced. You can't have both. It's very difficult to give a small advantage by changing the weapons and armour without unbalancing things.
As far as the damage system goes I think the best way to change it is to, first get rid of armour for aliens, it doesn't do anything it is just an extension of health (unlike marines who have separate ways of healing health and armour). Then introduce armour types. So you would have, light, medium and heavy armour types. Those armour types would have a damage modifier for each weapon, so for example the shotgun might do 100% damage to light targets but 125% to heavy.
This prevents the shotgun dealing massive damage to light targets while still letting it be powerful against the larger aliens. That was the goal of the current system but it has failed. Currently the rifle and the shotgun both do normal damage and it is only the pistol that deals light damage. This means that if you shoot with the pistol first and then your main weapon it will take more bullets to kill the enemy than if you did it the other way around. IMO this is totally unintuitive and crazy.
With armour types as opposed to damage types the amount of damage you take from the weapons would always be consistent and it wouldn't matter what order they are shot in. It would also prevent the situation where your health drops dramatically after running out of armour - this adds nothing to the game and just makes it confusing for new players who intuitive believe that they will take the same amount of damage no matter what % of health they have left.
I know that this still has the problem of hidden numbers, but there is no way to avoid that unless you decide to use the ns1 system with no difference in damage to different targets. I also think it's pretty easy to communicate that certain classes are light/medium/heavy.
I'm not sure what any of that has to do with shotguns or the significantly increased b209 spread. Perhaps you should start a thread titled "RTS Mechanics" and another one titled "Armor Mechanics."
<!--quoteo(post=1942063:date=Jun 7 2012, 05:46 PM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Jun 7 2012, 05:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1942063"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm not sure what any of that has to do with shotguns or the significantly increased b209 spread. Perhaps you should start a thread titled "RTS Mechanics" and another one titled "Armor Mechanics."<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm just continuing the discussion started in this thread. Feel free to let the mods know I went OT. :O
<!--quoteo(post=1941835:date=Jun 6 2012, 11:44 PM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Jun 6 2012, 11:44 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941835"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->[*]Same situation as skulk but this time my second bite hits. But 2 bites are not enough to kill him and before I have the time to bite him again, he one-shots me with his SG. This time, it's not easy to see for me, what I have done wrong.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> You never stay in the same spot when biting a good marine from behind. Generalising, skulk skill lies in movement while marine skill lies mostly in aim. Its a skill shot to snap a skulk behind you with only the use of sound. If skulks can herpy derp skilled and aware marines, we now have the problem you describe except with the frustration imbalance favouring the lesser skilled player.
2 bites is enough to kill with a quick parasite before at a0. You're also forgetting decreased marine mobility and thus higher 'time' penalty on death compared to skulk. You bite him twice and die now, you only need to bite him twice the next time assuming he's medded and pushing. Sometimes you don't need to kill to win advantage.
<!--quoteo(post=1942034:date=Jun 8 2012, 12:41 AM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Jun 8 2012, 12:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1942034"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So it comes down to what is more frustrating: Being one-shotted or not being able to one-shot. I know, this argument can be used in both directions but why should a marine be able to go out alone and rambo its way through the map?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> You're completely discounting the skill differentiation variable in situations like these. Skulks can also rambo through the whole map, as can fades and lerks given good players are playing against less 'skilled' opponents. Assuming res cost is irrelevant ofcourse since we're talking about this frustration principle. Fades 'oneshot' sg marines all the time in terms of relative rates of fire.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Sure, now you will say, but the skulk could bring his buddy too. But this doesn't void the fact that one of the both skulks will die while engaging the SG-marine.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> See this is now a balance question. Skulks cost 0 res and move around the map much faster, sg's cost 20 and require a marine to carry it. Shotguns need to one shot with aim. Their rate of fire is too slow to allow otherwise.
<!--quoteo(post=1941902:date=Jun 7 2012, 06:25 AM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 7 2012, 06:25 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941902"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think a better alternative would be to replace the current upgrades with ones that affect weapon accuracy, ammo capacity etc. rather than just uping the damage and armour levels. You can try to claim that having those upgrades is fundamental to the RTS aspect of the game, but that doesn't address my point. If those upgrades are so essential to both teams then they don't add any meaningful choice.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I think they actually do add meaningful choices. The way i see it, there is utility tech (everything else which is itemised and bought), and there is upgrade tech(w/a). You choose <b>when</b> you get upgrade tech, <b>which</b> upgrade tech, and <b>what</b> utility tech you cut to do so. Given a scarce resource and reasonable parity between every upgrades res-to-power you will always have meaningful choices. Problems arise when there is too much resource which devalues the cost of one upgrade over another, or when one upgrade is relatively cheaper in terms of res-to-power. Carapace is a good example of this with its res-to-power generally being much better than the other choices (exclude current OP celerity).
