<!--quoteo(post=1954204:date=Jul 27 2012, 06:53 AM:name=xDragon)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (xDragon @ Jul 27 2012, 06:53 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1954204"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The issue is not that you cannot kill marines just staring at the armory, just that its harder than it should be to kill marines camping base. You can run in as fade and get three swipes, leaving an A3 marine with 40 ish HP.. In just under 5 seconds that marine can be full HP again because of the armory. It also promotes countless players running out and encountering ONE skulk, getting bit and running all the way back to get full hp/armor, because they know that they can. NS1 had this same mechanic, and had arguably MORE reason to have armories heal armor, and it was never a balance issue. Your not getting one swiped or bite by aliens in NS2, there is no focus.
There are countless other reasons for the imbalances in the game, but yes armory not repairing armor does make it easier for aliens. In the end your just rewarding poor play on the marines part however, you cant say that given a already balanced game that armory not repairing armor would be gamebreaking.
In the end I cant see how welding your teammates is more of a 'chore' or 'tedious' then standing infront of an armory. It does require more coordination which is a good thing, arguably the only things making it difficult now is the lack of welders being purchased (fana's idea is actually good), and people not knowing to use them (weld me bind?).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
you do realize that when marines are camped inside their base .... someone is going to sit next to the armory with a welder ... and hold down the left mouse button ... and become a human armor giving armory for the team ... If that is not a chore and tedious then i dont know what is. It also doesnt solve the very problem you were trying to fix.
Surely there was a better solution ? Are the playtesters that un-imaginative ?
TF2 has a good mechanic with the engineers Dispenser, would that not have been a better solution for NS2 ?
Personally I prefer being welded by a player, or welding players than interacting with an AI object, I like running around and welding everybody, it feels more alive than a static building.
A big issue is the frame drop when your are welding, when i try to weld it feels like my frames drop to the half... Maybe some tweaks on the Macs could be usefull to send them into war :-P so the Commander can help repairing amor by sending the mac to the group of marines in frontline
OK so if the marines are camping inside their base and someone is being a welder bot, that is ONE less person shooting all the aliens in the room.... Making it that much easier for the aliens to keep continual pressure on the marines. Plus he is not welding 4 marines at once. So many battles in NS2 are grind fests with the teams just endlessly zerging attempting to get the upper hand, the game doesnt need more mechanics which promote that kind of play, its really not enjoyable.
<!--quoteo(post=1953950:date=Jul 26 2012, 06:20 PM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Jul 26 2012, 06:20 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1953950"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But they wern't invincible... Far from it. You needed to aim at the armoury to heal, it healed hp before armour slowly enough that it bought you one extra bite at most if the skulk was stupid enough to chase you with other marines also shooting. I don't see the point.
Assume for the sake of it however that armour healing was a big balance issue. What does removing it from armouries change? If you want to follow that logic, we should also remove welders. We could also imagine a state where marines are only at a slight disadvantage on 0 armour and at a significant advantage with armour. Welders (bought from the armoury) heal armour, amoury gives ammo, which still leads us to this so called 'turtle' state. If so, shouldn't we remove ammo resupply from armouries as well? Where is the line? Its really stretching it bit far for people to suggest that armoury's were causing stalemates or stale gameplay. When talking about a structure that doesn't do damage itself (in comparison to sentries), stale gameplay is the result of bad players simply being bad players and if you can't kill them outright to prevent them going back to hump, then the fault is on the alien.
Shoehorning in an ns1 mechanic and then blaming everything else for it not working properly or being fun is a cop out as far as i'm concerned. Things need to cohere together as a whole with 1.0 around the corner and right now NS2 is a mix of ideas coming from different and often clashing design angles. As much as i would love to play ns1 on spark, we all know ns2 is never going to be the same beast. For example, free hydra's arn't going anywhere despite any ammount of good reason - thats clear enough to anyone paying attention. No armour healing from armouries doesn't make sense in this context. Its a huge pain in the butt fighting hydra's and gorge bilebomb without. We also arn't going to get better marine mobility.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This. All of it. A completely unnecessary/ unprovoked change imo.
IronHorseDeveloper, QA Manager, Technical Support & contributorJoin Date: 2010-05-08Member: 71669Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts
<!--quoteo(post=1954332:date=Jul 27 2012, 07:51 AM:name=Cee Colon Slash)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Cee Colon Slash @ Jul 27 2012, 07:51 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1954332"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I thought we already had a big long thread about how having a medic-gun a la TF2 wouldn't work for NS2.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> In regards to welding why not? Thats solve half the problem. (the other half being communication) I loathe running around trying to catch a moving marine..
