Game balance thought experiment
Swiftspear
Custim tital Join Date: 2003-10-29 Member: 22097Members
Custim tital Join Date: 2003-10-29 Member: 22097Members
Proposal: The only balance change we make for the next patch: 'Cysts now cost 2 res'
Pros:
- alien comm has to be more intelligent about what he's doing with his res, new res locations aren't as easy for him to get, his early game is delayed, he needs to babysit everything just a little more
- marines have more reason to play the "cyst" game, spending more time and effort doing damage to the cyst network
- aliens win less
Cons:
- Jetpack flamethrower becomes despairingly frustrating
Maybe if we really want we can do some other tweaks too, like making the fade a little nicer... but in a vacuum, how much would this cyst change effect the game, and is it possibly a good idea?
Pros:
- alien comm has to be more intelligent about what he's doing with his res, new res locations aren't as easy for him to get, his early game is delayed, he needs to babysit everything just a little more
- marines have more reason to play the "cyst" game, spending more time and effort doing damage to the cyst network
- aliens win less
Cons:
- Jetpack flamethrower becomes despairingly frustrating
Maybe if we really want we can do some other tweaks too, like making the fade a little nicer... but in a vacuum, how much would this cyst change effect the game, and is it possibly a good idea?
Comments
Roo
Assault Rifle cost 10 Pres
The only change really required for balancing purposes is to give back electric RTs, 10/15res it would make it possible to rines to actually hold some damn RTs. Thats the real problem, aliens and rines end up with the same RTs at the start unless something special happened, its just that after its muuucho easier to take out all their rts, regroup defend against their push, and spread out re-taking all their rts at once confusing and splitting them up.
Pros:
- alien comm has to be more intelligent about what he's doing with his res, new res locations aren't as easy for him to get, his early game is delayed, he needs to babysit everything just a little more
- marines have more reason to play the "cyst" game, spending more time and effort doing damage to the cyst network
- aliens win less
Cons:
- Jetpack flamethrower becomes despairingly frustrating
Maybe if we really want we can do some other tweaks too, like making the fade a little nicer... but in a vacuum, how much would this cyst change effect the game, and is it possibly a good idea?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I totally agree it already takes 2:15 for a alien harvester to recouperate the cost of its own build cost + the cysts needed to place it. I totally ####ing agree that this time should be increased to 3:15 this would totally make ####ing sense...
This would make flamethrowers more scary.... It would totally destroy the entire alien economy by DOUBLING the cost to spread infestation but don't worry its only a small tweak... Jesus Christ... your nonchalance about such a crazy radical change just to make "flamethrowers more scary" makes me want to vomit... This is just the crazy stab in the dark random balance changes that have caused the game to spiral crazily from one patch to another...
This would make flamethrowers more scary.... It would totally destroy the entire alien economy by DOUBLING the cost to spread infestation but don't worry its only a small tweak... Jesus Christ... your nonchalance about such a crazy radical change just to make "flamethrowers more scary" makes me want to vomit... This is just the crazy stab in the dark random balance changes that have caused the game to spiral crazily from one patch to another...<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
MANY people have VERY accurately pointed out the alien economy tends to be HIGHLY overflooded in NS2 right now. I'm aware this is not a small tweak, and I'm FAR from creating a petition to have this put into the game right now or something like that. I can't imagine a change like this going through without significant play testing if it even ever got that far. I apologize for wanting to discuss an idea on a discussion forum.
It's a thought experiment, I didn't want to be wordy. You could have at least tried to be constructive. I was legitimately TRYING to frame this as a post looking for solid reasons why it wouldn't work conceptually, of which I have thought of more since I originally posted this.
I highly disagree with you. If the competitive metagame shifts to a breaking point, the pub metagame lasts at most a month before it follows. I don't understand the competitive metagame as much right now as I understand the pub metagame. If this idea is workable, it has to work at the competitive level as well.