You may be confusing individual player perks (which generally arn't constrained by a meaningful resource system) with fundamental RTS mechanics! Yuuki hits it right on the head with the timings battle.
Comments
these things aren't possible unless the game isn't registering your shots, in which case you didn't really 'hit' 5 times...you just expected to :)
it's important to not confuse cases like this with the reality of the numbers - i.e., that lerks/fades have too much health and survive too many shotgun hits (or they don't, or whatever)
"poor performance" (due to many different factors) causing shots to miss unexpectedly is a different problem from "the balance of spread/damage/range/health/armor/damagetype"
It's basically a "damage falloff per distance", I've never understood why there's a need for <i>both</i> a spread <i>and</i> an artificial damage falloff..
Anyone else had those thoughts?
it's important to not confuse cases like this with the reality of the numbers - i.e., that lerks/fades have too much health and survive too many shotgun hits (or they don't, or whatever)
"poor performance" (due to many different factors) causing shots to miss unexpectedly is a different problem from "the balance of spread/damage/range/health/armor/damagetype"<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
whel I see blood form alien each hit should say I hit it not? or does game just show blood and say nana you dint hit but we let you think you did.
if that is the case there is a major issue with hit indecation and should be fixed first.
The shotgun isn't cheap in close games. It may seem so occasionally because you start with 25(!) pres. If players started with a more reasonable, say 10, pres, then losing your first shotgun would mean that you don't get another for a few minutes. That's a big deal. A single RT produces a shotgun's worth of pres every 640 seconds. In evenly matched games, you're typically going to have 2-4 RTs. That's 1 shotgun every 320s (5:20) to 160s (2:40). 4 RTs means you're winning.
On shotgun cost is equal cost to two gorges, 67% of a lerk, 40% of a fade, and 27% of an onos. While there are some differences due to activation cost of lifeforms (30, 50, 75 vs 20 of each shotgun), the 20 pres cost of shotguns is not "cheap." The chance of your teammate saving your weapon (assuming they win the battle), while non-trivial, is not a huge factor. If you're attacking or in mid field, there's a very high chance that your shotgun dies when you die.
<!--quoteo(post=1941620:date=Jun 5 2012, 09:27 AM:name=-Azona-)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (-Azona- @ Jun 5 2012, 09:27 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941620"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->whel I see blood form alien each hit should say I hit it not? or does game just show blood and say nana you dint hit but we let you think you did.
if that is the case there is a major issue with hit indecation and should be fixed first.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The current shotguns has pretty ridiculous spread. You can miss 40% of your pellets from point blank range. So you may be seeing blood with a perfect shot, but still missing half your damage due to RNG.
True on all points. At this time there is little to nothing that actually feels satisfying ingame. And saying that the shotgun will be frustrating to new players is absurd and should not even be considered as an argument point. Everything will frustrate newcomers, but the question is, do you want newcomers to get frustrated but with time learn to enjoy the game, or do you want newcomers to "enjoy" it in the beginning and later on abandon the game for lack of depth? So in a nutshell, it's a decision between more new customers hence more money, but little to no loyal customers, or less newcomers hence less money with a strong loyal customer base.
Shotgun cost may have to be adjusted but please adjust the cost rather than strength.
People who argue for accessibility first don't realize that by gimping all the weapons you actually make the game less fun for everyone (even beginners), because nothing feels satisfying and it becomes more about the game mechanics being powerful rather than the player who is using them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I have thought a while over all the replies and have to admit, that they sound logical to me and you have convinced me to a great part.
And to make this clear, I don't want to argue directly on the topic if the spread of the SG is too wide or not. I want to discuss a fundamentally game-mechanic. The one point I have been taken wrong is the quoted above.
I don't want to have the SG gimped down until it is not fun to use anymore. And beside the following, one should be careful in judging these. Because playing with overpowered weapons may be more fun than with balanced ones, but don't take the fun you have with overpowered weapons as starting point or you will have a game full of hard-counters that may be balanced in the whole picture, but are overpowered against the weapon / life form they counter.
My point was something I have read in a design doc from valve for TF2. I can't find it now, but they mentioned that <b>you frustrate a player when you punish him for something he couldn't have avoided</b>. Three short examples to make clear what I'm writing about:<ul><li>I'm a marine and moving down a corridor fast and alone. Moments later, my back got chewed by an ambushing skulk.
After my death, I think about this situation and realize what I have done wrong. I should have looked at the ceiling, moving slower and with teammates. Than I could have a avoided this death. It was my fault. I have learned something and carry on.</li><li>I'm a skulk and camping on a ceiling. A marine passes by and I engage him. I manage to bite him once, but miss the second time. He one-shots me to death with his SG.
