In my opinion BF3 has more in depth and tactical gameplay than NS2 does, though far less than NS1.
Also, I hate BF3.
As someone with over 600 hours played in BF3, all I have to say is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA No.
Compare your average pub play in NS2 to your average pub play in BF3. I think you will likely find them to be equally in depth and tactical (hardly any).
Compared at competitive levels, however, and the tactics in BF3 are far superior from my perspective, simply because there are tactics. What does NS2 have? Run in and shoot da hive?
I would love to know how much time playing BF3 and NS2 you have because I guarantee I have more in both and am better than you at both.
How sad are you for something like that to be so important to you
How even sadder when your NS2 playtime is relatively low. I mean, if you're going to be arrogant, at least have some sort of basis for it, regardless of how misguided.
I may be sad, but at least I don't suck at video games.
girls girls, you're both pretty
2) economy model
- Aliens can snowball to the point where losing lifeforms and upgrades is entirely irrelevant
- Marines are under extreme (probably required) pressure to win the game in first 5-7 minutes, or cause significant damage to Alien economy leading into mid and lategame otherwise they simply grow out of control. think TvZ in SC2, but with a lot less depth involved. drifters also contribute a lot to this problem with Aliens being able to read every single incoming attack, as well as t-res lifeform drops and the ticking time-bomb of the Onos.
4) crags make it difficult for marines to push and actually "end" the game, even when they may be in the lead resource or tech wise
- this may not necessarily be a poor idea conceptually, as in previous builds it was complained that Aliens had no means of turtling. however, the current implementation of crags is far too powerful IMO.
5) jetpacks and exosuits are weak in comparison to their NS1 counterparts.
- jetpacks are more like high jump boots to help you move around the map with limited combat application.
- exosuits only limit the mobility of marines so Aliens are free to base rush. not that they aren't free to do that always, at any point in the game to force a beacon or straight up victory.
2) I think that the economy issues are ok, in an asymetrical game you are always going to have different time periods in which different teams are stronger as you pointed out, terran in sc2 is constantly under pressure to end the game quickly agains both races. In NS2 I think that kind of mechanic is OK and its just important that marines are balanced to BE stronger at the start of the game. I don't feel that the aliens have the ability to snowball any more then marines can if they hold alot of RTs.
4) Are crags too strong? I think they are in an OK spot with the possible exception of hive heal rate. Perhaps a very specific nerf to the heal rate, I wouldn't want them to be nerfed to such an extent that they can just be ignored and the hive gunned down but I also don't like it that an extended battle in which the marines are firing on the hive alot (think cargo) can be easily defended by crags.
5) I would really like jetpacks to have a bit more vertical boost, I would also like to see exos able to use phase gates, they will continue to be useless until they have some form of mobility improvement, its too easy for aliens just to circumvent them.
My personal thoughts on balance are that the major culprits are hitreg, the drifter and power nodes in pub play.
I find my suggestion of upgradeable cysts easier to grasp while having the same basic idea. You make the gorge required to heal up cysts so the infestation spreads at noticeable speed, give the comm a long cooldown for placing cysts (maybe 1 per hive per 30 sec) and only let him place cysts on infestation.
So alien expansion works like this: Com makes cyst, gorgy heals up cyst to full maturity, com upgrades cyst, gorgy heals, com upgrades again, gorgy heals, now com can build the next cyst.
But that would be boring for the gorge. The fun part comes in, when you can decide for yourself where to drop a building. If you don't have any influence beside holding mouse2, it lacks the fun.
With gorges dropping cysts, they can try to hide the cyst. This is a much more interesting task than holding mouse2. And not to say, that cysts on walls and ceilings also look better in the overall scheme.
Compare it to placing hydras and healing up whips.
I find my suggestion of upgradeable cysts easier to grasp while having the same basic idea. You make the gorge required to heal up cysts so the infestation spreads at noticeable speed, give the comm a long cooldown for placing cysts (maybe 1 per hive per 30 sec) and only let him place cysts on infestation.
So alien expansion works like this: Com makes cyst, gorgy heals up cyst to full maturity, com upgrades cyst, gorgy heals, com upgrades again, gorgy heals, now com can build the next cyst.
Ever play gorge? That would be INCREDIBLY boring to be constantly looking at the ground healing cysts...Its already a pita to heal the hive.