And to the guy who called playtesters unimaginative... Really? I'm sure if you considered it for more than the passing second you gave it, you would realize we are all human and thus don't always agree, (we agree about as much as these forums do.) let alone make the final decision.
Turn that shotgun blast of blame elsewhere please and start providing feedback and suggestions yourself - were all beta testers in here.
Well I personally think you should play with it... as I said this wasnt a problem in NS1 where you had more reason to have it... The main reason it IS a problem now is the fact that EVERY build of NS2 the armory has healed armor, so people are used to it.. Judging a change by playing with it for 1 day is pretty dumb, almost as dumb as the ridiculously bad arguments some of you are bringing up...
fanaticThis post has been edited.Join Date: 2003-07-23Member: 18377Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
<!--quoteo(post=1954342:date=Jul 27 2012, 04:23 PM:name=Locklear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Locklear @ Jul 27 2012, 04:23 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1954342"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Looks like commanders will want MACs for A2/3 marines late game..<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Do you people seriously believe this ######? That without full armor you are useless?
I try to avoid doing this, but for reelz; learn to play.
<!--quoteo(post=1953796:date=Jul 26 2012, 01:59 AM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Jul 26 2012, 01:59 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1953796"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Dunno what you're talkin about, I get ~30 frames on parts of tram and 20-30 frames on some parts of docking (I hate mineshaft too much to play it/pay attention to frames on it)... and I have a 4.7ghz processor X_x<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I would kill for 30 avg. I get 15-20fps out of combat 6-10 in combat with a 2.6 quad core.
Dunno if some ppl in this thread did nothing but standing around armorys, but if you have actually played before this patch and with this patch the armory change is not that big of a deal.
You usually were without a way of getting back armor running around in the map anyway... now with this forced welder use i have to say it actually has even improved. Even in pub games you can now sometimes get your comm to drop your welders(he can drop welders everywhere on the map) or have teammates running around with welders - welding eachother between fight.
The only thing that changed is that its not as easy to turtle anymore if aliens got lots of lifeforms and marines lost more or less everything on the map, deciding to just sentry it up and equipping their last shotguns and gls in the base to drag it out.
What i dislike tho is the need of welders to repair powernodes. (and not having an axe)
Might be that it only works in powered areas and not on infestation, dunno(i almost never play comm).... dont think thats a bug. You could do that for many many patches.
few improvement ideas (prolly been posted already):
auto-pickup welder when walked over. it can be hard enough to grab the primary weapon you want off the floor in a battle where that weapon would be crucial, i often end up grabing the half-empty rifle sitting next to it. needing to grab welders in the same way complicates an already tense situation
same dps as axe (for structures only?) or separate weapon slot. when marines are pressuring harvesters and upgrade chambers early game, they need that axe-type weapon so they can save ammo drop costs for the commander. but with welders being out so much earlier, that means they have to spend more res to take down harvesters (ammo) or just take longer to do it. yes, you can just drop the welder to get your axe back, but thats not very elegant or intuitive
I don't have time to read the whole thread but here is my 2 cents.
Armories not healing players works better than the opposite... here is why.
Recharging armor from armories gives newbs incentives to stay around an armory and essentially do nothing for their team.
If you aren't a complete idiot you stick with other groups of marines, and if they aren't idiots they will be carrying welders.
Now you can have your armor fixed anywhere on the map with ease rather than having to run back to an armory like a moron.
If you don't like these changes then adapt and get better. Don't die as much and use welders to weld your teammates.
NS1 didn't heal your armor at the armory for a reason, and NS1 didn't have armories spammed every 15 feet.
Get good.
The only negative is that marines are forced to research welders early on, when in NS1 this was not the case at all. The comm shouldn't have to research welders they should be a default item in the game. Every marine should start with 1 and it shouldn't take up an axe slot.
If you keep forcing everyone to expect to know to buy a welder and use it then why the hell do they cost me pres and tres?
If everyone had a welder the marines might actually have a chance at holding off the aliens once in a while... either that or make them 1-2 pres max.