I think about it and identify my mistake: I have missed him with my second bite. It was my fault, I have to aim better.</li><li>Same situation as skulk but this time my second bite hits. But 2 bites are not enough to kill him and before I have the time to bite him again, he one-shots me with his SG.
This time, it's not easy to see for me, what I have done wrong. Sure, I could have engaged him together with other aliens. But this is easier said than done. Especially on pubs. And if you experience this situation again and again, it gets frustrating.</li></ul>
Now, like other people have already said, the SG costs res and the skulk doesn't. So it is logical that one SG marine should be better than one skulk. But if you accept the statement from the valve design doc as a fact, than this is a problem that is inherent through the whole design of NS2. The possibility of upgrades and better weapons / units will cause situations where you are doomed to lose. (see 1 onos vs. 1 marine) This sadly lies in the nature of a RTS game (because tier2 defeats tier1 tech.).
So what do I want to say with all that? Just: Be careful with adding <b>too much</b> hard counters to this game. A hard-counter is something, that you will lose against if you have the weapon / life form that it counters. Too much of them can frustrate players. This gets even more bad, when the defeated player couldn't see the upgrade. (Weapon lvl upgrades for example or carapace.) If the player can see that it wasn't his fault that he died, he will bear this situations for longer.
Beside all that, the skulk gets weaker and weaker while the game carries on. Because he can't counter armor and weapon upgrades (beside carapace and maybe leap). That means in the late game, the skulk is already soft-countered by the LMG and hard-countered by the high armor lvl, where he needs to many bites to kill a marine and mostly get killed before. Adding one more thing that is a hard-counter to the skulk is just not necessary. What you need in the mid- and end-game is weapon that counters fade and onos. A weapon that does enough damage to kill those higher life forms. But it should not gimp the skulk further, because he is already on the weak end in this state of the game.
That said, I lastly want to thank you for the polite discussion.
Let's imagine you have a balanced game. In theory you can nerf or buff all abilities/weapon by the same amount such that the game remains balanced.
So there is an additional degree of freedom in the balancing process, a kind of general op-ness, that you should be able to tune to make the game as fun as possible. I don't know where ns2 stand in this regard.
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen's_Hypothesis" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen's_Hypothesis</a>
Yes! This is exactly what I have been reiterating for a while now. I would love to see that document if anyone can find it.
In a well designed game there will always be something that you could have done to counter your opponent. Whether or not you have the skill / ability and knowledge to be able to pull off that counter is the thing that will determine if you are successful or not.
The more you have situations where the player couldn't do anything the more frustrating and less fun the game is.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Now, like other people have already said, the SG costs res and the skulk doesn't. So it is logical that one SG marine should be better than one skulk. But if you accept the statement from the valve design doc as a fact, than this is a problem that is inherent through the whole design of NS2. The possibility of upgrades and better weapons / units will cause situations where you are doomed to lose. (see 1 onos vs. 1 marine) This sadly lies in the nature of a RTS game (because tier2 defeats tier1 tech.).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I really dislike people using res cost as a rationalization for something be over powered. I could put a super weapon in the game make it 100 res and then say it's fine that it 1 shots everything because it's so expensive, but that wouldn't be good design and it would cause a high amount of frustration. IMO there should be no such thing as X beats Y in an FPS game. The better player should beat the inferior player. Of course, certain weapons will have an advantage at range, others will have an advantage at melee distance etc. but those advantages should never be enough to determine the outcome alone.
I agree that fighting an Onos is highly frustrating as a marine and IMO the design needs to be changed. Many people claim that 1 Onos SHOULD beat 1 marine, but I have stated above how I dislike that line of thinking. Compare it to the tank from L4D and you see the difference. In L4D the tank is a very powerful unit will lots of HP that can kill survivors in a few hits. Yet, because it is a little bit slower than the survivors they can use their speed to out maneuver the tank and take him down. Even when you are the last survivor alive and you are against a tank, there is still a chance that you can win. Most of the time you won't, because if you make 1 mistake it is over, but you are the one to blame for the mistake. You can always look back and think, I could have played better or done something different. Rather than thinking that you had no chance at all.
In NS2 right now the Onos can kill 1 marine and he can't do anything at all about it. 1 onos vs 1 mairine (without jp) and the onos will win 100% of the time. That is bad design and it becomes frustrating and boring to play. It means that even if you group up against an onos inevitably there will be 1 or 2 marines who die with no possibility of avoiding it.
It's not just a problem with the onos either, these kind of situations and plentiful in ns2.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So what do I want to say with all that? Just: Be careful with adding <b>too much</b> hard counters to this game. A hard-counter is something, that you will lose against if you have the weapon / life form that it counters. Too much of them can frustrate players. This gets even more bad, when the defeated player couldn't see the upgrade. (Weapon lvl upgrades for example or carapace.) If the player can see that it wasn't his fault that he died, he will bear this situations for longer.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree, but I think that even if the player can see that it wasn't his fault that he will probably be much more frustrated than if it was his fault. Players want to feel responsible for the outcome of the game.
