Great job with balance UWE
statikg
Join Date: 2012-09-19 Member: 159978Members
Join Date: 2012-09-19 Member: 159978Members
<div class="IPBDescription">(also throwback thread)</div>Lets take a moment to appreciate UWE for how they have balanced ns2. Sure there are some specific issues that need work, but the overall balance of the game is really amazing if you think about how INCREDIBLY difficult it is to balance an asymmetric fps game. I don't think there is a single genre that is more difficult to balance. Look how hard it is just to balance ###### diablo 3 or an asymmetric RTS (sc2) in which there are so many more static (AI) features involved then in an fps.
I would also invite people to take a long hard look at how "balanced" they remember ns1 being. NS1 was ridiculously unbalanced, at least for the majority of time when it was a popular game. In the competitive scene, both sides typically won marine every game unless the teams skill level was very off. In 1.04, which I along with many others actually remember with incredible fondness, you could float literally forever in MASSIVE hive rooms with your jp/hmg and kill the hive by yourself, without a large amount of difficulty.
You think todays JP/SGs are strong? JP/HMGers even after the jp nerf in NS1 were out of control good.
Throughout much of ns1 history it was no problem to immediately have your team run their asses off and relocate to one alien hive, and then spend the next X amount of minutes taking down the second hive before it got up, and then it was just a matter of time before you won the game.
The point is, the current state of balance where both teams really have a solid chance to win is actually really impressive given the extreme difficulties presented by producing a melee v ranged FPS game. I am sure that as in any game, some major balance changes will still be forthcoming over the next year and we will end up with a really polished game.
I would also invite people to take a long hard look at how "balanced" they remember ns1 being. NS1 was ridiculously unbalanced, at least for the majority of time when it was a popular game. In the competitive scene, both sides typically won marine every game unless the teams skill level was very off. In 1.04, which I along with many others actually remember with incredible fondness, you could float literally forever in MASSIVE hive rooms with your jp/hmg and kill the hive by yourself, without a large amount of difficulty.
You think todays JP/SGs are strong? JP/HMGers even after the jp nerf in NS1 were out of control good.
Throughout much of ns1 history it was no problem to immediately have your team run their asses off and relocate to one alien hive, and then spend the next X amount of minutes taking down the second hive before it got up, and then it was just a matter of time before you won the game.
The point is, the current state of balance where both teams really have a solid chance to win is actually really impressive given the extreme difficulties presented by producing a melee v ranged FPS game. I am sure that as in any game, some major balance changes will still be forthcoming over the next year and we will end up with a really polished game.
Comments
But yes, the balance is not so bad.
Tough.
As much as I like devs that update games frequently, I hope they give it times to balance out before buffing and nerfing.
Tough.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
True, but it's also true, that ns2 could be so balanced so early as the components(...) are all living humans. They just could get every single problem from every situations during long beta.
Nevertheless, probably noone still understands why there's still 75 tres onos.
There's a lot of pro matches to watch. Here's a few of them:
Youtube: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/NaturalSelection2HD/videos?view=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/user/NaturalSelecti...D/videos?view=0</a>
Twitch: <a href="http://www.twitch.tv/naturalselection2/videos" target="_blank">http://www.twitch.tv/naturalselection2/videos</a>
left4dead is just cheap and unbalanced tat...
you hide near a cliff as a jockey/charger and just charge a survivor off the ledge, GG.
there's no stealth, because your hunter or smoker etc run around with a loudspeaker shouting "HEY IM OVER HERE - SHOOT ME - I DIE IN 1 HIT!".
there's no retreating either, because you die in in 0.1 seconds unless you're a tank and have no mobility.
plus, survivors have no objective besides 'run here'... so if they just stay together and kill 1-2 infected players then it's a braindead run while the infected players respawn.
coop vs AI 'scenario' game is the most boring type of game. give me 'dead island' with it's explorable world and rpg mechanics any day of the week. left4dead is like playing quake or UT against bots... holy crap it's boring (okay when i was a kiddo i played a lot of UT against bots, but that's back when it cost a fortune to play on the internet)
the only positive is that the animations, sounds and voices are are very cool. also, zombies are bonus points for me because i love zombies.
tldr; l4d is a polished turd.