So you'd end up destroying the alien early game while still hardly impacting the later game when aliens are currently floating on t.res. The biggest reason why they are floating mind you is because if they are stuck on 2 hives they quickly run out of things to spend t.res on and even if they get 3 hives most of those abilities aren't worth the investment.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I highly disagree with you. If the competitive metagame shifts to a breaking point, the pub metagame lasts at most a month before it follows. I don't understand the competitive metagame as much right now as I understand the pub metagame. If this idea is workable, it has to work at the competitive level as well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This shows you have a poor understanding of the discrepancy between the competitive and public game in NS 2 today. Competitive games generally see marine teams DOMINATE, pub games are nothing like that due to a variety of different reasons. A change like this would put competitive alien play at an even more serve disadvantage. (As it stands aliens already struggle in holding on to 2 - 3 extractors) Instead, they need to fix the marine - alien public balance while also making aliens more competitive on the higher levels of play.
Don't forget aliens already have to invest a lot more t.res in harvesters than marines and marines have the ability to recycle on top of that.
I've been told this has shifted to an alien advantage since patch 330. I freely admit my understanding of the current competitive metagame is much less developed than my understanding of the pub metagame though.
Regardless, if there's some trivial "click to win" strategy at the highest level, you only go so long until it trickles down to pub games. From the competitive play I've seen so far, marines were doing well because there was a couple dozen things they were doing right, as opposed to the metagame being heavily broken by one design element specifically. That's why I was intentional to say "to the breaking point". Some discrepency in pub w/l vs competitive w/l is expected, but a wildly wide discrepancy is indicative of competitive players having "figured out" something that pubbers will be learning in the next few months.
PS do you know how long it takes a single marine with an axe to take out a harvester? Work it out then question why your marine teams arent killing them early on
No. We need a different solution. We also need pub marines to stop being ###### and to attack alien harvesters. It works well enough for competitive players.
Still doesn't solve issue of cyst spam late game either. Alien commander can encroach on spaces faster than marines can kill while defending from alien attacks.
Need a stacking cooldown penalty when cysts are destroyed. This would reward cyst killing both late and early game.
Why is this even a problem?
In a lot of cases commanders can medspam (especially with nano) quicker than aliens can kill them.
Why is this a problem and not a feature?
Seriously... Its already enough trouble to kill turtles without removing a legitimate ways to assist the team as comm.
If it's a good idea I don't know, probably not.
So you'd end up destroying the alien early game while still hardly impacting the later game when aliens are currently floating on t.res. The biggest reason why they are floating mind you is because if they are stuck on 2 hives they quickly run out of things to spend t.res on and even if they get 3 hives most of those abilities aren't worth the investment.
This shows you have a poor understanding of the discrepancy between the competitive and public game in NS 2 today. Competitive games generally see marine teams DOMINATE, pub games are nothing like that due to a variety of different reasons. A change like this would put competitive alien play at an even more serve disadvantage. (As it stands aliens already struggle in holding on to 2 - 3 extractors) Instead, they need to fix the marine - alien public balance while also making aliens more competitive on the higher levels of play.
Don't forget aliens already have to invest a lot more t.res in harvesters than marines and marines have the ability to recycle on top of that.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Those tw0 last paragraphs are false from the competitive game feeds I've seen. In fact, I know it was just a scrim, but that friday match that wasabi broadcasted: after 5 rounds aliens won every time, regardless of team. Now, I'm not saying every competitive match is like this, but it was a striking example of how dominating they can be just by the sheer freedom of expansion they have with the alien setup if any reasonable pressure is put on marines at all.
Right now, 70%+ games marines don't even bother with attacking aliens in the first minutes. Which is the worst thing you can ever do!
First of all, marines have STRONG early game and have way faster expand time than aliens. They can literally cover whole map in RTs in matter of what...3 - 4 minutes?
Don't forget that Aliens don't need as many RTs as marines, yet most of the time I see marines sitting on even or less, due to campy/defending style of play...
I have never seen a game being won by playing so defensively in NS2! NEVER !
Losing an RT for aliens is more painful than it is for marines.
Mostly due to long building time... also, marines can also recycle structures to receive some res back.
So, sorry.
You only have to encourage players to actually think about NS2 as "Resource vs Resource war" not, "TDM with weapon/lifeform upgrades"
Too be honest I think the biggest problem is the hitreg. A couple patches ago when the hitreg was working perfectly you would see the marines just wonder into the hive, egg lock and win on a consistent basis. It could be that people have just got better at skulking, but I doubt it.
I can't process that logic at all.
Comp and Pub games work with very different player motivations and experiences, people are overestimating how much they depend on each other.