You bring up another point about the upgrades in ns2. IMO the marine weapon and armour upgrades are bad for gameplay. As you pointed out they are hidden modifiers that change the balance of things without being immediately obvious to the players. If the weapons damage going up is supposed to be in line with carapace then just get rid of both of them and balance it at the default values. It just makes certain upgrades absolutely necessary or else you're at a very severe disadvantage. "Didn't get cara?" too bad, now you're gonna be raped by weapons3. I can't see anyway to get rid of this situation without removing these upgrades entirely. Any kind of boost to the enemy weapons that can be counters by a boost to your own armour will just create must have upgrades in order to prevent your enemy from becoming too powerful.
I also think (and I did write about this in detail before) that the damage system is NS2 is completely crazy. There are so many hidden numbers. Different weapons do different amounts of damage to health than they do to armour. If I shoot with my weapons in a different order then it can take more bullets to kill the same target. I don't even understand the hide armour stuff either, more hidden numbers.
The damage system adds nothing to the game while making it far more complicated than it needs to be.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Beside all that, the skulk gets weaker and weaker while the game carries on....<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, I agree. The skulk is supposed to not become obsolete but currently the skulks just gets progressiveness weaker as the marines get more and more tech.
Thank you for the discussion sir. I think this line of thinking is really good for the community to be on. Sometimes people make radical suggestions which on the face of it seem extreme (like removing upgrades entirely or completely changing certain mechanics) but once you delve a little deeper you start to look at "what makes a fun game" it becomes obvious what needs to change. I also think that this line of thinking could be very productive for helping to shape a community "pro-mod" if NS2 doesn't turn out as good as we would like.
You bring up another point about the upgrades in ns2. IMO the marine weapon and armour upgrades are bad for gameplay. As you pointed out they are hidden modifiers that change the balance of things without being immediately obvious to the players. If the weapons damage going up is supposed to be in line with carapace then just get rid of both of them and balance it at the default values. It just makes certain upgrades absolutely necessary or else you're at a very severe disadvantage. "Didn't get cara?" too bad, now you're gonna be raped by weapons3. I can't see anyway to get rid of this situation without removing these upgrades entirely. Any kind of boost to the enemy weapons that can be counters by a boost to your own armour will just create must have upgrades in order to prevent your enemy from becoming too powerful.
I also think (and I did write about this in detail before) that the damage system is NS2 is completely crazy. There are so many hidden numbers. Different weapons do different amounts of damage to health than they do to armour. If I shoot with my weapons in a different order then it can take more bullets to kill the same target. I don't even understand the hide armour stuff either, more hidden numbers.
The damage system adds nothing to the game while making it far more complicated than it needs to be.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Quoting this because it needs to be seen again.
Either aliens and marines scale together as the game progresses, or get rid of armor/weapon upgrades completely.
A skulk twenty minutes into the game is exactly the same as a skulk at the start of the game (carapace is a given). Aliens scaling is non-existant while Marines continue to advance.
Either Aliens need a way to scale (more hives give armor+weapon dmg/or speed even), or Marine dmg/armor upgrades need to be removed and both sides balanced to reflect that.
Aliens are heading in the same direction as in NS1, stupid op early game, wet noodles late game (as soon as exosuits come out).
The design goal to always give a player power to overcome a situation is a really good one. Violations of that goal (in soft or hard terms) is a large source of my frustration behind negative abilities.
I think a better alternative would be to replace the current upgrades with ones that affect weapon accuracy, ammo capacity etc. rather than just uping the damage and armour levels. You can try to claim that having those upgrades is fundamental to the RTS aspect of the game, but that doesn't address my point. If those upgrades are so essential to both teams then they don't add any meaningful choice. You just get into the situation where the enemy is overpowered because your com forgot or didn't know to get the specific upgrade to counter it, or because you simply didn't get enough res and you're stuck in a slippery slope trying to comeback with inferior weapons and armour.
What's worse is that the current marine upgrades have no counter. As a skulk there is nothing you can do to prevent armour3 marines taking 4 bites to kill. You may argue that they shouldn't have let the marines get that much res in the first place but that's a weak argument at best since I could say the very same about a super 1 shot kill weapon. Just because an upgrade is expensive does not justify it being overpowered or uncounterable.
I ask the question, what do these weapon and armour upgrades add to the game? And whatever they add, is there a better way of doing it?
IMO, upgrades like ammo capacity (or increased energy for aliens) are much better since they don't influence combat directly but still make weapons more powerful. They allow a good player to perform better, while keeping the balance in terms of damage and armour the same. This way the team that is leading in res still has better weapons without unbalancing combat with increased damage.