And excuse my harshness, but for lack of better words, my FPS still blows.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
<!--quoteo(post=1954430:date=Jul 27 2012, 12:30 PM:name=fanatic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fanatic @ Jul 27 2012, 12:30 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1954430"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Do you people seriously believe this ######? That without full armor you are useless?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Against any halfway decent fade, then yes. My big issue with the changes are: 1. Much of the game has been balanced against marines having full armor 2. I never saw aliens having trouble killing marines when armories did heal armor
If marines had been unkillable death machines in B214, then an armor nerf would have been in order. Otherwise, its trying to solve something I never saw as a problem.
<!--quoteo(post=1954479:date=Jul 27 2012, 06:02 PM:name=ScardyBob)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ScardyBob @ Jul 27 2012, 06:02 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1954479"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Against any halfway decent fade, then yes. My big issue with the changes are: 1. Much of the game has been balanced against marines having full armor 2. I never saw aliens having trouble killing marines when armories did heal armor
If marines had been unkillable death machines in B214, then an armor nerf would have been in order. Otherwise, its trying to solve something I never saw as a problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I couldn't disagree more.
I've said it a hundreds times before, but marines rely on teamwork and have ranged weapons. That skulk should be instadestroyed by 2 marines in a nano second if people have any aim at all. Maybe once in a while you get ambushed or they get a luck bite on you. In an old build your teammate goes back to base for armor leaving you alone which defeats the entire purpose of this game. Sure, if you both had welders no problem, but welders are useless due to armories. Nobody ever bought them unless something needed to be welded like an AA, or proto.
I think everyone can agree there.
Now welders are being made important again, and what you will find is that this isn't a NERF by any means. I see it as a step forward and its pushing people to not be <!--sizeo:7--><span style="font-size:36pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>BAD</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->.
Carry a welder from now on, and all this crying becomes obsolete. People are not crying that armories don't fix armor they are crying that nobody wants to weld them because people haven't LEARNED HOW TO PLAY.
Marines are going to start welding on the field and in enemy territory now making the marines even more unstoppable. Now they don't have to run away all the time for armor they can get supplied from the comm and fixed by teammates. 10000000% better than designing the game around the fact that you can run away and be self sufficient with an armory.
This small change alone <!--sizeo:7--><span style="font-size:36pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>FORCES</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> people to do what this game is all about... and that is <!--sizeo:7--><span style="font-size:36pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>TEAMWORK</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->.
If they put armory repairing back in then it just goes to show that nobody wants to take this game seriously. We all want to camp in base looking at shiny things all day and never play as a team... well fine... maybe that is why aliens ###### destroy every time you play this game. They require no teamwork compared to marines that have INCENTIVES to not play as a team AKA armories.
This change to armories is helping so much to cure this disease of <!--sizeo:7--><span style="font-size:36pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>CODitus</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
Just want to get this out, even if it has nothing to do with the current discussion of the topic:
I think a lot of balance related problems cant be properly finetuned or evaluated and addressed as long as the performance hitreg and lack of smoothness for some aspects is a part of it. (skulks, lerks fades, jumping marines that appear to warp around more than move smoothly so you can track properly, hitreg, etc)
I think thats why a lot of balance moves either seem to overdo it or not help anything at all.
E.g. i dont know if there is really a big problem with blink or shadowstep, jetpackers or whatever(some random examples of what ppl talk about in the forums) - since you never really know how it would be if performance(hitreg etc) was ideal when fighting against.
<!--quoteo(post=1954430:date=Jul 27 2012, 12:30 PM:name=fanatic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fanatic @ Jul 27 2012, 12:30 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1954430"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Do you people seriously believe this ######? That without full armor you are useless?
I try to avoid doing this, but for reelz; learn to play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Lol, I just got told to L2P. Awesome attitude bro.
Consider this: Fades will kill me in 1-2 hits without armor. If I respond with a shotgun blast in kind, I will still die.. every.. time.
I try to avoid doing this also but, for real.. learn2thinkahead.
NS2 is supposed to be released in September, right? We're still missing features, performance needs vast improvement and then the balance actually truly needs to begin (because Koruyo is right). All in little over a month? Surely not!
<!--quoteo(post=1954489:date=Jul 27 2012, 06:37 PM:name=Locklear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Locklear @ Jul 27 2012, 06:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1954489"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Lol, I just got told to L2P. Awesome attitude bro.
Consider this: Fades will kill me in 1-2 hits without armor. If I respond with a shotgun blast in kind, I will still die.. every.. time.