What if the Khamm only designated building locations rather than actually building them? Perhaps the Khamm can drop cysts just as they do now, except that they can drop some sort of structure that essentially says "Hive Goes Here" or "Shift Goes Here" and the Gorges have to drop them. Then, once the first shift has been dropped, gorges can then drop shifts in other places for strategic use; and so on for the other upgrade structures. Add in the necessity for Khamms to "research" higher life forms (Fade, Onos) with a "Fade/Onos Brood Structure" that is designated in the same fashion. This then takes some aliens off the front lines, adds in more for the Khamm to spend on, brings back a nod to the NS1 gorge we all know and love. This keeps the Khamm in control, while allowing the Gorge to build again.
I find my suggestion of upgradeable cysts easier to grasp while having the same basic idea. You make the gorge required to heal up cysts so the infestation spreads at noticeable speed, give the comm a long cooldown for placing cysts (maybe 1 per hive per 30 sec) and only let him place cysts on infestation.
So alien expansion works like this: Com makes cyst, gorgy heals up cyst to full maturity, com upgrades cyst, gorgy heals, com upgrades again, gorgy heals, now com can build the next cyst.
Why would you want such a long cooldown for placing cysts? The idea is to be able to build the first harvester as fast as possible, I would rather have that limited by the speed of my Gorges placing cysts than the duration it takes cysts to mature.
Or maybe I just misunderstood you?
But that would be boring for the gorge. The fun part comes in, when you can decide for yourself where to drop a building. If you don't have any influence beside holding mouse2, it lacks the fun.
With gorges dropping cysts, they can try to hide the cyst. [...] And not to say, that cysts on walls and ceilings also look better in the overall scheme.
Indeed, that was part of my motivation for having the Gorge place the cyst instead of the Khammander.
What if the Khamm only designated building locations rather than actually building them? Perhaps the Khamm can drop cysts just as they do now, except that they can drop some sort of structure that essentially says "Hive Goes Here" or "Shift Goes Here" and the Gorges have to drop them. Then, once the first shift has been dropped, gorges can then drop shifts in other places for strategic use; and so on for the other upgrade structures. Add in the necessity for Khamms to "research" higher life forms (Fade, Onos) with a "Fade/Onos Brood Structure" that is designated in the same fashion. This then takes some aliens off the front lines, adds in more for the Khamm to spend on, brings back a nod to the NS1 gorge we all know and love. This keeps the Khamm in control, while allowing the Gorge to build again.
Thoughts?
Then who determines how to spend the team resources? It is much harder to organize several gorges placing buildings independently from one another than having one Khamm making that decision and having the Gorges support his plan. That's why I wanted the Gorges to place the cysts and the Khamm to decide what those cysts should evolve to, see here.
The cooldown would be long (maybe 30 sec is too much) because you would also need less cysts. I want this long cooldown to make the alien com repeadetly check his cyst cooldown while he is playing. Give him at least some multitasking to do.
What if the Khamm only designated building locations rather than actually building them? Perhaps the Khamm can drop cysts just as they do now, except that they can drop some sort of structure that essentially says "Hive Goes Here" or "Shift Goes Here" and the Gorges have to drop them. Then, once the first shift has been dropped, gorges can then drop shifts in other places for strategic use; and so on for the other upgrade structures. Add in the necessity for Khamms to "research" higher life forms (Fade, Onos) with a "Fade/Onos Brood Structure" that is designated in the same fashion. This then takes some aliens off the front lines, adds in more for the Khamm to spend on, brings back a nod to the NS1 gorge we all know and love. This keeps the Khamm in control, while allowing the Gorge to build again.
Thoughts?
Then who determines how to spend the team resources? It is much harder to organize several gorges placing buildings independently from one another than having one Khamm making that decision and having the Gorges support his plan. That's why I wanted the Gorges to place the cysts and the Khamm to decide what those cysts should evolve to, see here.
Team res is spent on the initial upgrade building (such as the Celerity Spur) location (foundation if you will) by the Khamm. Perhaps the cost is less than the cost of the actual structure (half? quarter?). Then the cost of the structure (at a slightly reduced rate) is spent by the gorge. Subsequent structures (Crags, Shifts, Veils), placed at a forward location, could then be placed by gorges, but only after the Khamm has designated which structure is to be built in the hive by researching them.
Placing cysts only on infestation ( that gorges can help spreading faster by lets say heal the cyst ) and tweaking harvester building time ( making gorges healing a rt much more efficient ) would be much better and less boring to play than what you guys suggest.