There are many ways you can improve weapons without simply increasing damage. Off the top of my head: Improved accuracy, improved reload speed, more ammo capacity, more pellets per shot, faster rate of fire, secondary fire modes.
Unfortunately as far as cara goes it just seems to be too good right now to be worth sacrificing in favour of another upgrade. Perhaps if they tone it down a bit and improve the other upgrades somewhat then there will be a more viable choice there. I still don't like having a hidden health bonus though. I think having a change in the models based on what upgrade they have might be interesting. Perhaps making the skulk model 10% smaller if they don't have carapace, so you need to choose between more armour or a smaller hitbox.
Keyword: possibly. IE: not always the case. Also, half of the upgrades which are completely useless; even more-so for a skulk. Xeno kills you, so that's a pretty dumb point to make. Leap, I'll give you, but it's not enough.
Fact of the matter is. Damage and health/armor is flat and never advances. As the game progresses, the longer it takes a skulk to kill a marine and the easier it is to kill a skulk.
If this is not addressed, we will be back to the same problems NS1 aliens had. Marine turtle2win.
Going for upgrades mean you want to play a longer game; they are expensive and take long to research. You can skip them and try to go for a timing attack (gls/arcs/jp/turret push), just before the fade comes out for example.
Ideally there should have an upgrade race with interesting timing windows, for example if marines get weapong 2 before aliens get cara then the marine have a time window to deal damage before cara arrives. Or if aliens get fades before armor 2 then aliens have a time window as well.
Getting a good intuition of all these timings and exploiting them correctly is not a trivial thing and is a significant aspect of what make strategy games interesting.
But I agree that the game doesn't do a good job of letting you know which upgrades marine have, some suggestions :
- Change firing sound slightly with weapons upgrade.
- Change muzzle flare color (from red to blue) with weapons upgrade.
- Change the bite/attack sound slightly when marines have armor.
- Change the skin/model slightly with armor upgrade and carapace.
- Make sure that upgrades can be scouted by looking at the arms lab.
I have tried my best google magic, but couldn't find it. Maybe they have taken it down. The best I could find was the list of publications. I have only looked into a few of them and didn't find the one I'm searching for, but "Valves approach to playtesting" is interesting. Look for yourself: <a href="http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/publications.html" target="_blank">http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/publications.html</a>
To the discussion: I'm all with you Wilson and want to go into the detail of some of your points.
<!--quoteo(post=1941863:date=Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941863"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In a well designed game there will always be something that you could have done to counter your opponent. Whether or not you have the skill / ability and knowledge to be able to pull off that counter is the thing that will determine if you are successful or not.
The more you have situations where the player couldn't do anything the more frustrating and less fun the game is.
[...]
IMO there should be no such thing as X beats Y in an FPS game. The better player should beat the inferior player. Of course, certain weapons will have an advantage at range, others will have an advantage at melee distance etc. but those advantages should never be enough to determine the outcome alone.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
We should not forget to differentiate between the ego-shooter and the RTS. Your main point is right. The player of an ego-shooter and the player of an RTS should both be able to counter any opponent if they are more skilled. If so, than the game is balanced. But what do we have here with NS2? We have players, that embody the little Orc Peon in WC3. While the player of WC3 sure has the possibility to build better units to counter the paladin of his enemy, the Peon himself has not. He will lose against a tier3 unit, no matter what. This brings us to the dilemma of NS. If you don't want to kill the fundamental RTS-parts of the game (which is: teching faster than your enemy), we need a solution to the whole mechanic of upgrades in RTS and find something, that make it less frustrating when you are tier1 and fighting against tier3 as the little Peon.
<!--quoteo(post=1941863:date=Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941863"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I agree that fighting an Onos is highly frustrating as a marine and IMO the design needs to be changed. Many people claim that 1 Onos SHOULD beat 1 marine, but I have stated above how I dislike that line of thinking. Compare it to the tank from L4D and you see the difference. In L4D the tank is a very powerful unit will lots of HP that can kill survivors in a few hits. Yet, because it is a little bit slower than the survivors they can use their speed to out maneuver the tank and take him down. Even when you are the last survivor alive and you are against a tank, there is still a chance that you can win. Most of the time you won't, because if you make 1 mistake it is over, but you are the one to blame for the mistake. You can always look back and think, I could have played better or done something different. Rather than thinking that you had no chance at all.
In NS2 right now the Onos can kill 1 marine and he can't do anything at all about it. 1 onos vs 1 mairine (without jp) and the onos will win 100% of the time. That is bad design and it becomes frustrating and boring to play. It means that even if you group up against an onos inevitably there will be 1 or 2 marines who die with no possibility of avoiding it.