Or to make an example what i'm talking about:
Are there games out there that only consist of a competitive playerbase but not a casual one?
I know as a matter of fact, there are tons of games out there that work on a casual basis without having any competitive aspect or playerbase at all.
A game can survive without a competitive community, but it can't survive without any community at all.
The remaining big question: Are NS2 problems funded in it's competitive gameplay balance or it's casual public gameplay balance?
Imho it's the latter that's lacking and not the former. Because without people playing the game on a casual basis you won't have a playerbase from which you can recruit people for the competitive side of the game.
Not making any balance judgements but putting any CD on cysting would make the alien comm's job hideously tedious and as such isn't the best idea to implement.
Implying it isnt already tedious?
The fact that you see Marines killing every cyst on their way to a destination, rather than killing one or two cysts in critical area's, should tell you where the problem really lies.
In NS2, Skulks are highly valued units that shouldn't die quickly as they cost the alien team eggs and possibly even T.Res when they die which limits further respawns for the rest of their team. In spite of that fact, they have no HP and very little armor even with carapace as the first upgrade. It is, in fact, the Marines that die without consequence and are essentially rewarded for suicide runs on Alien infrastructure provided they didn't buy a weapon. It's a role reversal that rewards what the developers have said they don't want rewarded; solo rambo style play from the Marines.
Basically, Marines play like Aliens should and Aliens play like the Marines should. It makes no sense in the current iteration of the game, and never really has made any sense. The Alien team has so many Achilles heels it's unreal when compared to the Marines team who only really have one. Combine that with overly linear tech progression and weaksauce structures on the Aliens team and you have something that is easy and perhaps overly effective in it's ease. I'm not even sure how they plan on nerfing the Aliens next to make them easier to beat, but there isn't much left to nerf at this point without seriously cutting into what little meat is left on the Aliens tech progression. (Judging from the recent stealth nerf to wall jumping, I guess the end goal is to make aliens so big and slow that Marines can't <i>help</i> but hit them with their precision weapons.)
Basically, Marines are far more complicated than they need to be and aliens are far too simplistic.
I've given up with suggestions though, the only thing that's going to change is a downward progression of the Alien team while the Marines team remains virtually unchanged in every way that matters.
What could also happen is that the regen rate for cyst dropping could increase based on number of hives. That would allow a khamm the ability to respond to the later game attacks, which slightly reducing the early game cyst spam.
If this was adopted there could also be an optional 2 res cost for cysts if a khamm needs to drop them in an 'emergency' and he has no energy.
Sure, I'll be happy to say it again.
Games that don't have a large player base to draw from have neither a competitive scene nor a future. If your entire player base can't fill out a 12 or 24 team bracket, you don't have a future as a game. Competitive players make up the smallest minority of any game scene. They have to. You can't have an entire sport or game made up of only professionals, you don't have anyone to replace losses, and the game feels unreachable and distant to anyone who would watch it, because they know they're either on screen or not good enough to play at all. You can't balance a game exclusively around high level play, because that player base isn't sustainable.
Games that don't have a large player base to draw from have neither a competitive scene nor a future. If your entire player base can't fill out a 12 or 24 team bracket, you don't have a future as a game. Competitive players make up the smallest minority of any game scene. They have to. You can't have an entire sport or game made up of only professionals, you don't have anyone to replace losses, and the game feels unreachable and distant to anyone who would watch it, because they know they're either on screen or not good enough to play at all. You can't balance a game exclusively around high level play, because that player base isn't sustainable.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There's plenty of games that do exactly what you're saying, but to address your concerns and to follow in your logic I have this to say:
Where do you make the distinction between normal play? There's 4 levels I could immediately identify; new players, normal players, pubstars, competitive players. These could obviously be further subdivided, but the point remains. The only logical balance is for high-level, a pub player might think pyros or spies are overpowered in TF2 because they're getting stomped by them, but as they get better at the game they realize it is differently. What needs to happen is that people need to get better as a whole. The game has seen a public release only recently, and more players are going to be improving, and we will see balance slowly shift. It also has to be taken into affect that the alien powerhouse of the Onos is not complete yet, it's not meant to be a killing machine, it's supposed to be a tank, but the game is not complete. This fuss over winrate and such needs to stop for at least a month or two while the game truly balances out as it is more and more developed, and as players learn to adapt.