<!--quoteo(post=1996370:date=Oct 24 2012, 03:52 PM:name=Grissi)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Grissi @ Oct 24 2012, 03:52 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1996370"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Even if RFK is never added to the game I still think RFD is doing more harm than good. It would be better to have neither system than RFD. RFD is basically a system that punishes players for playing the game.
RFD basically punishes new players for trying to learn the game, it also punishes players who are active in the game. But strangely rewards the player who stays afk in the hive while everyone else is fighting. With any luck the game is still going on when he comes back and he can go lerk/fade/onos much sooner than the other players.
RFD also has this nasty side affect of punishing aliens much more than marines since skulks have to engage marines more often to have a chance to defeat them. They usually have higher death count meaning less resources. Considering that the aliens have 2-3 rts most of the game while marines have 5+ they get even further behind. The side affect of this is that players play skulk/gorge 80%+ of their gametime as aliens.
---- I do support RFK. I think that rewarding players for good performance is always a good thing in a game.
Tech explosion was never a real issue and still exists in the game, just less obvious. It is a side effect of the core resource mechanics and was never properly adjusted.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Grissi makes a good point... it should be about promoting gameplay in a healthy way.
One thing that comes to mind is some kind of multiplying factor for the target(player or team) that affects the next res "tick". It would not stack, but just a one time modifier per res tick... probably trigger by some kind of objective that takes on a great importance than just killing so either team may take advantage of it regardless of any skill stacking.
defending a res tower or hive from being destroyed? taking down and building power nodes? Res flow can ebb and flow based on actions beyond just owning towers, but player performance.
Tech explosions ARE problematic, and it is definitely a bigger problem than it was in NS 1. I do believe RFK was somewhat of a factor, though like others have stated the underlying resource mechanics also play a big part in this. At least the majority agrees that NRFD, no res for death, is a terrible mechanic that neither addresses the tech explosion problem nor rewards active gameplay.
I sincerely hope the devs take note and at least start by taking NRFD out.
schkorpioI can mspaintJoin Date: 2003-05-23Member: 16635Members
one other thing is that I don't think skulks should be punished for dying, i see skulks as expendable lifeforms that do the hives bidding without fear and have no individuality of their own. (hence the xeno ability). There are many ways to do this, but one would be to remove the no res while dead for skulks.
I'd like to make a clear point that I think everyone would agree with. While not many people discussed the possibility of a proximity or assist / damage percent based RFK system I think all of us can agree that RFK would only be used for Aliens. As many users pointed out the cost of shotguns welders and marines early games are insignificant to the much more problematic jump from skulk to lerk or skulk to fade.
I think most can also agree this is where the games flow suffers. At minute two or three you have upgraded marines that far out class aliens who are forced to get the early second hive in most cases. Because of this Alien tech is always so far behind marines and they are forced to play "Defend the two bases and pray." Once the fade and onos come FINALLY it is even again. And I say even because at this point most marine teams can have jetpacks and are well on their way to exos. This period of "Defend the two bases and pray" is not fun at all for aliens in my opinion. It completely contradicts the flow of the "FPS first" game play that is outlined in the High Design Docs.
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited October 2012
"Tech explosion" is not actually a problem.
Using SC2 as an example: The game is not imbalanced, if a player loses to a Void Ray/Muta/Banshee rush. There are viable counters to every strategy. In NS2, Fade rush was the type of rush that was most complained about. Yet, Shotguns, FT and Arms lab upgrades, all Fade counters, are available well before mass Fades (which takes a long time to save for) start appearing. With game performance improving by the week, Fade is no longer the "untouchable" killing machine it once was. Both teams are currently evenly matched when they spend the same amount of resources.
There real problems that is manifesting, is Marines' difficulties in following the strategic movement of alien lifeforms. There is very little warning prior to an aliens assault en masse throughout the game, in the forms of "rushing". Cheaper Observatories would help alleviate it significantly, yet can be properly countered by aliens, by destroying the Obs.