I try to avoid doing this also but, for real.. learn2thinkahead.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I see your frustration but this is how it was in NS1... if you run out of base alone you get owned. Go load up NS1 and play for 10 mins. You will see people welding eachother non-stop its the most common thing you see in the game. You engage targets and take a little damage and you retreat back to your fellow marines with welders and they fix you (A lot ###### faster than in NS2 as well derpin derp derp derp)
Why welders weld teammates so slow is beyond me.
In NS1 if you see a teammate running back to you or by you or anything at all you pull out your welders to check eachothers armor... and there was a hotkey that asked other players to weld you which helped immensely too.
I didn't ever have a problem getting my armor fixed in NS1 and I actually preferred having it only be fixable with welders too because of how <b>CONVIENENT</b> it was since you were always around teammates who knew how to play.
And just ignore fana too, he is butthurt that new people are coming into this game who are better than him :/ and can't accept that other people have ideas that differ from his "extreme elite, infallible opinion". Cause he is ungodly good at this game... didn't you know? I didn't even know who he was until he started insulting me on these forums lolol.
Returning to check out NS2 now that we're closer to ready.
Hm, people complaining you need welders to heal armor. Wait. Could have sworn that's what we did in NS1 and we just welded the crap out of each other. Especially once HA showed up. Classic 6v6 opening is 2 leave, 3 build, 1 gets a shotty and welder and joins the pressure team. Welding all around. And handling Fades? Two people with shotties and weapons lv2.
And hey, Focus isn't even in this game. Mmmm one-shot Fade/Skulks when you had no armor due to Lerk gas.
Obviously NS2 is a new game with new stuff, but as an isolated item I'm confused why it's such a big deal. Get more welders, weld teammates between fights, problem solved right?
So sorry if I'm ignorant, but I'm not sure I see the point.
So far the reason's I've heard from the pro-no healing crowd (let me know if I've missed any):
-Newbs will want to sit there and hump the armory -Newbs will want to run back to base to hump the armory -Marines will turtle with an armory -Teamwork skillz!!!! -It was like that in NS1 and it worked fine -Armory healing was hard to balance -Welders are useful now
But to be honest none of these reasons is a really big selling point (at least for me) on the concept, a lot of them are simply fabrications (people do not realistically go running back across the map to armor heal, come on). Welders will always be useful. A lot of them are banking on things that do not actually happen, and point at the newby behavior. Could you not do the opposite for the other side of the argument? Newbs won't want to buy a welder, newbs won't know how/when to weld, newbs etc etc.... see?
Other side of the argument (leaving out the "newbs this" and "turtling that"- these things will happen regardless):
-Having to rely completely on another player to know what to do and when to do it (one could call this tedious, unenjoyable) -It is arguably more difficult to balance than armory healing because the effectiveness of having players become the only source of armor healing will vary with player count. On top of that the experience and frequency of being welded will change from server to server, pub play to pro play.
And again, I'm not arguing for a total revert. Something about armories needed to change. But so far the arguments I've seen for the changes in this patch are...well..kind of hollow. Not looking to fight about it, but I was truly wondering if anyone had a more convincing or coherent argument than the above points.
<!--quoteo(post=1954492:date=Jul 27 2012, 07:43 PM:name=.ADHd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (.ADHd @ Jul 27 2012, 07:43 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1954492"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I see your frustration but this is how it was in NS1...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pretty much the entire justification for this change hinges on "how it was in NS1."
It's bad to FORCE TEAMWORK. Teamwork should be encouraged as a force multiplier. You guys thinking teamwork should be forced on one team for basic individual mechanics (like healing), but not on the other team should think about the problem some more.
It's important to note that all of the "benefits" gained from this the armor healing change were fully available previously.
<!--quoteo(post=1954515:date=Jul 27 2012, 07:28 PM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Jul 27 2012, 07:28 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1954515"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->-It was like that in NS1 and it worked fine -Armory healing was hard to balance -Welders are useful now<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not really sure these are throw-outs. Well, perhaps the first one, but that's mostly an argument of "are you sure you're not just resistant to change, 'cause I know it worked before, so there's a good chance it works again, let's try it."