Com just drops a structure that marines build they dont have to pull a wire from main base to the extractors and power node are super quick to build.
You dont wanna have gorges running around the map whenever something is broken.
NS 1 limited lifeform explosions by just requiring players to drop essential structures and thus lowering their pres, NS2 should try to limit the pres flow coming in.
So alien expansion works like this: Com makes cyst, gorgy heals up cyst to full maturity, com upgrades cyst, gorgy heals, com upgrades again, gorgy heals, now com can build the next cyst.
That sounds like a lot of busywork. Activity without meaningful decisions is no fun. If the sequence is ALWAYS com makes cyst, gorge heals, com upgrades, gorge heals, com upgrades, gorge heals... and there's no reason not to always do exactly that... then you haven't made the game more interesting for either com or gorge, just more work for both.
You dont wanna have gorges running around the map whenever something is broken.
NS 1 limited lifeform explosions by just requiring players to drop essential structures and thus lowering their pres, NS2 should try to limit the pres flow coming in.
Gorges running around is exactly what I want. If they have to place the cysts then they have to move out and be on the front and others have to protect them. This encourages teamplay, is more fun than sitting in the back healing structures far away from fights and changes the early game for skulks as they now have more to do than just harass marines.
Placing cysts only on infestation ( that gorges can help spreading faster by lets say heal the cyst ) and tweaking harvester building time ( making gorges healing a rt much more efficient ) would be much better and less boring to play than what you guys suggest.
Actually, you would only exacerbate the existing balance problems with that. Aliens without gorges would have a gimped economy. Aliens with gorges would be even more overpowered as now. Snowballing even more res into the late game.
It is also not only the gorges that running around the map when something is broken. Right now, it is also the skulks. Because when something breaks, there is a marine to kill that caused this break.
And as CrazyEddie said, it is much more fun when you can decide where to drop that cyst, instead of holding mouse2 while staring at an extractor/hive/cyst.
I say, cut the gorge-speeds-building-up feature completely! It is tedious work and not fun. The idea behind that was, to draw players from the frontlines and give marines more breathing room. But with gorges placing cysts instead of the kham, you achieve this with an interesting and fun mechanic. The kham doesn't lose this much. He can decide where to drop buildings anyway. He just need to teamplay with its gorges now, for infestation in the areas he want to build.
Well regardless of whether or not gorges would take a bigger part in the alien economy, it would only solve part of the issue. We should talk about more 'general' fixes to the alien economy, as ultimately what's needed is not just less alien pressure at the start of a game.
One could argue that second hive aliens are simply too powerful when the third hive is supposed to unlock their 'endgame'. The reality of course is quite different, aliens on just 2 hives with cara, cele and blink/bilebomb as well as p.res onos are more than able to take on maxed out marines.
That's an issue with players not knowing how to close a game (most don't) not with the game.
I haven't made it through all of these pages (damn this topic exploded) but this stuck out to me. Many times both in competitive matches and public ones I have witnessed and/or been apart of this. There are times, some not so obvious, when you must make that killing blow. The game isn't about researching or killing, its about destroying the CC/Hive(s).
Additionally, someone mentioned that aliens dominate late game and I feel that is somewhat wrong in my opinion, at least in the area of >12player servers. They have lifeforms and the perception of strength but with the player count, the effective health of any given life-form might as well be 0.
In the realm of life-form effectiveness; Sure you can solo kill marines that are out and about, but what did that engagement get you? This game is all about winning the right battles at the right time, all the battles prior is just death-match fodder and generally have minor effects on the outcome of the game. That's not to say that we shouldn't have them, because they do add up over time. What they add up to is anyone's guess
Back to the economic model and the life-form explosion. While I can't deny that there may be a better solution I think an inherit flaw is not with the system but the resource expenditure, or lack there-of. Aliens tend to drop bursts of resources on 1 upgrade (or in pub games all the upgrades) and then wait. If harvesters/upgrade chambers aren't being replaced the aliens just sit on res. While on marines there's always something to be made or upgraded.
With that said it becomes tremendously important to kill harvesters, which in my experience is the last thing the general populace thinks about shooting. The game might be balanced but until the psychology of the gamer is unified we wont know for sure.
With that said it becomes tremendously important to kill harvesters, which in my experience is the last thing the general populace thinks about shooting. The game might be balanced but until the psychology of the gamer is unified we wont know for sure.