Thus res penalty for death should be removed, as it is a bandaid solution to a problem ("Tech explosion") that goes much deeper.
Thats hardly a tech explosion if the marines either dropped them 1 by 1 and they waited in base, or saved for 5 minutes to drop them all at once....
Cheaper obs does nothing for detecting alien lifeforms, only their basic movements... And its not that it cannot be countered.. just that it leaves almost 0 progression in the game. You go from fighting all skulks to fighting all fades. And you cannot compare a rush of a specific unit type which has major drawbacks to a mass evolving of a high tier unit with little/no downsides.
twilitebluebug stalkerJoin Date: 2003-02-04Member: 13116Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
edited October 2012
<!--quoteo(post=1996484:date=Oct 25 2012, 11:03 AM:name=xDragon)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (xDragon @ Oct 25 2012, 11:03 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1996484"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Thats hardly a tech explosion if the marines either dropped them 1 by 1 and they waited in base, or saved for 5 minutes to drop them all at once....
Cheaper obs does nothing for detecting alien lifeforms, only their basic movements... And its not that it cannot be countered.. just that it leaves almost 0 progression in the game. You go from fighting all skulks to fighting all fades. And you cannot compare a rush of a specific unit type which has major drawbacks to a mass evolving of a high tier unit with little/no downsides.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I think Fade rushing can be compared to JP rush. Both are powerful, fast moving units. The obvious differences are, that a JP rush is much easier to notice (aliens notice second CS and proto lab), but Fades cost much more (and arrive later in the game) and move faster.
The major differences are in the teams' comparative scouting capabilities and their response time to these rushes:
Marines - poor scouting, fast response time Aliens - better scouting, slow response time
With regard to scouting, Aliens have an advantage. Aliens have better map awareness, thanks to their faster movement, Drifters, Parasite, as well as their habit to scatter through the map. Marines tend to stay in groups, and rely heavily on their commander to gather information on the Aliens, thru Observatories, which requires anticipation and active efforts from the commander. Thus Marines are likely to be oblivious to rushes until aliens show up on their doorstep.
However, Marines have Phase Gates, and in dire situations, Beacon to save their bacon, should aliens come knocking uninvited. Aliens cannot match such rapid response times, when it comes to defence.
Cheaper Observatories will encourage more of them to be fielded, thus increase Marines' map awareness, especially to impending rushes. Beside that, Observatories have very little health, and are often focused down in seconds, which can be too draining on the Marine economy.
<!--quoteo(post=1996409:date=Oct 24 2012, 10:45 PM:name=ChickenOfWar)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ChickenOfWar @ Oct 24 2012, 10:45 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1996409"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->What would make a huge difference is some pro player in a pug getting fade super early on and then completely wrecking house. Flayra thought sentries ruined pug games well that would completely destroy them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> And again: There is no 'I destroy everything'-class in NS2. A fade is always to be countered. If he is not, he is not balanced. You will not kill a good fade, but you will chase him away. Without RFK a good fade will stay fade for at least half of the game. With RFK it's the same. Without RFK he will have stats of 40-5. With RFK it's the same. No RFK does not make the players worse. But RFK makes bad players having more motivation to get better.
Ah whatever I think everything is just going in circles.
Pro RFK or at least anything that rewards you for playing the FPS part good is the right opinion :p
Oh yeah and no res while dead is terrible, I think everybody agrees so far.
<!--quoteo(post=1996497:date=Oct 25 2012, 02:36 AM:name=countbasie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (countbasie @ Oct 25 2012, 02:36 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1996497"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->But RFK makes bad players having more motivation to get better.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Anyway. After thinking further about the topic, I think I like the idea of having a modifier to the next res-tick when making building damage. (At least for aliens) Maybe as upgrade the kham has to research. As others have already said, getting a kill is reward enough. But having to chew on an RT should be rewarded more. If you would get a little part of the damage you do to buildings as an addition to the next res-tick, (if you are alive when the res-tick comes in,) it would be much more rewarding to chew on buildings. It would not encourage the rambo-players that go for kills, but the players that actually help the team by destroying enemy buildings.