<!--quoteo(post=1954515:date=Jul 27 2012, 07:28 PM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Jul 27 2012, 07:28 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1954515"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Other side of the argument (leaving out the "newbs this" and "turtling that"- these things will happen regardless):
-Having to rely completely on another player to know what to do and when to do it (one could call this tedious, unenjoyable) -It is arguably more difficult to balance than armory healing because the effectiveness of having players become the only source of armor healing will vary with player count. On top of that the experience and frequency of being welded will change from server to server, pub play to pro play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The first is a legitimate problem, but arguably a good game mechanic. Rambos for Marines are even more vulnerable now, and it provides a new role for support players instead of just building structures. You're also integral to keep us at maximum potential. I'm not as familiar with the meta so I have no idea the frequency of rambos right now and if it needs to be fixed, and similarly the support role.
I'm personally not sold on the last one. Welders now take on the same role as Gorges. You need a few scattered around for each bunch of players to help heal back up to full. So I reckon it will scale just fine between team sizes and skill levels.
Ignorant question: can we drop weapons to give to other players in NS2?
EDIT: From another thread: <!--quoteo(post=1953850:date=Jul 26 2012, 03:45 AM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Jul 26 2012, 03:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1953850"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm not even concerned about the relative winrates. To me, it is about changing a mechanic that adds no tactical depth yet adds another layer of frustration.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
OK, understandable and legitimate complaint.
Another thought, I'm curious if this change was made in prep for the Exo. In most NS1 games welders were nice but not necessary until HA trains came out and you HAD to protect that investment.
<!--quoteo(post=1954519:date=Jul 27 2012, 08:39 PM:name=spellman23)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (spellman23 @ Jul 27 2012, 08:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1954519"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Ignorant question: can we drop weapons to give to other players in NS2?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes the comm can (anywhere on the map). It comes from commander p-res though, not t-res.
Again, they could probably balance the game around either option. I'm still going to play and enjoy the game. I'm just not sure why people are so dead set on the NS1 design though as I personally found the NS2 armory healing to be a more enjoyable experience (obviously needs tweaking though, again).
edit: No I don't think the change was made for the Exo. The Exo was not going to be able to heal from the armory regardless and must be welded (I think). Exos were also not going to be able to carry a welder themselves so you could not have pure Exo trains ala' NS1. (this is heresay though, I do not know for sure- only the PTs do)
<!--quoteo(post=1954522:date=Jul 27 2012, 07:49 PM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Jul 27 2012, 07:49 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1954522"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yes the comm can (anywhere on the map). It comes from commander p-res though, not t-res.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hm. I meant in NS1 you could as a player drop your current weapon and another player could pick it up. So 1 welder was passed around your squad between fights. If not in NS2, then yeah that's a serious detriment and significantly changes the dynamic since you now need at least 2 per squad.
EDIT: In another thread it was mentioned without armor you're useless. My first instinct is that this, if true, is a serious balance problem. NS1 armor was nice but not mandatory. 2 Bite Skulks still die to proper movement and tracing. Or a Shotgun.
Comments
There are countless other reasons for the imbalances in the game, but yes armory not repairing armor does make it easier for aliens. In the end your just rewarding poor play on the marines part however, you cant say that given a already balanced game that armory not repairing armor would be gamebreaking.
In the end I cant see how welding your teammates is more of a 'chore' or 'tedious' then standing infront of an armory. It does require more coordination which is a good thing, arguably the only things making it difficult now is the lack of welders being purchased (fana's idea is actually good), and people not knowing to use them (weld me bind?).<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
you do realize that when marines are camped inside their base .... someone is going to sit next to the armory with a welder ... and hold down the left mouse button ... and become a human armor giving armory for the team ... If that is not a chore and tedious then i dont know what is. It also doesnt solve the very problem you were trying to fix.
Surely there was a better solution ? Are the playtesters that un-imaginative ?
TF2 has a good mechanic with the engineers Dispenser, would that not have been a better solution for NS2 ?
it feels more alive than a static building.
Assume for the sake of it however that armour healing was a big balance issue. What does removing it from armouries change? If you want to follow that logic, we should also remove welders. We could also imagine a state where marines are only at a slight disadvantage on 0 armour and at a significant advantage with armour. Welders (bought from the armoury) heal armour, amoury gives ammo, which still leads us to this so called 'turtle' state. If so, shouldn't we remove ammo resupply from armouries as well? Where is the line? Its really stretching it bit far for people to suggest that armoury's were causing stalemates or stale gameplay. When talking about a structure that doesn't do damage itself (in comparison to sentries), stale gameplay is the result of bad players simply being bad players and if you can't kill them outright to prevent them going back to hump, then the fault is on the alien.