As a commander I always greatly emphasize the need for marines to go in and kill harvesters, even if it costs them their life. That I have to take this approach, both as a commander as well as as a player greatly annoys me however. In NS 1, marine gameplay was primarily about pushing forward as a team and slowly securing areas and not so much about solely going deep behind alien lines killing harvesters. (If people went behind lines it was to get ninja phasegates in primarily) Unfortunately that's ALL the marine gameplay these days dwindles down to, which in a way I suppose is identical to the way aliens play for the most part of the game. As a result, you have both sides franatically focussing on killing eachother's harvesters, a kind of gameplay in which aliens clearly have an advantage not only because they are simply more mobile from the get go but also because they have a relatively cheap tech system and accompanying resilient economy. It's not good gameplay, it's not fun gameplay and to me it's the ultimate proof that something is fundamentally broken in the economic balance.
UWE claims NS 2 is an FPS first and RTS second, but that's not at all the case if you are playing marines.
I agree on that as one part of the problem. The solution to that is, to either get the alien com more tech to research and / or make the complete tech he has more costly. Increasing the price of every research and upgrade-building by 5 t-res could already be enough to make a difference.
Introducing Tech to unlock Lerk, Fade or Onos would be another step. (But this comes with less freedom for alien players!) I hope gorge tunnels will be something that the kham needs to research first.
With that said it becomes tremendously important to kill harvesters, which in my experience is the last thing the general populace thinks about shooting. The game might be balanced but until the psychology of the gamer is unified we wont know for sure.
As a commander I always greatly emphasize the need for marines to go in and kill harvesters, even if it costs them their life. That I have to take this approach, both as a commander as well as as a player greatly annoys me however. In NS 1, marine gameplay was primarily about pushing forward as a team and slowly securing areas and not so much about solely going deep behind alien lines killing harvesters. (If people went behind lines it was to get ninja phasegates in primarily) Unfortunately that's ALL the marine gameplay these days dwindles down to, which in a way I suppose is identical to the way aliens play for the most part of the game. As a result, you have both sides franatically focussing on killing eachother's harvesters, a kind of gameplay in which aliens clearly have an advantage not only because they are simply more mobile from the get go but also because they have a relatively cheap tech system and accompanying resilient economy. It's not good gameplay, it's not fun gameplay and to me it's the ultimate proof that something is fundamentally broken in the economic balance.
UWE claims NS 2 is an FPS first and RTS second, but that's not at all the case if you are playing marines.
Good post, I think this is caused by 1) shittiness of sentries, lack of electrification (impossible to lock areas down without a phase gate)
and 2) Marine lategame tech is weak, a team of marines with jps cannot down a hive because of crappy jps and strong crag healing and exos have all there much discussed weaknesses. This results in a extreme need to kill alien harvesters to prevent them from getting too many higher lifeforms.
I would suggest.... 1) buff sentries
2) Buff Jp, increase cost of jp
3) Nerf crag healing on the hive
4) Let Exo Phase (maybe 10-20 second cd on exo phase?)
@RandomEngy: What issue are you talking about? The issue of players being greedy and unable to play as a team? Well those are the people who might just prefer CoD X over Ns2 anyway. As you got an understanding of how NS1 worked, you knew that you had to do something for the team or your fade/onos will stand no chance when you can finally evolve into one.
You have exactly this same issue of players unable to work a sa team in NS2, I would argue it is worse because NS2 doesnt even try to educate them to become teamplayers. "I dont want to build 2nd techpoint, give me exo noob com!!1111"
The issue that being successful as a team requires un-fun sacrifices on the part of individual players. It's a coordination problem that isn't fun or interesting to solve. You say "you have to drop RTs/hives or you won't get your higher lifeforms" but that's not true. You just let the rest of your team do it and you're set. See the Free Rider Problem in economics. And yes, people could work it out in most games... but it's just not a fun thing to deal with, as often it punishes the team-players and rewards the free-riders. Having a gameplay aspect that requires some "teamwork" to overcome does not make it a good feature if the teamwork isn't fun and rewarding.
I will make a side-note about your "uneducated players" problem: I've heard "can we get x tech" a few times and responded with "we need 2 hives/CCs" and the answer is always "okay, thanks."
Aliens and marines do not have the same economic system. Aliens can do more with less res than marines. This should be somehow balanced by making it harder for the aliens to gain res. As was already said, this is totally unlogical and makes comparing marines vs aliens difficult.