I especially like the fact, that you get that certainty, that with every bite you do on a building your next res-tick will have a bigger reward.
<!--quoteo(post=1996617:date=Oct 24 2012, 09:56 PM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Oct 24 2012, 09:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1996617"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This statement still boggles my mind.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then clearly you never played Call of Duty. Not saying you should compare NS2 and CoD, however the motivation hes describing to improve as a player is very apparent in CoD.
What I think he was referring to was the multiplyers for the res ticks. Why not just distribute the res when something dies?
When it comes to multipliers for resticks, I could envision a system that shifts the percentage of pres a player gets depending on his worth for the team. For example, when the round starts, in a 10 player team each one gets 10% res per tick. Now one player builds 3 rts while the other players idle in base. The building player could now be rewareded by increasing his res percentage to 20% while the other players lose about 1,1% each. This could be realised by some kind of rating for each players and tying pres income to that. The hard thing however is how to properly rate this. In the scenario above, the commander could have told a player to stay in base to guard. If he doesnt give him a guard waypoint, there is hardly a way to properly track this by an automatic routine. However I did see a working rating system in NS1 on the SEK2000 server. It used a rating for the ability to kill players and a rating for acting as a team, though I have no idea how it worked. A benefit of some kind of automatic rating would be the info for casters. If you take a look to sports, they have all kinds of statistics to show and grade players based on that. Casters seem to love talking about statistics :)
<!--quoteo(post=1997352:date=Oct 26 2012, 12:15 AM:name=TimmahIsASaint)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (TimmahIsASaint @ Oct 26 2012, 12:15 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1997352"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Then clearly you never played Call of Duty. Not saying you should compare NS2 and CoD, however the motivation hes describing to improve as a player is very apparent in CoD.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Give me an example where the player has absolutely no desire to get better at the game he is playing, and then tell me why that is the case.
bERt0r , good stuff there... I'm all about brainstorming!
I like the idea of players being ranked on "value" within a game.. this rank/value would change dynamically based on a player's actions..
UWE could easily determine what baseline actions in a game would be of consistent value in the game outside of shooting stuff real well, and a bonus/multiplier would be applied to the next res tick.
The criteria for "value" could be anything productive in a game which makes this bonus very accessible, and like bERt0r said, this rank info would be available in spectate/casting, and could even be an overall value like a "Last time PlayerX was seen, <this rank>"
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Give me an example where the player has absolutely no desire to get better at the game he is playing, and then tell me why that is the case.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> In Starcraft 2 winning games "rewards" you with making you face tougher opponents. Some players like to "smurf" (intentionally losing games to get downranked) so they can beat up on weaker players in lower leagues. In Heart of the Swarm, Blizzard is going to make players earn experience depending on certain statistics not soley depending on winning (e.g. 6-pool rushing) games.
<!--quoteo(post=1997755:date=Oct 26 2012, 06:01 AM:name=Imbalanxd)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Imbalanxd @ Oct 26 2012, 06:01 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1997755"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Give me an example where the player has absolutely no desire to get better at the game he is playing, and then tell me why that is the case.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
People using "Cheese tactics" in any RTS in an attempt to garner easy rating, they do this because it is easier than attempting a true strategy with a early, mid and late game focus. By doing so they do not improve at the game, understand any of the true mechanics and lack any game sense towards why the succeed at times and fail at others.
Comments
RFD basically punishes new players for trying to learn the game, it also punishes players who are active in the game. But strangely rewards the player who stays afk in the hive while everyone else is fighting. With any luck the game is still going on when he comes back and he can go lerk/fade/onos much sooner than the other players.