Shoehorning in an ns1 mechanic and then blaming everything else for it not working properly or being fun is a cop out as far as i'm concerned. Things need to cohere together as a whole with 1.0 around the corner and right now NS2 is a mix of ideas coming from different and often clashing design angles. As much as i would love to play ns1 on spark, we all know ns2 is never going to be the same beast.
For example, free hydra's arn't going anywhere despite any ammount of good reason - thats clear enough to anyone paying attention. No armour healing from armouries doesn't make sense in this context. Its a huge pain in the butt fighting hydra's and gorge bilebomb without. We also arn't going to get better marine mobility.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This. All of it.
A completely unnecessary/ unprovoked change imo.
In regards to welding why not? Thats solve half the problem. (the other half being communication)
I loathe running around trying to catch a moving marine..
And to the guy who called playtesters unimaginative... Really? I'm sure if you considered it for more than the passing second you gave it, you would realize we are all human and thus don't always agree, (we agree about as much as these forums do.) let alone make the final decision.
Turn that shotgun blast of blame elsewhere please and start providing feedback and suggestions yourself - were all beta testers in here.
Do you people seriously believe this ######? That without full armor you are useless?
I try to avoid doing this, but for reelz; learn to play.
I would kill for 30 avg. I get 15-20fps out of combat 6-10 in combat with a 2.6 quad core.
You usually were without a way of getting back armor running around in the map anyway... now with this forced welder use i have to say it actually has even improved. Even in pub games you can now sometimes get your comm to drop your welders(he can drop welders everywhere on the map) or have teammates running around with welders - welding eachother between fight.
The only thing that changed is that its not as easy to turtle anymore if aliens got lots of lifeforms and marines lost more or less everything on the map, deciding to just sentry it up and equipping their last shotguns and gls in the base to drag it out.
What i dislike tho is the need of welders to repair powernodes. (and not having an axe)
auto-pickup welder when walked over. it can be hard enough to grab the primary weapon you want off the floor in a battle where that weapon would be crucial, i often end up grabing the half-empty rifle sitting next to it. needing to grab welders in the same way complicates an already tense situation
same dps as axe (for structures only?) or separate weapon slot. when marines are pressuring harvesters and upgrade chambers early game, they need that axe-type weapon so they can save ammo drop costs for the commander. but with welders being out so much earlier, that means they have to spend more res to take down harvesters (ammo) or just take longer to do it. yes, you can just drop the welder to get your axe back, but thats not very elegant or intuitive
Or could always make an option to purchase armor at the armory for 2 p.res.
Armories not healing players works better than the opposite... here is why.
Recharging armor from armories gives newbs incentives to stay around an armory and essentially do nothing for their team.
If you aren't a complete idiot you stick with other groups of marines, and if they aren't idiots they will be carrying welders.
Now you can have your armor fixed anywhere on the map with ease rather than having to run back to an armory like a moron.
If you don't like these changes then adapt and get better. Don't die as much and use welders to weld your teammates.
NS1 didn't heal your armor at the armory for a reason, and NS1 didn't have armories spammed every 15 feet.
Get good.
The only negative is that marines are forced to research welders early on, when in NS1 this was not the case at all. The comm shouldn't have to research welders they should be a default item in the game. Every marine should start with 1 and it shouldn't take up an axe slot.
If you keep forcing everyone to expect to know to buy a welder and use it then why the hell do they cost me pres and tres?
If everyone had a welder the marines might actually have a chance at holding off the aliens once in a while... either that or make them 1-2 pres max.
And excuse my harshness, but for lack of better words, my FPS still blows.
Against any halfway decent fade, then yes. My big issue with the changes are:
1. Much of the game has been balanced against marines having full armor
2. I never saw aliens having trouble killing marines when armories did heal armor
If marines had been unkillable death machines in B214, then an armor nerf would have been in order. Otherwise, its trying to solve something I never saw as a problem.
1. Much of the game has been balanced against marines having full armor
2. I never saw aliens having trouble killing marines when armories did heal armor
If marines had been unkillable death machines in B214, then an armor nerf would have been in order. Otherwise, its trying to solve something I never saw as a problem.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I couldn't disagree more.
I've said it a hundreds times before, but marines rely on teamwork and have ranged weapons. That skulk should be instadestroyed by 2 marines in a nano second if people have any aim at all. Maybe once in a while you get ambushed or they get a luck bite on you. In an old build your teammate goes back to base for armor leaving you alone which defeats the entire purpose of this game. Sure, if you both had welders no problem, but welders are useless due to armories. Nobody ever bought them unless something needed to be welded like an AA, or proto.