It's not just a problem with the onos either, these kind of situations and plentiful in ns2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Absolutely right. The problem with the onos is luckily an easy to solve one. As you mentioned the solution already. L4D did it with the Tank. Now in NS2 we have the mechanic of a slow back walking marine. That means he can't shoot the onos while he is retreating. So it's simple to balance the onos. Just make him slower than a sprinting marine (Do not make this circumventable with celerity!) and shorten the range of stomp so he can't stop retreating marines but can use stomp in battle to take out some of the pressure. It is ok that the mighty onos can kill a group of 2 marines single handedly, but the marines should have at least the option to escape. If they see the onos it should not be a death sentence. They should have the option to flee until they meet reinforcements to be strong enough to kill the onos.
<!--quoteo(post=1941863:date=Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941863"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->[To the sentence: "If the player can see that it wasn't his fault that he died, he will bear this situations for longer."]
I agree, but I think that even if the player can see that it wasn't his fault that he will probably be much more frustrated than if it was his fault. Players want to feel responsible for the outcome of the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, in a normal ego-shooter this should be standard. But in NS2 where you embody a unit in an RTS it's not so easy. You can expect some tolerance from players ala: "Ok, I died because our com hasn't researched upgrade X. We are losing the RTS-part of the game, so logically we also lose the single fights where I'm involved in." But you are right, it gets frustrating when it is not your fault, that you are losing. But I can't think of a solution for this. This sadly comes with the making of an RTS-FPS-crossing game. The only things that could help to lessen this factor, is to focus on soft- instead of hard-counters and, as you wrote, upgrades that don't push directly the damage / armor.
<!--quoteo(post=1941863:date=Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941863"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You bring up another point about the upgrades in ns2. IMO the marine weapon and armour upgrades are bad for gameplay. As you pointed out they are hidden modifiers that change the balance of things without being immediately obvious to the players. If the weapons damage going up is supposed to be in line with carapace then just get rid of both of them and balance it at the default values. It just makes certain upgrades absolutely necessary or else you're at a very severe disadvantage. "Didn't get cara?" too bad, now you're gonna be raped by weapons3. I can't see anyway to get rid of this situation without removing these upgrades entirely. Any kind of boost to the enemy weapons that can be counters by a boost to your own armour will just create must have upgrades in order to prevent your enemy from becoming too powerful.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, the feeling for the com when he researches a new weapon- / armor-upgrade is very rewarding. You making your troops directly stronger. But if this makes it a mandatory and even hidden upgrade it should be revisited and thought about if this upgrades are worth the problems they create.
One idea to solve the problem that it's a hidden modifier could be to change the color of the tracer rounds. Yellow for lvl0, orange for lvl1, red for lvl2 and blue for lvl3 for example. That would need to make every shot a tracer round, so it's obvious for aliens what weapon upgrade the enemies get. And the weapon upgrades maybe should only count for the LMG. (Will make this upgrades less mandatory and create more options for the com: researching more power for the LMG or other weapons...) Yuuki ninjad me here with even better ideas. :)
Armor and carapace upgrades would need new models which is some work to do and difficult to design, so it is identifiable on range. (Carapace may be solved with the material system. There was a thread about that.)
But all this does not solve the inherent problem of the existence of mandatory upgrades which you need, to keep track with the enemy team. Maybe this is inevitable in an RTS-FPS-crossover because tier3 > tier1. But I also really like your idea of having upgrades for more ammo, faster reload etc. as a possible solution.
In general the ideal upgrade is one that does not simply make you more powerful, but give you a bonus in a certain situation. It is now on you to lure the enemy in this situation to get the reward of your upgrade. The jetpack is such an upgrade for example. It gives you the option to be much stronger in rooms with a high ceiling. But you have to lure the enemy in such rooms or you will have no advantage of your jetpack. So upgrades should open you new battlefields, new situations in which you are on an advantage but shouldn't touch the normal battle and your chances in them.
<!--quoteo(post=1941863:date=Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 6 2012, 06:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941863"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I also think (and I did write about this in detail before) that the damage system is NS2 is completely crazy. There are so many hidden numbers. Different weapons do different amounts of damage to health than they do to armour. If I shoot with my weapons in a different order then it can take more bullets to kill the same target. I don't even understand the hide armour stuff either, more hidden numbers.
The damage system adds nothing to the game while making it far more complicated than it needs to be.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed on the main point. The damage system is not only hidden, it is very complicated. But it does add more options to the variety of the game. Having weapons that are better against buildings or better against units adds to the depth. Even having weapons that are better against armored targets or light targets are good to balance lighter life forms against heavy life forms. But the implementation of this system is way to complicated and not transparent for the player right now. We would at least need some information in the armory- / evolve-screen that says like in TF2 "does 30% more damage against armored targets" or "does 100% more damage against buildings" or on the alien side "hide-armor: takes 2 points less damage from every bullet"...