RFD also has this nasty side affect of punishing aliens much more than marines since skulks have to engage marines more often to have a chance to defeat them. They usually have higher death count meaning less resources. Considering that the aliens have 2-3 rts most of the game while marines have 5+ they get even further behind.
The side affect of this is that players play skulk/gorge 80%+ of their gametime as aliens.
----
I do support RFK. I think that rewarding players for good performance is always a good thing in a game.
Tech explosion was never a real issue and still exists in the game, just less obvious. It is a side effect of the core resource mechanics and was never properly adjusted.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Grissi makes a good point... it should be about promoting gameplay in a healthy way.
One thing that comes to mind is some kind of multiplying factor for the target(player or team) that affects the next res "tick". It would not stack, but just a one time modifier per res tick... probably trigger by some kind of objective that takes on a great importance than just killing so either team may take advantage of it regardless of any skill stacking.
defending a res tower or hive from being destroyed? taking down and building power nodes? Res flow can ebb and flow based on actions beyond just owning towers, but player performance.
I sincerely hope the devs take note and at least start by taking NRFD out.
There are many ways to do this, but one would be to remove the no res while dead for skulks.
I think most can also agree this is where the games flow suffers. At minute two or three you have upgraded marines that far out class aliens who are forced to get the early second hive in most cases. Because of this Alien tech is always so far behind marines and they are forced to play "Defend the two bases and pray." Once the fade and onos come FINALLY it is even again. And I say even because at this point most marine teams can have jetpacks and are well on their way to exos. This period of "Defend the two bases and pray" is not fun at all for aliens in my opinion. It completely contradicts the flow of the "FPS first" game play that is outlined in the High Design Docs.
Using SC2 as an example: The game is not imbalanced, if a player loses to a Void Ray/Muta/Banshee rush. There are viable counters to every strategy. In NS2, Fade rush was the type of rush that was most complained about. Yet, Shotguns, FT and Arms lab upgrades, all Fade counters, are available well before mass Fades (which takes a long time to save for) start appearing. With game performance improving by the week, Fade is no longer the "untouchable" killing machine it once was. Both teams are currently evenly matched when they spend the same amount of resources.
There real problems that is manifesting, is Marines' difficulties in following the strategic movement of alien lifeforms. There is very little warning prior to an aliens assault en masse throughout the game, in the forms of "rushing". Cheaper Observatories would help alleviate it significantly, yet can be properly countered by aliens, by destroying the Obs.
Thus res penalty for death should be removed, as it is a bandaid solution to a problem ("Tech explosion") that goes much deeper.
Aliens didn't have tech explosions in NS1 because Gorges were needed to build.
Cheaper obs does nothing for detecting alien lifeforms, only their basic movements... And its not that it cannot be countered.. just that it leaves almost 0 progression in the game. You go from fighting all skulks to fighting all fades. And you cannot compare a rush of a specific unit type which has major drawbacks to a mass evolving of a high tier unit with little/no downsides.
Cheaper obs does nothing for detecting alien lifeforms, only their basic movements... And its not that it cannot be countered.. just that it leaves almost 0 progression in the game. You go from fighting all skulks to fighting all fades. And you cannot compare a rush of a specific unit type which has major drawbacks to a mass evolving of a high tier unit with little/no downsides.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think Fade rushing can be compared to JP rush. Both are powerful, fast moving units. The obvious differences are, that a JP rush is much easier to notice (aliens notice second CS and proto lab), but Fades cost much more (and arrive later in the game) and move faster.
The major differences are in the teams' comparative scouting capabilities and their response time to these rushes:
Marines - poor scouting, fast response time
Aliens - better scouting, slow response time
With regard to scouting, Aliens have an advantage. Aliens have better map awareness, thanks to their faster movement, Drifters, Parasite, as well as their habit to scatter through the map. Marines tend to stay in groups, and rely heavily on their commander to gather information on the Aliens, thru Observatories, which requires anticipation and active efforts from the commander. Thus Marines are likely to be oblivious to rushes until aliens show up on their doorstep.