I think everyone can agree there.
Now welders are being made important again, and what you will find is that this isn't a NERF by any means. I see it as a step forward and its pushing people to not be <!--sizeo:7--><span style="font-size:36pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>BAD</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->.
Carry a welder from now on, and all this crying becomes obsolete. People are not crying that armories don't fix armor they are crying that nobody wants to weld them because people haven't LEARNED HOW TO PLAY.
Marines are going to start welding on the field and in enemy territory now making the marines even more unstoppable. Now they don't have to run away all the time for armor they can get supplied from the comm and fixed by teammates. 10000000% better than designing the game around the fact that you can run away and be self sufficient with an armory.
This small change alone <!--sizeo:7--><span style="font-size:36pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>FORCES</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--> people to do what this game is all about... and that is <!--sizeo:7--><span style="font-size:36pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>TEAMWORK</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->.
If they put armory repairing back in then it just goes to show that nobody wants to take this game seriously. We all want to camp in base looking at shiny things all day and never play as a team... well fine... maybe that is why aliens ###### destroy every time you play this game. They require no teamwork compared to marines that have INCENTIVES to not play as a team AKA armories.
This change to armories is helping so much to cure this disease of <!--sizeo:7--><span style="font-size:36pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>CODitus</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
I think a lot of balance related problems cant be properly finetuned or evaluated and addressed as long as the performance hitreg and lack of smoothness for some aspects is a part of it.
(skulks, lerks fades, jumping marines that appear to warp around more than move smoothly so you can track properly, hitreg, etc)
I think thats why a lot of balance moves either seem to overdo it or not help anything at all.
E.g. i dont know if there is really a big problem with blink or shadowstep, jetpackers or whatever(some random examples of what ppl talk about in the forums) - since you never really know how it would be if performance(hitreg etc) was ideal when fighting against.
I try to avoid doing this, but for reelz; learn to play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Lol, I just got told to L2P. Awesome attitude bro.
Consider this: Fades will kill me in 1-2 hits without armor. If I respond with a shotgun blast in kind, I will still die.. every.. time.
I try to avoid doing this also but, for real.. learn2thinkahead.
Consider this: Fades will kill me in 1-2 hits without armor. If I respond with a shotgun blast in kind, I will still die.. every.. time.
I try to avoid doing this also but, for real.. learn2thinkahead.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I see your frustration but this is how it was in NS1... if you run out of base alone you get owned. Go load up NS1 and play for 10 mins. You will see people welding eachother non-stop its the most common thing you see in the game. You engage targets and take a little damage and you retreat back to your fellow marines with welders and they fix you (A lot ###### faster than in NS2 as well derpin derp derp derp)
Why welders weld teammates so slow is beyond me.
In NS1 if you see a teammate running back to you or by you or anything at all you pull out your welders to check eachothers armor... and there was a hotkey that asked other players to weld you which helped immensely too.
I didn't ever have a problem getting my armor fixed in NS1 and I actually preferred having it only be fixable with welders too because of how <b>CONVIENENT</b> it was since you were always around teammates who knew how to play.
And just ignore fana too, he is butthurt that new people are coming into this game who are better than him :/ and can't accept that other people have ideas that differ from his "extreme elite, infallible opinion". Cause he is ungodly good at this game... didn't you know? I didn't even know who he was until he started insulting me on these forums lolol.
Hm, people complaining you need welders to heal armor. Wait. Could have sworn that's what we did in NS1 and we just welded the crap out of each other. Especially once HA showed up. Classic 6v6 opening is 2 leave, 3 build, 1 gets a shotty and welder and joins the pressure team. Welding all around. And handling Fades? Two people with shotties and weapons lv2.
And hey, Focus isn't even in this game. Mmmm one-shot Fade/Skulks when you had no armor due to Lerk gas.
Obviously NS2 is a new game with new stuff, but as an isolated item I'm confused why it's such a big deal. Get more welders, weld teammates between fights, problem solved right?
So sorry if I'm ignorant, but I'm not sure I see the point.
-Newbs will want to sit there and hump the armory
-Newbs will want to run back to base to hump the armory
-Marines will turtle with an armory
-Teamwork skillz!!!!