Let's see just how different the economic models are: Both sides must spend team res to create RTs, get permanent upgrades for team members, place buildings and unlock new tech. Both sides get personal resources based on how many RTs a team has. Both sides can spend those personal resources to make the individual members more effective (until they die).
But let's say aliens can do more with resources than marines. What possible change could we make so that they don't do as much with the resources they get? What value might we tweak such that they might be required to pay more to get stuff? I will let you think about this difficult problem for a bit. Here's a hint: there's an answer that doesn't involve adding team-based resource sinks for personal resources.
allow alien comm to place cysts, allow alien comm to place structures, must have gorges heal spraying rt's and other structures to complete the build, this will make it so that
1: gorges have more of a role
2: skulk rush no more, 2-3 players must go gorge if they want res towers to go up
3: marines will have an easier time to get rt's as there is less skulks running around
4: I would like being a person building things as a gorge even if I have to build up every rt the commander drops
5: im sure this change alone will make the marines win much more
6: not a drastic change, just a small change with big turn out
7: Viel is sort of easy for marines probably because you always have atleast 1-2 people go gorge to nano taking them out of the marine rt harass train
imo marines are more then capable of dealing with aliens more then aliens are capable dealing with marines, the game is won with res, and aliens win this game because they can build rt's without anyone building it, and every player on the alien side is a skulk and has a very good chance to take out marine rt's, oh so they are going to secure c12? well I will just kill their topo rt and vice versa, and every skulk is capable of this, its too bad everyone is skulk and not a mix between gorges and skulk as it should be required imo
when I play aliens, as a skulk my roles and everyone elses roles should be
destroy rt's kill marines till we get our tech up
as a marine im, building rt's defending rt's hope aliens don't go after our rt's or we are doomed, obviously secure rooms with phase gates
2) economy model
- Marines are under extreme (probably required) pressure to win the game in first 5-7 minutes, or cause significant damage to Alien economy leading into mid and lategame otherwise they simply grow out of control.
This is where I have a problem. If games are only supposed to last under 10 minutes, then shouldn't BOTH sides be under pressure to finish the game within that time frame?
As it stands right now the alien ream wins by default, and I'm not a fan of having EITHER side win in that way. Marines need significant map control to control enough extractors to research their tech, while aliens only need to hold onto a few harvesters and sooner or later they will be able to personally afford the best tech in the game (the Onos) without needing any tech research at all.
Now let's be clear, this was the same in NS1, but there were two MARKED differences.
First, in NS1 there were only 4 'tech points' at most on any given map. The marines and aliens each started in one, and they both quickly grabbed a second. The fight was then over who would grab the third - which effectively started the endgame. This was where the back and forth came into play. (However aliens didn't have any easy mode power nodes to kill, which meant taking that third hive was actually a challenge.) Secondly, the Onos was tied to three hives. Unlike as it is now. So the aliens actually had a real incentive to take the third hive.
Now you can have maps with 5 tech points, which means that not only can aliens usually get their three hives (since it's hard enough for marines to take two and still defend what they have) but even if aliens don't take that third hive right away they can *still* have their game ending tech at two hives - or even one. (A one hive Onos may be gimped, but park a couple gorges behind him and he suddenly becomes a lot more of a threat.)
I'd like to see Onos back to the way it was with 3 hives. Give both marines and aliens an incentive to get that third hive beyond simple map possession.
3) camouflage is absurdly strong in both public and competitive play
Yet surprisingly underused.
- exosuits only limit the mobility of marines so Aliens are free to base rush. not that they aren't free to do that always, at any point in the game to force a beacon or straight up victory.
Yeah, it's to the point now where many people (like myself) will take an EXO and sit in base to prevent aliens from pressing the power node "I win" button.
6) some maps and spawn combinations are simply Alien favored (Veil being the worst culprit of the commonly played competitive maps, Tram's close spawns are a nightmare)
Agreed with Veil, but this is as I mentioned above, a holdover from the NS1 days where there were only 4 tech points. Marines could be a significant threat holding only ONE additional tech point, since it meant no Onos for the aliens. Since the aliens no longer need 3 hives for Onos, it makes it that much harder.
Introducing Tech to unlock Lerk, Fade or Onos would be another step. (But this comes with less freedom for alien players!) I hope gorge tunnels will be something that the kham needs to research first.