Cheers to that! Glad to see this kind of thread. :)
Thats why terran is by far the least played race on ladder (no bias here) ;)
you hide near a cliff as a jockey/charger and just charge a survivor off the ledge, GG.
there's no stealth, because your hunter or smoker etc run around with a loudspeaker shouting "HEY IM OVER HERE - SHOOT ME - I DIE IN 1 HIT!".
there's no retreating either, because you die in in 0.1 seconds unless you're a tank and have no mobility.
plus, survivors have no objective besides 'run here'... so if they just stay together and kill 1-2 infected players then it's a braindead run while the infected players respawn.
coop vs AI 'scenario' game is the most boring type of game. give me 'dead island' with it's explorable world and rpg mechanics any day of the week. left4dead is like playing quake or UT against bots... holy crap it's boring (okay when i was a kiddo i played a lot of UT against bots, but that's back when it cost a fortune to play on the internet)
the only positive is that the animations, sounds and voices are are very cool. also, zombies are bonus points for me because i love zombies.
tldr; l4d is a polished turd.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I didn't say anything about Left 4 Dead other than it having an over-reliance on one team making mistakes for the other to succeed. Being an infected when you have 4 humans who actually know what they're doing and are good shots is damn near impossible. It's not like a fighting game where you rely on the other guy making mistakes to punish them, because generally the two sides have equality in melee... the problem is that when one team is capable of shooting and the other isn't(for the most part), it becomes much more difficult to be the melee when your enemy is checking corners and ceilings, covering each other and using their ears like they're supposed to. Shoot, even the Onos equivalent in Left 4 Dead(the tank) can be completely kited and rendered useless... at least the Onos can outrun humans without jetpacks.
I'm not saying that NS2 is anywhere near as bad as Left 4 Dead, but especially when you're playing a Skulk, it's undeniable that you rely a lot on Marines making mistakes to nom at them effectively. You're supposed to walk instead of run, and you're supposed to be using walls and ceilings, but there's nothing stopping a Marine from checking corners and ceilings as they're moving(as they should be doing) so even if you're doing everything right, you can be nullified real quick. Fade has the same issue though they have a bit more damage-soaking potential and much more speed. Lerk has the same issue if you're not constantly flying and flying in different directions. When you have the cloaking upgrade, because you effectively take being spotted out of the equation(not totally, I've spotted people that were barely moving or not at all so you can still see cloaked Aliens), it becomes much different.
Of course, part of what saves the balance in NS2 is that there's more to do than just killing each other in a map that effectively has one path like in Left 4 Dead. I'm the first one to shoot down the other side of a map and nom at undefended locations when a big group of humans are pushing into a hive or at least the first part of our defenses. At that point it doesn't matter how good the other team is at covering each other and aiming, you're still doing good in a non-combat situation(and Aliens are much better at doing this than Marines are, so arguably you're doing much more than you would be doing if you were to help defend as a Skulk). It's that kind of thing that helps balance the teams. If this were a game based purely on combat I think it would be a lot different.
But yes, the balance is not so bad.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Starcraft is as assymmetrical as counter strike is. The "differences" between each team are purely aesthetic.
Troll bait ftw.
Compare current state with "it could be worse". Well, of course. Things have been much much worse. Doesn't mean it's OK.
Tough.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not convinced. Maybe you don't know this, but units in starcraft (specially in broodwar) are controlled by a human. And units effectiveness changed dramatically because of the human factor in a way I find hard to imagine happening in NS2 (reaver/shuttle, muta stack, ..).
Even though units are humans in NS2 doesn't magically change what they can do or not do, a skulk can 3 bites marines, human or not. It's still "just numbers". What really change with human units is that you can't do ultra-boring units like scv and that you have fixed army size, but that's much more of design constraint than a balance problem.
The six match-up problem is more complicated because when you change anything to fix a match-up you might affect the two others. You can have a unit that is both under and over-powered at the same time. In NS2 if a unit is overpowered you can just nerf it and your done.
Tough.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
One of the funniest things I've read today, thanks for the laugh lol