-It was like that in NS1 and it worked fine
-Armory healing was hard to balance
-Welders are useful now
But to be honest none of these reasons is a really big selling point (at least for me) on the concept, a lot of them are simply fabrications (people do not realistically go running back across the map to armor heal, come on). Welders will always be useful. A lot of them are banking on things that do not actually happen, and point at the newby behavior. Could you not do the opposite for the other side of the argument? Newbs won't want to buy a welder, newbs won't know how/when to weld, newbs etc etc.... see?
Other side of the argument (leaving out the "newbs this" and "turtling that"- these things will happen regardless):
-Having to rely completely on another player to know what to do and when to do it (one could call this tedious, unenjoyable)
-It is arguably more difficult to balance than armory healing because the effectiveness of having players become the only source of armor healing will vary with player count. On top of that the experience and frequency of being welded will change from server to server, pub play to pro play.
And again, I'm not arguing for a total revert. Something about armories needed to change. But so far the arguments I've seen for the changes in this patch are...well..kind of hollow. Not looking to fight about it, but I was truly wondering if anyone had a more convincing or coherent argument than the above points.
Pretty much the entire justification for this change hinges on "how it was in NS1."
It's bad to FORCE TEAMWORK. Teamwork should be encouraged as a force multiplier. You guys thinking teamwork should be forced on one team for basic individual mechanics (like healing), but not on the other team should think about the problem some more.
It's important to note that all of the "benefits" gained from this the armor healing change were fully available previously.
-Armory healing was hard to balance
-Welders are useful now<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not really sure these are throw-outs. Well, perhaps the first one, but that's mostly an argument of "are you sure you're not just resistant to change, 'cause I know it worked before, so there's a good chance it works again, let's try it."
<!--quoteo(post=1954515:date=Jul 27 2012, 07:28 PM:name=rantology)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (rantology @ Jul 27 2012, 07:28 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1954515"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Other side of the argument (leaving out the "newbs this" and "turtling that"- these things will happen regardless):
-Having to rely completely on another player to know what to do and when to do it (one could call this tedious, unenjoyable)
-It is arguably more difficult to balance than armory healing because the effectiveness of having players become the only source of armor healing will vary with player count. On top of that the experience and frequency of being welded will change from server to server, pub play to pro play.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The first is a legitimate problem, but arguably a good game mechanic. Rambos for Marines are even more vulnerable now, and it provides a new role for support players instead of just building structures. You're also integral to keep us at maximum potential. I'm not as familiar with the meta so I have no idea the frequency of rambos right now and if it needs to be fixed, and similarly the support role.
I'm personally not sold on the last one. Welders now take on the same role as Gorges. You need a few scattered around for each bunch of players to help heal back up to full. So I reckon it will scale just fine between team sizes and skill levels.
Ignorant question: can we drop weapons to give to other players in NS2?
EDIT: From another thread:
<!--quoteo(post=1953850:date=Jul 26 2012, 03:45 AM:name=GORGEous)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (GORGEous @ Jul 26 2012, 03:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1953850"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm not even concerned about the relative winrates. To me, it is about changing a mechanic that adds no tactical depth yet adds another layer of frustration.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
OK, understandable and legitimate complaint.
Another thought, I'm curious if this change was made in prep for the Exo. In most NS1 games welders were nice but not necessary until HA trains came out and you HAD to protect that investment.
Yes the comm can (anywhere on the map). It comes from commander p-res though, not t-res.
Again, they could probably balance the game around either option. I'm still going to play and enjoy the game. I'm just not sure why people are so dead set on the NS1 design though as I personally found the NS2 armory healing to be a more enjoyable experience (obviously needs tweaking though, again).
edit: No I don't think the change was made for the Exo. The Exo was not going to be able to heal from the armory regardless and must be welded (I think). Exos were also not going to be able to carry a welder themselves so you could not have pure Exo trains ala' NS1. (this is heresay though, I do not know for sure- only the PTs do)
Hm. I meant in NS1 you could as a player drop your current weapon and another player could pick it up. So 1 welder was passed around your squad between fights. If not in NS2, then yeah that's a serious detriment and significantly changes the dynamic since you now need at least 2 per squad.
EDIT:
In another thread it was mentioned without armor you're useless. My first instinct is that this, if true, is a serious balance problem. NS1 armor was nice but not mandatory. 2 Bite Skulks still die to proper movement and tracing. Or a Shotgun.