What about going back to the days of personal Onos needing 3 hives? (and needing a hive to be fully matured before you can drop another one.) Right now there is no 'tech' needed for an Onos. All that is needed is time. Hold off the marines long enough (~10-12 minutes) and aliens win by default with an Onos parade. Tech cost? 0 tres.
Introducing Tech to unlock Lerk, Fade or Onos would be another step. (But this comes with less freedom for alien players!) I hope gorge tunnels will be something that the kham needs to research first.
What about going back to the days of personal Onos needing 3 hives? (and needing a hive to be fully matured before you can drop another one.) Right now there is no 'tech' needed for an Onos. All that is needed is time. Hold off the marines long enough (~10-12 minutes) and aliens win by default with an Onos parade. Tech cost? 0 tres.
Gross exageration, unless the aliens are absolutely dominant, onos usually come out after the 20minute mark.
Gross exageration, unless the aliens are absolutely dominant, onos usually come out after the 20minute mark.
I think this is a gross exaggeration too . Assuming aliens only hold 3 harvesters, which is a pretty modest amount in all, onos comes out at about 15 minutes.
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Noooo my honor
Ia! Ia! Charlie Fhtagn!
2) I think that the economy issues are ok, in an asymetrical game you are always going to have different time periods in which different teams are stronger as you pointed out, terran in sc2 is constantly under pressure to end the game quickly agains both races. In NS2 I think that kind of mechanic is OK and its just important that marines are balanced to BE stronger at the start of the game. I don't feel that the aliens have the ability to snowball any more then marines can if they hold alot of RTs.
4) Are crags too strong? I think they are in an OK spot with the possible exception of hive heal rate. Perhaps a very specific nerf to the heal rate, I wouldn't want them to be nerfed to such an extent that they can just be ignored and the hive gunned down but I also don't like it that an extended battle in which the marines are firing on the hive alot (think cargo) can be easily defended by crags.
5) I would really like jetpacks to have a bit more vertical boost, I would also like to see exos able to use phase gates, they will continue to be useless until they have some form of mobility improvement, its too easy for aliens just to circumvent them.
My personal thoughts on balance are that the major culprits are hitreg, the drifter and power nodes in pub play.
So alien expansion works like this: Com makes cyst, gorgy heals up cyst to full maturity, com upgrades cyst, gorgy heals, com upgrades again, gorgy heals, now com can build the next cyst.
With gorges dropping cysts, they can try to hide the cyst. This is a much more interesting task than holding mouse2. And not to say, that cysts on walls and ceilings also look better in the overall scheme.
Compare it to placing hydras and healing up whips.
Ever play gorge? That would be INCREDIBLY boring to be constantly looking at the ground healing cysts...Its already a pita to heal the hive.
Thoughts?
Why would you want such a long cooldown for placing cysts? The idea is to be able to build the first harvester as fast as possible, I would rather have that limited by the speed of my Gorges placing cysts than the duration it takes cysts to mature.
Or maybe I just misunderstood you?
Indeed, that was part of my motivation for having the Gorge place the cyst instead of the Khammander.
Then who determines how to spend the team resources? It is much harder to organize several gorges placing buildings independently from one another than having one Khamm making that decision and having the Gorges support his plan. That's why I wanted the Gorges to place the cysts and the Khamm to decide what those cysts should evolve to, see here.
Team res is spent on the initial upgrade building (such as the Celerity Spur) location (foundation if you will) by the Khamm. Perhaps the cost is less than the cost of the actual structure (half? quarter?). Then the cost of the structure (at a slightly reduced rate) is spent by the gorge. Subsequent structures (Crags, Shifts, Veils), placed at a forward location, could then be placed by gorges, but only after the Khamm has designated which structure is to be built in the hive by researching them.
Com just drops a structure that marines build they dont have to pull a wire from main base to the extractors and power node are super quick to build.
You dont wanna have gorges running around the map whenever something is broken.
NS 1 limited lifeform explosions by just requiring players to drop essential structures and thus lowering their pres, NS2 should try to limit the pres flow coming in.
That sounds like a lot of busywork. Activity without meaningful decisions is no fun. If the sequence is ALWAYS com makes cyst, gorge heals, com upgrades, gorge heals, com upgrades, gorge heals... and there's no reason not to always do exactly that... then you haven't made the game more interesting for either com or gorge, just more work for both.