This way the player has a chance to learn which weapon is best against what target while playing both sides. And you don't have the complainers ala "OMG what is the grenade launcher good for? It can't kill a fade in one hit!"
Giving information to the player is the first step to increase tolerance that he is playing a RTS-FPS-crossover and that there are situations where he is at the weak end. Like: "I have high armor and fought against a marine with an armor breaking weapon, thats why I died." It's like hitting on a heavy as pyro in TF2. Where you are doomed in most cases too. But in TF2 you have the choice to change to sniper without costs to kill that heavy. In NS2 if you haven't enough res, you have to play skulk and keep getting owned by the SG. Again a problem that is inherent for an resourced base RTS-FPS-crossover.
Ammo capacity upgrade idea just made me go "Ooooohh...!" :p Something like 25% more ammo per clip, now there's an upgrade you FEEL and you WANT but is not 100% necessary.
Carry on.
After my death, I think about this situation and realize what I have done wrong. I should have looked at the ceiling, moving slower and with teammates. Than I could have a avoided this death. It was my fault. I have learned something and carry on.</li><li>I'm a skulk and camping on a ceiling. A marine passes by and I engage him. I manage to bite him once, but miss the second time. He one-shots me to death with his SG.
I think about it and identify my mistake: I have missed him with my second bite. It was my fault, I have to aim better.</li><li>Same situation as skulk but this time my second bite hits. But 2 bites are not enough to kill him and before I have the time to bite him again, he one-shots me with his SG.
This time, it's not easy to see for me, what I have done wrong. Sure, I could have engaged him together with other aliens. But this is easier said than done. Especially on pubs. And if you experience this situation again and again, it gets frustrating.</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The logic that you've applied to skulk vs marine is exactly the reason why increasing the shotgun spread is frustrating to players and thus bad for game play. As a marine with a shotgun, I'm relying on 1 shot -> 1 kill to effectively engage skulks in close quarters. With the increased spread, assuming perfect accuracy, I'm still not going to 1 shot skulks some large percentage of the time due to how the spread randomly rotates its self -- causing even point blank shots to require 2 hits to kill. The increased shotgun spread is frustrating to marines because they can not control the (now greatly increased) randomness of the spread. A marine dies because of something they couldn't avoid.
I know, this argument can be used in both directions but why should a marine be able to go out alone and rambo its way through the map? If the SG only makes a little less damage than needed to one-shot a skulk, than one other marine is enough to deliver the missing bullet.
Sure, now you will say, but the skulk could bring his buddy too. But this doesn't void the fact that one of the both skulks will die while engaging the SG-marine.
Anyway, I don't want to argue on the SG-spread in particular. But I think it has only been looked at, with the eyes of a rambo-marine being alone.
I know, this argument can be used in both directions but why should a marine be able to go out alone and rambo its way through the map? If the SG only makes a little less damage than needed to one-shot a skulk, than one other marine is enough to deliver the missing bullet.
Sure, now you will say, but the skulk could bring his buddy too. But this doesn't void the fact that one of the both skulks will die while engaging the SG-marine.
Anyway, I don't want to argue on the SG-spread in particular. But I think it has only been looked at, with the eyes of a rambo-marine being alone.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, you're assuming 100% accuracy. A LMG with 100% accuracy kills 5 skulks (3 if they have carapace). Pretty silly to assume every LMG marine is killing 3-5 skulks, so the assumption of 100% accuracy is pretty illogical when transplanting the numbers back into "real gameplay" by assuming rambo marines beating multiple skulks in a "real game".
Two good skulks will still typically beat a good shotgunner. Just like a fade will typically beat 2 shotgunners.
Coming back at the sg, something I've wondered if it's possible to do a "conic trace" instead of several line traces. I guess it might be heavy because you need to compute collision with walls, the surface of the target exposed, etc. But it would avoid all those randomness issues (it would play like if the sg would shoot a large number of bullets).
You can compare the ns2 res system with the money system in cs. In cs as you win rounds you earn more money that allows you to buy more powerful weapons and equipment. But those weapons are never so powerful to determine the outcome of a fight. The losing team can almost always afford weapons that give them a reasonable chance of success even if they are slightly less powerful. On top of that if you keep losing rounds over and over then you get more money for each round lost. This prevents situations where you have very unfair fights (i.e. awps vs glocks) and stops the slippery slope scenario that makes it very difficult to come back from a losing position.
The winning team can also buy more support equipment like flashbangs, nades, smokes etc. and again, these things give you a small advantage but can be countered by the enemy. Having more money leads to more equipment which leads to a small advantage. IMO this is the way it should be in ns2.