However, Marines have Phase Gates, and in dire situations, Beacon to save their bacon, should aliens come knocking uninvited. Aliens cannot match such rapid response times, when it comes to defence.
Cheaper Observatories will encourage more of them to be fielded, thus increase Marines' map awareness, especially to impending rushes. Beside that, Observatories have very little health, and are often focused down in seconds, which can be too draining on the Marine economy.
And again:
There is no 'I destroy everything'-class in NS2. A fade is always to be countered. If he is not, he is not balanced.
You will not kill a good fade, but you will chase him away. Without RFK a good fade will stay fade for at least half of the game. With RFK it's the same. Without RFK he will have stats of 40-5. With RFK it's the same.
No RFK does not make the players worse. But RFK makes bad players having more motivation to get better.
Ah whatever I think everything is just going in circles.
Pro RFK or at least anything that rewards you for playing the FPS part good is the right opinion :p
Oh yeah and no res while dead is terrible, I think everybody agrees so far.
This statement still boggles my mind.
Anyway. After thinking further about the topic, I think I like the idea of having a modifier to the next res-tick when making building damage. (At least for aliens) Maybe as upgrade the kham has to research. As others have already said, getting a kill is reward enough.
But having to chew on an RT should be rewarded more. If you would get a little part of the damage you do to buildings as an addition to the next res-tick, (if you are alive when the res-tick comes in,) it would be much more rewarding to chew on buildings. It would not encourage the rambo-players that go for kills, but the players that actually help the team by destroying enemy buildings.
I especially like the fact, that you get that certainty, that with every bite you do on a building your next res-tick will have a bigger reward.
Then clearly you never played Call of Duty. Not saying you should compare NS2 and CoD, however the motivation hes describing to improve as a player is very apparent in CoD.
You get res for damaging buildings is complicated? And having an incentive to do a boring task is pointless? ok
When it comes to multipliers for resticks, I could envision a system that shifts the percentage of pres a player gets depending on his worth for the team. For example, when the round starts, in a 10 player team each one gets 10% res per tick. Now one player builds 3 rts while the other players idle in base. The building player could now be rewareded by increasing his res percentage to 20% while the other players lose about 1,1% each. This could be realised by some kind of rating for each players and tying pres income to that.
The hard thing however is how to properly rate this. In the scenario above, the commander could have told a player to stay in base to guard. If he doesnt give him a guard waypoint, there is hardly a way to properly track this by an automatic routine. However I did see a working rating system in NS1 on the SEK2000 server. It used a rating for the ability to kill players and a rating for acting as a team, though I have no idea how it worked.
A benefit of some kind of automatic rating would be the info for casters. If you take a look to sports, they have all kinds of statistics to show and grade players based on that. Casters seem to love talking about statistics :)
Give me an example where the player has absolutely no desire to get better at the game he is playing, and then tell me why that is the case.
I like the idea of players being ranked on "value" within a game.. this rank/value would change dynamically based on a player's actions..
UWE could easily determine what baseline actions in a game would be of consistent value in the game outside of shooting stuff real well, and a bonus/multiplier would be applied to the next res tick.
The criteria for "value" could be anything productive in a game which makes this bonus very accessible, and like bERt0r said, this rank info would be available in spectate/casting, and could even be an overall value like a "Last time PlayerX was seen, <this rank>"
In Starcraft 2 winning games "rewards" you with making you face tougher opponents. Some players like to "smurf" (intentionally losing games to get downranked) so they can beat up on weaker players in lower leagues.
In Heart of the Swarm, Blizzard is going to make players earn experience depending on certain statistics not soley depending on winning (e.g. 6-pool rushing) games.
People using "Cheese tactics" in any RTS in an attempt to garner easy rating, they do this because it is easier than attempting a true strategy with a early, mid and late game focus. By doing so they do not improve at the game, understand any of the true mechanics and lack any game sense towards why the succeed at times and fail at others.