Gorges running around is exactly what I want. If they have to place the cysts then they have to move out and be on the front and others have to protect them. This encourages teamplay, is more fun than sitting in the back healing structures far away from fights and changes the early game for skulks as they now have more to do than just harass marines.
Actually, you would only exacerbate the existing balance problems with that. Aliens without gorges would have a gimped economy. Aliens with gorges would be even more overpowered as now. Snowballing even more res into the late game.
It is also not only the gorges that running around the map when something is broken. Right now, it is also the skulks. Because when something breaks, there is a marine to kill that caused this break.
And as CrazyEddie said, it is much more fun when you can decide where to drop that cyst, instead of holding mouse2 while staring at an extractor/hive/cyst.
I say, cut the gorge-speeds-building-up feature completely! It is tedious work and not fun. The idea behind that was, to draw players from the frontlines and give marines more breathing room. But with gorges placing cysts instead of the kham, you achieve this with an interesting and fun mechanic. The kham doesn't lose this much. He can decide where to drop buildings anyway. He just need to teamplay with its gorges now, for infestation in the areas he want to build.
One could argue that second hive aliens are simply too powerful when the third hive is supposed to unlock their 'endgame'. The reality of course is quite different, aliens on just 2 hives with cara, cele and blink/bilebomb as well as p.res onos are more than able to take on maxed out marines.
I haven't made it through all of these pages (damn this topic exploded) but this stuck out to me. Many times both in competitive matches and public ones I have witnessed and/or been apart of this. There are times, some not so obvious, when you must make that killing blow. The game isn't about researching or killing, its about destroying the CC/Hive(s).
Additionally, someone mentioned that aliens dominate late game and I feel that is somewhat wrong in my opinion, at least in the area of >12player servers. They have lifeforms and the perception of strength but with the player count, the effective health of any given life-form might as well be 0.
In the realm of life-form effectiveness; Sure you can solo kill marines that are out and about, but what did that engagement get you? This game is all about winning the right battles at the right time, all the battles prior is just death-match fodder and generally have minor effects on the outcome of the game. That's not to say that we shouldn't have them, because they do add up over time. What they add up to is anyone's guess
Back to the economic model and the life-form explosion. While I can't deny that there may be a better solution I think an inherit flaw is not with the system but the resource expenditure, or lack there-of. Aliens tend to drop bursts of resources on 1 upgrade (or in pub games all the upgrades) and then wait. If harvesters/upgrade chambers aren't being replaced the aliens just sit on res. While on marines there's always something to be made or upgraded.
With that said it becomes tremendously important to kill harvesters, which in my experience is the last thing the general populace thinks about shooting. The game might be balanced but until the psychology of the gamer is unified we wont know for sure.
As a commander I always greatly emphasize the need for marines to go in and kill harvesters, even if it costs them their life. That I have to take this approach, both as a commander as well as as a player greatly annoys me however. In NS 1, marine gameplay was primarily about pushing forward as a team and slowly securing areas and not so much about solely going deep behind alien lines killing harvesters. (If people went behind lines it was to get ninja phasegates in primarily) Unfortunately that's ALL the marine gameplay these days dwindles down to, which in a way I suppose is identical to the way aliens play for the most part of the game. As a result, you have both sides franatically focussing on killing eachother's harvesters, a kind of gameplay in which aliens clearly have an advantage not only because they are simply more mobile from the get go but also because they have a relatively cheap tech system and accompanying resilient economy. It's not good gameplay, it's not fun gameplay and to me it's the ultimate proof that something is fundamentally broken in the economic balance.
UWE claims NS 2 is an FPS first and RTS second, but that's not at all the case if you are playing marines.
Introducing Tech to unlock Lerk, Fade or Onos would be another step. (But this comes with less freedom for alien players!) I hope gorge tunnels will be something that the kham needs to research first.
Good post, I think this is caused by 1) shittiness of sentries, lack of electrification (impossible to lock areas down without a phase gate)
and 2) Marine lategame tech is weak, a team of marines with jps cannot down a hive because of crappy jps and strong crag healing and exos have all there much discussed weaknesses. This results in a extreme need to kill alien harvesters to prevent them from getting too many higher lifeforms.
I would suggest.... 1) buff sentries
2) Buff Jp, increase cost of jp
3) Nerf crag healing on the hive
4) Let Exo Phase (maybe 10-20 second cd on exo phase?)