I think that having weapons and armour upgrades as they are currently is very difficult to balance. I think there's a sweet spot for balance especially with the melee classes. 2 bites to kill a marine is overpowered, and 4 bites is unpowered. The same thing goes for the fade. If it takes 2 slashes to kill a marine then even if that marine aims perfectly he can't deal enough damage to the fade before he dies. He also can't run. So it's one of those situations talked about earlier where you punish the player for something he can't avoid. It's the equivalent of an awp vs a glock in cs (in fact worse).
Either having no upgrades is balanced and then upgrades are over powered or having no upgrades is underpowered and upgrades are balanced. You can't have both. It's very difficult to give a small advantage by changing the weapons and armour without unbalancing things.
As far as the damage system goes I think the best way to change it is to, first get rid of armour for aliens, it doesn't do anything it is just an extension of health (unlike marines who have separate ways of healing health and armour). Then introduce armour types. So you would have, light, medium and heavy armour types. Those armour types would have a damage modifier for each weapon, so for example the shotgun might do 100% damage to light targets but 125% to heavy.
This prevents the shotgun dealing massive damage to light targets while still letting it be powerful against the larger aliens. That was the goal of the current system but it has failed. Currently the rifle and the shotgun both do normal damage and it is only the pistol that deals light damage. This means that if you shoot with the pistol first and then your main weapon it will take more bullets to kill the enemy than if you did it the other way around. IMO this is totally unintuitive and crazy.
With armour types as opposed to damage types the amount of damage you take from the weapons would always be consistent and it wouldn't matter what order they are shot in. It would also prevent the situation where your health drops dramatically after running out of armour - this adds nothing to the game and just makes it confusing for new players who intuitive believe that they will take the same amount of damage no matter what % of health they have left.
I know that this still has the problem of hidden numbers, but there is no way to avoid that unless you decide to use the ns1 system with no difference in damage to different targets. I also think it's pretty easy to communicate that certain classes are light/medium/heavy.
I'm just continuing the discussion started in this thread. Feel free to let the mods know I went OT. :O
This time, it's not easy to see for me, what I have done wrong.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You never stay in the same spot when biting a good marine from behind. Generalising, skulk skill lies in movement while marine skill lies mostly in aim. Its a skill shot to snap a skulk behind you with only the use of sound. If skulks can herpy derp skilled and aware marines, we now have the problem you describe except with the frustration imbalance favouring the lesser skilled player.
2 bites is enough to kill with a quick parasite before at a0. You're also forgetting decreased marine mobility and thus higher 'time' penalty on death compared to skulk. You bite him twice and die now, you only need to bite him twice the next time assuming he's medded and pushing. Sometimes you don't need to kill to win advantage.
<!--quoteo(post=1942034:date=Jun 8 2012, 12:41 AM:name=_Necro_)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (_Necro_ @ Jun 8 2012, 12:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1942034"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So it comes down to what is more frustrating: Being one-shotted or not being able to one-shot. I know, this argument can be used in both directions but why should a marine be able to go out alone and rambo its way through the map?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You're completely discounting the skill differentiation variable in situations like these. Skulks can also rambo through the whole map, as can fades and lerks given good players are playing against less 'skilled' opponents. Assuming res cost is irrelevant ofcourse since we're talking about this frustration principle. Fades 'oneshot' sg marines all the time in terms of relative rates of fire.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Sure, now you will say, but the skulk could bring his buddy too. But this doesn't void the fact that one of the both skulks will die while engaging the SG-marine.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
See this is now a balance question. Skulks cost 0 res and move around the map much faster, sg's cost 20 and require a marine to carry it. Shotguns need to one shot with aim. Their rate of fire is too slow to allow otherwise.
<!--quoteo(post=1941902:date=Jun 7 2012, 06:25 AM:name=Wilson)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Wilson @ Jun 7 2012, 06:25 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1941902"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I think a better alternative would be to replace the current upgrades with ones that affect weapon accuracy, ammo capacity etc. rather than just uping the damage and armour levels. You can try to claim that having those upgrades is fundamental to the RTS aspect of the game, but that doesn't address my point. If those upgrades are so essential to both teams then they don't add any meaningful choice.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think they actually do add meaningful choices. The way i see it, there is utility tech (everything else which is itemised and bought), and there is upgrade tech(w/a). You choose <b>when</b> you get upgrade tech, <b>which</b> upgrade tech, and <b>what</b> utility tech you cut to do so. Given a scarce resource and reasonable parity between every upgrades res-to-power you will always have meaningful choices. Problems arise when there is too much resource which devalues the cost of one upgrade over another, or when one upgrade is relatively cheaper in terms of res-to-power. Carapace is a good example of this with its res-to-power generally being much better than the other choices (exclude current OP celerity).
You may be confusing individual player perks (which generally arn't constrained by a meaningful resource system) with fundamental RTS mechanics! Yuuki hits it right on the head with the timings battle.