The issue that being successful as a team requires un-fun sacrifices on the part of individual players. It's a coordination problem that isn't fun or interesting to solve. You say "you have to drop RTs/hives or you won't get your higher lifeforms" but that's not true. You just let the rest of your team do it and you're set. See the Free Rider Problem in economics. And yes, people could work it out in most games... but it's just not a fun thing to deal with, as often it punishes the team-players and rewards the free-riders. Having a gameplay aspect that requires some "teamwork" to overcome does not make it a good feature if the teamwork isn't fun and rewarding.
I will make a side-note about your "uneducated players" problem: I've heard "can we get x tech" a few times and responded with "we need 2 hives/CCs" and the answer is always "okay, thanks."
Let's see just how different the economic models are: Both sides must spend team res to create RTs, get permanent upgrades for team members, place buildings and unlock new tech. Both sides get personal resources based on how many RTs a team has. Both sides can spend those personal resources to make the individual members more effective (until they die).
But let's say aliens can do more with resources than marines. What possible change could we make so that they don't do as much with the resources they get? What value might we tweak such that they might be required to pay more to get stuff? I will let you think about this difficult problem for a bit. Here's a hint: there's an answer that doesn't involve adding team-based resource sinks for personal resources.
1: gorges have more of a role
2: skulk rush no more, 2-3 players must go gorge if they want res towers to go up
3: marines will have an easier time to get rt's as there is less skulks running around
4: I would like being a person building things as a gorge even if I have to build up every rt the commander drops
5: im sure this change alone will make the marines win much more
6: not a drastic change, just a small change with big turn out
7: Viel is sort of easy for marines probably because you always have atleast 1-2 people go gorge to nano taking them out of the marine rt harass train
imo marines are more then capable of dealing with aliens more then aliens are capable dealing with marines, the game is won with res, and aliens win this game because they can build rt's without anyone building it, and every player on the alien side is a skulk and has a very good chance to take out marine rt's, oh so they are going to secure c12? well I will just kill their topo rt and vice versa, and every skulk is capable of this, its too bad everyone is skulk and not a mix between gorges and skulk as it should be required imo
when I play aliens, as a skulk my roles and everyone elses roles should be
destroy rt's kill marines till we get our tech up
as a marine im, building rt's defending rt's hope aliens don't go after our rt's or we are doomed, obviously secure rooms with phase gates
This is where I have a problem. If games are only supposed to last under 10 minutes, then shouldn't BOTH sides be under pressure to finish the game within that time frame?
As it stands right now the alien ream wins by default, and I'm not a fan of having EITHER side win in that way. Marines need significant map control to control enough extractors to research their tech, while aliens only need to hold onto a few harvesters and sooner or later they will be able to personally afford the best tech in the game (the Onos) without needing any tech research at all.
Now let's be clear, this was the same in NS1, but there were two MARKED differences.
First, in NS1 there were only 4 'tech points' at most on any given map. The marines and aliens each started in one, and they both quickly grabbed a second. The fight was then over who would grab the third - which effectively started the endgame. This was where the back and forth came into play. (However aliens didn't have any easy mode power nodes to kill, which meant taking that third hive was actually a challenge.) Secondly, the Onos was tied to three hives. Unlike as it is now. So the aliens actually had a real incentive to take the third hive.
Now you can have maps with 5 tech points, which means that not only can aliens usually get their three hives (since it's hard enough for marines to take two and still defend what they have) but even if aliens don't take that third hive right away they can *still* have their game ending tech at two hives - or even one. (A one hive Onos may be gimped, but park a couple gorges behind him and he suddenly becomes a lot more of a threat.)
I'd like to see Onos back to the way it was with 3 hives. Give both marines and aliens an incentive to get that third hive beyond simple map possession. Yet surprisingly underused. Yeah, it's to the point now where many people (like myself) will take an EXO and sit in base to prevent aliens from pressing the power node "I win" button.
Agreed with Veil, but this is as I mentioned above, a holdover from the NS1 days where there were only 4 tech points. Marines could be a significant threat holding only ONE additional tech point, since it meant no Onos for the aliens. Since the aliens no longer need 3 hives for Onos, it makes it that much harder.
Typo, slip, or intentional? Regardless, a truer word has never been typed.
I think this is a gross exaggeration too
Reading all the points in the past few pages really highlights the issues.
Someone should make a bullet point readers digest version that a dev can be pointed to.
On it!